by E G Radcliff
Áed let his eyes flutter closed and drew a deep, steadying breath for the sake of Ronan, who was innocent and afraid. He extended an arm out to the side and felt Ronan tentatively nestle into it. “I’m sorry,” Áed murmured, and Ronan leaned on him, trusting him.
“S’okay.”
“We’ll just…” He took another unsteady breath. “We’ll make a pyre instead.”
Ronan sounded afraid to speak, but his voice piped up anyway. Brave child. “Where will we get the wood?”
“From the building next door,” Áed replied, surprised to find the answer on his lips. “We’ll find a way.”
✽ ✽ ✽
After his outburst, Áed’s hands would scarcely move for him. He cursed them silently as he and Ronan ripped exposed wood like scabs from the abandoned tenement beside their own and dragged them outside. It was good to have something to work at, something to think about other than Ninian’s body lying on the floor of their flat.
So far, Ronan was being uncharacteristically quiet, but Áed knew the boy’s mind was swirling like his own. Áed could scarcely deal with his own thoughts, much less those of an intelligent, vulnerable child who relied on him almost entirely. Gods, too much. It was too much.
The light was ebbing from the sky, snagging on the bottoms of the mournful clouds, by the time they set the final beam into place. “Right,” Áed said quietly, knowing Ronan was listening. “It’s time for Ninian to join us.”
The trek up the sagging stairs seemed longer than usual, and the familiarity of the route grated against the sensation of something forever altered. Ninian’s body lay where they had left it, but Áed still had to stifle surprise at the sight: He’s still here? He never stays in one place so long. It sent a cold fist thumping into his stomach. Ninian’s body looked tranquil, and Áed slowly knelt beside it. Finally, he mustered the strength to brush Ninian’s eyelids down. Ninian’s face was relaxed in death, something it never had been in life. Now, finally, he hadn’t a care in the world. He was beautiful, with his straight nose (how had it survived so many fights intact?), his angular jaw, his high cheekbones, and full lips. He looked like a lord, like he ought to be seated on a throne someplace far away. He didn’t look like he should be cold on the floor of a dirty tenement flat.
Áed had thought he was done with tears. He was wrong.
He hooked his elbows under Ninian’s arms and bore the brunt of the weight as Ronan guided Ninian’s feet. Áed found himself drinking in every last detail of Ninian’s body, even ice-pale in death. This was the last time that he would see his love.
When they reached the pyre, Áed asked Ronan for some water and a cloth. There was one final gift Áed could give. When Ronan returned, Áed mopped the blood from Ninian’s flesh and worked the rag around his stiff fingers to cleanse the dirt and blood from his skin. He gently wiped Ninian’s face and brushed back his hair to remove any trace of his trauma, save for the dark bruise on his chest and the clean laceration below it. Áed worked mindlessly and regarded himself as if in a dream as he did his best to make Ninian look whole.
✽ ✽ ✽
Áed didn’t know how to light the pyre. Ronan had used all the matches the night before, back when Ninian had still been breathing, and Áed couldn’t light the pyre without them. How he’d missed this fact was beyond him; he didn’t think he’d forgotten, but some strange faith must have possessed him to believe that this part would resolve itself. The light faded from the sky while Ronan stood pike-straight and silent by Áed’s side, and together they regarded the unlit pyre, helpless.
The last thing that Áed had wished to do, a respectable farewell, was undone.
He leaned against the pyre and bowed his head in dismal apology. I’m sorry, Ninian, that I could not give you even this. The wood was so dry, so ready. And there was enough fury inside of him that it seemed that the warmth of his fingers would be enough to set it alight.
He struck one of the timbers as a tear tracked down his cheek, frustrated and despairing.
The pyre remained cold.
Áed stepped back dejectedly and put his arm around a shivering Ronan. The boy’s eyes shone with tears as he looked up at Áed.
A thread of smoke coiled over the ground toward their feet. Áed blinked and stepped forward, sure that he was seeing things, but then before his eyes, an ember flared to life at the base of the pyre. The miniature tongue of fire was no bigger than a candle flame, but to his astonishment it grew and licked hungrily at the wood. One tongue became two, became three, until he could feel its warmth on his skin. “What the…”
Ronan’s eyes danced with the firelight, full of astonishment. “How did you do that?”
“I—” Áed stopped himself from saying ‘I didn’t.’ Something in the statement felt wrong, as if he’d be lying. “I don’t know.”
“It’s a miracle.”
Áed agreed. The fire was gaining strength. It illuminated the brick-cobbled street and the crooked, ramshackle buildings with their sunken stoops and shattered windows, and Áed averted his eyes and stepped back as the fire spread. Flames began to curl around Ninian’s body, obscuring it behind a screen of luminous orange. There rose a faint, gut-turning whiff of burning flesh.
Before long, Áed put a hand on Ronan’s back and steered him back inside the tenement. There was nothing after this point that either of them should remember. Neither of them should watch. The fire would burn, burn away until the pyre was nothing but charred rubble and Ninian’s bones, and Áed didn’t want to see the black, sooty femurs and ribs and skull. Not of Ninian, so recently living, so recently speaking, joking, swearing and fighting, running, laughing, and caring. Áed’s empty stomach heaved, and he swallowed hard.
He had a decision to make. It had been in the back of his mind, he thought, since that morning, but the time had come to face it.
Quashing quickly-rising guilt, Áed began to move around the flat to gather up their meager possessions.
“What are you doing?” Ronan’s voice was small and exhausted.
Áed opened the cabinets methodically and spread the sparse contents on the table as Ronan watched. “Packing.”
“Are we leaving?” The boy didn’t sound like he was arguing, but he probably just lacked the energy to do so.
“Yes.”
“To go where?”
“Out,” Áed said. His voice felt heavy. “Out of here, that’s where. The White City.”
The smaller boy’s silence fell as heavily as a stone.
“Go on upstairs, Ronan. Go collect your things.” It pained him to do it, but the opportunity had come, and he would act. Ninian’s death had taken so much that Áed didn’t think the chasm in his chest would ever heal, but there was something else Ninian’s death had eliminated: “If we leave now, ceann beag, nobody will bother us.”
Ronan’s nickname, meant as a comfort, had little effect. “You mean his gang?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean.” The gang would come looking eventually. The gang was the reason they had not left before. “Go on.”
It felt almost like robbery, like stealing the child’s illusion of safety, but it had to be done. Áed could not save the Maze, but he could save Ronan. Slowly, aimlessly, Ronan moved upstairs, and Áed assembled his belongings into a burlap sack. They were few. A couple of cans, a shirt, gloves that were made more of patches than original fabric. A knife so dull that Áed hadn’t been able to sell it. A single coin. More importantly, he packed a comb that had been Ninian’s and the letter from Áed’s mother.
He paused before he placed the worn paper into the bag, staring at the rows of symbols he did not understand. Ninian’s lips had once demystified the words, but now…
Ronan returned, sadly bearing his own sack, and Áed released the letter to join the rest of his worldly goods before looking up. “Are you ready?” The boy hesitated, then gave an uncertain nod. “That’s my brave one,” Áed murmured, and Ronan took his hand. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER SIX
“Áed?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
The question was so blunt that Áed blinked. He ruffled Ronan’s hair the way he would have done before everything collapsed. “It’s going to be alright.” Alright. All right. It had never been, and never would be, all right. He shook his head to clear the haze, but he knew that his mind would stay murky nonetheless.
They’d left through the back of the tenement to avoid the still-burning pyre, and now they moved through the alleys like ghosts, untethered from the world. Grief made them weary and mindless, though Áed sensed emotion churning in himself beneath the surface. Anger and fear, both hot and bright, mounted deep inside him, but they, for the time, stayed buried beneath layers of ashy confusion.
It was properly nighttime as they neared the tightly-packed tangle of streets and glassless windows that gaped like empty eyes. This was the Inner Maze, and fear crept under grief’s curtain. Ronan squeezed Áed’s hand. “Áed,” he whispered hoarsely. “You told me never to come here.”
“I know,” Áed replied. “But we have to, okay, ceann beag? Don’t let go of me.”
The boy held Áed’s hand even tighter, and Áed said nothing of the ache it brought. If he thought it safer, he would have waited until morning, but he didn’t know when Ninian’s gang would come to check on their fighter. He’d be damned if they found Ninian dead and held the nearest parties responsible, he’d be damned if Ronan was there when that happened, and he’d be damned if they missed their only chance to get out. They approached every crossroad carefully, ears open for sounds of danger, and though the grimy route was empty, Áed held his breath. This was Morcant’s territory, and the very ground felt poisoned beneath his feet.
“Can you move any faster, Ronan?” Áed murmured gently. “I know you’re tired, but this is not a good place to be.”
Their feet carried them deeper into the rotting metropolis, where the buildings looked wicked in the dark and their tracks were thick with filth. Fallen shingles and human refuse spackled the gutters, and Ronan shivered at the smell of decay that hung heavy in the air. “Why did we have to come this way?”
“There is no other way.”
“I feel…” Ronan’s voice wavered. “I feel like there’s somebody watching us.”
A shiver ran over Áed’s skin, and he looked around. Any of the shadows could enshroud a body, and the buildings may as well be nests of hornets for the danger they could mask. “Where?”
“I don’t know.”
There were no torches in this unholy sector of the city, and no moon behind the clouds. There was no way to discern who lurked unseen. With a hand on Ronan’s back and another glance over his shoulder, Áed urged the child onward.
“Stop.”
Áed’s gut clenched, and he froze.
“Turn around.”
They obeyed haltingly, and from a doorway whose lintel was crooked with age appeared a figure, mirage-like. Another followed, and then one more. Together, their bulk turned the alley into a dead end.
“Do you know where you are?”
It was difficult to see, but Áed thought he recognized the silhouette in the center, the one who had not yet spoken. A spark of anger burned through the damp cloak of grief and fear. “Yes.”
The left silhouette clicked his teeth, and they glinted in the darkness. “Then you know that’s a problem.”
The central figure held up a hand, and his underling hushed as if his breath was stolen.
At the display of authority, any doubt steamed away.
In a growl, the word escaped Áed’s clenched teeth, and the world tipped as something, something hot and powerful, surged within him. “Morcant.”
✽ ✽ ✽
A scratching sound clawed its way from the darkness, and a miniature, tremulous flame burst into existence. The man who held the match was practically a giant, all well-fed muscle and sinew and bone, and the weak light shone dully against muddy-colored eyes. He lifted the match, illuminating the alley, and one of his eyebrows slid up. “Well. You know whose land you’re on.”
The feeling in Áed’s chest was furious and choking him, and he could barely speak. He’d thought, so briefly, of seeking Morcant himself—he wouldn’t have done it, but now that the murderer was there before him, all of Áed’s anger roiled just shy of the surface. “Do you even remember?”
Morcant stared at him for a moment. “Remember what?”
Ronan tugged on Áed’s sleeve, but Áed ignored him. “Two days ago,” he managed, biting the end off of each word. “The fight.”
The man seemed to think for a moment, and then his mouth twitched up like his eyebrow. “I do remember you.” He nodded to his men, and it seemed to Áed that the twisted smile spreading over his face was like that of the Dullahan’s leering, disconnected head. “You were there for that amadán with the reddish hair.”
Áed’s teeth came together nearly hard enough to crack, and the world went briefly dark as fury poured its heat to the very tips of his curled-under fingers. “Do you know,” he said in a low voice. “Do you know what you did?”
Morcant blinked. “I won.”
Áed could no longer feel Ronan’s tugging fingers on his sleeve. The alley narrowed until Morcant filled his vision.
“You killed him,” Áed said, and his voice was louder and not quite his own.
Morcant didn’t react for several beats, and in that time, anger clawed itself fully through the haze in Áed’s head. He was breathing quickly, he knew that, and his wrecked hands clenched and unclenched as the silence dragged on. “I’m not surprised,” Morcant said finally. “It was a good fight.”
The match went dark.
Smoke twirled into the alley.
And Áed launched himself forward.
He felt it happen as he moved, as the alley dropped into darkness and the entire world closed in: a click, like lock tumblers dropping into place inside his heart.
And then heat.
It surged out of him, out of his chest, his bones, and his hands, red-hot and stunning and bright enough to blind as he slammed into the man who had killed his love.
Energy roared through his blood in a high, keening song. Morcant’s eyes widened as he stumbled backward with a cry, and for a moment, Áed saw himself reflected in Morcant’s irises.
Unrecognizable.
Burning.
One of Morcant’s men reached for him, but Áed struck out and connected brutally with his head. Howling and with hair aflame, the man dropped to the ground with a sickening thud, and Áed scarcely noticed as the other crony turned and fled. His wrecked hands gripped onto Morcant’s neck, clawing at his throat and searing into his flesh. Morcant was his focus. Morcant had done this, had done this, had done this, and Áed wanted to hear him scream.
The giant man was burning, but it wasn’t enough. Morcant’s eyes were still light, and he still writhed as fire consumed his clothes. Áed was barely conscious of himself snarling, and his voice erupted from his throat in a shrieking, inhuman grate: “I had to burn him, you son of a bitch!” He lunged forward, forcing Morcant onto his back against the paving-stones. “I had to burn him! Do you understand!? Do you understand why you’re going to burn?” His hands were shining, were brilliant, were warping the air around them with heat, and Morcant tried to scramble back on his elbows. Áed was on top of him before he could move—fire billowed skyward with the force of the strike as he smashed the heel of his hand into the side of Morcant’s face. The man let out a scream that made the dirty windows ring, and savage pleasure ripped through Áed’s body.
Áed struck again and again, tears evaporating before they touched his face, and kept striking as the man beneath him ceased to be a man any longer.
Sounds began to reach his ears after a time, and the demon in his chest abated enough for him to hear a broken, cracking cry. “He’s dead! He’s dead!”
Áed stopped beating and slowly rose to his feet. He turned
around.
Ronan stood where Áed had left him. Tears poured down his face, dissipated in the heat, and left salt on his face. “He’s dead, Áed, he’s dead, you killed him, he’s dead.” The boy heaved, and swallowed hard. “Stop. Áed, he’s dead, stop, he’s dead…”
Áed frowned at Ronan, uncomprehending. “What?”
Ronan was as still as if he’d been paralyzed, save for the tears that kept coming. “He’s dead, Áed, you have to see that he’s dead. Please…”
Áed turned back to Morcant, who was strange in the firelight, coal-dark and caved-in.
“Áed, what are you…”
It was impossible to say if Ronan would have continued to ‘what are you doing?’ or left it simply at ‘what are you?’ because his voice trembled so much that he broke off with a gasp.
It wasn’t the darkness, nor the Inner Maze, nor Morcant that frightened him now.
It was Áed.
Áed blinked and looked down at his arms, his hands. His body seemed to shine with internal light, and great tongues of fire leapt from his fingers into the air. Spellbound, he raised his hands and watched the flames surge and rage with every beat of his heart.
“Please,” Ronan tried faintly. “Please, Áed. Stop.”
“Ronan,” Áed breathed. “What is this?”
“I—I don’t know. Please.”
Nodding slowly, Áed felt for the power rippling through him, and he found it as surely as his breath. With a moment of concentration, it faded, leaving bright spots on his vision, and he saw the flickering reflections ebb from Ronan’s eyes. All at once, he felt cold again.
Ronan fell to his knees and covered his face, and Áed looked back to Morcant.
Bile rose in his throat. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and stumbled backward one, two steps. “Oh…”
He’d killed a man.
He’d killed a man, but the man had deserved it, and that wasn’t the part that made him shake as he stared at what he’d done.
That fire, that force from within him that had poured forth so suddenly, warped his voice, and made his head spin with power, had felt so very, very natural.