by S. M. Beiko
“You did everything you could for the Cluster. For the resistance. For us.” Deedee let out a sigh. “But you’ll still never forgive yourself, will you?”
Arnas didn’t turn his head. He stared out into the red-tinged dark with her. The aftershock reached their neighbourhood, a wretched, grinding tremor. Still, they didn’t go.
“We can’t outrun our choices,” Arnas said quietly. “But at least . . .”
“We made them,” Deedee finished. It was too late to go anywhere now. The sky, in the eastern distance towards downtown, flickered. A band of lightning crackled, but there was no thunder. Only silence.
“You didn’t have to stay,” Arnas said wryly, after a while.
“Believe me. I wasn’t going to.” Deedee tipped her head up at him, and no matter how many years had passed, or what had transpired between them since she found out the miserable secrets of Arnas’s life, she still smiled like a troublesome teen herself. “But you were too interesting to dump, I guess.”
Arnas laughed under his breath. He kissed the top of her head. “I hope it was interesting enough. While it lasted.”
They held on to each other as the sky changed. They thought of Roan. They shouldn’t still believe that she was out there, given everything, but they were the ones who’d known Roan the most, after all. They’d had to go through the parent-teacher meetings, the tantrums, puberty, everything that came with raising a child. Even one that wasn’t really theirs by blood — but she had been theirs. She was still part of the matrix of their family. They’d raised her the best they could, and she had done so many wondrous things they’d never imagined.
They didn’t have much else to believe in, right in this moment. And so it made sense, now, to believe in Roan.
* * *
They’d been picked up from the deserted parliamentary offices of the Old Leg via helicopter. Sliding through the crumbling remains of the downtown core, they would land on a relatively intact skyscraper and head down to ground level from there.
The wreckage below was almost peaceful, Saskia thought. Saskia had asked, earlier, about Jet. She imagined he would have loved this view. Phae told her that he’d gone with Jordan, that he’d taken to honing his powers with him, and that, despite the distractions of the war going on around him, he asked about Saskia every day. She wondered if she’d ever see him again.
Saskia looked up from the window to Roan and Eli, the two of them pressed to the glass like they were memorizing every broken thing against what was broken inside of them, too.
Roan pointed, the frigid wind tossing her short hair about her one eye. “At least we finally opened up Portage and Main.”
Natti laughed, at least. Eli leaned his head back into the wall of the helicopter, smiling. Phae, belted in beside Saskia, was eyeing Baskar, wrapped about Saskia’s neck and shoulder like a harness and still wearing their little bark Rabbit mask.
“Your world,” Baskar said, taking it all in, “is beautiful.”
Natti sucked on her teeth. “It’s still here. Has that going for it.”
When they landed on the roof of an abandoned bank’s high rise, they headed immediately for a door that Natti kicked in without hesitation. They’d then head down to street level, then below even that, to meet up with members of the ETG unit stationed in the partially uncovered trench that had been the underground mall near the intersection. Miraculously, much of it was still intact, though the roots were close enough to the structure that it likely wouldn’t last too much longer. Mi-ja would be stationed there in the cobbled-together control, and Saskia was glad the proxy chancellor was here with them, proof that things could change, especially at the eleventh hour.
The group went down the stairwell, all thirty storeys, and Saskia revelled in this last, bitter respite they all had together. She really couldn’t guess what would happen after this.
She opened her right palm to the Onyx. Even after everything, even knowing what the state of death was, knowing that the Moth Queen was watching them all, she didn’t know if she was ready to die.
Baskar pressed themselves close to her but offered no comforting words.
“Drones have identified a heat signature at the east side of the Heartwood.” Mi-ja had a tablet out, pointing to the reading to show Phae and Natti. Roan and Eli took off and were several floors down by now. They were preparing themselves for the fight. Maybe even excited for it to start. Saskia shivered.
“It has to be Barton,” Saskia said. “He has to still be alive.”
Mi-ja glanced back up to Saskia as they passed the nineteenth floor, then back at her screen. “You’ll have ground support, and we have two air strike teams ready to deploy. You have a plan for extracting him, I take it?”
Phae spoke first. “We go in, guns blazing, and blast that thing to hell.”
Natti shook her head. “I rely on you for composure, you know. But I guess we’ve run out.” She jerked her head at Mi-ja. “We have to weaken it with whatever we have. Barton is the priority, but once he’s out . . . that thing will have nothing holding it back. We clear a path ahead for Saskia.”
Saskia tripped on the next stair, and everyone saw, but she didn’t care.
When they got to ground level, the doorway to the stairwell had caved in. Roan’s arm lit up, and she punched her way through like it annoyed her. One last thing in her way. She bowed, holding out her arm, and Eli went through before her, straight-faced but bowing in return. They looked older, but they were still, somehow, kids.
Natti clapped Roan on the back in passing. Phae paused in front of her former best friend, touched her ruined eye, then pressed her forehead into hers. Roan clasped Phae’s hand warmly and pulled her along through the doorway. Mi-ja, Saskia, and Baskar followed a little farther behind.
The room opened up into disaster, though it was in much better shape than a lot of the buildings near the Heartwood’s epicentre. The windows were blasted out, and errant snow had blown in. They had a good view of the Heartwood, wide as any skyscraper, the viral topography of its bark of twisting, throbbing cords that stretched slowly towards the Darkling Moon. Lightning crackled in the sky but no thunder followed.
They couldn’t let the tree reach all the way into the sky; Barton was out of time.
“We’re watching its progression, and the tree’s past the stratosphere now.” Mi-ja had turned to Saskia, because the other four were all ahead, staring out into the empty avenue, the overturned cars, the utter dark silence lit only by red.
“We get Barton out first,” Saskia said quietly, repeating the plan to herself, “then we destroy the tree. However we can.”
Standing before her were the four heroes she’d worshipped. She’d brought them all here together. They all still had the will to fight and to see it through to the bitter end.
“It’ll be enough,” Roan said. She kissed Phae on the cheek, hugging her one-armed, before turning for Saskia. “One thing at a time.”
Saskia came forward, and Roan surveyed her, hands on her hips. She was still wearing the armour she had built out of what she’d found in the wilderness of the shattered realms. Her amber eye squinted.
“Don’t look at me like that, the both of you,” Roan said. Saskia glanced at Baskar, who slid from Saskia to the ground, pulling concrete debris to them and building themselves a new body from rebar and broken glass. They still made themselves Saskia’s height, maybe an inch or so taller, but they stooped, trying not to meet anyone’s eyes.
“They’re worried about you,” Saskia said, meaning Baskar, but maybe also meaning everyone in this room.
Roan sighed. “Enough of that. Let us worry about you for a change.” She tipped her face to the ruin outside. “It’s time we finished what we started.”
“Scion of the Fox,” Saskia said, and Roan turned to her, surprised. Then she laughed as she dropped her hands around Saskia’s shoulders, squeezing
.
“Enough of the fancy titles, too. General this. King that. We’re just us. And we’re family.”
They were all looking out into the middle distance, considering what was out there for each of them. Family.
Roan seemed bright, suddenly, with fire from inside. Perhaps Roan’s grief wasn’t gone completely. It never could be. That smile, at least, wasn’t sad any longer. There was only pride there. Maybe even hope. It felt too much like a goodbye.
“I was the scion of the Fox,” Roan said to Saskia, to herself. “But I’m not the last. When I’m gone, the story will keep going. That was always the point. We are all a part of it. We are all tellers of it. And there was never one story. It can’t end. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
Saskia’s throat was thick. “You’re going to come back,” she said, looking from Roan to Eli, to Phae and Natti, and feeling so young again under the weight of what was ahead. “You have to. You all have to.”
Eli had been watching Baskar thoughtfully, then looked back out into the great open, damaged intersection, the ash mingling with the fresh snow around the silent Heartwood pike Ancient had thrust into the living world. Eli’s hands were folded before him, body weight on his back leg. He was ready, waiting to spring, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
Then he turned and extended a hand to Roan. “If we don’t come back,” he said, facing Roan only, “it’s so you can, Saskia.”
Eli had said if. Roan had said when.
Saskia glanced at Baskar, their shade rippling under the pane of glass from which they’d made a new chest, looking out, still, in childlike wonder. She missed that feeling.
Roan went to Eli’s side. Their shoulders were low, bodies calm. Despite their tangible differences, they were a single unit in two, a duet, the wind stoking the fire, the fire bolstering the updraft. She held his hand. They stood like that a while, as if no one else was there to look. The sight of it made Saskia’s tears dry.
Then Roan and Eli let go of one another, the link between them invisible but still golden. They fell into step and went out first.
Phae’s arm came around Saskia, holding her close, and Saskia fell into her embrace so she had something, anything, to hold onto.
“Go with Mi-ja,” Phae said into Saskia’s hair. “We’ll see you soon.”
“Don’t make promises none of us can keep,” Saskia said, pulling away. “We made this choice. We just have to remember why.”
Phae’s smile seemed to bloom, and Natti appeared at her side. “You were always miles ahead of us, Saskia,” Phae said. “But for now, please stay behind. We’ll do our best.”
Saskia nodded, trying to be brave. “Bring him home.”
Phae turned to Natti. Natti slapped her on the back, then yanked her into a fierce hug. They followed Roan and Eli, and Saskia lingered, watching. Hoping. Baskar peeled themselves from the window, knotting their shadow hands in front of them as their cobbled hare ears twitched.
The ground shook.
Ahead, Roan and Eli broke into a run like two horses reckless with joyful abandon. Phae and Natti went after them.
They all leapt into the grey, like they were kids again.
And then they were gone.
* * *
Ancient would feel them coming. The group wouldn’t get a chance at surprise, but they had to fight, all the same.
Phae covered them all with a protective shield. Natti used the river, the Red this time, a power she recognized. She smashed it into the Heartwood, bathed in the red light of the eclipse, willing to hover there in the sky until this work was done.
The ground shook. Ancient’s many roots, bespoke for one purpose, had already pulled down buildings, mountains of glass and steel, and it would use them to rend these much more fragile beings that thought themselves better than Creation. A root pulled up a huge steel beam from the debris, slashing it through the four of them.
They broke rank and scattered in four directions, trying to make for the base of the tree. Natti guessed it was at least fifty feet ahead as she pulled herself and Phae out of the way of another root, swinging at their backs.
“Where are Roan and Eli?” Phae shouted over the rumbling. Natti pointed, and a flare fanned out, smashing through a tangle far ahead.
“We have to go!” Natti said, pulling her and Phae back into the fray, the wall they’d crouched behind exploding as a dark spear pierced it.
The Heartwood was just a twisting mass of these writhing roots, and each of them had a will of its own. A need to destroy and tear. There was a great knot at the base of it, and Natti begged Barton, if he was still alive inside of it, to hold on.
* * *
Eli and Roan separated. Everything was slow. They fell into their steps easily.
Perfect movement, perfect feeling. Roan was the flame, Eli was the wind. She flipped over him, her leg a torch, her body a flare gun. They lit up the Heartwood’s onslaught of branches, beat it back. This was the dance they had long practised. This is what it had been for. At least they could know the time they thought they’d wasted was worth something. They clasped each other’s arms and became a shivering inferno, tangled up in one another, making wreckage of their own.
A root ripped free of the concrete and came down between them. They split apart, whirling, but each mirrored the other’s steps. Always a unit. Above, the top of the Heartwood sang out as the Task Guard air support rained down their rockets to distract the tree. Roan swore she heard the tree scream. She and Eli tightened their connection as shrapnel came down on their heads, and they fought on.
* * *
The river sluiced over the back of the tree, over Natti and Phae’s shield, and when the smoke cleared they saw a gaping wound in the Heartwood’s bole, where the knot had been. Half a person hung out of it, up to the chest. Phae shot forward for Barton, and Natti took his other side, hauling him free of concrete and rebar and roots still twisting, burnt at the base, like blown-off tentacles.
“We’ve got him!” Natti yelled into the mouthpiece Mi-Ja had given her. “We’re getting clear of the blast zone!”
They held Barton between them, and Phae was hyperventilating as they ran, missiles of writhing branches raining down on them and smashing, cracking the shield she could barely hold as they went.
“What about —”
Another explosion from the road in front of them, and Natti faltered, nearly dropping Barton, the roots exploding up in a jet of black.
The fire consumed the next root attack before it could land on top of them, and a hurricane pulled the other corded cables that were seeking to pincer the three from the other side.
Roan and Eli circled one another, arms outstretched, beating Ancient back.
Phae and Natti were frozen for only a moment. Phae felt, harshly, that they were maybe looking at the pair for the last time. Then Natti turned the three of them around, and they limped back the way they’d come.
* * *
“There!” Saskia pointed to the screen, one of the street cameras still operating near 201 Portage. “I see them!”
Natti’s comm had cut out, and in the control room, Mi-ja was barking orders to the airstrike team. “Bank around, prepare for the second assault. Ground support, meet the rescue team at Portage and Garry.” Natti and Phae, and the figure they carted between them, disappeared behind a bank of smoke.
“Roan and Eli are still down there,” Baskar rustled in Saskia’s ear. They seemed too afraid to watch what was unfolding on the wall of screens before them.
“I know,” Saskia said, unwilling to look away even for a second. “They’ll get clear. They will.”
She’d watched them closely. Up to that point, their strange dance had only been something from Baskar’s stories. But the story was unfolding there, and all Saskia saw, as Roan and Eli wove in and out of the Heartwood’s striking distance, was love. She would ho
ld onto that forever.
She glanced up at a drone that was circling in the camera feed. Her heart squeezed, and for a second it looked like the Heartwood was losing ground, recoiling on itself, trying to protect the rest of its bole as its growth towards the Darkling Moon slowed.
“They’re winning,” Saskia breathed.
She called it too early.
* * *
Eli bent backward as a black root sang by him, twisted to avoid another coming for his arm, but another came roaring forward to smash his legs out from under him.
The fire took it out, and the ground where he landed was hot, but it didn’t matter.
He saw Roan laughing, saw that she couldn’t help but allow herself joy, to take what little she could in this moment. She was beautiful. Her face was bright with it, and Eli caught that look, sent it back with joy of his own. He loved her so much.
His face fell, suddenly, and neither he nor Roan were fast enough.
* * *
I don’t think I ever had the time for love. To think about it. To imagine myself in it. I was too young. Love was corny. I didn’t have the room for it. I didn’t understand it. I figured I would, someday. Then a few things got in the way.
I look over at Eli. I feel so much, right now. I feel young, and I feel old. And I feel him, there. Fighting beside him. I feel seen, and known. And I see and know him. I realize that that’s enough. I’m laughing. It feels good to look at him, that miserable grouch, his stupid face splitting as he laughs back at me across a hellscape, both of us asking ourselves, How did we get here? and not having enough time to form the answer. So we don’t say anything. We just move together. We just look at each other.
I see him. My chest is alive with that thing, that love. It’s enough. It’s enough.
I —
