Vultures

by Luke Tarzian

  “Keepers,” Serece whispered, “it’s good to see you.”

  “Mmm. Likewise,” Fiel murmured. “I sense we all have much to talk about.”

  Serece shuddered at the notion, at the myriad black thoughts that had been running through her mind. She pulled away and allowed herself a moment to scrutinize the twins. Strange things, they were, with their unnaturally round eyes…and their perpetual grins. Keepers, why were they still grinning?

  They approached her with outstretched hands. “Ronomar and Raelza Tír. A pleasure.”

  Serece arched an eyebrow. Did they expect her to what…shake hands? She glanced at Fiel, who too had a grin spread wide across her face. Serece frowned at her aunt’s amusement. Then, sighing, briefly grasped their hands. “Serece. And…a pleasure. I suppose.”

  “Quite the brooder,” Ronomar whispered to Raelza.

  “Reminds me a bit of Theailys An,” Raelza said. Serece tensed her jaw. Raelza perked up at that. “Oh! Do you know him? Ronomar, I think she knows Theailys!”

  “We’ve met.” She shot a glare her aunt’s way.

  “Perhaps it’s best we take this inside,” Fiel said. “Before we draw attention to ourselves.” She cast her gaze toward the derelict house Serece and Fenrin had taken refuge in and smirked. Fenrin was watching from the window.

  “All right.” Serece started for the house, the twins humming lightly in her wake. It was going to be a long day.

  * * *

  It seemed absurd to Serece, the phantaxians reaching an accord with the Ariathans. Military aid in exchange for the remains of Vare Tal-úlm. Even more outlandish was the fact her aunt and father had swayed the council to their side, a feat without which the former would not have been possible. Imagine—the council siding with her “mad” father and pariah of an aunt! Instead of her queen mother! How Serece would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that.

  She eyed the twins. They were odd, uncannily upbeat, their round eyes bright. “So…you’re the Hands of the Seraph.” They nodded with a nonchalance suggesting this was common knowledge, though Serece felt confident in thinking hardly anyone really knew. “And you think this letter from the queen is a forgery.” Another nod accompanied by grins. Serece cocked an eyebrow. “Well if that’s the case why do you both look so happy?”

  “Since we returned from the front some months ago,” Raelza said, “we’ve suspected something lurking in our midst. The letter from the queen, dear General Khoren’s face…well, it certainly narrows down the possibilities, wouldn’t you say? Te Mirkvahíl or otherwise, I can confidently say the object of our worry sits atop the Ariathan hierarchy.”

  Serece furrowed her brow. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Think about it,” Ronomar said. “Te Mirkvahíl and the lokyns are deception made manifest. You and Fenrin both felt something off about Mistress Khal when you encountered her in the prison. Fenrin said her eye color was different than usual, an impossible change for the Celestial race.

  “What of the recently ‘deceased’”—Ronomar made a gesture in the air—“General An? I read the report detailing the circumstances of her arrest, the charges levied against her. Raelza and I served beneath her on the front. Where might her ability to wield mirkúr have come from if not already innate?”

  “An intriguing question,” Fiel opined.

  “A dark question,” Fenrin said. “It certainly suggests…you know.”

  “What do you propose?” Serece asked. “We can’t just sit idly by, even with the city in such chaos.”

  “Agreed, of course,” Raelza said, looking at Ronomar, who nodded. “What say we infiltrate Helveden and see if we can’t figure out the font of all this madness, hmm? The Bastion is a place of interest as it’s the seat of power in Helveden, but the Hall might also be worth looking into if Mistress Khal is not herself.”

  “What would we be looking for?” Serece asked.

  “Oddities, I suppose. Things out of sorts,” Ronomar said. “Raelza and I will investigate the Hall. We apprenticed there for the better part of fifteen years, after all, and Mistress Khal…well, we’ve a certain fondness for her.”

  “I think we’ll know what we’re lookin’ for when we see it,” Fenrin said. “Like the twins said: deception made manifest.”

  “True,” Serece said. “But what if it’s like Khal said the other night in the prison? What if what we find, we only find because Te Mirkvahíl meant for us to?”

  “Then that is the way it is,” Fiel said. “Either way, whatever we find might help us discern this entity’s endgame, which to this point remains a mystery.” She frowned pensively. “Such slaughter and madness—why?”

  “The joy of death?” Serece said, though she knew that was not the case. The demons did find amusement in slaughter, but she could feel in her gut whatever was going on in the city was meticulous, that everything happening was being carefully orchestrated. But what was the endgame? The Faithbringer Khar Am had preached that his followers, his disciples discern truth from madness, and in this moment Serece wanted nothing more. Even if the Ariathans and the phantaxians were doomed to some horrible end, she at least wanted to understand why.

  “Even monsters have souls,” Rejya once had said.

  So, if this was Te Mirkvahíl they were dealing with, what did the demon’s wretched soul desire most? What did it hope to gain from all of this?

  “Shall we depart?” said Raelza, standing from the dusty floor.

  Serece clutched her vial of snow tightly. “Yes. The longer we wait the more inclined I’ll feel to say no.”

  They stood and withdrew from the house, starting through the shadow of the trees. Serece knew they were going to find something in the Bastion, that the twins would find something in the Hall. It was the uncertainty of what, exactly, those somethings would be that made her hair stand on end.

  * * *

  “A place permeated with sorrow. You come here often, Remulus,” Behtréal said, staring at the hooded figure seated at the base of the oak tree. “Why do you continue to torment yourself so? What do you hope to achieve?”

  Remulus made no movement. “I do not come here hoping to achieve a single thing. If you understood, brother, if you understood the concept and power of love, then you would understand the nature of my frequent visits to this tree.” His shoulders rose slightly, then fell with his exhale. He stood to face Behtréal.

  “I find sorrow in my hours here, but there is also the joy of memory. Are you able to comprehend joy, Behtréal, or is that, too, as foreign and forbidden as affection?” Remulus stalked past Behtréal, his snarling breath a cloud of frosty mist. He paused, turning back. “What is it you hope to achieve by coming here?”

  “I hope only to absolve your pain,” Behtréal said. “Twenty years, Remulus. Twenty years and still you seek this tree. Still you wander Harthe, Athéro at your side, preaching perseverance in the wake of loss, to mortals no less—and for what? What good has it done you? What good has it done our people?”

  “Our people?” Remulus sighed heavily. “Your egotism wounds me. We are gods, Behtréal. We create and we destroy. We reshape the old world in favor of the new. Our people populate the whole of Harthe, but you and the Reshaperate are still too obsessed with what goes on behind the walls of Ouran’an to give a care.”

  “Too obsessed with…” Behtréal stammered. “Celestials curse you, Remulus! Too obsessed? Too obsessed? Ouran’an is being gradually ravaged by this…this plague. The very same that stole Annabelle from you!”

  “And you would have me do what, exactly?” Remulus asked. “Forsake them? Leave them all to rot while sitting idly by behind the walls of Ouran’an? They have nothing to ward against this infection. To us this plague is but a winter cold, Behtréal. We’ll survive just as before. The mortals, though?” Remulus shook his head and started off.

  Behtréal closed his eyes and tensed his jaw. Obsessed? Obsessed? He exhaled slowly, the air escaping through his teeth like a hiss. I will make you se
e. I will make you see the damage wrought by your infatuation with that woman you claimed to love.

  Behtréal opened his eyes. His blades manifested in his hands, fluctuating light and shadow. To eradicate a plague, you had to stop it at the source, and once that source was little more than ash you had to cut away the tainted flesh until the purity of old returned.

  Behtréal started toward the oak tree.

  * * *

  The memory trickled from Behtréal’s mind. “I was such an angry man,” he murmured to the darkness of his sleeping chamber. He did not yet feel like letting the sun kiss his stolen flesh.

  “You are still an angry man,” Te Mirkvahíl said. “And a weak man at that.”

  And you are a still a monster, Behtréal thought. You are mistaken as always though: I am not weak. Reflection of one’s past self is not a sign of imperfection—quite the opposite, in fact.

  “What of guilt?” Te Mirkvahíl asked. “What of the guilt your memory evokes?”

  It makes me realize I was wrong to fell the oak tree, Behtréal thought. That anger breeds recklessness. I still harbor distaste for Remulus having thrown our people to the wayside, but part of me understands now what I did not then, what my fury and feelings of abandonment concealed.

  “Pray tell, Te Luminíl, what might that be?” sneered Te Mirkvahíl.

  In that moment he was right to believe the Reshapers’ immortality would win the day, Behtréal thought. But more than that, the path he chose was done so in the name of love, out of respect for the memory of a woman he adored. Behtréal swallowed the lump that’d formed in his throat. As is my own.

  Te Mirkvahíl chuckled. “Are you so sure? You claim love and the memory of your people as your motivation for this undertaking, but perhaps you do so in order to ease the guilt of knowing you took far more lives than did the plague.”

  Behtréal tensed his jaw. I am aware—

  “I speak not of mortals,” hissed Te Mirkvahíl, “or is the memory so horrific that you forced it from your thoughts? Recall the old Reshaper wars, Te Luminíl, and the many throats you slit, the many children that you felled—and all before I ever came to be.”

  You lie, Behtréal thought.

  “Think that if you wish, if it helps you go about your task,” Te Mirkvahíl said. “But know in the depths of what you call a soul that I am right.”

  Te Mirkvahíl dissipated from Behtréal’s thoughts, leaving him to ponder, ruminate in the darkness of the room. He remembered nothing of the Reshaper wars, of spilling blood and slaughtering children. Had he blocked this memory or was it merely the monster in his mind attempting once again to wrest control? He wasn’t sure, and it frightened him, almost as much as the notion of failure did.

  “The sooner I succeed,” he whispered, rising from the bed, “the sooner I absolve myself of such a monstrous thing.”

  * * *

  It’d been unsurprisingly easy to infiltrate the Bastion grounds, easier than re-entering Helveden. Cloaks and hoods were commonplace during the rain, and Serece was sure whatever entity had taken up residence in Helveden had afforded them an easy entry. That and the fact they were amidst a throng of citizens Serece supposed were here to walk the Bastion gardens. They were something of an attraction, or so she’d heard.

  She pulled her hood a little further past her eyes. Beneath her cloak she clutched a vial of snow, her second of the day; it was getting harder to keep the rot at bay. She could feel it underneath her skin, spreading like a fire fanned by wind, expedited by the foulness of her phantom quarry. It made her long for the Phantaxis Mountains and she hated that.

  “So. How did you and father sway the council?” she murmured to her aunt.

  “Rather easily,” Fiel said. “It seemed the majority had grown, shall we say…disillusioned with your mother’s rule. ‘In times of war, let bad blood fall fallow when a common enemy arises,’ or something along those lines. The lokyn raids in the Phantaxis Mountains seemed to have been the final straw.”

  “You’re surely joking,” Serece said, arching an eyebrow. “What a bunch of cowards, holding their tongues so long; letting my father make a fool of himself to our people.” She balled her hand into a fist, quickly swallowing the urge to strike the hedges to her left lest she draw attention.

  “They argued in your favor,” Fiel continued, and Serece nearly choked. “About the Avatar and Shades.”

  Serece narrowed her eyes. In the last days’ chaos, she had nearly forgotten about that night, about how she’d murdered Taür, how she’d slaughtered Rejya all those years ago. “Kind of them, but they’re fools to have done so.”

  “The stress of war induces rage,” Fiel said.

  “And we are taught to temper Yssa in order to keep it from enraging,” Serece argued. “Regardless of what the council believes, the fact remains I killed my sisters. I lack mental balance, Aunt Fiel.” Which meant they all were lucky Yssa was dead because Keepers knew Serece was a knot of anguish, fury, and paranoia. “I don’t deserve their faith.”

  “You think that now,” said Fenrin, just a foot or two behind Serece. “It’s the guilt, the blood stains on your soul. But it’ll pass, and when it does, you’ll see you deserve their forgiveness, that you deserve to forgive yourself.”

  “Did you see that in an illum dream?” Serece spat. “You can soothe me all you want, the council can say my invocation of the Avatar and Shades was forced, that I was under duress, but it doesn’t change the fact I did what I did. My sisters are dead by my blades, and I’ll never, ever absolve myself of that.”

  She crossed her arms to her chest, following Fiel as they continued winding through the periphery of the Bastion grounds. Wish I hadn’t asked, she thought. Only weeks ago, she had sought her mother’s forgiveness, had wished to be looked upon with sympathetic eyes. And now? Now she despised it. She didn’t deserve exoneration for such atrocities. She spat on the ground. Fuckers probably did it in order to curry favor with father. If the council had truly put their faith in Undrensil then what better way to appease him than to amnesty his daughter?

  “Best we split up,” Fiel spoke from ahead, and she melted into the crowd.

  Serece turned to Fenrin, but he too had disappeared. She frowned and made her way west. Right. It’s not like Te Mirkvahíl doesn’t know we’re already here. She shivered at the notion. Eyes everywhere, the uncertainty of whether or not the people around her were puppets dancing on strings. Why the hell was she still alive? Why was anyone still alive?

  Serece ducked down a garden path lined with tall hedges and bright blue flowers. At least it smelled nice—for the moment. She felt in her gut whatever she found, whatever Te Mirkvahíl allowed her to see was going to smell and look foul enough to make her retch.

  But only time would tell, what little of that they had left. Whatever game Te Mirkvahíl was playing was nearly at its end. The chaos about Helveden, for all its subtleties, was palpable enough to make the air feel thick.

  Serece stopped and sat on a stone bench, feeling disoriented. She closed her eyes and massaged her temples, inhaling slowly, focusing on the amalgamation of flowers and rain. Listening to the raindrops on the stones and leaves, sounds of the wild, of the mountain world she’d grown in long before the plague ripped freedom from her people. It’d been a long time since she’d heard them, somehow. She hadn’t realized until now.

  If I could bottle a sound… She exhaled shakily, feeling the tension in her body wane.

  “Are you all right?” came a soft but strong voice, snapping Serece from her trance.

  Serece blinked. Before her stood a woman with hair like dark fire, mid-year face peppered with the occasional scar. She’d seen war, no doubt about that.

  Serece tilted her head. “Fine, thank you. Uh…” The woman looked terribly familiar, and after a moment Serece realized why. “You’re a friend of Theailys An, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” the woman said. “Name’s Leyandra.”

  “I remember you from the mountains,” Ser
ece said. “You had that mouthy, one-eyed man with you as well. Tell me…” She paused, considering what she’d said and the fact she could have very well just implicated herself. This woman had been one of Theailys’ companions, but who was to say she was who she claimed to be, that she didn’t already belong to Te Mirkvahíl?

  “Tell you…what?” Leyandra asked.

  “Is Theailys well?” Serece said finally.

  “He is,” Leyandra said, eying Serece. “Are you sure you’re well? You seem skittish.”

  “The paranoia of war,” Serece said. “You can feel it, right? The tension in the air.”

  Leyandra stepped toward her, so they were little more than a foot apart. “Yeah, I can feel it,” she murmured. “Guards at the outer gate claimed it was a dissident insurgency. They’re full of shit.”

  “They’re in a desperate frenzy,” Serece said. “Demonry. Something killed General Khoren yesterday and the Faithbringers are pinning it on the dissident. Hell, on anyone not human.”

  She stood, motioning for Leyandra to follow. It was too obvious, the pair of them huddling there in the rain. They had to at least appear as if they were simply enjoying a flowery stroll, bundled in cloaks.

  Words spilled effortlessly from Serece’s mouth the longer they walked, questions and answers. She had learned a hell of a lot more than she had anticipated—and she hadn’t retched or felt the urge to. Still, everything Leyandra had relayed was troubling, most of all Theailys’ dreams. Odd things, they were. Outlandish. Nightmarish. Surreal. And possibly something more.

  “It’s all comin’ to a head, isn’t it?” Leyandra asked as they withdrew from the gardens some time later, heading south and away from the Bastion.

  “Feels that way,” Serece said. “Whatever it is.”

  “A balancin’ act, perhaps,” Leyandra said. “An attempt to set the world in order.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Nothin’.” Leyandra sighed. “Somethin’ a friend told me. Entropy and Law: two sides of the same coin. One inevitably brings about the other. Keepers know I’ve seen enough in my years to put stock in such a notion.”