The Brilliant Dark

by S. M. Beiko

  “I will not!” Baskar hissed, pushing her away, and she staggered. “My mistress will think you are betraying her — and you are! And the Owl King will stop us! I mean . . . you!”

  Saskia didn’t bother pushing down her grin. “They can try,” she said. “They both can.” Barton was calling out to her. The idea bloomed with what she knew. The Owl Court was close to the Heartwood . . . Saskia knew part of Roan’s story. It was time to get Eli’s.

  “Eli lost his connection to the wind,” Saskia started. “Did Roan show him how to get it back?”

  Baskar was shaking their head, turning away from her and wrapping their twiggy arms around their body. “You are telling yourself a different story than the one that is here.”

  “You promised,” Saskia reminded them. “You promised you’d help me understand. I’m trying to. Please.”

  Baskar gave her another unreadable, unknowable look, and their shoulders drooped. “I keep my promises,” they said. “I will keep it for you, Saskia. Just do not harm yourself with the understanding I provide.”

  Saskia nodded, trying to calm down as she sat down like a kid at storytime.

  Baskar sighed. “Eli. I did quite like him as he was before,” they admitted. “He was willing to do what it took for Roan to trust him. He was willing to change . . .”

  * * *

  Eli returned to the cavern, which was deserted. It was fitting that she would make him wait, her judgment hanging over him. It had been too much, showing her what he had. He hadn’t asked. He’d tricked her. Same old Eli, doing harm with the veneer of good intentions. Why did he always have to take everything too far? And what in gods’ names was he going to do when she decided she wanted nothing to do with him?

  “You don’t look well,” a familiar voice chirped from the dark recess of the cavern, and Eli froze. A shade manifested into the bare light where the firepit would be, its long ears twitching.

  “Ah,” Eli said. “Baskar, was it?”

  The shade crept closer, scenting the air, assessing. Then it gave a strange cry when two Fox shades burst out from behind it, yipping and snapping as the Rabbit cowered.

  One of the Foxes circled the firepit, the strange glow from it lighting its inky, wavering coat from underneath. They both approached Eli’s sides like pincers.

  “You will soon be weighed and measured, demon,” said the first Fox. “Maybe you should run, get a head start before our mistress comes back.”

  Eli held his ground. “That’s between her and me.” His eyes narrowed. “You are the dead, and you’ve been here all along. And yet you call Roan ‘Deon.’ Surely you know she isn’t your god.”

  The second Fox let out a curdling noise. “She is living but she carries death on her. She sees with Death’s eye. She is our way back to the fire. Stay out of her way, and ours.”

  That gave him pause. Death’s eye. Her spirit eye, then? Had that been what drew these disparate shades to her, including the Rabbit? Had it been what protected her from the shades’ assaults in the way it hadn’t protected Eli?

  Now they’d chosen her as their god. She had become . . . something else entirely.

  Eli held his hands up, moving towards the pit. “I’m not here to harm her. I’m here to help her.”

  “Help?” cried one of the Fox shades with a yowling cackle. “And where were you when she was alone? We were there for her. Even the pathetic Rabbit was here, at the start of this new world’s beginning.”

  The thread of a sneer pulled at Eli’s lips, but he loosened it, trying for humility. He looked to the Rabbit shade they were mocking, but it hadn’t moved, flattened to the ground in submission. Eli felt how that shade looked. “I failed her,” he said. “I know I did. I won’t do that again.”

  “Words,” the Foxes said together, surveying him. “Meaningless sounds that the living bleat when they don’t know what waits for them. You’ll get your due, soon enough.” Then they looked at one another and padded out of the cavern, to make mischief or whisper more oddities to the landscape — Eli didn’t care.

  “Don’t blame them,” said Baskar, who had come to Eli’s ankle. When the shade stood up, their head was past Eli’s knee. “We all thought eternity was a guarantee. They are just looking for something to believe in. Change is hard for the dead.”

  Eli considered this strange shade and realized it was the first creature here to make any sense to him — Roan included.

  “It’s hard for the living, too.” He peered down into the firepit and saw the source of the glow: a low flame, burning almost blue and strobing like a heartbeat. When he took stock of the way the pit had been dug, the room arranged, and certain markings incised in the rock, Eli smiled. “This is a summoning chamber.” She must have built it herself. Which meant she might not be an entirely lost cause.

  “The fire always burns. The mistress told us tales of the Uplands before she put them away. And when she did, the flame burned brighter.”

  For a moment, Eli didn’t breathe. “She put her stories away? Her memories?”

  The Rabbit moved steadily around the three circles incised in the stone, reciting. “Once upon a time, a girl was followed home by a fox, who gave her a great task she didn’t feel she could manage. But she did. And everything went wrong. She found a room beneath her grandmother’s house, with an empty hearth. She never had a room like that of her own, but when she could, she swore her own hearth would always be burning.”

  A chill shot through Eli’s blood as he exhaled. “Of course.” But Roan had put that history away. Pushed it aside, and became stronger for it. Was it because of grief? It stood to reason that Roan was only trying to edit out the things holding her back . . . but she’d gone too far. Eli wasn’t sure he’d convinced her the value of accepting, let alone reliving, the victories and the failures that made her Roan Harken.

  “I believe you’re the mistress’s friend. In your own way. But if you think you might hurt her, then you should leave. No matter what you feel.”

  Eli bristled. “And what, you’re her security detail now?”

  The Rabbit stared at him with expressionless, white eyes.

  “I’m doing this for her own good. Not mine.” Eli turned his back to the well-meaning shade. “I’ll let her decide if it’s so.”

  He waited until the bare scampering of shadow steps went across and out of the cavern, then strode to the other side of the pit. He considered the smooth granite beneath his blistered feet. Pain was in the mind, and he had a strong one. He could manage it. What he couldn’t manage was the Rabbit’s warning, or his own. They were in a godless country of ghosts looking for an idol — or else shaping Roan to become one for them. That was as unfair as Eli coming here, trying to turn her back into something she didn’t want. It had to be her choice. And whatever that was, he’d have to respect it.

  And find another way to save the world. Whatever.

  He tried to strengthen his resolve. He skinned out of his ruined sweater, the warmth inviting on his bare flesh. The cave faded around him, his mind opening like an aperture to replay the wilderness, and Roan in it, dancing.

  Eli’s foot extended as hers had, swept back, and leaned his body over it. He faltered, waking up abruptly, scowling. This is stupid. I’m not a dancer. Neither was she. She was awkward and stupid and grasping and too tender-hearted and we both deserve better than me noodling around here like a moron —

  He was in the thicket again, Roan just a wavering outline in the air. She squared her shoulders, hands pressing outward, and Eli couldn’t help but raise his, becoming her mirror. He was in the memory, and in the cavern, following her steps, slowing them down.

  The drums emerged to meet Eli as he moved through. Step, pivot, turn. Ease backward. Step, pivot, turn — scrape his torso against rude angles. The drums were only a blueprint rhythm but still a guide. He let them lead him, and suddenly, like his cells were each
inhaling, the wind rose inside him.

  Moving lightly on the balls of his feet, Eli felt something shift deep inside. There was nothing stupid about it now. He felt utterly locked in to sensation. It was like he could feel new skin forming beneath scar tissue, pushing, multiplying, remaking him.

  He paused, mid-movement, teetering on a precipice. Was it dangerous to want to be remade? Why, after everything he’d gone through with his mother in the Roost, was he still so terrified of letting go?

  The drums were a heartbeat from the stone to his soles, and he twisted, repeating the steps again and again, speeding them up in memory and reality. His body was light as an easterly, the air filling him as it did once, when wings were a chance at utter freedom, and when power was only a consequence.

  Eli’s arms snapped out, and his breath came quick on the backspin. The flame in the fire pit shot upward, a meteoric, bright blade. When it came down again, Roan was there — really there — on the other side of the fire, staring at Eli with a stunned expression.

  Eli dropped his arms as if he could hide what he’d done. Or how impossibly exalted he felt. Or maybe at least cover his chest.

  “Your form is terrible,” Roan announced.

  Eli felt his face pinch. “Yes. Thank you.”

  She approached him and pressed her arms out. “It’s less about perfect execution and more about perfect feeling.”

  She swayed, moved. Waited for him. When he didn’t immediately mimic her, she lifted his arms for him, so he could really see. He did. This close, he saw her amber eye flare in the light beside her. The eye of Death.

  They moved together, an exhalation, through three of the basic movements, and that same sensation came back to Eli. A syncopated cadence. A locked-in frequency.

  Eli pulled away abruptly. “Well?” he said. “I need you to tell me now. I’ll leave, if you wish it. I know you had your reasons for forgetting. I don’t blame you.” The words rushed out too quickly. He folded his arms to try to get the buzzing to leave his chest; his sweater was annoyingly far away. “It’s fine. Really.”

  Her hand came down again on his scarred arm. “There’s something binding us,” Roan said. “I believe we can tap into something beyond the fire — but we have to do it together.”

  She pulled away. What he’d felt, moving like that, a kinetic primal spark he’d never felt, even with the Moonstone . . . he wanted desperately to feel it again. To be connected to something greater than himself, even if — especially if — it meant being connected to Roan. He’d do it, but there was always a price.

  “So I can stay, then?” he pressed, perhaps a touch too moodily.

  Roan cocked a brow at him. “Baskar likes you,” she said. “I suppose that’s enough to go on, for now.”

  She extended her hand to him. “I’ll show you the way to get back to the wind. You show me the life I came from, on my terms. Then we can both decide if whatever you came here for in the first place is still worth pursuing.”

  Eli took her hand, gripped it tight. He knew it was an agreement that, if broken, would cost them more than what either of them could pay.

  Still, he grinned. “Then let’s begin.”

  * * *

  Saskia hadn’t wanted to blackmail Baskar, but when it came down to it, she had no choice.

  She was pleased with how quickly the plan had formed when motivation and need arrived. It really was like coding, every choice a line in it.

  She’d really come to like Baskar, her only reliable friend here, and the trust between them was as fragile as it had been between Roan and Eli when they were trying to come back to each other.

  But Saskia needed to get to that tree. And she needed to get to the Owl King to understand how she was going to get Barton out of it.

  “The book that you lost,” Saskia said, still ensconced in the archive, back to back with Baskar as they wove their hands to the story likely going on inside their head. “It had the forbidden story you weren’t supposed to tell in it.”

  Baskar leapt up so quickly that Saskia fell back, nearly cracking her head on the floor. Baskar was bent away, head in their hands.

  “I — I will find it. No one will know —”

  Saskia was up just as fast. “But you know the story. And you wrote it down, because you couldn’t bear it getting lost. Except now it is. Who do you think could’ve taken it?”

  Baskar uncurled slowly. “It is possible . . . that one of the Owl King’s Eyes found it . . .”

  “Then we should both go looking for it before Roan figures that out. Shouldn’t we?”

  Baskar’s mask somehow took on a darkly troubled expression. “You wouldn’t tell her, would you, Saskia?”

  Of course not. It wouldn’t bode well for either of them, and Saskia didn’t want Baskar to get hurt. She sighed. “No. But that means we both have reasons to go to the Roost. We just have to make Roan believe it was her idea.”

  Baskar paced. “She did believe you were his spy, initially.” They pivoted. “Perhaps it could be a test of your loyalty, to go there and use your stone against Eli.”

  Then they clapped a hand over their face. “But it would be a test of my loyalty, too, and helping you do this may make us both traitors. This is far too confusing to consider.”

  Baskar looked ready to escape, and Saskia lunged, put her arms firmly around them before they could. “I know you want to run away. But both of us can’t. All of these stories you’ve saved are important, and connected, and so is mine. We all have to be archivists and make sure they survive. But there are holes in this one, and I think it’s up to us to fill them.”

  Baskar looked down at her arms around them. She hastily let go. A bony finger lifted to Saskia’s hair, moving it out of her eyes. She wasn’t sure why her heart skipped a beat, but she was okay with it. Love was a strange, fragile thing, it turned out.

  “That was a thing Eli did for Roan once,” Baskar qualified, before moving awkwardly back a step.

  Saskia tried to picture it, picture Roan and Eli still dancing together, an elegant knot of flame and air, tied together forever no matter how many times they’d broken apart. Dancing, Baskar had said. It seemed unbelievable now as it would have seven years ago. Had they loved each other? Did they still? It seemed silly to picture them like this, but Baskar had only ever told Saskia the truth.

  Saskia was grasping. “If I can confront Eli, maybe I can find out what happened between them. And then they can be . . . whatever they were again.” She wanted that forbidden story, but maybe it wasn’t the only one she needed.

  Baskar groaned. “You are very young. But I won’t try to stop you.” They interlocked their knotty fingers. “The forbidden story could undo all your plans, anyway. So I will do this thing, and we will do it together. I would not like to see you hurt, I’ve decided, especially for a mistake I have made.”

  Saskia was touched but didn’t know what else to say. “Together,” she repeated. Baskar nodded, holding out their hand, and Saskia took it.

  The Only One Who Knows

  Roan was seasoned and still as Baskar laid it out, and Saskia had stood to the side, carefully silent, awaiting her judgment.

  “She must leave the stone behind here,” Roan had tried initially. “For safekeeping. If the Owl King gets a hold of it —”

  “But it would be her only defense against him,” Baskar had argued, which had, at first, made Roan bristle. “Were she to use it on him, it may even finish him. If she goes to him, feigning loyalty, his guard will be down, and she may strike. Then nothing would stand between you and the Heartwood.”

  Baskar had spent many hours contemplating who this lie was going to hurt if it was told, or if it was held back. They had decided it would harm Roan if they didn’t go forward with this plan. Saskia knew that, either way, Baskar would be in the line of fire. They all would be.

  Roan appraised them bot
h. “Don’t get too attached, Baskar,” she said, eyeing Saskia and turning away sharply. “Love is a game for the living, and we have always played it terribly.”

  Saskia waited for Baskar’s reaction. Yet Baskar, expressionless as always, inclined their head. “I love you, too, Mistress. I do not wish to see you come to harm. Please let us do this.”

  Something of Roan was still there, because she’d softened and agreed. “Go towards the Heartwood. I am sure the Owl King’s Eyes will spot you and take you directly.” She laid a precious kiss across Baskar’s woody brow. “May the fire protect you.”

  * * *

  They made their way to the great tree that seemed to have grown higher since Saskia had last seen it, and Baskar stuck close to her. She felt that this time, they did it more out of protectiveness than a self-serving survival impulse. Saskia didn’t mind Baskar’s closeness. It reminded her that she was still human, and needed to be . . . needed.

  “So Eli and Roan danced, but it wasn’t happily ever after.” She was trying to distract them both. “Eli wanted Roan to remember herself. Roan had put her memories away so she didn’t have to face her mistakes. I’m sure both of their tempers didn’t make for getting along.”

  “Not at all,” Baskar said, but the night was falling, and they would need to take shelter soon. “Are you not tired, Saskia?”

  She was. To her soul. She was surviving by moving forward, by eating the weird foods Baskar brought her that had once sustained Roan and Eli. But whatever spell was over this place was quickly making her forget the needs of her very real body.

  She ached for rest, for this all to be done.

  “I need to know,” she said stubbornly, as they made their camp for the night, and Baskar wrapped their arms around her to keep her warm, though their stick body gave off no heat. “I need to know as much of the story as I can to make sense of it.”

  By now, Saskia could guess Baskar knew about that all too well.