by Sara Wolf
“Oh yes. Which is why we need to keep Lucien away. I’m just no good. But you knew that already, of course.”
Malachite lets out a sigh. “Zera—”
“So!” I clap my hands. “I’m going to need your help. We need to find someone decidedly less criminal and frequently less homicidal, and steer him toward her.”
The beneather looks me up and down, squinting like he’s not sure who I am. Finally, he nods. “All right.”
“Fantastic. Make sure he and I don’t meet in the halls. Make sure he stops staring at me during banquets. If he starts talking about me, change the subject to another girl. Better yet, take him out to meet other girls.” I beam at him. “If you do it well enough, I might even compensate you.”
He raises one brow. “With what? Y’shennria is gone. You have nothing. Not even the dress on your back is yours.”
you have nothing.
I laugh. “You used to love flattery, Mal. I’m sure I can scrounge up a blushingly good compliment or three somewhere.”
The clacking of horseshoes pulls my gaze to the palace steps, where Varia’s black carriage awaits. I move to the door when a cool hand grabs my wrist and I’m rooted in place. I look back to see Malachite’s pale fingers, his eyes fixed on me like two rain-dimmed garnets.
“Did you ever truly care for him?”
Yes. Of course, yes.
I shrug. “Not for him, particularly. Just for the heart in his chest.”
Malachite is quiet, and then, “Was all of you…was all of it fake? Everything?”
No, I want to say. I’m a sixteen-year-old girl, nineteen, really, but still just a girl. I trained with Y’shennria, not in a theater troupe. I’m not a noble, with a perfect mask learned from the moment I was born. The two weeks I spent with you, Malachite—and Lucien and Fione—the laughter, the anger, the joy; all of it was real.
I was me, even as I was trying my hardest not to be.
But no one needs to know that. Not Malachite, not Fione, and especially not Lucien—it would only make moving on that much harder.
I throw my coyest smile back at Malachite and nod. “Everything.”
His grip loosens, and I can feel his eyes watching me down the steps, into the carriage, as far as the last bit of road out of the palace grounds.
…
I turn Lucien’s dark-blue kerchief over in my hands as the carriage moves through the city—stroking the embroidered roses on the edges.
Feelings aren’t jewelry.
A heart like Lucien’s can’t be easily swayed or unswayed. I put the kerchief to my chest, pain winding tight silken strands between my ribs. Apparently unhearts aren’t easily unswayed, either. But I can’t, under any circumstance, make the same mistake twice. I couldn’t afford to make it even once, and yet here we are. He will not stop me again from getting my heart. No matter how badly that heart wants him.
What did Mother look like again? It’s on the tip of my consciousness, begging to come out.
I clench my fists. I can lock away my feelings. I can do better this time. I know I can. I can fake it until it becomes reality like Y’shennria taught me. I have to. I have to fight back against the whirlpool pull of Lucien’s face, his voice, and his scent, or I’ll ruin everything and let my heart slip through my grasp yet again.
I have to move on. I can’t cling. I can’t be deluded by some warm, comforting, hazy idea of love anymore. I have to force myself, with every aching breath, to forget my feelings for him. If that means ignoring them, if that means finding another girl to anchor him upon…
If that means forcing us apart at the seams so that we can never be together by any stretch of the imagination, then so be it.
It will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Harder than deceiving him. Harder than leaving Crav and Peligli. Harder than dying for the first time all over again. Even now, I can feel my own seams screaming to be put back in place.
But I will get my heart back. I will get Mother and Father and my humanity back.
Even if it means I have to tear myself apart.
My hand trembles as I extend it out the window, the kerchief clutched in it. Just a raise of my fingers, and it would slip away on the wind, lost to the cobblestones, the piles of horseshit, the dark corners of dark alleys or the dark pockets of some passerby. If I just drop it, I’ll be free.
But my fingers won’t move. I envision them opening, but the bones stay locked, cold and numb as I stare at them. I can’t. But I have to. I can’t. But I have to.
“Miss?”
I startle at the voice, looking up to see the carriage driver standing just in front of my extended arm, his eyes concerned. “We’ve arrived.”
Indeed, the bustle of South Gate echoes all around us, people staring at the girl with her arm straight out of her carriage. I curl my hand in, tucking the kerchief securely into my tunic. “W-Would you look at that. In record time. Thank you, good sir.”
I step out, avoiding the strangers’ glances, and make for the brass door in the wall. Yorl, Varia’s ochre-furred celeon associate, is surprisingly waiting for me outside it, wearing a polymath robe (still no tool belt, the poor thing) and a distinct expression of irritation. I watch his tail swish as I approach, the silver armor on the tip glinting in the sun. Varia essentially threatened him yesterday with his leverage—he wants to be a polymath. Yet he’s already wearing the robes of one. It takes the barest bit of psychoanalyzing to realize he believes himself far beyond worthy of being one; he just wants Varia to officiate it. He wants to be official in the eyes of the system, enough to do all this. But why?
Yorl’s green orbs narrow as I approach.
“Sleep well?” I tease.
“No,” he says, immediately turning in to the door and waving aside the guards with the muttered password, “The Laughing Daughter calls.” He says it like it means nothing, just business. “Out of the four gates, South Gate has the least traffic—the only thing south of Vetris is the Tollmount-Kilstead Mountains, and Helkyris beyond that. It’s a treacherous journey, so only the well-equipped trading caravans brave it. Which means the clank of heavily armored guards is hideous in the mornings.”
“Do you always give detailed explanations for free?” I chirp.
“Only to the people with persistent buffoonish looks attached to their faces.”
I wince as we walk along the brass-burnished innards of the wall, not out of pain, particularly, but out of surprise. I didn’t know someone with such an iron rod up his arse could fire back so well. He opens the door into the dark spiral staircase and starts down it without hesitation, his celeon eyes no doubt adjusting impeccably. I follow.
“And here I was, expecting you to be more brainy and less mouthy.” My voice echoes off unseeable stone walls.
“Your mistake.” He sniffs.
“Entirely,” I agree, and graciously flail my hands out in front of me. I catch his tail, and Yorl gives off a keening squawk ending in a snarl.
“Watch yourself!”
“Sorry!” I let go quickly and simper. “I just became so momentarily afraid of the dark!”
I hear a snort, and his paws start to click down the stairs again. I lag behind. It was so much easier going down these steps when Varia’s order commanded me to do so. I didn’t have to think or hesitate or readjust; my body simply did it all for me. The only benefit of being ordered, I suppose.
“A light would be nice,” I offer. “It’d keep me from tripping and potentially smashing my face in.”
“If you do, you’ll heal.” Yorl’s voice is emotionless. “There’s no need.”
I give a watery sniff. “You’re even more heartless than I am.”
He doesn’t answer that. We descend the stairs at as brisk a pace as my darkblind eyes can manage, the sonorous beat of the valkerax’s breathing against the stone the only sound.
The moment we hit level ground, Yorl calls out into the darkness. “Get the impalers wound and the archers primed on the wall walk. Teori, Jonall—prepare to open the gates. We’re sending the Heartless in at last.”
The clank of armor is unmistakable but lacking the cadence of metal boots. The soft padding of celeon paws echoes as what sounds like a dozen scatter to obey his orders. It’s strange—judging by his immature mane, he’s not very old, but everyone down here is treating him with vast seniority. The perks of knowing the crown princess on a first-name basis, I suppose.
“Heartless,” I hear him say and turn to me. “You—”
“I’m Elizera Y’shennria. Zera for short,” I interrupt. “But celeon usually call me a pain in the tail tuft.”
“We have no time for jokes,” he retorts. “And even less time for introductions. I am Yorl Farspear-Ashwalker. That is all you need to know. The valkerax is being heavily sedated and can remain awake for only less than a half per day. We must work quickly. Valkerax do very poorly aboveground. It’s already been three days—another twenty, and it will die.”
“I thought Varia said it would take a month.” I tilt my head.
“The longest I’ve managed to keep a valkerax alive above the Dark Below has been one month. But most don’t reach eighteen days.”
I start. “How many…how many times have you done this?”
“Several. None of them here in Vetris.” His answers are succinct and remind me exactly why I’m here. My heart. The bittersweet memory of it in my chest the other night rushes through me, heady and sudden. “When we’re in the valkerax’s chambers, I will give you a vial. You will drink the contents. It will allow you to speak to the valkerax for exactly a half at a time.”
“I thought they were mad, that nobody could understand their speech.”
“They are,” Yorl says coolly.
“So how—”
“It’s an Old Vetrisian recipe, an attempt at negotiating with the valkerax to stop their rampage. An attempt that failed. My grandfather had been working on making the recipe functional up until his death. I carried it to completion.”
“Your grandfather was a polymath, too?”
“You will drink the vial.” Yorl ignores me, very clearly and purposefully. “And speak to the valkerax.”
“A liquid that lets you talk to a creature not even the beneathers can understand,” I marvel. “That’s awfully handy. Why haven’t you passed it around to them yet?”
Yorl is suspiciously quiet, but I’ve no time to ponder it when we suddenly reach the bottom of the stairs. I hear shuffling and the clank of armor and faint, rough voices, and then Yorl’s clear call: “Open the gates.”
“Are you sure, sir? We could postpone; it hasn’t eaten fully yet.” Another voice echoes.
“Now,” Yorl demands. The clank of armor resounds again.
“Is it all celeon down here?” I ask.
“Do you know of any other races who can see in the dark and lift five times their own weight?” Yorl drawls.
“Uh,” I start. “The beneathers?”
He scoffs. “They aren’t as strong as celeon. If the valkerax escapes, we are the first line of defense.”
“R-Right.” I gnaw my lips. “On that note—it’s chained up, right? Like, at least one chain? Maybe Varia splurged and bought a thousand or so?”
I can’t see, but I swear I can hear Yorl rolling his eyes. The screech of metal as the gate lifts makes me jump, and Yorl pushes me forward into abyssal emptiness, the gate slamming shut behind me. The sonorous rhythm is blaring in my ears now. The valkerax is in here, breathing and alive, and I can’t see it at all.
A cold glass tube touches my palm, making me jump.
“Don’t drop it,” Yorl says, his voice still assertive but now shaking on the edges. It’s a small relief to hear even him worried.
“You came in here with me?” I snap. “Are you mad? You could die! You know, death? Big scary dark unknown lacking the joys of creature comforts?”
“Drink quickly,” he presses. “It’s already sensed our footfall and is coming this way.”
I’ve never drank anything faster in my life—my throat swallowing with all the frenzied urgency of a dying fish. I can’t see—there’s just darkness. If I die, it’ll be out of the blue. Or out of the black, in this case.
“Say something, damn it,” Yorl hisses. “It’s in front of you.”
Say something.
Say something to a valkerax who needs to learn to Weep, to a valkerax in unthinkable pain. It might be a giant wyrm and I might be a human, but if we’re both under magic’s sway, we’re the same thing wearing different shells.
if you are both Heartless, the hunger pinpricks my brain, you are both hungry.
I breathe deep.
“Hi there,” I chirp into the dark. “First order of business: please don’t eat me. Second order—”
There’s a thwump of the air, and then something impossibly heavy smashes against my side, and my nerves cry out as I spiral head over heels in the air. Something serrated catches me by the leg and shakes me back and forth, my right hip joint coming loose and leaving the rest of my body to fall. I hit the ground with a piercing jolt of pain and a sickening thud, and with my remaining limbs I manage to sit up through the pulsing agony of the majority of my bones being broken. It’s a miracle my spine can still hold me at all.
“O-Okay!” I hold my hand up. “Okay, you can have that leg! That’s fine. Hated it anyway. Goes great with a side of dungeon dirt, I bet.”
A low, clicking growl moves through the earth, so deep and strong it buzzes the pebbles on the ground around my rapidly healing body.
“Listen! I understand that you’re angry!” I wince as my leg starts to grow back, the bones pushing out and the flesh realigning. “But what if I told you I could make the voice go away?”
The growl goes silent all of a sudden, the pebbles going still. Can it really understand me?
“The voice—the one in your head that forces you to do things,” I insist. “I can teach you to make it go away.”
There’s a dense moment of breathing—the valkerax’s heaviness and my own shallow panic. Nothing moves. Or if it does, I can’t see it.
I don’t know where in the afterlife Yorl the madman is, but it better be somewhere outside this godsdamn chamber. There’s a keening cry, the sound of an animal being tortured, and the ground shakes beneath me as the valkerax thrashes. I brace myself for it to attack me again, rip me apart, but the thrashing quiets eventually.
“The voice—” A voice like a furious ocean rumbles through the darkness, so loud and achingly old—like an ancient wood door creaking open and closed—that it drowns out my every thought, my every other sense. “The angry voice, the night voice, the eternal voice. The voice like a song never goes. Never flies away. Want to fly away, but it’s always laughing, deep inside. Spiders in an egg waiting to hatch.”
The words are near nonsense, but my breath catches. “You—you can understand me?”
The growl crescendos, and I hold up my arms like they’ll do any good against its thousands of fangs. Its serrated maw still haunts me most. I’m willing to bet dying in there would achieve at least number five on my most painful deaths list.
“I swear, I can teach you how to make that voice be quiet!” I shout.
There’s that oppressive breathing silence, and then, “For…” The valkerax sucks in heavy, sharp air, like it’s been stabbed. “Forever? Forever like the earth-home? Forever like the moons in our dreams?”
“Not forever.” I gulp. “It’s only for a while. But it’s quiet. I know a way to make the voice get so quiet, it’s like it’s not even there.”
Another long pause. Then that creaking growl echoes again, this time up against my ear, a hot gust of putrid air blasting into my face. It ha
s its mouth open right in front of me. The valkerax rumbles, heavy whumps resounding like a giant dog thrashing its tail.
“Above-prison-prison. Above stone, still stone. Warm blood inside metal keeps us here to listen.” The valkerax’s teeth and massive jaw snap together abruptly, throwing brutal echoes into my eardrums. It gives a shuddering quiver-hiss as it breathes in and opens its mouth again, the breath wafting over me. “The song makes great pain. The song will rip us apart. Sing about it to the others. Darkness is the end, darkness to swim-fly within. The little cliffs scratched into shape and stone by mortal fingers,” it thunders. “They keep us here, too. Why?”
Little cliffs? What does it mean? Oh! The runes? The beneather runes—I guess they would look like cliffs in the stone to something very, very small. The valkerax’s logic is baffling, considering it’s not small at all, but it makes a twisted sense.
“To, uh, to teach you.” I try to stand, my new leg wobbling. “The person who caught you wants me to teach you how to make the voice go away. It’s called Weeping. And once you learn Weeping…they’re going to ask you questions.”
The valkerax makes that keening tortured sound again, wheezing after it. “Pain is the question and going is the answer.”
Going. As in, leaving? Of course the valkerax wants to leave this place where it’s being held against its will.
“Is going possible?” it presses, the hot air overwhelming and constant, its mouth even closer now as it thrashes its tail and makes the whole arena shake.
“I don’t know,” I admit, steadying myself and gulping down the urge to run. “All I know is that I can teach you how to Weep.”
The hot air reverses all of a sudden, the sound of inhaling, my clothes flapping as the violent breeze pulls me in like I’m an ant, a bug, something easily moved. I dig my heels into the ground and fight it, but it stops abruptly, and I crash into the dirt. I swivel my head around, trying to get a bearing of which direction it’s in, when six points of light slice the darkness and freeze me in my tracks. Six ovals—each taller and wider than me—two symmetrical columns of three stacked on top of each other and glowing white.