by Sara Wolf
The guard takes the eye from the boy gingerly and grimly asks a quiet question of him. The boy’s answer is one word, louder than the guard, his voice cracking and hoarse.
“Witch.”
The crowd suddenly unravels, people touching their eyelids and invoking Kavar’s name, others turning green around the edges, and more than a few staggering back.
“Witches? Did witches kill them?”
“They left just last night. This can’t be happening!”
“The roads are supposed to be heavily guarded!”
“The war, oh New God, the war has truly come.”
My throat bobs. No. Lady Tarroux…I just talked to her yesterday. Hours ago. The crowd is so busy fearing for themselves that they leave a space between them just large enough for me to muscle through. I approach the boy as the guard tries to reassure everyone, maintain the peace.
“Please calm yourselves! We have no information—”
“How much more do you need?” someone in the crowd shouts back. “Look at his clothes! Look at the eye!”
My own eyes rivet to Kavar’s eye in the guard’s hand, the gold plating dented, scratched deeply and violently. Gold is a soft metal—it doesn’t take much to batter it, but the sheer jagged pattern of the scratches is familiar. I’ve seen these scratches before, but on flesh. Too small to be wildcat. Too big to be wolf.
Heartless claw marks.
The boy’s ashen face stares up at me, and now closer, I can finally discern on his jaw the fine spray of blood. Not his own. Someone else’s. Someone whom he was standing very close to when their arteries were cut open. My unheart twists for someone so young going through something so traumatic. But worry burns across my lips.
“All of them?” I ask, my voice cracking. The stableboy’s green eyes fog up, but having the eye taken from him seems to have jostled some of his shock loose in him. He’s quiet, but then, slowly and with great effort, he swallows and nods.
My ears ring with my thoughts as I walk woodenly away from the boy, from the hysterical crowd.
All of them. Lady Ania Tarroux. She’s dead.
We just spoke in the same spot I’m standing in right now as I flag down the carriage to South Gate. I watched her drive off, her milk-blond hair glimmering away into a mote of nothingness. I saw her blush when I brought up Lucien. Her hand was warm beneath mine.
Nothing about this moment feels real. The heat of the sun, the scent of the fresh grass—it all mutes to a dull nothingness.
I told her the war would be over. I told her she would come back soon and marry a prince. She was kind. She was pure.
But death cares for neither.
My carriage passes the Temple of Kavar, the large metal eye symbol atop the tallest spire painting my face in shadow.
This mindless war between witches and humans—fought for their gods, for their beliefs, for their differences—has killed her. The hate that began with the Glass Tree—the splinter inside my heart bag splintered more than just my own life. It has splintered Cavanos, wedged deep beneath and between it, for a thousand years.
Religion has killed her.
And still, she loved it.
I bend my head and put my fingers to my eyes as she showed me. I pray as she showed me, that day outside Lucien’s room, the two of us lit by the sun shafting through the windows, smiling at each other over a platter of bread and fruit.
“May his eyes watch you, always.”
I’m thankful to be back in the pitch-dark arena with Evlorasin. Thankful to turn my attention to something other than the numb despair of death. I am thankful to see the valkerax—hear it, really—alive and breathing normally again. I can’t see the rupture in the arena wall, but if the smell of sawdust and fresh metal is any indication, Yorl’s crew has patched it up admirably.
“The beneather runes on the wall have been redone, too,” Yorl explains.
“So fast? Godsdamn,” I marvel. “How do you get everything done so quickly?”
“Varia’s pouring all the kingdom’s resources into this lab.” He frowns. “We are capable of hiring anyone and procuring almost anything.”
“Except, you know, a teacher for it to Weep.” I puff out my chest.
“Yes,” Yorl drawls. “You are certainly the rarest imported resource here.”
He hands me the white mercury sword, the distinct handle nudging my fingers, and I take it slowly. “I don’t think Evlorasin’s ready for this,” I admit. “Especially not after its escape.”
“Varia’s orders,” Yorl says simply. “We must cut it today.”
“But—” I start. “It’s really weak right now, isn’t it? It’s injured—Malachite was railing on its spine with his whole broadsword. It needs to be as healthy as—”
“Its health is only going to decline,” Yorl insists. “I made that clear.”
“Can’t we wait?” I blurt. “Just give it another day or two to heal, and for us to practice the silence together… I promise that’ll be better than forcing it to—”
“I know,” he admits, a softer edge to his voice. “I, too, would like you and the valkerax to be fully prepared. But the orders are clear. Progress must be made. And quickly. Our time is running far shorter, far faster than anticipated.”
I breathe out, anxiousness vibrating my hands. “Is this because of Lucien? Is Varia really that afraid of him? He doesn’t know much—”
I freeze, my words crystallizing in their tracks as I remember yesterday. He knows about Weeping. And I’m convinced that shadow listening to Gavik and me was him. He knows much more than I ever thought possible.
“Come,” Yorl demands. “We have no time to spare thinking.”
I grumble. “Never thought I’d hear that from you, Master Polymath.”
“I seem to have acquired your curious habit,” Yorl admits. “Of leaping first and pondering later. Not the best stratagem, but you’ve shown me it can be effective at times.”
I scoff, my anxiousness lessened barely by a grain of pride.
Evlorasin is wide awake when Yorl and I step into the arena, tail thrashing so violently I feel a little stone shaken from the ceiling plink off my skull.
“Starving Wolf,” it says, voice somehow hoarser than before. Weaker. It’s under a caravan-load of painkiller concoctions but still suffering from its injuries, though Yorl insisted he patched those up.
“Good morning, Ev,” I wave, perhaps in the wrong direction. “Feeling any better?”
The valkerax pauses, then, “Ev?”
“Yeah. I’ve decided to give you a nickname.”
“Nicking-name?” I hear the confused thrashing of its tail again, feel the air displaced by it decimate my hairstyle I worked so hard on this morning.
“It’s a shorter name you give someone you like. Someone who’s close to you. And considering I’ve seen down your throat in perfect detail, I’d say we’re pretty close at this point.”
“We are a river of regret after the rains,” it admits. “Overflowing. We are sorry for the death of many. We had to run.”
I feel massive heat close to me and reach out blindly, my hand coming to rest on Evlorasin’s haunch.
“I know. Sometimes I feel like running, too.” I pull Varia’s white mercury sword from my hip. I run my knuckles over the delicately woven basket handle. “But it’s almost over. Today, we’re going to cut you with the white mercury I talked about.”
“The blade of metal to the throat of the song! We have waited eternally long!” Evlorasin’s voice sounds eager, and suddenly it can barely sit still, curling around me in multiple loops. I laugh—it’s almost cute. But my joy is short as I remember exactly how it rampaged in the tunnel, mouth open and ready to devour what felt like the whole world.
Evlorasin is already unstable enough as it is—the wounds Yorl has made in it, the wounds Malachit
e and I made on it, and its waning strength with every day it’s away from the Dark Below—all of Evlorasin is held together by Yorl’s concoctions and the parts he’s stripped from the valkerax and thrown into the Dark Below to lessen its madness. If we weaken the Bone Tree’s hold on the valkerax further, there’s no telling what will happen, how desperate and dire things could become. It could run away faster and more furious than before, and I’d be left with nothing. Varia’s pushing us too hard, too suddenly.
It’s a risk. A risk for my heart.
“Listen, Ev,” I start. “You have to remember what I showed you—”
“The silence. It is vital,” Evlorasin interjects. “The song will crescendo from the very peaks of the mountains inside us, and we must echo it in perfect stillness. There is stone, and we also must be stone. This story is understood.”
I nod, shifting to hold the white mercury blade at an angle away from me. A weighty mass pushes against my body abruptly—the softness of fur and smoothness of scales alike. I feel around—it’s Evlorasin’s chest, rising and falling rapidly with its excited breathing.
“The song will not beg of us anymore,” it says. “We will fly above the darkness as we have not for many moons. We will spread our pride in the blue sky-home.”
I can hear its enormous claws click as it tramples dirt in place with uncontained anticipation.
“We will fly,” it says. “Below the sun and moons. We will feel the blowing whispers, and we will know the color of light again.”
I smooth my hand up its neck, feeling the blood thrumming beneath the thinner scales of its throat. Evlorasin’s rank breath washes over me as its velvet nose nudges my elbow.
“Our ears tire of the singing. We cannot wait any longer. A cut is required.”
“You have to be silent!” I chide. “Remember? If you get too wrapped up in your emotions, it’ll all come tumbling down.”
It happened to me in the clearing so many months ago—the moment I dwelled on Lucien’s terrified face, on what I’d done instead of what I had to do, I fell to pieces.
“To Weep is to control,” Evlorasin says. “Excitement is not control.”
“Exactly.”
Suddenly, the gate screeches open. I start—only Yorl and I are allowed in here, and the guards are all petrified of the valkerax. So who in their right mind would brave coming in?
A spot of light blooms against the darkness, a pale purple glow clutched in a robed hand. The moss above the wall I wake up near every time—that’s the same cluster. The light reveals a tall person in a robe. They hold up the moss, advancing into the darkness and toward the valkerax and me without hesitation.
“Who are—”
“Varia,” I hear Yorl say shakily. “You didn’t inform me you were coming.”
“I am not beholden to inform you of everything, Yorl, just most things.” Varia’s voice echoes calmly around the arena. The crown princess stops right in front of the valkerax, not an inch of fear in her regal posture. The great white wyrm winces back at the hazy glow of the moss.
It’s the first time I’ve seen the valkerax still and lit up—the mosslight flickering over its gigantic wolflike head brightest and getting dimmer at the serpentine neck traced by its thick white mane. Evlorasin’s two seemingly infinite whiskers undulate like gentle rivers, its fangs serrated and nipping over its lips. Its scales are battle-hardened, scarred and dented with a thousand years—more?—worth of living. With the mosslight, I can even see thick white eyelashes, like a deer’s, around its five pale-moon eyes, it’s injured sixth socket scabbed and scarred.
Varia looks to me, the darkness in her hood making her expression unreadable. “You will translate the following for me, Zera.”
I start, clearing my throat. “A-All right.”
The crown princess of Cavanos looks back to the valkerax and begins, my mouth moving a beat after hers.
“Evlorasin,” Varia says. “I am the Laughing Daughter.”
“Yes.” Evlorasin sways its head. “We know this.”
I repeat its words, my own voice feeling somehow small all of a sudden.
“I have done this thing,” Varia says, gesturing around at the arena. “I have orchestrated all of this to free you.”
I see Evlorasin curl its lips over its teeth, but it says nothing.
“You will Weep,” Varia continues. “And you will tell me where the Bone Tree is.”
“The Tree of Bone,” Evlorasin hisses. “Great branches singing in many places at once. The roots of all evil. The beginning of the end for the Old Vetrisians.”
The beginning of the end. I know what it means by that now.
“Yes,” Varia says, impatience creeping ever so slightly into her voice. “When the song is dull, you will tell me where it’s coming from. I will have the Tree.”
For the first time ever, I hear Evlorasin burst out in response. It’s a burst, to be sure—forceful rancid air blasting out from its maw, its lips curled back and showing all of its multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth. Its tongue lolls out of its mouth, long and forked, and it makes a panting motion. Laughter.
“The Laughing Daughter knows not what she wants.”
“That is no concern of yours!” Varia snarls the moment I translate the sentence. “I know what it means. I know what it will take. And I am willing.”
“The other chimes were just as willing.” Evlorasin laughs, drool forming a puddle on the floor from its tongue. “They let out such sweet noises before they slept their last.”
“It is not your place to determine what I am capable of, beast.” Varia’s voice goes quiet again, every inch backed by steel. “You will tell me where the Bone Tree is, or you will not be cut today. And you will never Weep. You will give me a blood promise—”
“The Laughing Daughter invokes ways that are long lost to the darkness.” Evlorasin closes its mouth finally, clicking its claws as it circles Varia menacingly with its titanic bulk. “We are the ones who laugh at her.”
Evlorasin stops circling her and comes to curl itself around and behind me, putting its head on its paws just at my feet, its five eyes lazily blinking at Varia as it settles in like a hound before a winter’s fire.
“You are Starving and she is Laughing,” Evlorasin says to me. “Why do you help her seek the Tree?”
Shame burns hot at my gills, and I keep my eyes away from Varia’s as I say, “She’s promised me my heart.”
Evlorasin is quiet, as is Varia, watching the both of us sharply with her obsidian eyes like she’s tensing, waiting for something to happen.
“Ah. This is why you are the Starving Wolf.” The valkerax finally exhales a puff of slow air at my feet. “Because your hunger will consume the world.”
“Tell it.” Varia points at my confused self suddenly, her wooden finger glimmering stark in the mosslight. “Tell it I will not allow—”
The valkerax suddenly explodes next to me, languid one moment and lunging forward in a blink the next, mouth open and teeth bared right at Varia. Yorl makes a shout and I fling myself toward her (not her, if she dies I die), but there’s a flash of black light and then the smell of singed fur. It happens so fast I barely see it, but then Evlorasin’s reeling backward, pawing at its smoking mouth and whining. Varia’s panting, her robe heaving as the void-like blackness that preludes spell casting for witches fades from her eyes and the skin of her hands.
“Your gods have torn you apart,” Evlorasin hisses between pawing. “The Tree tore one god into two, and you will not make them whole again by taking hold of its branches.”
Its rambles aren’t nonsense anymore. The Tree tore one god into two. Evlorasin means the Old God and the New. It knows that the invention of the Trees is what tore Old Vetris apart, just as I do.
Varia bellows at me, her hair mussed and her eyes burning furiously. “Translate! Now!”
&nb
sp; I do, but her expression doesn’t change in the slightest, her anger blazing out. Her mouth moves succinctly, her words clipped.
“You will tell me where the Bone Tree is, beast. And I will give you your unclouded mind. This is the blood promise. If you refuse it, you will die.”
My stomach curdles in on itself at the thought of killing Evlorasin after everything we’ve been through. Please accept, I silently beg. Please say yes.
Evlorasin’s face disappears from the mossglow in an instant, a curling mass of white all I can see as the valkerax winds around itself like a snake, over and over, the snowy coils tightening and loosening and tightening again. I grip the white mercury sword, waiting for it to strike out at Varia once more. The long, continuous noise of scales over dirt, and then suddenly Evlorasin’s maw returns to the light, returns to hover just in front of Varia, all five eyes blinking rapidly at her at different times.
“There will be a war.”
“There is always a war,” the crown princess asserts, her voice echoing into the darkness.
The air grows thicker than ever, dust and the smell of smoke wafting among us. No one dares to move; I barely dare to breathe.
“Life is a garden that must flourish,” Evlorasin hisses, then, “And we will water its soil.”
I barely get the translated words out before my ears start to ring, my fingers go cold, and the mosslight dims to blackness as my eyes—and every other part of me—dies.
Yorl won’t tell me what happened after I died, but I can guess from his expression when I rouse into the world of the living again: Varia isn’t pleased.
“It’s strange,” I muse. “She was so confident about this whole thing at the beginning. She never came down and demanded promises from the valkerax before. So why now? Was she really that scared by the quake?”
Yorl adjusts his glasses higher on his nose, scribbling on his parchment without saying a word.
“Yorl,” I press. “C’mon. I’ve saved your tail way too many times for you to ignore me like this. There’s gotta be a reason she’s suddenly all anxious.”