by Tyler Krings
Frogs conversed in the creek nearby and the crickets made music. Jon added some sticks to the fire and sat back against the tree trunk. “No,” he finally answered. “I’ve never been in love. You?”
There was a long moment before she said, “No. At least I don’t remember.”
He nodded. “What do you remember?”
She considered before answering. “I remember Anu. I remember the war. I remember the day we lost. I remember the Ways. There are flashes of other things…”
He sat thoughtfully a moment, blowing smoke into wreaths above them. “What was it about? The war.”
“The Lord of Fate began to weave the threads of creation as he saw fit. The Lord of War disagreed with the practice. Violently,” Ana replied.
“What did the Creator have to say about all that?”
“The Creator has been absent for some time.”
“You’re fucking joking.”
“I’m not.”
Jon nearly laughed. “Well, that’s…depressing.”
“Quite.”
“Did you fight?”
She nodded. “The war lasted a thousand of your years. I fought with the Lord of War and countless others. In the end, we did not have the numbers. The Forges could produce Angels by the hundreds very quickly, and the Lord of Fate’s ranks were already flush with Lords and Ladies and the willing.”
“Willing?”
“Souls that pledged to fight for either side.”
Jon shook his head. “Why would they do that? They’re already in Anu.”
“Same reason anyone goes to war; they fought for a better future, or they were coerced.”
“Anu sounds a lot like Evanna.”
“Aside from the gods throwing lighting at one another, yes. The two worlds are similar. The greatest difference would be that Anu is infinite. As you can imagine, a war that spans an eternity has a very large body count.”
“And what happens when one dies in Anu?”
She breathed. “I don’t know.”
Jon knocked out the remnants of his pipe. “What happened after?”
She stared into the fire. “We were captured. Those that survived. The Lord of War disappeared. Most were beheaded and impaled as a reminder to those still defiant. Some, like me, were taken to the laboratory. And here we are.”
“Here we are,” he agreed. He smiled.
She cocked her head. “This pleases you?”
He gave an uncertain shake of his head. “Not the um…death and destruction, no. I suppose I am pleased that you’re here.”
She smiled in turn. “So you like me being here?”
“Well, yes, I would say so.”
“So, you enjoy the thought of a feigned marriage to me?”
“Uh…”
“Just answer the question.”
“That is a…complicated question.”
“The answer is simple.”
“I’m not sure if I agree.”
“Why?”
“Gods woman…”
“I like it when you blush.”
He looked at her smile and smiled back. She moved a little closer to him, the light of the fire dancing in her eyes.
“You told me you were in love with me,” she said plainly.
His stomach turned a bit, and he felt his face contort with heat. “I was drunk?”
“Did that make it untrue?”
His face contorted again, “Ah…no. It did not.”
“You’ve avoided me for days.”
“I’ve done no such thing. We’ve barely separated.”
“Until now you’ve avoided meaningful conversation.”
“I didn’t know you wanted to talk about it. We were both a bit inebriated, and…”
She waited. “And…what?”
“I didn’t know if it was a lasting feeling, for me or…you?”
“And was it? Lasting?”
“For me?” he paused as he found her eyes once more. “Yes. You?”
The span of a breath, and she kissed him. The world stood still when her lips touched his. There, in that place; with the fire their spotlight, and the forest carpet their stage. There was no doubt in his mind that this was the greatest moment he had ever known. He knew also that there might never be another quite so perfect.
“Yes,” she said when at last they pulled away. “It lasted.”
She settled her head into his shoulder, her naked body pressed to his, their clothes thrown about loosely across them. The fire waned to its last glowing embers, and the bedroll bunched and nestled beneath them comfortably. Jon remained awake. At first, he only stared, picking out constellations through the bare canopy, the wind lazily pulling and coaxing the branches. Their lovemaking had teetered the line between guarded and passionate as comfort and need battled pure carnal longing. He had slept with women before, though usually they were quickly forgotten scenarios under regrettable circumstances. Never like this. His father had told him once of the time he and Jon’s mother had met. She’d been on the practice fields, a girl no more than five, beaten bloody by her mentor’s stick. She refused to surrender, launching again with fruitless attack after fruitless attack, each growing slower than the last. When she at last collapsed on the field, her mentor, an elder in the village, pointed at random to a boy in the crowd to pick her up and carry her home: Jon’s father, a child only a year older. His father had carried her to her home in the trees where he left her with her parents to tend her wounds. Before he left, she had opened her eyes and met his. To him, there had been no more clarifying a moment in all his life.
Jon imagined the way he felt at this moment was very comparable. He looked at the Aden spiraling up her arm, the faintest glow on her bronzing skin. Softly he traced the patterns with the tips of his fingers, wondering at the depth of their meaning. It could have been nothing more than his imagination, but the markings seemed to glow a touch brighter at his caress. She shifted closer into him and sighed pleasantly. Like a spark of flint over a distance, a muted light swarmed from her Aden and into his fingers. He pulled his hand away quickly, but the effect was still present; the glow melting from his fingers and into his hand, disappearing eventually beneath his skin. Well…that was ominous.
“We’re bound,” she said quietly.
“Is that what that was? Did I do that?”
“Yes. But you could not have without my permission.” She picked her head up and looked at him. “I give it freely.”
“And what does that mean?”
She smiled softly and kissed him. She laid her head back on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “You know what it means.”
The chains around her hands bit painfully with every move as she trudged wearily through the Avenue of New Beginnings. An impossibly long line of gods and Willing marched with their heads down, bound in their chains, to the chorus of victory chants from the crowd. Rockets flared, and the people rejoiced: the Revolution was over, the Coalition crushed, with their own leader fleeing in defeat. The last of them marched here. Step by halting step, they made their way up the Harted Stair to face the headsman.
“Head up, my lady,” said a voice beside her. Arienaethin looked upon a man, one of the Willing, a soul whose life on Evanna had earned him a place in Anu. This man who had chosen to fight amongst the gods walked with a gait that spoke of pride.
“Do not let them see your fear,” he said.
She looked at Maerko’s body being dragged face down by those chained, her ragged breaths coming in uneven spurts. “But I am afraid,” she whispered.
“This is the Avenue of New Beginnings is it not? What awaits us at the end of this road, up those stairs, is just something new once more.”
Arienaethin scoffed.
“You doubt. That’s all right. So did I…at first.”
She looked at him. “At the end of this road, there is nothing. This end is Final.”
The man nodded. “Yes. A rest, for I am weary.” He smiled sadly. “It is clear to me that the C
reator is no longer here. I think I grasped that upon the very moments of my death. But…I think that is for the better. I think He would be disappointed.”
Yes, she agreed. I think he would. She found her voice, “How did you know? That the Creator was not here.”
He looked at her with sadness. “Because my wife is not.”
She held his gaze as long as she could bear before she turned away, wiping the tear from her eye.
“I looked for her. For so long in this…paradise. Her eyes, her lips, and by the gods those legs…” Despite everything, Arienaethin chuckled at that. But the man sobered. “I did not find her, and I think I have been looking for a very long time. But it is all right. It just means that she is somewhere else. Somewhere I am heading as well.”
Arienaethin slowly shook her head, hiding her tears. She did not know this man, or any of the Willing, and she had not given thought to their plight. Perhaps with time, and less war…but no, she was immortal, and these things had not crossed her mind until this very moment. Ashamed, she looked up finally and asked, “Why did you fight?”
They were to the stairs now, the line in front of them growing ever shorter.
He looked at her, and then past her. “There is something wrong here, in this place. I did not have a choice.”
“There is always a choice.”
“No. Not for me.”
They took the stairs one by one in silence. Moment by agonizing moment. Maerko’s body ascended painfully as the chains threatened to relieve her of her arms. They were close enough now to see the Headsman, what was left of the Judges, and Fate himself upon a high balcony extending from the Palace. She witnessed with both horror and resignation the deaths of her comrades; god and Willing alike, their heads rolled into a terrible pile that grew with an agonizing display of patience, the bodies to be carried away by automaton Servants and nailed to crosses one and all. She winced at every stroke of the axe, at every hammer fall, and watched as every cross, now bearing a body, was carried away to some unknown destination.
She cried as a Servant took Maerko’s body next and brought her to the dais before the Headsman. She barely noticed as he spoke, his voice grave and quiet, “Here we find Maerko, Lady of the Dance, guilty of treason against the Throne of Anu. The sentence is everlasting death.” The Headsman passed the scroll to a Servant and picked up his axe, blazoned with blood both dried and fresh. Without hesitation, he raised it over his head and brought it down in a swift motion.
“Hold.”
The axe’s blade held a hair from Maerko’s neck in perfect stillness. The Headsman looked at the Lord of Fate, who nodded in turn. The Headsman removed his axe and gestured to the Servants, announcing, “Your sentence has been postponed. You will serve Fate once more.”
The Servants moved and took her unconscious form away, and Arienaethin watched until she no longer could, her stomach now in her throat. Without fanfare the line moved again. The Willing man with whom she had shared her last moments moved in front of her. He stood before the Headsman with his head held high as the Servants adjusted his chains and maneuvered his body before the chopping block.
“Sir,” she said to him and met his eyes one last time. “Thank you. And…I’m sorry.”
As his name and crimes were read aloud, he smiled. “I’m not.”
The axe fell.
She mumbled in her sleep, curses and pleas, and then she began to shiver. A nightmare perhaps. Jon had his own from time to time. He thought he might leave her be, until she cried out. She darted out of their pallet, pushing off away and throwing off their clothes into the glowing embers of the fire. Jon moved quickly and snatched them before they began to smoke. Ana sat and stared at him, tears streaming from her eyes, seemingly surprised to find him there.
“I’m sorry,” she said. A sob escaped her throat. Jon found one of the blankets they had neglected and brushed it clean. He draped it over her bare shoulders and sat beside her. She breathed uneasily for a time and did not bother to wipe her eyes.
“A dream,” she said. “Nothing more. Sorry to have wakened you.”
Jon nodded. He got up and gathered some more kindling to add to the embers, then stoked them in silence until a small flame appeared. He returned to his seat beside her and took out his pipe, though he did not light it.
“I dream of fire,” he said. She looked at him, and he met her eyes with a sad smile. “Surrounded by fire…calling for my mother. I’m not very old, barely a child. The blaze is endless, and there is no escape, no matter how hard I try. I find my sword, wooden at the time, and I try my damnedest to beat it back. What I remember the most is the smell, so vivid that it doesn’t feel like a dream at all. Smoke…and flesh. Searing. I walk through the fire—it eats my clothes, my skin. When I find my mother, I am crawling on the ground, barely able to move. I reach out a hand and take to hers in mine.” He poked at the campfire, so small and harmless in contrast to his dreams, and stoked the flames. “Then I wake up.”
She pulled her blanket closer around her and leaned against him, saying nothing. The old man knew of his dream, but they did not speak of it. When Jon had first woken in sweats so many years ago, the old man had grabbed him and held him tightly until he stopped flailing. Years passed, and he learned to simply wake before the flames consumed him.
She spoke quietly. “I dream of the war, but mostly of the time after. Flashes of memory from time to time. I’m not sure if I don’t remember fully because of what happened in the laboratory or…I just don’t want to.”
Jon paused, gathering his thoughts and phrasing his next question with utmost care. “The old man—he knew where to find you that day in the woods. Did you in turn know he would be there?”
“I was told someone was waiting. I did not know who.”
He took a breath. “Ana, what else is going on?”
Her answer was not quick. “Arthen, the Lord of War, fled Anu through some means we don’t know. He built a citadel, trained an army of men and women to fight, as the gods do. That it was blatant disobedience to Anu’s oldest laws mattered little. Such interference in the lives of men is strictly forbidden.” She took Jon’s chin in her fingers and brought his eyes to hers. “Fate found him. He engineered the great campaign and burnt it to the ground.”
Jon took a breath. Nathera.
She nodded, understanding his realization. “I was sent here to find him. After the burning of Nathera, there was still no sign as to whether he had lived or died. There had been a small hope that we might be able to revitalize some form of revolution.”
“So, you escaped?”
“Yes. With help. I don’t know how, but I was able to resist Fate’s…machinations, though not until after some…damage had been done.”
Jon waited.
She shook her head. “But…then there is you.”
“Me?”
“You shouldn’t exist. The last of War’s bloodline that was supposedly murdered to a child. How is it you are here? You said it yourself, you remember the fire. You even remember burning in it.”
“It’s a dream, Ana.”
“No, Jon, a memory.”
Jon said nothing. Yes. It’s a memory. But, oh, how I wish it was a dream. “I know. The old man pulled me out. Just in time I suppose.” My hand grabs hers, her eyes tearing as she burns…her fingers clutch mine one last time as I call her name. Then nothing. Over the years he had shed many tears for his mother. He had no more to give.
Ana took hold of his arm. “The old man…you know he isn’t Natheran. You are the last.”
Jon swallowed. “Yes.”
“Maybe…just maybe, you’re the one I was sent to find.”
She must have sensed his sudden withdrawal. Walls erected around his heart where previously there had been none. She stopped leaning on him but left a hand on his arm. He had begun to suspect, but now he could confirm. A pawn, he thought, in this game of Lords and Ladies. Just how long have I been such? Bred, trained, pulled from a fire, and miraculo
usly finding myself with the woman of my dreams. I’ve been a fool. These things don’t just happen.
He felt his blood rise and worked quickly to sheathe it. There had always been a grander scheme in the making. He knew the farm was not his destiny, even though there had been times when he wished it were. His lack of choice was not the source of his anger, but it did add fuel to the fire.
Ana must have sensed something had changed. She cautiously started to shake her head. “Jon—”
His throat dried, and his voice turned to gravel, making it harder to hide the hurt. “Was this all part of the plan? Me, you, the old man? So…what? We go back to Anu, your assassin in hand, and I kill the Lord of Fate?”
“Jon, wait—”
“I know what I am.” He felt her stare in the sudden silence. “I’ve always known. But I won’t be anyone’s pawn in some celestial game that has already claimed my family. My home.”
“I didn’t know who you were. No one did.” She gripped is arm tighter, as if scared he would leave. “And now that I do….it hasn’t changed anything. This,” she lifted her palm, revealing her Aden, and placed it in his, “is real.” The Aden glowed fiercely between them. Through it he felt her—her love and wanting. The truth in her words. The truth of her.
His walls came down in a tumble, and he shuddered with relief as fear left him. He kissed her. Her hands came to his face and cradled it. She pulled away with a smile.
“This,” he breathed, “it feels like…”
“Fate?” she answered.
He nodded. “But it can’t be, right?”
“No,” she kissed him again. “We make our own.”
“Someone comes.”
Jon’s eyes snapped open. The forest was wreathed in fog and a soft gray light filtered through the branches of the slow rising sun. Who had spoken?
Jon’s senses detected little had changed from the night before—except for the smell. A lingering odor carried downwind: tarnished leather, old steel, rotted teeth. Sweat and blood. He rose carefully, trying not to disturb the woman still asleep beside him. Men were close, but there was still enough distance for him to prepare. He tapped Ana on the shoulder, and she rolled over to him almost casually. Her nose wrinkled and her eyes snapped open. Jon motioned her to silence. Her senses were as good as his, if not better. Understanding crossed her face and she rolled to a crouched position, looking to him for instruction. He could almost feel the power gathering in her palm.