by S. M. Beiko
Her face changed. Suddenly, she was the young girl he’d known so long ago, a girl with whom he’d felt an odd kinship in their mutual isolation.
“Then why don’t you kill me?” she asked. Just as he’d asked her. And the answer was still the same: because they needed each other. Because they always would. Because they couldn’t ever go back to being without each other again.
The fragile thing inside Eli broke in two, and he released her. Roan staggered back just as Eli’s hand slashed across her face, ripping backward like a grappling hook.
Roan collapsed, screaming.
Eli backed away then, eyes dry, wings heavy, taloned hand dripping blood. He’d wanted to take both eyes out for how blind she was, but he’d settle for this. He wanted her to be in pain and never again see herself as whole.
“I can’t kill you,” he whispered hoarsely, wings a painful thunderclap as they opened. “You know why.”
No matter how far Eli flew upward, back to the Roost, Roan’s aching, lonely sobs would always be etched in the high cavern walls of his ringing skull.
A Cold, Cosmic Wind
Saskia faltered, her legs coming out from under her. The white marble floor would have cracked her on the head, but hands caught her. Her head swam as the darkness in the Onyx went back inside of it, finished for now. The Fractal’s crown was a crumpled ruin, but the stone, loose and separate from Saskia, went quiet on the floor. She would have reached for it if her arm worked.
Another arm around her shoulder led her to the throne twisted out of cold rock. Eli lifted her into it, and for a moment Saskia felt ten years younger, and she had an aching flash of her father, smiling down at her, saying, “Careful, love.” Tears welled up, spilled over, and she wiped them away with a shaking hand.
“I feel sick,” Saskia said, clutching the sharp arms of the throne. It was surprisingly comfortable. Eli knelt before her, his great cloak of wings brushing the floor.
“I understand,” he said. “I feel that way most days, living with this thing inside me.” His face twisted. “If you call it living.”
Saskia looked at him, waiting for her double vision to resolve. “Are you yourself?” she asked.
Eli sighed. His golden eyes had changed to a pale grey, and he dipped his head. “My mind is clearer, yes. But I’m . . . not sure what I can do with that.”
Then a clattering rose outside the great hall, making both Saskia and Eli look up sharply. The enormous stone doors groaned open, and a lanky, somewhat dishevelled figure burst into the hall.
“Don’t you touch her!” Baskar cried, wooden armour jittering. They pulled up the front of their body like someone adjusting their shirt.
Eli snorted. “I see you’ve made friends with the dead as well.”
“I’ll take any friends I can,” Saskia coughed. Baskar was limping, but otherwise seemed in good shape. Saskia pulled herself stiffly out of the throne, and went to them. Baskar almost fell on her, arms wrapped around her still woozy body like a shield. They held each other up.
“Did he hurt you?” Baskar asked, voice quavering. Saskia couldn’t help but laugh, albeit brokenly.
“No,” she said. “But I feel like I’ve hurt myself.” She looked over her shoulder at Eli, this Owl King, hunched and brooding and dark and sad. “You still love her despite all that.” She felt crushed by his pain, just as Baskar had predicted.
Eli bunched a claw at his face, as if it could hide it. Then the claw retracted, and before them he turned more into a man. Wrecked and dark-bearded. Haunted. Old. “Love is as painful as grief. Hurting her seemed the only way to stay close to her.”
Baskar leaned on her, and she could feel their body shaking. “Did he tell you then, Saskia? How he betrayed our mistress? How he started this war?”
Saskia sighed, patting Baskar and holding their hand. “They betrayed each other,” Saskia said. “Roan isn’t exactly innocent here.” She let go of her friend and approached the throne again, nausea floating inside her. “How much longer is this dance going to go on?”
Eli had been watching her in stoic silence. Then he straightened his back, pulling his wings behind his body so he was no longer cloaked. His arms were pale, but the chain scar stood out. So did the broken Moonstone in his chest, like an heirloom whose value had long diminished. “She wanted this world. I can give it to her, give her a purpose. Maybe, with that tree, it will be coming to an end soon. Maybe we both deserve that end. She wanted this world more than she wanted me.”
Saskia argued, “That’s not true. She wanted to be with you. She wanted to build something with you, and it should’ve been the way forward, to finding Ancient —”
“Don’t you know?” Eli laughed harshly, his kind, calming tone falling away again. “Ancient is a myth. A story that’s not allowed to be told. So is the happy ending. Ask your archivist here. They know. You know everything, don’t you, Baskar?” Eli pointed. “That forbidden story of yours. Tell it now, to your friend here. Tell her what is at the bottom of that tree.”
Baskar hunched forward and turned to Saskia. “I think I was always meant to tell you,” they said. “Or perhaps you already know it.”
Saskia looked between Eli and the archivist. “The Heartwood is blocking the way to the Brilliant Dark. Ancient is awake beneath it.” The words coming out of Saskia’s mouth felt like they were spoken by someone else. But she knew. Something twigged in her memory, some dream, but everything was getting mixed up; she couldn’t tell the difference between everyone else’s memories, lives, and dreams, and her own. “If you do allow Ancient to rise, like you were supposed to, then you’ll both have to face that this world you built together . . . it might come apart.”
Eli clapped. “Very good. You were always clever.” He sneered. “Roan doesn’t want to leave this place. She doesn’t want to face herself. I can’t make her. No one can.”
Saskia reached down for the Onyx, but Baskar scooped it up so she wouldn’t have to touch it. It was still quiet, despite all the darkness inside it, and for all the things it had made the Moonstone show her.
“You’re both scared of losing each other. There’s nothing wrong with that. But please, Eli. I don’t want things to end like this. I don’t think you do, either. Let’s go to the Heartwood. We can convince Roan it’s the right thing to do. I can do it with the Onyx, I —”
His wings were already folding back over him, his expression going dull. “Some endings, whatever they are, come too late.” He turned away. “I won’t give Roan up, and I won’t give our little war up, not for you. Not for that tree or a story, not for this world or yours.”
With the last of his speech echoing in the cold hall, Saskia and Baskar looked at each other. They had no other choice. Then Baskar stepped forward, pushing Saskia behind them.
“We are going to the Heartwood,” Baskar said, “to finish the story with or without you.”
Eli did not move. “You know what’s there, Rabbit. You can’t take Saskia there.”
“We have to go,” Saskia said again, heartened by Baskar’s courage.
Eli looked like he was coming back to himself, but this didn’t last. If he didn’t come on his own, Saskia would have to make him.
Eli did move then, in a terrifying striking wave of wind and body that crashed into Baskar, shattering some of their outer shell, but the Rabbit shade stood their ground despite that. Saskia leapt backward.
“Saskia,” Baskar cried, “run!”
She was backing away, heart slamming. “I’m not going to leave without either of you!”
Eli’s eyes, changing to crisp gold, caught her even as Baskar held him back, their shell slipping to the ground like broken pottery, revealing the shade beneath. Even with their face coming apart, Baskar seemed to grin at Saskia. “I didn’t think you would.”
Baskar slammed the Onyx into their bark-mask. There was a dark surge, and Eli cried out, leapi
ng back. Most of Baskar was gone, but their mask flew into Saskia’s hand. Their shade wrapped around her, and the mask slipped over her own face.
For safekeeping, Baskar said. She twisted for the great staircase she’d come up. Now, run!
Lunging for the stairs with Baskar’s speed suddenly surging through her shaking body, Saskia leapt, fell, tumbled, and recovered, with the agility of a Rabbit she’d only dreamed of being.
The wind howled at her heels, but still Saskia ran.
She faltered when a group of Owl guards fell on her as she took a corner. She dodged a soldier down a steep curve of rubble, throwing herself over one ledge down to another one.
Baskar spoke in her mind. I won’t leave you, Saskia. In this world or the one above. If that’s where you need to go. Saskia felt an impossible warmth from the dark stone. How are we going to get back down below?
“I haven’t thought that far ahead.” But maybe she had: Roan jumped off the Roost and took the gamble that Eli would always be there to catch her.
She came to another ledge, stopped short, and felt a powerful blast of air knock her back from it and into the last staircase she’d just skidded down. She landed hard on her hip and groaned. Looking down on the other side of the crumbled steps, she saw only the dark shining waters of the Abyss below. She was on the wrong side of the Roost, she needed to get to the ledge hovering near the Heartwood —
Saskia! Baskar screamed. Look —
She jerked just before a screeching Owl guard was on top of her, and she narrowly rolled out of the way. On her feet now, emptiness and dead ocean at her back, Eli and a flank of guards faced her down.
“Don’t,” Eli hissed at her. “Dying here would not help either of us.”
Saskia’s heart might have been racing, but her breath was even. “Help us, then. Don’t just sit up here trying to stop the ending from happening. Be a part of it!”
Eli’s wings cracked open. “I will make you see your mistake.”
Saskia narrowed her eyes. “No one gets to choose what I do except me.”
Baskar didn’t even have a chance to talk her out of it; Baskar was inside the stone. They knew that the water, and something deep below it, was calling to the Onyx in the same way the Moonstone had. Saskia was just following orders.
So Saskia leapt over the edge, her only sure landing the cold, stretching waters that rushed up to meet her. Behind her she heard wings. Below her, a great roar.
Then the dark.
* * *
And the Seals? Saskia had asked Baskar.
We do not go to the Abyss. It surrounds us on all sides. They are protected by a Bloodbeast in the depths, and they are allies to no one.
But Saskia couldn’t avoid it. She’d jumped and hoped and was sinking fast.
Saskia, Baskar shook her from inside the stone. You’re going to die.
Somewhere in her head, she wondered how bad that would be. I’m in the right place for it, she answered. She tried to keep the precious air in her lungs contained, but she could feel it bubbling up.
As much as I’d like to spend eternity with you, Baskar said, you still have work to do.
As her vision clouded, Saskia saw something huge coming in the distance. Something with teeth, something that could’ve been a god once. Somewhere in the midst of this Bloodbeast’s rippling body was a shock of blue calling out to the Onyx. Something that could’ve been a cracked Sapphire.
Let the darkness out, Saskia said to the stone, raising her hand to it in the middle of Baskar’s mask.
Something had grabbed Saskia by the back, pulling her up sharply as the beast surged. She broke the surface and gasped. She looked up and saw Eli, his wings struggling to get them clear of the maelstrom and the leviathan in the centre of it. Saskia tried to warn him before the great tail slammed into him, knocking them both backward to dry land, and eliminating what precious breath Saskia had only just sucked in on impact.
They had little time to recover on the rocky shore. The beast loomed over them. In the light, and with maybe a little more clarity, Saskia saw its mass was shivering scales, teeth in places they didn’t belong, and a head bisected by a flashing harpoon.
Saskia pulled Baskar’s mask from her face, and the Onyx out of it, holding it between her and the Bloodbeast. The Sapphire at the beast’s shoulder strobed and answered its sister.
As it had before with the Deer shade, the Onyx took hold of the corruption, sorting it. This Bloodbeast was not one shade, but many. Too many shades, in the shape of seals, split from the mass surrounding the Sapphire and slid back into the water. With each Seal restored, the beast shrank down to simply the Sapphire. But there was something else at the core of it that the Onyx still pulled at. Something that was not a shade. Something with hands that held that giant harpoon over its head. And when the darkness dissipated again, the figure clarified.
Eli sat up slowly as Saskia’s arm dropped and she realized she was no longer holding the Onyx — it was set inside her hand, a part of her.
Standing before them all now, staring at her own hands, was a god.
“Ryk.” Eli barked, startled.
The Sapphire was still set in Ryk’s shoulder. She bore down on the two stonebearers, and the sea behind her rocked. Her hair was endless kelp and seaweed, wild and beautiful. She was broad, wide. Devastating.
“What,” she said, after a cursory look around, “have you done to my sisters’ realms?”
Saskia cradled her wrist, her hand heavy with the Onyx. “Baskar?” she asked, not able to look at the discarded mask beside her, because the Onyx might have dragged them into the stone.
But no — Baskar’s mask rose up, the shape of their spirit beneath it somewhat like a formless body. They hung over Saskia, and she felt their pity as they looked at her hand.
“I am all right,” Baskar said. Then they looked up at Ryk and tilted their head. “You are not all right.”
Ryk stabbed the great harpoon into the ground next to her and turned, surveying the landscape. The fury and confusion fell away from her face. “It is like it was. In the beginning.”
Saskia looked to Eli, who was getting shakily to his feet. He started to speak. “We thought all the gods were —”
“Dead?” Ryk barked a laugh. “Might as well have been, Son of the Wind.” She eyed both he and Saskia skeptically. “You have my sisters’ hearts. You draw power from them. They are not gone.”
Eli dipped his chin down, but Saskia stepped forward, Baskar wrapped around her like a stole, like a bit of armour. “We’re looking for Ancient,” she said. “Will you come with us?”
Ryk was a battle-god, and even though she wasn’t a Bloodbeast anymore, she was still over six feet tall and captivating. She was the sea, after all. The tides behind her pulled back, and she snatched up the mighty harpoon.
“We will need my sisters first,” she said. “Especially my twin, Deon.”
Saskia closed her eyes, so tired. She looked over at Eli, who seemed, for the moment, not intent on harming her. He seemed awake now that he’d been sprung from his dark cycle of misery; he was a part of this now.
He stared at Ryk’s Sapphire, then pointed to Saskia’s hand. “Your stone,” he said slowly. “It’s imbued with the power of the Darklings. Darklings are able to separate Paramounts from the Calamity Stones.” He touched his chest. He looked like he was daring to hope.
“Yes,” Saskia said fiercely, clenching her palm and the Onyx in it. “Which means I can separate you from your stone. And Roan from hers.” And me? She wasn’t so sure. She might need the Onyx all the way to the end.
“You have many stories!” Baskar snaked towards Ryk, curious and not at all afraid. “Will you tell us what this land was, when the realms were all as one?”
More stories. Maybe these would be the last ones. And with the story of the gods on their side, she hoped, the
y could do this.
Ryk dipped her head, regarding Baskar with something like affection before she sighed heavily. “The memory of my sisters,” she said, “has kept the gods alive all this time.”
Part IV
Nova
A Sisterhood of Bones
Ancient created everything: The realms of the living. The realms of the gods, Ancient’s first children, each reflecting part of Ancient itself. Then it created a different creature altogether — humanity.
And the day that humanity came into being, Phyr immediately assumed the worst.
Deon wasn’t too concerned, as was her custom. “What is there to be afraid of? We are all woven from the same thread. And while we are the same as them, they are under our dominion. We will have control over them ultimately.”
The world was not new, even then. But it was a beautiful and precious place. The trees were alive with their songs, their hopes, stretching upward towards Phyr’s endless sky. From high above it, at the top of the aurora-strewn universe, she had watched this world unfold, and had provided her counsel and her gifts to shape it — as her siblings had. They had built this place together as per Creation’s wishes.
And even though she could see across time and possibilities, Phyr did not like this wrinkle after ages of knowing what was expected. She wished she knew what Ancient had been thinking when it brought humanity into the fold, but, as always, the gods bowed and did as they were told.
Still, Phyr frowned and turned to Heen, whose eyes were shut in demure composure beneath her enormous rabbit’s ears. “Even you are concerned, Wood Wife.”
Heen cocked her head, as if she’d heard something the others could not perceive vibrating in the rock beneath them. “Concern and caution, sister,” Heen replied. “These shifts must be observed.”
Phyr flattened her nine wings closer to her great body. Her talons on the Pendulum Rod grew tight. “Time will tell. It always does.”
