by Iris Walker
It was Clay.
He was there, his shirt torn, barking orders at the other wolves and strongbloods. Blood and sweat streamed down his face, and in his right hand, he gripped a weapon. It wasn’t until Megan looked closer that she realized it was the same battle axe that Fausta had forced her to use on his hand. Her eyes drifted to that crude, malformed stump and guilt pierced her in a swift stab. She wanted to call out to him, to bring him with them. But he wasn’t the Clay that Megan had known before the siege. The Clay she’d met had been light-hearted, carefree. His mahogany eyes now betrayed the true weight of all he’d been through. The weight of her betrayal, of Fausta’s treachery. And as Megan glimpsed rough scars, digging rivulets into his back, a wave of nausea rose up inside of her.
Another man came into view, saying something to Clay and pointing to the hall, diverting a number of wolves down that direction. He wore a worn leather tunic and pants, wielding a spear with a curved blade at the top. His expression was fierce, his deep purple eyes blazing as more vampires entered the grand hall, only to be ripped apart by the wolves standing by. He had deep black hair that came down to his shoulders, and broad features. Something about him was familiar to her, and as she heard him bark out another order, she realized it. Mr. Shadow-Man, from the prison. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew it was him from the voice, the way he commanded.
“Who is he?” Megan whispered.
Duncan peered through the sliver, his face distraught. “Kenzo Draxos is someone who has much cause to hate vampires,” he said, pulling her along. “And someone I’d rather not face. He boasts a list of war achievements that spans pages in the record books.”
Megan cast a single glance back as Clay and the other man left her view and they plunged further into the dark passageway.
Robin
It was early morning now, a cold, pale light cutting in beams through the jagged remains of the roof. The rest of the army had been pulled to the field for a celebration, a party the likes of which she’d never seen. Ezra had dragged Reykon and his new vampire buddies to tell stories, to share perspectives, but Robin had broken off from the group. They’d won, that much she knew, but she couldn’t bring herself to rejoice. Sorrow and regret wrapped their claws around Robin’s chest, squeezing at the sight of the stunning castle, reduced to ash and dust, a hollow, soiled shell of its former glory. Her steps crunched over broken glass and crumbling debris as she made her way through the main area, the yawning space that she’d gasped at so many weeks ago when Darian had brought them here. She tilted her chin up now, gazing at the twilight dawn, ash fluttering down against her cheeks. An eternity passed by as she regarded the aftermath of the carnage, reveling in the peace after so much trauma, so much death, and so much destruction. When she brought her head down, she found herself looking at a lone figure, exactly as somber as she was. “Shouldn’t you be celebrating?” she asked him, quirking her eyebrow.
“Shouldn’t you?” Darian returned.
“I was looking for Lucidia at first, but then I just got caught… thinking,” she admitted. “Do you know where she is?”
Another sad look crossed Darian’s eyes. “Lucidia has left, with the vampire Zane.”
“Oh,” Robin said, her eyebrows pulling together. “When is she…?”
A single glance confirmed that Lucidia wasn’t coming back. Robin nodded and decided to change the subject. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded deeply. “As am I.”
After a small silence, Robin looked away. “I heard about what you did, with Fausta. Congratulations.”
Darian was silent, pensive as his eyes settled on the rubble before him. “Thank you, Robin. But we could not have triumphed without the assistance of all who fought,” he said, letting a small smile form on his face. “It is I who should be thanking you.”
She quirked her head to the side. Something was off about him, something bothering him deeply. The war? The loss? Or any combination therein. “You don’t have to do that, you know.”
His eyebrows drew together in a puzzled expression.
“I’m not one of your subjects,” Robin said with a slight smile. “You don’t have to put on a strong face for me.”
Amusement danced across Darian’s eyes as he laughed softly and crossed the hall, standing next to her and gazing up at the sky as she had. For a moment, they were silent, and then he spoke. “Do you remember the first conversation that we had?”
Against all odds, Robin laughed. “You mean when I woke up in your creepy winter fortress and you busted in to intimidate me? Yes. It’s not something I’ll ever forget.”
She cast a glance over and found him to be smiling as well. “I expected so much more out of that conversation.”
“Ouch,” she joked.
“No, it wasn’t an insult,” he said lightly. “When I walked in there, all ‘guns blazing’ as you might say, I expected to meet the grand weapon that destroyed an entire Demonte House. I expected to find an assassin, hardened by hate, diametrically opposed to reason or peace. Yet when we started speaking, I realized that you were, in fact, just a human girl, and that we were both in the dark about the whole thing. It was much more difficult to proceed after that conversation.”
“How so?”
“It’s easy to make the right choice when your opponent is intent on destruction. It’s much more difficult when the lines are blurred. I wrestled with the decision to allow you to live while you were asleep, assuming that you’d wake and show the world exactly how dangerous and destructive you truly were. But after that first conversation, I was no surer than I’d been when you’d arrived. You gave me much grief, I will say.”
Robin gave a crooked grin at this.
“At the end of that conversation,” Darian hummed. “I told you that you were very insightful.”
“Oh, I remember that,” she scoffed. “I remember you saying that I was insightful for one raised in the human world. Kind of a backhanded compliment,” she grinned.
Darian’s smile ticked up. “At the time, I meant it as an insult, but now, I wonder if it was what we needed.”
“What do you mean?”
“We live our lives in fear of the human world, constantly. It is not a nice place to those who are different, to those who are deemed monsters because of myth and religion and fear. But humans are just as scary to us as we may be to them, and meeting you has given me hope that maybe, we have been a little too removed.”
Robin shrugged. “There are good humans and there are bad humans, just like there was Fausta, and there’s you.”
“Generous of you to put me on that side of the analogy,” he murmured.
Robin caught his gaze, scowling at him. “I don’t think so.”
Darian nodded deeply.
Robin studied him for a moment longer before letting out a small laugh. “You know what you need?”
“What?”
“You need a vacation, Darian.”
“A vacation?” he scoffed.
“Yeah,” she said, shooting him an earnest look. “When was the last time you took a vacation?”
“Vampires are not accustomed to taking such frivolities.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Robin countered. “You’ve got a serious case of burnout, and you look exhausted. You need to drop everything and go somewhere fun. Let loose, relax for a couple of weeks.”
“A couple of weeks to me is an instant,” he murmured.
“Then take a couple of months,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But Jesus, dude, you need it.”
“Where would I go on such a trip?”
“Wherever you want - that’s the whole point.”
“I will take it under advisement,” he said with a smile. “I had not even considered it, to be honest.”
“That’s the problem here. You’re all so serious.”
“But you must give credit where credit is due. Our parties are better, are they not?”
Robin laughed. “Yeah, you’ve got that. Your parties are be
tter, but your dancing is a little outdated.”
He smiled at this, and a silence sunk between them, eerie and thick against their desolate surroundings. A few moments later, Robin broke it. “Can I show you something?” she said softly.
A small smile formed on his face, and he nodded. “Of course.”
They walked down the crumbling remains of the long hallway, stepping over rubble and debris, stepping over the fallen curtains and ruined tapestries, and Robin couldn’t help but feel another wave of sadness. They turned the corner into another stone passageway, one that Robin had grown familiar with during their time at House Albus. She’d taken a hundred pictures of the afternoon sunlight cutting through the ivy and splashing onto the deep grey cobblestones. Now, sections of the roof had fallen in, rebellious vines drooping down from the sky like shredded wires. The morning had returned now, shrouded in a dark grey overcast. She stepped around another pile of rubble and walked on the familiar path, through House Albus’s garden. Earlier, when she’d roamed the castle and seen the extent of the destruction, she’d spent a great deal of time in the nearly untouched garden. Somehow, by some miracle, hardly a blade of grass had been trampled. She walked over to the large apple tree, and picked up her backpack, laying in the exact spot she’d left it in, as she unzipped it and pulled out her camera. Once she’d found the picture, she brought it over to Darian, admiring it for a moment longer before showing him. A beautiful sparrow stood on the precipice of a crumbling rock, admiring a fallen tapestry. The broken stained glass splashed the scene in rich colors, like Christmas lights overlaying everything.
“I saw it earlier,” she murmured. “I was at the party for all of five minutes before I came back to the castle. It was such a beautiful building, you know, the most beautiful one I’d ever seen, and then it was… well, dust. So I got my camera out, and I started taking pictures, just wandering around until I came here. Right over there,” she said, pointing to the section of wall they’d just come from, “I saw the bird. She was taking from that tapestry, plucking threads and yanking it apart. For a second, I wanted to shoo her, you know, but the thing was already burned in parts, so it didn’t matter. I took this picture, and then I followed her.” Robin’s head tilted up, and she looked through the branches of the apple tree, straight to the top, where she could just make out a bundle of sticks and twigs, threaded with ribbons and cloth and other things left behind from the attack. It was a work of art in and of itself, a tapestry of lost and broken things, pulled together for a new purpose; for a new life.
“You have an excellent eye for this,” he murmured, pulling his gaze from the camera and looking up at the nest.
“Thank you,” she said softly. They listened to the chirping, Robin picking out at least four distinct birds, all wriggled into that bundle of threads and twigs.
“No,” Darian said with a small smile. “Thank you, Robin Wright.”
The celebration continued for the entire day, moving from the field to the remains of the great hall. Robin reconnected with Reykon in the early afternoon and had even joined in on some of the festivities. It wasn’t until the evening that Ezra found them, pulling both of them away from the celebration that had just started winding down.
“It’s time,” he said softly, leading them down a hallway.
Robin interlaced her fingers with Reykon’s, squeezing his hand reassuringly. He’d been partying, celebrating with his newfound war-time friends, so hard that he looked like he was still drunk. She’d never really seen this side of him and found herself enthralled by it. He was, after all, the entire reason they’d won the war, just like Cassandra had predicted. They walked until Robin recognized where they were; the garage. Half of it was crushed with rubble, but thankfully the half that wasn’t contained the exit and a number of vehicles. Robin and Reykon approached, walking with Ezra until she saw Harley and Darian standing under a pool of fluorescent light, next to a prepped vehicle. Reykon straightened up, reverting back to his normal soldier-self. As they stepped forward, Darian turned to them, and a hush fell over the garage. “Reykon, Robin. I am sorry I cannot offer you the recognition you deserve.”
Robin gave him a small smile. “We’ll trade freedom for recognition any day.”
Reykon nodded, stepping to Ezra and shaking his hand. “You fight very honorably, Thraxos. I am glad to have had the chance to serve by your side.”
“You as well, Abernathy,” Reykon grinned.
Robin hugged Ezra, and then nearly fell over as Harley slammed into her.
“I’ll miss you, killer,” Harley said with a crooked grin.
“Yeah, yeah,” Robin said. “Hold down the fort, okay?”
“Do my best,” Harley said, her emerald eyes flashing.
“Where’s Chadwick?” Reykon asked.
The caster stepped into the room, walking towards them. “I’m staying, actually.”
Robin frowned, looking at Chadwick with a puzzled expression. “What? Why?”
“I’m still on the run from pretty much all of the guild dogs, and they wouldn’t dare touch me if I’m around him,” he said, crooking a thumb to Darian. “I’ve thought it over, and I think that this is the place where I can do the most good. We’ll be moving to Pennsylvania soon, and that’ll take a lot of muscle, so I’m sticking around. For now, anyway.”
Reykon nodded, giving Chadwick a small smile. “Take care, buddy. And thanks for everything.”
“Thank me? Thank you, Thraxos. Oh, the stories I’ll be able to tell,” he grinned, giving Robin a hug.
“Call us, okay?” she said, shooting him a look.
“Absolutely,” the caster replied. “We’ll see each other soon enough, I’m sure. The war on Xerxes is still to come.”
“Don’t remind me,” Robin muttered.
“We’ll be in a good place for it,” he said with a warm smile.
As they neared the car, they arrived face to face with Darian, who handed them each a duffel bag. “It is not much, but it will allow you to begin a new life in the human world.”
Robin glanced down, seeing a few weapons, some legal documents, and stacks upon stacks upon stacks of cash. Her eyes widened, snapping up to Darian. “How… how much money is this?” she balked.
He leaned over, peering into the bag. “I don’t really know. But if you need more, reach out, and we will prepare it for you.”
“More?” she croaked. “More than this?”
Reykon grinned and bumped her in the shoulder. “Welcome to the big leagues,” he joked.
“I’ll say,” Robin muttered, still amazed by the massive sum. They both got in the car, Reykon in the driver’s seat, and Robin in the passenger’s as Reykon gunned the engine to life. Robin rolled down the window and peered back to the others. She let her crystal blue eyes fall on Darian’s, and she gave him a solemn nod. “Thank you, Darian,” she said earnestly. He returned the gesture, and Reykon pulled out of the garage. After navigating through road blocks and rubble collected on the main road, they finally made it to one of the decoy houses, the subtle path to the driveway opening up to a strangely mundane road in the countryside of Missouri. Across the other side of the road was a farm house with a faded Elect Laurel Jones sign in the front yard and a couple cars parked haphazardly in the driveway. Just like that, they’d returned to the human world.
The whole experience boggled Robin’s mind.
“Left or right?” Reykon asked, one hand on the wheel and the other on her leg.
She shrugged. “Which way to Seattle?”
“Technically right, but there’s an adorable bed and breakfast to the left.”
“Then left, definitely,” she grinned.
They peeled out, zooming down the secluded road, barely seeing a car as the miles ticked up.
“Hey Reykon?” she asked, turning the radio down a bit.
“Hmm?”
“Are you getting major déjà vu right now?”
Reykon quirked an eyebrow, giving her one of his crooked grins, sen
ding electricity running through her. “Now that you mention it, yeah.”
“You think…?” she started, trailing off. “Never mind.”
He squeezed her leg. “What?”
She gave him a crooked grin. “Do you think we can go through Utah again? Just for old times’ sake?”
Reykon rolled his eyes, his dashing smile widening, as he pressed on the gas pedal and they passed another mile marker.
Epilogue
Megan
Since Megan and Todd were the only ones that could operate a vehicle, they’d been put in charge of driving. And since Todd hadn’t driven a vehicle in over five years, he’d abdicated his opportunity to her. The whole thing was surreal. Here she was, checking her side mirrors through the icy rain, using her turn signal and going two over the speed limit; enough to not draw attention for going too slow, and not enough to risk a ticket. This was her freedom, but even behind the wheel, with the open road in front of her and red brake lights for company, she found that the same enjoyment she’d gleaned from it just a few months prior had turned to ash. Her heart wouldn’t calm; her pulse still pounding between her temples. She’s in Missouri. She’s dead. She can’t hurt you anymore. They’d pulled over at a rest stop about thirty miles back, and Duncan had switched with Todd, giving them a backseat full of useless, sleeping humans. Duncan himself was agitated, Megan could tell, but she figured it was because he was afraid of the big, bad human world. Every honk, every car she passed, he was glued to the seat like a felon. “What’s your problem?” Megan muttered.
“It has been a very long time since I’ve ventured this far from a stronghold…”
“Well, calm down. Humans don’t bite.”
“A joke,” he scoffed, shaking his head. “At least you’ve kept a sense of humor through all of this.”
“All of what?”
“This…” he started, gesturing to the air. “This utter chaos.”
Megan gave a sharp laugh. “All I know is chaos. Three years ago, my entire family was assassinated and Clay brought me back to his pack, where they took me in as a refugee. I’ve lied about who I am since. Then, we finally got sent on a mission to help out an old friend, and I get sacked by Darian Xander. I spend a month in prison, and then the whole place gets overtaken by Fausta. And then… well, you’re aware,” she trailed off, changing lanes and getting around a semi. After a moment of tense silence, she pushed the hair out of her face. “What’s the turn off again?”