Children of the Bloodlands

by S. M. Beiko

  Killian sniffed, made a show of scratching his cheek. “Damn Owls, eh? Par for the course. Always sticking their beaks where they don’t belong. This is what I mean about this sorry world and the Denizens that think they’re the masters of it. So much would be different if it weren’t for them.”

  I scoffed. “And maybe you would have never met Ravenna, either, and I wouldn’t exist. So maybe it was all just part of the plan.”

  “We need a new plan.” Killian picked up a handful of dirt and scattered it to the wind, like a tithe. “Speaking of Owls, that’s why I was right surprised about that Rathgar chap, though it did seem to work to our benefit, him coming after ye. You mixing with the enemy now?”

  I threw up my hands. “Why the hell does everyone think we’re dating? Look around you. You think I have time for anything like that? Jesus.”

  “All right, no need to bite me head off . . .”

  “In fact, now that Eli isn’t busy trying to kill me, I’m pretty sure the most he thinks of me is that I’m some inferior, insolent, naïve kid. And he’d be right.” Whatever Eli was trying to do, it really couldn’t be a rescue mission. I had a Calamity Stone. Maybe the Foxes had sent him to get it, but certainly not with me attached to it as a priority. Eli Rathgar, for what I knew of him, wasn’t one to expend time or energy on sentiment. He wanted the Opal. Maybe I wanted to give it to him and be done with all this.

  Killian had picked up a leaf and spun it idly between his pinched fingers. He looked up at me. “Naïve about what?”

  I can’t believe I’d even thought it, but now an idea took hold. Killian had brought me here to try to sway me to his side. Why couldn’t I do the opposite and bring him to mine? Naïve wasn’t scratching the surface.

  “You really loved Ravenna, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. “Still do.”

  “Then how could you do this? All of this? She died to save me, to save other Denizens. To put Zabor away for good. And you want to bring Zabor back? So Ravenna died for nothing?”

  The leaf in his fingers caught fire and incinerated so quickly that what was left behind were its delicate veins, traced with amber cinders.

  “You really are her daughter.” A shadow passed over his face. “She didn’t understand and neither do you. I didn’t have the time to convince her, to show her the truth. But you’re my second chance.” The wind picked up and tousled his chestnut hair into his eyes. “What I’m doing goes deeper than Ravenna’s cause. I’m trying to take away the power structure that put Ravenna in that position in the first place. The one that’s got us all enslaved, humans and Denizens alike. Without Ancient’s influence, we can be free.”

  He hadn’t answered me — not really. But I wasn’t about to stop either.

  “And without Ancient’s influence, your ‘masters’ will be running rampant out here with whatever other monsters come with them. You’re willing to accept the consequences of that, for what?”

  But now Killian was on his feet, and the wind had gotten too high even for him to ignore. I leapt up. “You’ll see soon enough,” he said. “I loved Ravenna. I will love her to the bitter end. And believe me, girlie, you hold the people you love close while ye can. Even if they look their nose down at ye. I think that Owl was trying to save ye. But he’s the naïve one.”

  His smirk was as oily as the rest of him as his body took on Seela’s evil shape, because Killian and I had both seen the massive winged silhouette bearing down on us like an airstrike. I dove just as Eli and Seela collided, the impact shattering the morning as I hit the deck.

  Saskia was screaming. I went to her immediately, where she was crouching with her arms over her head in the dirt. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her as I picked her up. “I’m going to finish this. One and for all.”

  She clutched tightly to my clothes, but she didn’t try to get away. “But he’ll find us! He always does!”

  “That’s the point,” I said, and I took off into the trees, back towards Killian’s cliffside bastion.

  ~

  “Son of the Wind!” Seela cried through his split-gourd smirk. “You simply can’t stay away, can you?”

  Eli threw off every tentacle that tried to smash him down or wrap around his wings and pluck him apart like a Thanksgiving turkey. He was the Therion down to his marrow, and his wings knit close to him when he leapt up, rolled, and drilled himself through Seela’s body.

  Seela separated into frayed shadow, but when Eli landed ten feet away on the other side, the pieces came back together, boiling into the huge and sinister monster once more.

  He could literally be here all day.

  Seela’s head cracked upward, and the face that had looked so certain wasn’t any longer. Eli followed Seela’s gaze and was back in the air like a shot, in the direction in which Roan had fled.

  “Bloody . . .” Eli grunted, wings cutting through trees, collapsing, sending him bouncing off the close rock and the jutting burns when he folded them. What the hell was she playing at?

  He risked a glance beneath him, saw that Seela had liquefied and was picking up speed like a black sludge torrent, covering more distance on the ground than Eli could muster by air. The trees were alive with the screech and roar of bodies coming for him in a wave — those children, crimson and burning and hungry. He snapped his great wings up, went higher, crashed through the canopy of fir hemming them in.

  Below, there was Roan, running to beat hell to a building made of ash and glass, hewn from the cliffside overlooking the sea. She was carrying something in her arms, and when he twisted and banked down closer, he confirmed those arms were black up to the elbows. So it hadn’t just been her mind that had been affected. She truly had been touched by Seela’s plague. Maybe something more than that.

  Something snagged Eli around his foreleg, snapping it back painfully as he was dragged to the earth.

  ~

  “No!” Saskia screeched, and I risked one look behind me to see Eli’s wings sweep up, then freeze as he was torn from the air by one of Seela’s tendrils. The ground around Eli cratered with the impact, but he was getting up just as Seela reared back, re-forming.

  “Stay down,” I told Saskia as I put her onto her own feet, but she grabbed me back.

  “There’s no use,” she persisted, “you can’t beat him. Not now.”

  “Watch me,” I said, yanking free and rushing back in. To be the “good guy” Saskia needed. That I needed.

  I went for the periphery of the fight. Seela had already gotten on top of Eli, dragging him back up. His feathers filled the air as Seela’s right hand picked him up by the throat, then encircled it, squeezing.

  A flash. I was seeing it from the outside — Eli and I were back on the Osborne Bridge last February in much the same embrace, him dangling me over the jaws of the Assiniboine, telling me it was my destiny to die there and then.

  Now he gets what he deserves, the voice crawled up over my nerves.

  Goddammit, I snapped, get out of my head.

  The voice snickered. Deep down, this is what you want for him. The shame he caused you. The brutality. He deserves to have it given back.

  I shook my head with such force that I was suddenly back in the present. Eli still had his talons, was clawing at the choking hand and stirring the air with his struggling feet.

  “You cannot have her,” Seela hissed. “Her purpose is not yet fulfilled.”

  “Hey!” I shouted, and they both looked at me. “Quit talking about me like I’m not standing here!”

  Seela sneered, but he ripped his hand back and dropped Eli into a heap, sliding backward.

  I held my hand up, shaking, dark. I spread the fingers. “Listen to me, Killian.” I said. Had to take the gamble. “Please. Just stand aside, let Eli go. Let me go. Give back the Serenity Emerald. Then we . . . we can do what you wanted. We can be a family.”

  Seel
a’s face, obscured as it was by the slate of bone, betrayed nothing. Just the mouth, jaw and lips working as if they were chewing something over. I didn’t know what hurt more — that Cecelia had made the same empty promise to me, just before we were about to launch into battle or that my spirit eye showed me Killian, deep inside Seela, holding his head. I had to believe he could come back. Or there wasn’t a chance for Saskia. Or me.

  Seela’s mouth stilled, and the gash of a smile broke across it. “Don’t you see? It’s already begun.” And he turned back to Eli, who was losing his Therion shape the longer he lay there, grimacing as he got back up. He stood with all his weight on one leg, the other bent beneath him, blood flowing freely from a gash in his head down his ear. The wind whipped around him but only in small bursts, and his wings sagged.

  Seela was shivering with his bruise-coloured inferno. He was moving in to strike again. “You’ve far outlived your use,” he sneered at Eli, hands cutting down. “I could not take the Moonstone when we first met. I wasn’t strong enough then. I thought my tree could finish the job, but you are clearly more resilient than I imagined.” The inferno rose higher, a long devastating limb reaching for Eli’s chest. “But I am stronger now, with my daughter at my side. You won’t distract her any—”

  I grabbed hold of Seela’s limb, crushing it back as I hunkered down between him and Eli.

  We were mask-to-mask and I’d let my black flames up, let the dark fox warrior consume me now, because my head was at least clear this time. I had a purpose, and it was to stop him. If this was the only power I could tap into now, so be it.

  Eli staggered, shielding his face.

  You cannot win, the voice inside me warned, but it was gleeful now that I’d set it free.

  “We’ll see,” I answered, and I threw Seela aside, pulling my bone-blade up and swinging it towards his head. Suddenly his arm was an axe, too, much like Urka’s little trick, and it knocked the strike clear away with a sound like teeth shattering.

  “Grab Saskia!” I hollered to Eli, going after Seela with blow after blow, until we were one churning mass of spitting fire and muck-black blood that united us.

  ~

  Eli watched the struggle for a moment before coming back to himself, pain and all.

  “Bloody Harken,” he hissed, getting his legs back under him and moving towards the place Roan had been only a moment ago. Sure enough, there was a little girl pressed in between the rocks at the base of the fortress.

  “Are you Saskia?” Eli asked gruffly, though once his senses had come back to him, he reached out with his mind to hers. There wasn’t much there in that hollow pit, save for the name, for a few sparks of humanity remaining. He didn’t bother wondering why Roan wanted her. There weren’t enough curses across languages to express how much easier it would be if she’d just . . .

  Saskia’s red pin eyes were earnest. “You have to save her.”

  Without another word, Eli scooped the urchin up, wings open as they re-formed, plumage setting anew. He took one last look at the skirmish through the veil of blood on his face. “She’s busy doing the saving, apparently.”

  The children that had chased Eli bled out of the woods, all blazing cinders and blind rage.

  Eli snorted. He was in the air when the Moonstone strobed, and he heard a voice. It wasn’t coming from his stone. It was the Opal, calling again.

  Let it consume you. Let it become you. You are the fire, and the fire is mine.

  The voice, whispering and hissing and spitting, had been Roan’s.

  An explosion shook the air and the ground, and Eli climbed higher.

  ~

  I am the fire, and the fire is mine. No longer did I burn or sear or question my body as it flowed from one cascading blow to the next. I was enormous, I was Seela’s equal. Yes, said the voice, yes, keep going. I didn’t stop to wonder why this thing inside me was so eager to kill Seela, who had put this darkness in me in the first place, but I didn’t care. I was the inferno. I was at Omand’s Creek, obliterating river hunters. I was the great hero I was meant to be.

  The shadows were splitting. Beneath them crawled a human face, pulped and pleading. Killian. He was all bloody teeth as he laughed.

  “Yes,” he said, “yes, keep going. Ye really are . . . my girl.”

  I picked him up and threw him into the face of his own fortress, but the tendrils of his shattered cloak caught a spire like webbing, seeping him through a porthole. I roared, went after him. The world was a rush of stone and cliff and shadow, and I perceived the children around me, but I obliterated them with blade and claws and teeth. I wanted Killian. I wanted. To rend. To kill. I burst through the wall and the stairs that took me back to his summoning chamber, pulling myself up short. Killian’s Seela form was dripping into the crimson rings, and he was bent on all fours, panting. Bleeding.

  He spat. “Can’t say it’s no’ what I wanted . . . Oh, what a sight to behold.” Laughter bubbled out of his wounds. “My daughter. Chip off the old.”

  My blade flashed out. It got him across the eye, but he didn’t try to dodge.

  No. I felt myself waking — the real me, the one whose hand had slipped from the wheel. I have to save him. Kill Seela, leave Killian!

  He was in my hands, his frail human body. The Seela part of him was stuck to the floor, struggling to keep purchase, trying to suck him back in. The Emerald flickered on Killian’s shoulder, and the fortress shifted beneath us.

  “Go ahead,” Killian said. “Finish what you started. You’re almost there. Then you and I will truly be able to do this, together.” Something was creeping up my leg, attaching itself to my tails, trying to pull us both down into it. The floor buckled, stone and walls shattering as the stalactite spikes from above came free, impaling the chamber floor.

  Inside, I struggled, resisting the urge to open my jaws and crunch down on his skull.

  A shockwave. Glass crunching then exploding inward. Beating wings.

  “Do it!” Eli screamed — inside and outside of my mind. “Destroy him! Get the Emerald!”

  I wanted to. I know I needed to. I loved Ravenna. No. We could be a family. No! Everything was overlapping, happening at once, and again, and soon.

  You have to keep a part of yourself, however small, however deeply buried, alive. The dark thing within me dug its claws into my bones. Kill. Rip. Destroy. Rend the world. Let them through.

  I took a breath, felt a spark — a bright one. Bright as Deon’s solar gaze.

  The bone mask fell from my face, shattering like porcelain. I let go of Killian, pushed the dark fox out of me, said, “I won’t,” and the puddle of Seela held Killian’s broken body up as it climbed back onto him like living armour.

  The floor cracked between my feet and heaved. I turned in time with the fissure. My legs were pumping to their limit. The sky was huge and open, and I swore I saw Eli there, at least I hoped —

  I dove headlong into the sky and the sea, and one of them caught me, and we were gone.

  Part IV

  Rupture

  Uncanny Shores

  The air was warm on the back of Phae’s neck, though it prickled something fierce. She dragged her body up one limb at a time — first her hands, then her knees underneath her. Cat-cow, her brain told her, recalling the name for the yoga pose would be useful at a time like this. Her head was last, and the heaviest. She stayed in an almost heart to earth, letting her breath come in evenly. Then she raised her head and opened her eyes.

  Water lapped at her legs, the tide cresting, trying to gently pull her back in. She crawled up the beach, tempted to collapse again on the silver sand, but she didn’t dare — not with the animal calls trilling through the air. The heady heat. The mist.

  The jungle before her was thick, sprawling. This beach was but a sliver that managed to escape it. When Phae risked a glance behind her at the water, it spread out into eternity
, the horizon unclear. She touched her hands, pressed them into her eyes. She was awake. She wasn’t dreaming. This wasn’t the Veil and wasn’t home by any stretch. Her skin goosepimpled again: this was the otherworld, another realm.

  The Glen, Ryk had said, before the current had snatched her and dragged her down, down . . .

  “No.” She had to say it out loud, had to reaffirm she had the ability to speak. It had happened so fast. She’d barely registered it, hadn’t even had a choice. Sent on a mission she didn’t understand. Obligated to fulfill it. Roan had done that and more, but Phae wasn’t Roan.

  The mist shifted. Phae tensed when she got to her feet, because the tendrils of smoke parted and waved and seemed to just reveal deeper shadows. Faces. The beach was small, hemmed in by the jungle . . . or was it getting smaller, the longer she stood here? There was nowhere to go but forward, into the trees, the world in the middle distance cast in golden light and flickering emptiness that itself never seemed to move.

  She took a step, and the mist fell to the ground like it’d been struck. Beyond the trees was a mountain — massive and lonely. Nothing stirred, not even the air. And even though all she should have felt was dread, there was a peace, too, that went down to a place Phae hadn’t known existed.

  Find the ruler of that stark land. Find the heart of the Glen. If Fia finds you worthy of it, finds this world worthy of it, the Horned Quartz would be yours to wield.

  The Empress — an expression of Aunty now — hadn’t even asked Phae if it was what she wanted. To be here, alone, with a task she couldn’t quantify heaped on her. You were asked once before, by Roan, and you made your choice, her conscience swiftly reminded her. And you’ll get back to the others that much quicker if you just get off this beach.

  One foot in front of the other, despite the howling animal cries, Phae crept off the sand and went into the trees.