by Emma Hamm
He did not respond. But of course he did not respond. He was not himself anymore.
Her face crumpled and more tears fell down her cheeks. He was going to kill them all. He had accepted his decision to be the Lich King and lost himself. Wolfgang had been so wrong.
She could not control him.
Her head fell until it was tucked against the cold metal of his armor. Once last time she whispered against him, “I love you.”
She plunged her hand underneath his armored chestplate and curled her hand into a claw around his glowing red heart. It beat against her palm as she pulled it from his ribcage with a quick yank. It was not sticky, nor was it warm. But it was his heart, and, therefore, it was precious.
A long wheeze rattled him. Blue, glowing eyes began to burn ever brighter and stare down at her. He clutched her harder to his chest as he brought them both to their knees.
She did not apologize to him. She couldn’t. “I will remember you as the man who made me laugh. I will remember the man who gave me butterflies. The Magician who found more beauty in giving me a golden wind than the greatest of magics.”
He gasped and listed to the side. He fell hard on his shoulder and rolled onto his back. She lay atop him as tears dropped onto his skull.
“You were the man who saw me not as a beauty but the woman underneath this flesh. You were the man who never disappointed me because you were so brave and good.” She gasped as the words poured out of her. “I will always remember you not as the Magician. Not as the Graverobber, but as Wolfgang. The man I loved.”
She caught her breath as she rubbed her thumb against his cheekbone. His blue burning eyes slowly dimmed. A tear dropped from her eye into his socket and extinguished one of the flames.
Lyra shook her head and smiled through her tears. “There are my mismatched eyes.”
The last remaining light disappeared. She squeezed her own eyes shut and let out an aching sob. Her head tilted back as the flames around them slowly diminished, and rain began to fall.
Only then did she feel the loss of him. Only then did she realize how broken she was going to be without him. She had lost so much in her life, and now she had lost the only man she had managed to love.
Her shoulder shook. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse and deep. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to end like this.”
She leaned forward to press her lips against ragged edges of his teeth. She would hold onto his memory like the rarest of stones. A sob made her inhale quickly and exhale long and low.
Out of her mouth trickled the faintest blue light.
When she opened her eyes, she froze. Wolfgang’s soul trickled past her lips, down the skeleton’s mouth and into the long line of its throat. It was weak and struggled to even emit the smallest of lights. Then it disappeared underneath the armor.
Frantic now, she began yanking away the offending aged metal. It clanked as she tossed it away from the two of them, and the skeleton was jostled back and forth. She did not care about harming it. She had to see his soul.
“Easy,” Wren’s voice told her. “Easy, you have to stop.”
“No,” she muttered. “No something’s happening.”
“Lyra, he’s gone.”
She pulled away the chestplate to peer down into the cage of his ribs. The thread of blue light blinked once, twice, and then held its light as it swirled in a circle where his heart had once been. The heart she still held clutched in her hand.
Lyra reached forward and gently placed the still organ in his chest cavity. The blue light moved to accommodate her. Once the heart was settled, the soul pierced the soft flesh and dove into it. She held her breath until the heart beat once more.
Blue magic exploded from within Wolfgang. Great ropes of light traveled along his body and gave him flesh. She gasped as it drew from her but caused no pain. Before her eyes, he was given life again.
He was no longer gaunt. The magic made him strong. Tattoos and scars formed again but he was larger. Muscles tangled along his body. Great valleys of shadow and light stretched along arms and chest.
His face remained unchanged. She saw a bit more flesh added to his body, but the crescent shaped face, the scars, the missing hair, it was all there. He was not his doppleganger. He was her Magician.
Wolfgang arched with a gasp. His eyes snapped open to stare into hers. Darkness reflected in one and blue sky in the other.
He had a bewildered expression as he gazed up at her. She clutched his hand to her cheek as his thumb stroked her bottom lip. She was just as shocked as he.
Wolfgang pulled her down towards him. His lips met hers in a discovery of life itself. He was not dead. She was everything that he lived for.
He was not gentle, nor was he harsh. He took the life she offered him and reveled in the feel of her soft lips against his while he explored the feeling of her soul mixed with his. In turn, she held onto him as the miracle man she always believed him to be. As the man who refused death itself so he could hold her in his arms again.
She pulled back to ask him, “How?”
He grinned that awkward grin with his chipped tooth and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I was right to trust you to save us.”
Lyra returned his grin and laughed. The battle was over. They were safe. They were loved.
“Lyra.” Wren’s chuckle made them both look towards her. “We still have work to do.”
“It’s always work with you,” she replied. She couldn’t stop the laugh that kept bubbling out of her. She wasn’t unlucky after all.
Her eyes looked over the battlefield with renewed vigor. They could help these people, Wolfgang and her. They would heal whoever they needed to. They would save people because that was who they were together.
Jasper stood across the battlefield. His wings were spread wide as he met her gaze. She watched a smile spread across his lips. Family, she found, was not so hard after all.
A portal opened on the other side of the battlefield. Out of it stepped a tall, dark man with a long braid that swished around his waist. Lyra heard Wren angrily gasp “Malachi” just as the man reached out, grabbed ahold of Jasper’s arm, and pulled him into the portal.
Her name was the last word she heard Jasper scream.
Water was a very strange thing. It was powerful in its own right. Stone was putty against water’s will. Destruction was easily capable, but not in the angry way destruction usually suggested. Water was gentle. It cajoled and convinced all materials to simply give up.
Nothing could stop water’s desire for everything to be unmade and then made anew. It gave life with a kiss of love and affection and then took it away when the time came. Vikings used to send their loved ones into the water’s embrace for a funeral.
Lyra lay at the bottom of the deep pool staring up at the surface thinking she would like that kind of burial. Drifting away into her mother’s arms as a Siren was always meant to do. She would be happy with that kind of death.
A Nixie swam up to her with worry wrinkling its pretty brow. Lyra reached out to touch the frown lines and smiled. She shifted, kicked off of the bottom, and ascended.
She was slow to bring her face to the air. After the battle, she had become more like her ancestors in a strange sort of way. The water had called to her for healing. She had let it soothe the angry parts of her soul.
Bubbles formed on the surface around her as a Nixie popped up next to her. The sweet creature giggled and puffed out another breath as their magic collided. The bubbles rose into the air with sweet salty scents.
In a way, she found this place more her home than any other. The Nixies had become like sisters. Strange demented sisters but family nonetheless.
The oldest swam over to her and pressed a gentle hand against Lyra’s heart. Her sad eyes spoke volumes because the Nixie’s did not speak. But Lyra knew what she meant. The ache in her ribs was felt by all of the sisters. She would heal in time. Until then, they would help her in any way they could.
&nbs
p; Her eyes drifted over the rocky edge of the pool and to the figure seated next to it. Wolfgang hunched over a spellbook in his lap with one leg outstretched. He was not reading the book. He was staring at her.
Lyra filled her cheeks with water and splashed him with a thin stream. Wolfgang rolled his eyes and waved a hand to raise his shield.
“Really?” he asked her.
She shrugged.
Wolfgang sighed and put his book aside. “You’re dwelling.”
“It’s hard not to.”
“The past is there for a reason.”
“Doesn’t make it easier.” She had lost someone important to her. They didn’t know where he was or what had happened to him. Lyra had tried so many times to contact Jasper with no luck.
Wolfgang stared at her with a critical eye before slowly standing. He stripped his shirt off before wading into the pool after her. The magic had been kinder to him. After his death, it seemed that he had come to an understanding with his own power.
His body was strong. Though mangled and scarred, he now had a barrel chest and whipcord muscles that flexed with every movement. She would always remember him as the fragile creature she had fallen in love with.
Wolfgang was still the Lich King. As long as he was in possession of his soul, he would remain in this form. But Lyra was the true owner of that thin blue light. He could transfer it into her and become that skeletal power again.
They both agreed; they did not wish to see that side of him again. Not for a while at least.
He reached for her and pulled her against his chest. He was always a little colder than a normal human. But he was hers.
Lyra’s fingers followed the bumps of his ribs downwards until she could hold onto his hips. Her head tucked against his heartbeat, and his arms held her. With him, she couldn’t break. He held her together like glue.
“I just want to know that he’s okay,” she whispered.
Wolfgang sighed again. He knew about Jasper and her conversation before the battle. He knew how the other man felt about the woman he called “Love”. Never once had he said anything bad about Jasper. In fact, he had offered to step aside for the love that had existed long before him.
Of course she hadn’t agreed. She would never find a man like Wolfgang again. Lyra knew a good thing when she had one.
Together, they had searched high and low for her brother. Neither they nor the Five had managed to find him. It was eating away at her.
“Do you think he’s alive?” she asked him.
“You know I don’t have that answer.”
“I just want to know what you think,” she said. Her fingers traced circles on his stomach.
“I do not know. Malachi is capable of many things. I do think that if he were dead, Malachi would have boasted of it,” Wolfgang paused, “but I also do not think that it is better for him to be alive.”
She flinched into him. “No, I suppose not.”
“You know the cards have been asking for you.”
“I can’t, Wolfgang. I can’t touch those.”
He was silent. His chin touched the top of her head as he curled around her for maximum comfort. He knew she would have crawled inside him if he had offered. Wolfgang was her security blanket during this time, and he was proud to offer as much assistance as he could. Even though it broke him to see her this way.
“Tell me something good,” she whispered against his skin.
“Ah, of course.”
Wolfgang leaned back into the water with her in his arms. A whispered spell held them afloat as he turned onto his back to stare up at the magical stars he had created for them. She curled onto her side next to him.
The water would hold them both while he cheered up the other half of his soul. The Nixies danced around them. Their hair twisted and twirled as they blew bubbles into the air.
He rose a hand to send a glittering wind into the air. As he spoke, it formed silhouettes of people that walked upon the air.
“Once upon a time, there was a great beauty. She walked the land not as a delicate creature but as a warrioress.”
Lyra watched with rapt attention as a woman formed above them. She was tiny in the air but fierce as she wielded a sword against imaginary foes.
“Yet,” Wolfgang continued, “she was not complete until she met a monster in the night. He was more beast than man. Dangerous, angry, and wounded. He did not know how much he was in pain until he saw her.”
A man formed on the other side of the woman. He was hunched and limped when he walked. Lyra smiled as she recognized the story. He always told a variation of the same tale when she asked him to make her happy.
“What did he do when he saw her?” Lyra asked.
Wolfgang chuckled. “Well, he wasn’t very impressed with her fighting skills.”
The golden woman hopped up and down as she tried to get a boot on her foot. Lyra laughed and elbowed him. “Stop it! Tell the story right.”
He was grinning as he began again. “They fought at first. Both of them were frightened of each other. For how could a beauty love such a creature? And how could a creature who was so wounded ever burden her with his existence?”
“Why did he?” she asked.
“He watched for a time. He grew to love the graceful way she twirled the strands of her hair when she was annoyed. The way she wrinkled her nose when someone said something she didn’t like. But above all else, he fell in love with the way she held her secrets locked away. He would have given anything to hear her secrets.”
Lyra snuggled underneath his arm. His fingers tapped a rhythm against her elbow. “Did he?”
“Hear her secrets? Oh yes. But in return, he told her all his. He gave her his soul as a gift, and she gave him life.”
Wolfgang rolled to his side. Water sloshed between them, but it only warmed their bodies. He trailed a finger down the line of her forehead until he bumped over the arch of her nose.
She smiled sadly. “It’s a pretty story.”
The golden people above them disappeared as glitter rained down upon them. Yet another trick he so enjoyed doing. He knew how much she liked sparkling things.
“Do you feel better,” he asked.
“I don’t know how to be happy and sad at the same time. If I’m happy, I feel guilty. If I’m sad, I feel drained.”
“Consult the cards, Lyra. I cannot even use them. They keep vibrating and asking for you.”
She shook her head. “They’ve only foretold bad things.”
“They told me about you.” He leaned forward to press his lips gently to hers. She drank his kiss like a tonic. “They do not ask for people lightly.”
Lyra did not wish to use the dreaded things. They frightened her, and she had enough of fear. But she looked into Wolfgang’s eyes and knew he wanted her to. She had learned to trust this strange mismatched man.
Slowly, she nodded. “Alright.”
He guided them to the edge of the pool and lifted her to the edge. “Go on.”
The tarot cards were next to his book. The black edges fluttered as though they knew she was near. Lyra looked back at Wolfgang. “My hands are wet.”
“They won’t mind.”
She bit her lip, took a deep breath, and reached her hand for them. Immediately, one card shot out before all the others. The dark back stared her down as she gently grasped the edge. Flipping it over, she stared down at the image.
“What is it?” Wolfgang asked.
“The Star,” she whispered then held it up for his inspection. “What does it mean?”
He smiled at her. “Hope.”
“Hope,” she repeated as a soft smile spread across her lips. “Thank you.”
A rattling sound made both of them jump. Mungus stumbled into the room with his hand cupped around his ribs. Lyra burst into jubilant laughter as she saw the fireflies he held caged. They zipped through and around him, although they appeared to allow him to catch them and put them back in his makeshift jar.
Lyra
shook her head and stood. “Charlie, stop it! Your ribs have spaces. They’re getting out!”
She chased after the skeleton who immediately began to shuffle away from her. He hunched over as though he held the dearest of prizes and shook his head as she backed him into a corner.
Wolfgang laughed at their antics.
“One of these days you’re going to give him a voice!” Lyra shouted.
She had asked him enough times, and he wanted her to be happy. Ancient words were whispered under his breath as he waved a hand towards his skeleton.
Mungus jumped and clutched at his throat before a surprisingly manly voice squawked, “What?”
“Charlie!” Lyra shouted with glee.
“Oh no.” The skeleton shook his finger at her. “Just because I can talk does not mean you get to chatter away!”
“Yes it does!”
Wolfgang shook his head and pulled himself back onto the bank. He tugged his shirt back over his head, fully planning on attempting to read, when he noticed the cards vibrate.
Quickly, he checked to make certain Lyra was still occupied with his errant dead man. Comforted that neither was looking in his direction, Wolfgang held his hands above the cards. The top one shot up to stick to his palm.
Nervous, he turned it over.
Justice stared back at him.
“Oh, I fully intend on it,” he murmured as he placed the card back on top. “We will bide our time. Malachi will fall.”
Epilogue
Plumed birds sang as the sun rose over the edge of the earth. Pink tinged the air, and they called towards it. They loved color. Their feathers changed with their emotions, and today they were the brightest purple.
The song was unlike any song ever sung. The birds spoke in the voices of humans and whispered words of love. Their tails stretched towards the ground and their wings towards the heavens.
The smallest of birds hopped next to them. It was a plain little bird, but its beak was impossibly sharp. It wanted to sing but was incapable of singing like the others. So it remained silent and enjoyed the beauty of others.
