Transcend

by Natalia Jaster

  Sighing, Echo lowers himself beside Sorrow. “I didn’t teach you to take sides. I taught you to unite them.”

  She speaks to their reflections in the water, illuminated by starlight and floating lanterns. “Is that what you want?”

  “It’s what I’ll support,” he replies. “I side with fate, and I’ll guard it with my bow. But should we lose, I’ll accept a compromise, and I shall be willing to learn of a new way.”

  “Why are you here?” the child interjects, his face bunched like a prune. Clearly, he’s miffed that his efforts to help Envy rescue Sorrow have backfired.

  She can’t blame the tyke for being pissed, since she’s just as pissed at herself.

  Sorrow inhales. “Because I know what pain feels like.”

  “Just as you know what healing feels like,” Echo insists with a somber grin. “Just as you know how to resist the former and strive for the latter.”

  “I’ve seen enough mortal wars—”

  “To remember that anything can happen, at any time. To know they may die on the battlefield rather than by execution. To know they may perish now or later. To know you can only do so much.”

  Fair enough. However, death in combat will be swifter than by the Court’s hands.

  Echo pats her thigh. “You hurt your friends more by turning your back on them than by shielding them from the arbitrary point of a blade.”

  Siren is right. News travels fast.

  “Even if it means a drawn-out punishment instead of a merciful one?” Sorrow asks.

  To which Echo cups her cheek. “I don’t have to answer that for you.”

  No, he doesn’t. If Sorrow knows her misfit band as well as she thinks, the answer’s clear.

  We’re all family.

  Echo gets to his feet, his gray braid swishing behind him as he promises to return after convening with a neighboring group. Left alone with the youth, Sorrow casts him a tentative glance. This tyke has a rapport with Echo and Siren, considering that she’d seen the trio standing together during her capture. Maybe that’s also why the little archer had assisted in her rescue.

  With that in mind, Sorrow ventures, “For what it’s worth? Thanks.”

  The male inspects her glitter stars. “Nice garnish. But my lashes are shinier.”

  “Um, maybe you can teach me that trick?”

  With a snigger, he stands and leaps across the water. Landing on Sorrow’s pier, the child squats beside her and extends his hand. “My name is Faith.”

  A wish god, indeed. Feeling inexplicably bashful, she shakes his hand. “It’s an honor.”

  The voices around them fade. The sky begins to drone.

  Rising on the deck, Sorrow and Faith search the constellations, and the moons, and the planets.

  “Whuuuuut’s that sound?” Faith draws out.

  But it’s rhetorical. It’s a well-known sound coming their way. It’s the sound made by a troop of silver creatures flying on wings that vibrate like propellers.

  It’s a premonition. It’s a wild card. It’s a war tactic.

  Sorrow gulps. “Dragonflies.”

  27

  Envy

  It’s too quiet. Everything about this summit is too quiet, to the point where he hears an arrowhead slicing through the air—someone is twirling his glass weapon like a baton.

  Ah, right. That’s him.

  The arrow is a vicious pinwheel going rogue, spinning out of control as he flips it across his digits. If he wheels it any faster, it’s going to fly out of his hand and skewer somebody’s eye.

  He’s a caged tiger, prowling the length of the parapet, pacing around his friends, who do their utmost to remain calm.

  Or they were doing their utmost, until now. Patience exceeded, Love grinds her teeth. Wonder crosses her arms over her buxom chest and lances him with a disgruntled glare. Merry chews on her lower lip, the concern in her pink, sparkler eyes blinding him.

  Andrew massages the bridge of his nose. Malice balances on a single bended knee, positioned on the stone tooth of a crenellation, where he aims a hickory arrow at Envy.

  Anger simply gets angry. “Stop fucking doing that!”

  “No,” Envy snarls, pacing faster, twirling faster.

  “For Christ’s sake, mate,” Malice warns, his arrowhead trailing Envy’s movements. “I can make you stop. I like making people stop.”

  “That won’t help, dearest,” Wonder disputes to her lover.

  “Let him be,” Merry chides. “His heart is wounded by the tragic loss of love.”

  Envy whirls on the misfit goddess while pointing his finger. “Take that back.”

  “Why, kindred? You admitted your feelings before she left.”

  “Well, I’m taking that back, too.”

  Anger snatches Envy’s arrow and spins it from his reach. When Envy growls, ready to pounce, Anger braces his free hand against Envy’s torso, breaking his stride. “Enough, Envy,” Anger speaks in a low, vehement voice. “We need you.”

  The rage god flicks his gaze sideways, indicating their audience. Envy’s friends and allies, from a rebel band to their rebel allies, who shoot glances toward the scene. From a distant platform, Harmony watches, her flat gaze telling Envy that expelling his energy will do him no favors.

  Nor this fight. Nor the people relying on him.

  Ever the leader, Anger has reigned in his temper, his words striking true. As much as Envy would like to continue fuming, it’s not fair to unleash on the rest of them. Very well, so his restlessness is a coping mechanism, preventing him from smashing his knuckles into the nearest edifice and ruining his manicure.

  The monotony also spares him from remembering her lying, traitorous face.

  Her smile. Her mouth, open in pleasure. Her chin trembling from the weight of her lie.

  She’d betrayed him. She’d betrayed them all.

  He hadn’t believed it. Even now, it’s incomprehensible, and part of him wants to deny her actions. He’d never imagined she would…but that goddess has always defied his expectations.

  After everything they’d said and done. After those trips into the waterfall enclave. After that night on the boat. After that first kiss. After their escape.

  After they made love.

  That witch deluded him. In the end, the sex had been no different to her than their previous tumbles. Naturally, it had been a farce. What is three days compared with two centuries?

  And why the Fates does it feel like his chest is caving in on itself?

  Whatever Envy’s expression reveals, Anger reads it. His palm leaves Envy’s chest, only to press the glass arrow against it. “You’re not the only one Sorrow betrayed,” he says.

  Envy snorts. “No, I’m just the only one she fucked.”

  “She didn’t betray us willingly,” Wonder says.

  The group swerves toward her, whereas she merely contemplates the remote hills. “Before Sorrow left, she had the look of someone carrying a secret pain.”

  “In some way, they’ve crippled her,” Malice confirms. “So that she’d be able to castrate Envy and debilitate the rest of us.”

  “Ask Guilt about that,” Envy says. “She’s around here somewhere. She might know what the deal was.”

  “Oh, Envy,” Wonder berates. “You’re letting pride get in the way of sense.”

  “Ah-ah, that’s not pride,” Andrew contests.

  “It’s love,” Love and Merry say in unison.

  They’re right. Envy confessed as much to Sorrow before she hitched a ride with the enemy. They’ve gotten over that bombshell, and if the Fate Court somehow pushed Sorrow into a corner, they don’t seem surprised by that.

  Envy is the exception. His comrades must be wiser than he, or more rational since he’s the only one whose genitals had been invested in Sorrow. Unlike him, maybe they’ve had the breathing space to think logically.

  Or unlike him, they’re too infected with sentimentality.

  Well, who cares? Envy wants and doesn’t want to hear an
explanation. He wants and doesn’t want a lot of things right now.

  His friends watch him. They understand, and they don’t understand, because what he feels must be universal and distinct.

  In any case, they each have a right to this feeling. Whatever Sorrow was to Envy, she was also their friend. They’ve all lost her.

  The instant she left with their ruler, Envy tasted amongst this group the rancidness of contempt. He’d gagged on the bile of enmity and heard the clang of confusion. However, that visceral reaction has waned, leaving behind the gauze of despair, the gilded sheen of determination, and the citrus smell of loyalty.

  Anger squeezes Envy’s shoulder. The band regards him with nods of camaraderie. Even Malice, who disarms and offers a nefarious wink.

  Envy still has them, and they have him.

  The clench eases up. He accepts the arrow with a twirl, nocking the glass stem to his longbow. Then he joins his friends at the rampart, where they line up and scan the perimeter, each of them outfitted in plates of armor. Invoked through magic, in the same manner as clothing, the protective sheathes mold to the body and appear supple to the touch.

  Overhead, the stars and planets swell across the violet sky. A sudden wind bats Anger’s shoulder-length hair and tousles Malice’s golden waves. Andrew’s spectral, white layers rival snowfall as he tilts his head toward the nearest moon.

  Love stands beside Andrew, bumping their shoulders tenderly.

  Merry stations herself next to Anger.

  Wonder bounds atop the crenellations alongside Malice.

  That’s when the current picks up, swatting the tail of Envy’s mane, affixed at the nape. The ominous breeze ruffles cloaks and fletchings, the mutters and whispers from this assembly petering out.

  The hyperawareness of an incoming presence begins to simmer. Hundreds of archers stand vigil at every elevation surrounding the metallic stargazer. After a while, conversation picks up again. Harmony approaches their band at the primary outpost and confers with Wonder.

  Andrew stashes his notebook and pen safely within a stone crevice and then rejoins Love, the pair of them murmuring with Anger and Merry. All the while, the former mortal keeps glancing at the sky.

  Goosebumps march across Envy’s forearms.

  Bowstrings vibrate from various stations as deities including Pity, Confidence, Surprise, Kindness, Courage, Trust, Hope, and Joy nock their arrows. Envy’s class mimics the action, their movements as graceful and slick as a dance.

  Iron, frost, neon, quartz, and hickory aim toward the hills.

  Envy doesn’t arm himself yet. He inspects the ground, which lacks vibration. Nor does the wind carry the pounding echo of footsteps.

  Since they’d aired Sorrow’s dirty laundry to this legion, everyone has been on edge for days, thus depleting their energy in anticipation of a siege. Perhaps that was the Court’s intent. Nevertheless, these troops haven’t let their guard down.

  The Fates know where the rebels are, so their arrival is eminent. Moreover, the Court has thousands of allies, so their approach won’t be a quiet one. Right?

  With his bow poised, Anger voices everyone’s thought. “Something is off.”

  “They can’t be here yet,” Merry insists, her neon arrow set toward the western cliffs. “We would have heard them.”

  “The scouts would have returned,” Wonder adds from her vigil beside Malice, the pair kneeling and angling their weapons.

  Their voices multiply and overlap in hushed but rapid tones. Are there any routes they haven’t covered? Perhaps the scouts were overrun? Has their band considered every probability?

  Envy participates, loathed to be left out. But it’s too much at once, with each of them predicting and speculating.

  Just then, a buzzing sound reverberates through the landscape. One might call it a gentle sound. That is, until it covers additional ground, building to a shrill noise reminiscent of an insect hive.

  The argument ceases. Throughout the battlements, archers tighten their grips, uncertain where to aim.

  Once more, Andrew inspects the sky, his fingers locked on his crossbow. “Motifs.”

  Still focusing, the original members of this band follow his lead and appraise the vista. It’s a radiant night. The glowing motes settle like dew upon the grass, the hyacinth stalks oscillate, and the lanterns brim.

  “In fiction, there are breadcrumbs, little foreshadowing motifs that might mean nothing or everything,” Andrew says.

  “Or something in between,” Love says.

  Her soul mate bounces off that. “Like legends or sayings or tokens, or—I don’t know—stuff about the setting, like flowers, or freakish glowing motes, or…”

  When he meets Love’s eyes, she finishes, “Dragonflies.”

  “Meaning?” Anger queries.

  Dragonflies like the ones that hatch in a sacred cove, then eventually grow larger. Dragonflies like the one that a detestable ruler and traitorous goddess sat astride as they left this cliff.

  Envy’s head snaps toward the firmament. “Meaning they’re not all coming on foot.”

  Heads swerve. Weapons shift.

  Both of which land on a cluster of silhouettes getting bigger, buzzing louder.

  A throng of silver and pearlescent wings swat the air, reflected in the lake below. Riding atop the dragonflies sit the outlines of five armored sovereigns and a legion of Guides, including the ones who have come before them: century after century’s worth of leaders and mentors.

  The moment freezes, depleted of sound. Of all the plots and strategies his friends had anticipated, this hadn’t been one of them. This is the only contingency they’d neglected to see coming.

  Other than a certain goddess’s betrayal.

  Anger shouts, “Arms!” as the first arrow cleaves through the distance.

  The projectile rents the air, a clean shot flying toward a head covered in sage green tresses—Harmony. The target zooms in her direction, fast enough to snap her neck, even as she aims to dismantle it.

  A length of quartz gets there before the strike, splintering the attack. Light detonates on impact, hurling brilliant threads into the atmosphere like a firework. The weapons cancel each other out, vanishing at the point of collision.

  Harmony ducks beneath the illumination. Rising again, she glances at Wonder, who lowers her weapon, her quartz arrow reappearing in her quiver.

  Weapons pour from the canopy. Gods and goddesses straddle the dragonflies, some kneeling with impeccable balance atop the creatures, their crossbows and longbows spitting arrows.

  The Fate Court wields five sets of archery. Azurite, crystal, lava rock, pearl, and purple agate. Their capes and gowns flap around them. Their expressions display conviction over rancor, leaders protecting the ancient anthem of their world, warring in the name of destiny.

  Envy thinks of a million things they’ve said, of a million things he’s grown up believing. The mudslide of memories pours into his mind, suffocating him. He doesn’t want to fire, he doesn’t want to fire, he doesn’t want to fire.

  Anger’s next commanding shout plows through Envy’s consciousness. He raises his weapon alongside the immortal friends flanking him.

  Merry, Love, Andrew, Wonder, Malice.

  Despite their differences, and despite this unexpected means of attack, their features mirror one another for once. Fierce, stunning, focused. This is what they’ve been training for.

  In an elegantly synchronized movement, they nock bows, target, and shoot.

  The projectiles harpoon into the air, blasting down a row of deities. There’s no respite from the visual of his kin plummeting, those with whom Envy once bantered.

  He forces himself to aim again.

  The dragonflies whiz overhead, then split and veer around the stargazer’s circumference. They slingshot in and out of the fortification.

  And then comes the army on foot. With the rebels’ attention diverted toward the canopy, thousands shouting archers spill into the landscape. As if a
damn has broken, they flood the jagged horizon of trees and boulders. Anarchy ensues as arrows forged of countless materials lance the hemisphere, half rocketing upward, the other half parachuting downward—all of them colliding. The universe ignites, bodies capsizing from above and below.

  As the mounted dragonflies dive, a cavalry of assailants leap into the fortification or land on the blooming grass, where they trade blows with the rebels. Someone’s back hits a wall, cracking into the stone. Envy’s arrow knocks a Guide off his ride.

  Flares of light remind Envy of an evening when he’d listened to a goddess speak about mortal trenches and howling soldiers.

  You don’t want to know that side of pain, Envy.

  A fist swings in his periphery. His forearm rams against the incoming set of knuckles, and his free hand slices his weapon across the archer’s leg, incapacitating the male. The ally to his right screams as a crystal weapon spears through her shoulder, a piercing shot that can only come from a ruler.

  Sure enough, the reigning monarch in snowy lace zips past them on her dragonfly, her androgynous face already fixed elsewhere.

  Envy wants to aid the downed female, but Pride and Spite charge at him. He tumbles, lurches upright, and targets them with two arrows at once.

  Where are his friends?

  Frantic, Envy checks the perimeter. The world is a gritty, shaky vantage point, with figments shifting in and out of the picture.

  For a minute, he gets a clear window. Merry slides down an incline on her skateboard, a rapid succession of neon arrows hitting focal points that impair opponents’ vision long enough for her allies to thwart them.

  Anger provides backup from the building’s highest tier. He alternates, raging against anyone who gets near Merry, then pitting his iron arrows at anyone who gets near his band.

  Covered in gashes, Malice tramples a deity headed for Anger. The two rage gods gawk at one another, then spin and fight back-to-back.

  Love and Wonder invade the vast lawn outside the facade. In one of the trees, Love scales the trunk and bounds with dexterity from branch to branch. Flitting between the leaves, she dodges arrows while nocking her bow.

  Another goddess springs into the tree, casts her arrow toward Love’s tailbone—and shrieks as Wonder drops in front of her. Hanging upside down, with her limbs hooked over a bough, Wonder beams at the flummoxed archeress, then barrels her scarred fist into the female’s countenance.