by Sacha Black
“Then how the hell are we getting back to Trutinor without a train? We’re here with no backup, no help, nothing. What do you expect us to do? Break Karva out with smiles and sarcasm?”
“Something like that,” he says.
Obex’s skyline is a fiery shade of burnt orange. Gray and black clouds streak the sky like tiger stripes. But then I notice a line in the sky, a baby blue slice that cuts through the twilight shades and makes me falter.
“It’s the same as the one in Trutinor,” I breathe, “like the sky is inverting.”
“What do you think it means?” Trey asks.
“I have no idea.”
The hue of the sky makes the street feel like a sepia photograph; to our left and right are several story high townhouses in shades of faded creams and whites. Black iron railings picket the front of the houses and the entire block is quiet, abandoned almost. Even the air is thick with inertia. Like the first time I was here, it reminds me of Victorian London, as if someone picked up half the city and dropped it into Obex.
“Are you coming?” Victor says, his black wings retracting into his back.
“Where are we going now?” Trey asks.
“To find Karva. No time like the present.”
“You’d better have a plan to get us out of here, Victor,” I snarl. “And as soon as we get Karva, you’re taking us straight to Nyx.”
“With pleasure,” he says, his eyes narrowing. There’s a glint of something that makes my gut clench with nerves rather than reassurance. I don’t trust him.
We walk the streets of Obex, Victor in the lead, Trey and I behind. I stick close to Trey, my hand wedged inside his, my grip tightening every time the shadows move and judder with things I can’t see. That’s what Hermia said last time we were here; it’s not the demonic creatures you can see you need to worry about but the things just out of sight that are the most dangerous.
We walk down street after street of tall townhouses with iron railings and silent pavements, curtains in ground floor windows twitching as nosy faces slide out of sight. We pass three parks, each one filled with human rocks that make me cringe. They're not rocks, of course. I just thought they were last time we were here. They're the lost soul demons that sprung out of Victor's body at the Pink Lake, all bald and jowly and veiny.
Every street looks identical. I'm convinced we're walking in circles until we pull into the next lane, and it’s a dead end. It has the same rows of townhouses on either side in a mosaic of creams, but at the end is a house in the middle facing us.
“We’re here,” Victor says, and for the first time, there’s no hint of sarcasm or hate in his voice, just happiness, and it takes me a second to process.
We approach the house facing us; it's white, milk-white like the face of the First Fallon, and something about it makes me uneasy. The wrought iron railings are higher than the other houses, and instead of balls at the tips, there are spikes. There's a strange smell lingering around the house, like the cold slick of fear tipped on a metal blade.
“I’m not sure about this,” I say as Victor’s hand pushes the gate open.
"Get a grip, East; I live here. It's fine."
I look over my shoulder, checking to see if we’re being watched. The pit of my stomach is screaming at me like the desperate scratch of fingernails down a prison wall. Before I can protest, I'm hustled inside the house, and the door is slammed shut.
We're in a white hallway. Everything is the color of bone and ivory. The walls, the furniture, even the photos and their frames. It reminds me of my whitewash dreams, and it sends a chill crawling down my spine like the delicate patter of a poisonous spider. I don't like this. Not one bit. My heart races in my ears, and I pull Trey close. He gives me a reassuring look, but it doesn't remove the panic in my eyes.
“This way,” Victor says, and starts climbing the stairs.
Trey puts his hand on the small of my back; a single pulse of encouragement trickles into my skin – it’s warm and smells like weekend mornings and fresh linen. I take a step onto the stairs and frown as I peer at the ivory staircase. My fingers skim the undulating banister pole. I recoil, stumbling back down the stairs into Trey. "It's bone…" I say, looking up at Victor, "the poles are made of bone?"
“I know,” he says, grinning at me, “quite the fashion statement, aren’t they?”
We climb floor after floor of stairs, and after a while, beads of sweat form on my brow, and I pull to a stop. "Haven't we been past this landing already?" I ask.
Victor sighs, “Karv, babe, stop dicking about, it’s me.”
Karv, babe? I glance at Trey; he's wearing the same repulsed expression I am. I'm not sure if I want to throw up or cut my ears off. I lean over the banister. Despite having climbed stairs for several minutes, we're only two floors up the bone staircase, and although I'm standing still, there's an uneasy rolling in my stomach like I'm on a boat. The harder I try to focus on the ground floor, the blurrier it seems.
“This is a trap,” I say, grabbing Trey, “we need to get out.”
A shuffle above me makes my head snap up. "Oh, bravo," the woman's voice says, "bravo indeed. Usually takes trespassers much longer to figure that out, if they do at all. There was a Shifter once; he got lost in that loop for a month. I used to sit sometimes watching him and laughing as he cried, and begged, and tried to throw himself over the banister. He'd end up in a mangled pile of twisted flesh weeping. It really was delightful to watch."
She looks at me, my mouth hanging low. “Yes, well, you probably needed to be there… Anyway,” she says, and gestures for us to ascend the final steps to her floor. I hesitate, unsure if I want to help bring back a Fallon that sees tricking and torturing people as fun.
I try to focus on her but I can’t. It’s as if I’m looking at her in my periphery vision. The sensation makes my toes curl. She must notice my apprehension because the fuzziness around her seems to soften as her face crystallizes. She smiles at me, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s pleasant or horrifying.
Her skin is as smooth as her mother’s, but unlike the First Fallon's milk-white skin, Karva's is much darker. Darker even than my desert-tanned skin. Her eyes are the same bright lilac mine are turning, and her hair is a mass of white curls. She's beautiful, in a terrifying kind of way. Her lips, even though they're relaxed, form a perfect pout. It’s the only sharp thing about her as if she could spit venom at you at any moment. She and Victor are quite literally the perfect match.
“Can’t be too careful down here,” she says, pointing to the stairs, “sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between friends and enemies.”
I nod, still a bit awestruck by her appearance.
“Well?” she asks, “are you coming up or what?”
“Actually,” Victor says, “I think we should make a move. Rozalyn will be tracking me now I’m back in Obex.”
“Fine,” Karva says, rolling her eyes. “We’ll be boring then. I just wanted to show our guests my collection of shrunken souls. They’re super cute.”
I look at Trey, and I wonder if he's thinking the same thing I am: we're about to let a certified psychopath out of Obex. I walk down the stairs shaking my head and put my hand on the front door handle. "Right, Victor, you've got what you wanted. Now tell me where Nyx is."
I open the door and freeze.
“Yes, Victor,” the Last Fallon says. “Where exactly is Nyx?”
Thirty-One
‘We are all merely pawns in fate’s game.’
Balance Proverb
“What’s wrong, Victor?” the Last Fallon spits, “been hiding things from me, have you?”
She sweeps her long black coat tails around her back, revealing tight leather trousers and spiked heels. Her maroon hair is pulled back in a bun like it was last time I saw her. She wipes something dark and crusty from the corner of her mouth, and a bracelet with two crystals, one white, one maroon, catches my eye.
“I think we need a talk, don’t you?” she says. But Victor’s motionless be
hind me. “Let’s go.”
None of us move.
"I said, let's go.” The Last Fallon grabs my wrist to pull me out the door but instinct kicks in, and Archie and Arna's lessons flood back to me. My fingers wrap around her wrist, electricity brimming at the pads. I twist her arm over, so I control the hold. My fingers squeeze her wrist, pressing the two circular crystals hanging from her bracelet into her arm. I try to let go, but I can't. Both our eyes snap up to each other, her maroon pupils as wide as my lilac ones. Then my vision blurs, and Obex dissolves.
When my vision clears, I’m confused and disoriented. It’s like I’m in one of my dreams. I’m standing in the Ancient Forest outside the Council. But nothing looks the same. The five towering roots are no longer made of wood but mutilated bone. I spin around; the trees across the clearing are ash white. Instead of the billowing green canopy, their leaves are missing, and tree trunks that once held bulging branches are spindly tendrils poking out of the sea like tentacles.
In the middle of the clearing is an enormous statue of the First Fallon made of the same strange bone-white material as the Council towers behind me. Her face is serene, but even carved out of stone, the expression in her eyes makes my insides knot. It’s vacant, hollow, lifeless.
An alarm rings somewhere in the distance. Keepers emerge from both the Council entrances and what's left of the forest. They too are wearing white, their hair, skin, essences all bleached of color. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Their face are blank, devoid of any emotion like the First Fallon has drained Trutinor of life and replaced it with an army of bones. As if on command, the sea of faces all look up and stare straight at me. No. They're staring through me as if I'm nothing but a smudge that needs to be wiped clean like their surroundings. There's no recognition, no consciousness. Unease grows like a weed inside me.
A pair of Keepers stop near me so I ask, “What happened to this place?”
The one closest to me hesitates but eventually looks at me. She's young, her eyes are the piercing blue of a Siren, but her skin doesn't look as it should. I can't see an essence scar and any essence she's giving off is so dull I can't tell what type of Keeper she is.
She smiles, but like her eyes, it's empty, and it makes the knot in my stomach tighten. “Why, it’s become paradise,” she says, “Trutinor is finally Balanced.”
There's a tremor in her eyes. I almost miss it. But it was there as she spoke; she doesn't believe what she's saying. I frown at her. But she blinks rapidly, her smile widening, then she turns and hurries to catch her Balancer, and they disappear.
I’m aware of a presence behind me. I turn, startled to see the Last Fallon at my shoulder.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she says, “no one but me can access the crystal’s knowledge.”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this place,” I say.
“Well then,” she says, staring at me, “do you see? Do you see now why you need to side with me? Why we cannot allow this to happen?”
“What is this place?” I ask, shaking my head as I scan my surroundings.
“It’s the future. If my sister is allowed to continue her reign unchecked. What you see before you is her greatest desire. Control. Order. Power. Fate so entrenched it saps the essence out of life itself. She will cause us to lose everything that means anything: love; curiosity; spontaneity. It’s the destruction of the most powerful force in all our realms.”
“Which is?”
She turns to me, her maroon eyes boring into mine. Her head tilts to the side as if she's examining me. "Hope… She will destroy hope."
This is what I've been seeing. I know that for definite now. My dreams were showing me visions of the future. But I had two dreams, two versions of the future. My eyes sweep over her wrist there are two crystals. One white, one maroon. If the white crystal is the First Fallon's greatest desire, then the maroon must be the Last Fallon's.
“Eden, don’t…”
I grab the Last Fallon's wrist, my fingers slipping over the maroon bead. My vision blurs like static, and a dark cloud smothers me. I cough, choking in the thick smoke. I wave my hand trying to clear it; when it does, I'm standing on the docks of Luna City, facing the city of bungalows, and they're all on fire. Great billowing plumes of black smoke fill the sky. Sorcerers, smeared with ash and dust, run screaming through the streets. One young Sorcerer with the fiercest green eyes I've ever seen stops in the middle of the street and turns to face me. Half her face is burned and blistered, her hair still smoldering. She's carrying a baby. She holds it up to us. Its eyes are blackened, burned from its sockets. Its mouth hangs loose, and half of its arm has darkened and burnt away revealing thin bones. I turn and gag, throwing up where I stand.
“You did this,” she screams. “You. Did. This.” Her voice is a low growl, a single finger pointing not at me, but over my left shoulder. At the Last Fallon. Over to the right, a bungalow collapses. Once the smog and dust clears, it reveals a lost soul demon, its mouth stretching over the head of a charred carcass as it swallows the body in one like a snake.
"You think this is better?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. Tears sting my eyes, and I'm not sure if it’s heartache or the smoke. Sheridan was right, the prophetic part of my dreams wasn't Trey but the visions of the future. When she doesn't answer, I turn to her.
“Well? Do you?”
“Chaos is always better, my dear. After all, from chaos comes Balance.”
I'm shaking so hard I swear my soul is quivering. Is this it? Is this what we get? Two choices? Hermia. Arden. Rozalyn. Sheridan. Castor. My parents. Everyone tells me there are only two sides to this war, that I have no choice but to choose. But what if I don't?
Both the sisters are as bad as each other. No matter who wins this war, no matter what the prophecy says, both of them will destroy Trutinor. The First Fallon with the idea of a 'perfection' so acute, the only way she can manifest it is to wipe away everything in an oasis of whitened nothingness. The Last Fallon thinks she's going to protect us from her sister. But she's been trapped in Obex, surrounded by Imbalance for thousands of years. She's nothing more than a caged animal, imprisoned by death and decay.
In that instant, I know my parents were right – war is coming. But they were also very wrong. There aren't two sides to this war. There can't be, not if we want to stand any chance of salvation. The only way to survive is to make another choice. There is an ancient Balance proverb that says: There is only light and dark. Balance and Imbalance. Right and wrong. There are only two sides to every war.
But as I stand there, watching Trutinor melt away in flames, I decide to rewrite the proverb: There is only light and dark. Balance and Imbalance. Right and wrong. There are only two sides to every war.
Unless you find another path.
That’s the moment I decide: I’m going to kill them both.
Thirty-Two
Nyx Kilburn, Private Journal
25th October, 2017
* * *
The door. It’s real. I saw it. I’d forgotten the stories Mama told me until I stood there, my hair on end, shivering at the throb pulsing in the door’s frame. It was asking me, pleading to be opened. It was seducing me in the same way I imagine the Mermaids might’ve sung to their prey. It wanted me, and if Eden hadn’t interrupted, I would have given myself to it. That bit wasn’t in the fairytales. The yearn to unite with the door. I can’t imagine the First Fallon wanted that, but then, dark magic has a way of betraying you. That scares me more than anything. Where will I go? Will I still exist? Or is soul death my destiny?
I know she’s coming. Rozalyn, I mean. The door felt me, which means she felt me too. I’ve decided I won’t run. There’s no point. Like the fairytale said, it’s my destiny. But what’s breaking me isn’t knowing I’m going to die, it’s the people I’m leaving behind. It makes my heart ache like it’s choking on poison. My beloved Titus, I will at least take comfort in praying I see him in the next life. But Eden, my baby girl, she’s alre
ady lost so much, and all I keep thinking is who will be there for her now?
I blink, and I’m standing on the doorstep of Karva and Victor’s house. I let go of the Last Fallon’s arm, a glance passing between us. There's a swoosh behind me, and I'm swept into a pair of arms. A second later, black wings fill my vision and darkness descends over me.
This time, when we're thrown out of the black void, it’s onto stone slabs. I land on my back, and it takes me a moment to reorient myself. We're in a set of colosseum ruins, with Ionic pillars towering above us like guards and broken slabs scattered around the area. The air is warm and brittle, crumbling like the ruins.
“Dammit, Karva,” Victor shouts from behind me. “I thought you said the house was protected from her?”
"It was. It is," she says, almost whining.
"Well, clearly not well enough."
"Eden?" a quiet voice says from somewhere behind me. I sit bolt upright, searching for the voice. Then I see her.
Nyx, dirty, bloodstained, and exhausted, chained to what looks like the Door of Fates. I leap to my feet and sprint across the stone to her, scooping her into my arms and squeezing so hard she taps my back. I let go and try to examine her, but tears are blurring my vision so much I can't see.
“Oh, Eden, honey, I’m so glad I got to see you one more time.”
"One more time?" I say, shaking my head, "what are you talking about? I've got you now; I'm taking you home."
She gives me a soft smile, her green cat-eyes curved with sadness.
"Don't do that, Nyx. Don't you give up on me, I'm getting you out of here."
“We both are,” Trey says, appearing by my side.
“Look at you two,” she says. This time the tears are in her eyes, “You’ll make beautiful babies one day.”
As she lifts her hand up to wipe the tears away, the chains keeping her bolted to this other Door of Fates rattle and clink.
