The Reaping Season

by Sarah Stirling

  Choking, the scientist gasped for air, eyes watering. For the first time Janus could see fear in his eyes. Most likely he had read the case notes for Project Bluestone. Most likely he knew how little qualms Janus had with killing, unlike Rook. His head snapped up to see her jab her elbow into the meat of one of the soldier’s abdomens, then taking advantage of his momentary incapacitation she smacked him across the temple. He collapsed into a heap on the floor.

  Wiping blood from her lip, she straightened up as she faced her next companion, rolling her neck until it cracked. Silver light shone in her eyes and a grin pulled at her lips, revealing two rows of bloodied teeth. Whenever she fought like this it seemed to bring out The Rook within her, inciting her to violence. He glanced down at the smirk on the scientist’s face and felt his stomach drop. Something was wrong. He knew what Rook could do. He wanted her to lose control.

  “Rook. Rook-ka, stop.” She continued forward, steel blurring in her flying fist. More soldiers poured in from the doorway but the sight only seemed to spur her on, as if she wasn’t really seeing at all, driven by bloodlust.

  Pushing up off of the scientist, Janus jumped to his feet. “Rook!” he yelled as she sliced across the chest of another soldier, tearing through layers of cloth and flesh alike. “Listen to me!”

  Panic laced his tone now as he slipped in to grab her arm. He had seen this happen before. Quick as a flash, she whipped around with the blade and he barely made it out of the way of her aim, staggering back out of the way. Unlike Viktor he couldn’t access the other realm she was feeding into; couldn’t feel the ebb and flow of energy as it had been described to him by others, or see the bonded creatures if they hadn’t chosen to reveal themselves. But time had given him an innate sense for the changes a person underwent when under the influence. Something about this place was making her lose control faster than normal and he didn’t know how to stop it.

  When a soldier sprung upon her with a sword she whipped around again, attention back on the circle of enemies that had crept upon them, attacking with such a feral viciousness as to unsettle even him. Janus could only regroup himself and draw a stolen gun upon the woman that was aiming to fire at Rook, watching her fall with delicate remorse, easily crushed beneath his heel.

  A moment of hesitation was all he allowed himself to assess the situation before he dived back into the fray. Rook would hate him for it later but the only thing he could do was fight because he had to do something. He didn’t know how to stop her – years later and somehow he was still every bit as useless as he had been then – so he had to join her. They could still fight their way out. Even if it cost them. Even if it cost him the fragments of their relationship he had been able to salvage.

  He would take being hated over her being dead. Or worse.

  Lost in the hazy clarity of war, he only came to when the last opponent fell, suddenly standing before a pile of bodies. Too often it became like that for him. A smudge of bloodshed and then the terrible evidence of his destruction at his feet. Perhaps he should have felt more at the sight but all he could concentrate on was the sense of repetition, like he was witnessing the worst part of his life again, like he had been dragged to the depths of Var Kunir’s Locker and was now doomed to relive it once more. If this was his penance he didn’t want to pay it. If this was a cycle, he didn’t know how to break it.

  Rook turned, the pupils of her eyes a pinprick against the bright white lamps of her irises. She was looking at him but she wasn’t seeing him. The knife in her hand dripped blood onto the floor. When she lifted her arm it disappeared down her sleeve in a trail, staining the white fabric a deep shade of crimson. If she attacked him he didn’t know what to do. Instincts battered into him would make him fight but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to win. If winning was ever on the cards in this match.

  Suddenly he was burning with rage. His ire – at the world, at the stage, at the magician behind the curtain – threatened to burn a bottomless hole within him until all that was left of him fell out and left him with nothing but flame. Yanking the scientist by his collar to his feet, he pulled him close enough that he could see flecks of grey in his eyes and the ruddy flush on his cheeks. “Stop this. Now. Stop it!”

  Throwing his head back, the man laughed. “You must know by now. You can’t stop this.”

  Janus threw him to the floor again in disgust, ducking out of the way just in time as Rook flew for him. With nothing but his tiny butterfly knife she was a hurricane of destruction, so pale and vicious as she twirled and spun, like death incarnate. Jumping over one of the beds, Janus hid from view so as to avoid a fight he did not want to have, calculating. He didn’t know how to get through to her when she was like this.

  His mind kept looping back onto well-trodden memories, so reminiscent of this moment he felt like he had stepped into the past. Gripping the metal of the railing lining the bed so hard it creaked, he forced himself to focus on the here and now. They’re dead. They’re all dead, he reminded himself. Dead, but Rook still lived. There was still a chance to atone for things he had done. For things he had not done. He just had to figure out a way to reach her when she had reached the peak of her bond, eyes blazing twin lamps shining on her prey, the scientist’s face frozen in panic as he stared up into her eyes.

  Scanning the room, his gaze snagged on a familiar item: her riftblades. They had been locked up in a glass box filled with a viscous liquid, on the other side of the room. Could they help, somehow? He would have to try and regret the consequences later. Using the bed to propel himself forwards, Janus leapt over it and ran for the box, catching Rook’s attention as he did so. Snatching up the box, he had no time to decipher its mechanism so he hurled it against the wall, glass shattering into thousands of tiny shards that tinkled on their way to the floor.

  Janus picked up a blade in each hand, running his thumbs over the smooth bone handles as he raised them across his chest. Across from him Rook paused, glowing eyes fixed on the gleaming metal coated in the strange gelatinous substance once more. “These belong to you,” he said hoarsely. “Do you remember? Do you know who you are, Rook?”

  Her mouth opened but instead of her lilting accent she emitted a shrill cry like that of a bird before she lunged at him, the knife in her hand clattering to the floor as she spread out her grabbing fingers. In her mindless state she was impossibly fast, moving so quickly she was but a blur out of the corner of his eye. It was all he could do to slice out with one of the blades, nicking the skin of one palm as he twisted out of her way and ran.

  She hissed sharply and from her arm he thought he saw the faintest wisp of smoke curl from the cut but then he blinked and it was gone. It seemed he had only angered her further, her gaze locked fully on him now. All Janus could do was run, not even looking where he was going with her bearing down on him, teeth bared like an animal, until he nearly tripped over the scientist on the floor. With one of her blades he stabbed into the ground between two tiles, piercing through a layer of of the man’s clothes to pin him to the floor.

  “Amazing,” he heard him say, as if he wasn’t about to be murdered by a woman he had trapped and tormented himself. “Just look at her.” Something in his voice made Janus pause, keeping the other blade in front of him in some attempt to keep Rook at bay.

  As the man struggled to sit up, Janus saw the change that overcame him as the light in the room flickered and then snuffed out, casting them in gloom. Rook’s eyes seemed even brighter than before, blinding him. He found himself caught, unable to tear his gaze away from the light burning holes in his vision. The floor began to tremble, dust falling as the ceiling rumbled overhead. He glanced above and nearly stumbled when the ceiling caved in towards him, melting in the middle and folding in on itself. Whipping around himself, the walls were the same, warping and bending as if turned to liquid, and Janus blinked heavily, hand falling upon the handle of his holstered revolver, no longer trusting his own instincts.

  A piercing shriek jabbed at his eardrums and Jan
us slapped his hands over his ears, head hollow with the noise. It took him a moment before he could think again, realising that the shriek was coming from Rook. Circling above her was a massive riftspawn the size of a laisok, glowing blood red with yellow eyes. It must have been strong to affect her so badly, for she fell to her knees, clutching her skull.

  Janus rushed forward to catch her, crushing her to his chest. The feeling coming from her was strange, like she was burning up only with cold rather than heat, and it made his head spin. His grip tightened, holding her steady as he gazed up upon the swirling creature above them, its huge bulk swirling in predatory circles. Instinct made him reach for his gun again but it was no good. He still hadn’t been able to pick up some more reimyr bullets. He didn’t know how it was possible to keep failing, over and over again. It felt like history was doomed to repeat itself, a curse written specifically for him.

  He held the blade up before the two of them as if he would be able to fend off a creature so powerful. Unlike Rook he had no connection to it, nor any connection to The Rook. Still he prepared himself when it flicked its tail and launched itself at him. Please, fight with me, he said to himself, to The Rook, to anyone who would listen. If you help me I’ll do anything. On weak legs he surged up to meet it, slicing into its open maw as it opened its mouth to swallow them down. His arm shuddered with the resistance, a flash of light bursting outwards as power rippled through him, searing hot and agonising. Janus crashed back to the ground, mind stumbling.

  Rolling over, he gazed up at the ceiling, seeing a ghostly shape out of the corner of his eye. A beak, two pale pink eyes, and a spread of wings. He blinked and then it was pale blue eyes behind cracked spectacles, hair in disarray around a doughy face. It seemed his story had already been written and no matter how many times he flipped back to the front page the ink remained the same. Janus was doomed to fail.

  He head lolled back onto the cool tile. Floating into his vision was a blurry object; a single white feather.

  *

  The address on the piece of paper Sandson had given her took Kilai some ways out of the centre of town, into a quieter district that looked less pristine than some of the more spectacular marvels in the central plaza. Here the buildings were grubbier, stains from flooding scarring the white stone a sombre grey. Terraces fed into one another like each home was trying to swallow its neighbour, some stacked atop one another in sloppy piles that looked ready to tip into the canal at any moment.

  As night began to beckon, lanterns were gradually being lit along the waterfront in the signature cyan shade of the city, illuminating the water with bright spots of colour. Some leftover paper lanterns from the Night of the Phoenix still dangled from the eaves of a steep overhang, burning a fiery red against the cool blues of an overcast dusk. The boat she had hired cut through the canal with the patter of water hitting the sides, intermingling with her soft puffs of breath from the exertion of rowing herself along. She hadn’t trusted anyone else to take her.

  The further she went the wider the waterways grew, some of the rows of houses connected by a network of piers, the wood damp and rotting but withstanding the lapping waves. It seemed a strange community, to live with the water upon one’s doorstep. The stench of it would certainly be enough to put her off but perhaps with a lifetime to accustom to it it no longer upset the nose. Even so, there was much to be said for land.

  Swatting the numerous flies that buzzed around her face was not her ideal way to spend an evening. Most windows appeared to be covered by thin gauzy netting to prevent them from entering, the same as the kind worn around coned hats of the few people she passed by, but Kilai had not thought to purchase one and was now suffering the ignorance. She slapped at her skin, wiping away a fly as big as her fingernail and sighed. How she missed the days of her luxurious lodgings in Nirket.

  In the faint glimmer of two iron pillared lanterns she saw the shimmering reflection of cyan light die and realised that she was approaching land once more, a small pier with a handful of boats reaching out to greet her back to solid ground. Knotting the boat to one of the lanterns, she swung up onto the pier and looked around. Tsellyr was a city built upon a collection of very small islands. The political centre was on what was considered the main island, the international hub from whence she had come, but here she found herself upon a smaller island inhabited by mostly natives, living amongst hot swampy waters of the Valbukk strait.

  The address she had been given was for a place somewhere out this way so she kept walking until she found herself in a small square, surrounded by rows of pillars that were held aloft by a great sloping roof to cast off heavy rainwater. As she walked towards the centre she caught her eye on a statue, gleaming under the pale blue light. It appeared to be a dragon, its long snaking body poised for battle, lips parted back to reveal fangs in mid-snarl.

  A plaque beneath read: Rill ja korshi. Rillan laishi. An old saying still sometimes used in greeting, it originated from the church of Illumination and warned of Var Kunir’s eternal dusk that must be fought by the wielder of light. The Zorashiran branch of the church had become so favourable of late that the saying had fallen back into common usage amongst those in the Myrlik Isles. To see it here, on the outskirts of Tsellyr, beneath what could only be a Shillan statue, only reminded her just how old it really was. It would have passed the lips of kings and queens, heroes and villains alike, and all other manner of figures in history.

  Curiosity had her lingering there until the first drop of rain hit her cheek. She glanced up at the roiling clouds above. More and more followed, cool splashes against the damp heat of her skin in such sweltering conditions. A sudden downpour started, rain crashing to the floor in sheets of water that drenched her in the time it took her to scamper to the shelter surrounding the small arena. Breathless, she braced herself on a pillar and watched through the heavy fall of rain as the stone floor began to glow in a pattern of a soft greenish-blue. She tilted her head, trying to work out what it was supposed to be but it was distorted by the rain. Pretty, she thought and then put it aside as a shiver raced through her, skin turned to gooseflesh.

  The map she had procured from Sandson’s assistant stuck to her wet hands as she pried it from her pocket, squinting at it in the low light. All around her the rain roared, pounding against the ground with a ferocity so violent the floor almost seemed to shake with it. Water dripped from her nose onto the page, staining the ink. With a laboured heave of breath, she crumpled it in her fist and shook her head. It should be nearby but she wasn’t keen on getting soaked so she would have to wait out the storm.

  Leaning against a pillar made of the same white and black stone as most of the buildings in the city seemed to be, she let her head fall back against it and watched the rain. There was something soothing about it, the way it rustled the leaves of the trees in the distance and rattled against the roof above, collecting in gutters and running in streams to the ground. The earthy scent of wet ground was refreshing, as was the release of the heat that had been building all day, making it feel like she could finally draw a proper breath.

  The peal of a bell caught her ear as the rain began to even out and she glanced to the corner where a spirit chime dangled, small bells and pieces of glass and metal jangling together in the wind. She wondered about the spirits all around, whether they were of a good nature or a bad one. Before she had always considered spirit chimes the primitive traditions of old folk but now, alone and much more experienced in their ways, she found a curl of anxiousness unfurl within her at the sound. Out here by herself, she was defenceless against them.

  A sharp breeze picked up from the sea, bringing with it the scent of brine. Shivering once more, she wrapped her arms around herself and took a tentative step out past the protection of the roof to test the strength of the rain. Now petered down to a drizzle, it was enough that she could walk comfortably past the plaza to the street beyond, lined with the same red leafed trees that grew throughout the city with their gnarled black tr
unks twisting into a wine coloured canopy. Above the sky had darkened to a deep, rippled blue with only the faintest splash of apricot on the horizon. Beneath her feet wet leaves floating in puddles of muddy water squelched, the sound overwhelmingly loud on such a quiet night. It unnerved her, how she had seen not a single person since reaching land.

  Perhaps they were hiding from the worst of the rainstorm, she reasoned to herself, but it seemed unlikely. Rain was no stranger to these islands, especially in the transitional time between the high season and low. The reaping season. The people here would be more than accustomed to the constant water; they had built their lives around it. But as she walked the rain-slick streets, more and more she felt like she was the only person in the world, doomed like the twilight walkers of tales old, trapped between planes and forced to traverse the world alone for all of eternity.

  Specks of colour flashed in the corner of her eye and Kilai paused, watching as a group of tiny riftspawn that resembled tropical fish drifted past her head, fins fanning out behind them in shades of red, orange and violet. Where they collided on their winding paths through the sky sparks of every colour shimmered in the air with a lagging trail of shimmering light, catching rainbows in the lamplight. As she gazed at them with open mouthed wonder, forgetting with all she had seen to be afraid of such tiny, beautiful creatures, it almost seemed as if they were aware of her attention, dancing around her face in playful, swooping circles. Without thinking, she reached out a finger and watched as one swam towards her through the sky.

  When it touched her skin it sent a jolt through her, a warm sparking sensation running through her hand like a vibration. For a few seconds the world opened up to her, shapes and sounds and smells she had never experienced before hitting her all at once so that she staggered back from the force of it. For a few seconds she thought she understood what Rook and Viktor felt when they described the world beyond this one, vivid pinks and greens sweet and sour on her tongue, and the bright heartbeat of a creature curious about this world. Flashes of what could only be memory formed in her mind, of things this creature had experienced in its lifetime.