“What is your point, Miss Knox?”
I cross the room— risking death at the hands of Brotherhood I pass, Mykul’s tense hand at the hilt of his sword, and Barrett ready to wring my neck. None of my entourage follow me past the picket line of reasonable self-preservation. And when I stop, we are almost touching faces, her strands of escaped hair falling between us.
“I’m Atlas now. Which means your fight is with me alone. There’s no higher power standing between us — it’s all or nothing, Hannah. But those are my conditions.”
This close, I am reminded of our intimately horrifying encounter in the soul prison, but maintain my composure in the face of hers.
“And what’s to stop me from killing you all, and taking the Seed, anyway?”
My smile returns, this time with finality.
“If anything happens to me, my people have instructions to throw the Seed into the White Light.”
My gamble worked once before, on Quorroc — no reason it can’t work again.
This time, Barrett replies.
“Don’t be foolish! To do so would be a fatal error for us all—”
“Think about it,” I reply. “If you’re going to cheat your way into destroying Creation, it’s all the same result. But I’d be more than happy to take that glory away from you. So let’s avoid the games, fight with honor, and avoid any more stupidity!”
Feeling the danger of a hundred sets of hands ready to kill me from behind — Mykul in particular seems to edge toward me in peripheral vision— I wait for Hannah to accept with a tepid nod.
“You have my word.”
“Then you won’t mind shaking on it, will you?” I say, extending my hand. She looks down at it, as if touching it will suck out the devilry that’s tainted her soul, then takes it in hers. We shake on the matter.
I tell her the match will take place tomorrow morning, having lost track of when tomorrow morning will be. It seems to be at least twelve hours away.
“Tomorrow morning,” she agrees.
I release my hand, and return to my party.
***
On the eve of our final confrontation with Ziz’s forces — one can only hope for finality now — our group of survivors takes shelter in the Illumitory. Debris from the Atlas ball still cakes the floor, and surviving shards of chandelier glass crunch under my feet where I dislodged the main fixture. New damage from Harper’s jailbreak is evident in the walls and columns. The balcony where the late Council once stood, interfacing with the outlanders who threatened us, is a hole in the ascending staircase. Several corpses mar the lobby — their ends were recent, scattered round the collapsed fountain in spread-eagled positions, and have already begun to bloat.
I guess the dead do rot in Atlas.
“Let’s settle in,” Luca says. “Tomorrow will be a taxing day. We should get some rest while we can.”
Harper stares blankly at the dead as Luca and Quorroc gravitate to corners of the room away from them. Tim stays where he is, closing his eyes, and I wish I had something comforting to offer him.
I begin with Harper— our adventures together have endeared her to me somewhat, and I may have better luck offering solace.
“You okay?”
The Phoenix suppresses a bitter chuckle, lowering her head.
“So much is riding on me, it would be delusional to hold onto optimism, don’t you think?”
I nod.
“Sometimes the upside is all we have.”
“Upside,” Harper repeats. “Silver linings aren’t my strong suit. One way or another, this is the end of the line for me.”
“Did you really mean what you said to the Avatar? That...you want to die?”
Harper contemplates her next words. There are so many ways to explain her nihilistic outlook, but only she can do it justice.
“It must sound crazy. Hell, I’d be concerned if someone was so casual about it. I feel a bit like that Athena woman, you know? Sentenced to be...consumed. Eaten away. No gift is worth that outcome, right?”
Suddenly, I understand her in a way Tim could have never explained himself. Like the Whisperers who choose to remain in Atlas beyond reasonable expiration, Harper is the same — but passage onto peace is not in her realm of options.
“For what it’s worth,” she continues, simultaneously stifling deeper emotion in the waves of her voice, “I don’t blame you and him for Em. I loved that girl from the first day I met her. But that piece of me is gone, and I know exactly where to lay the blame. With that fucking cunt — who will rue the day she came into control of those dragons. If it’s the last thing I do, I will put her in the ground.”
Fighting my own watering eyes, I nod and reach down, grasping her hand. The receiving fingers hesitate, but momentarily close over my own.
“For Em, then,” I say.
Her face scrunches from the tide pushing her brow down, her cheeks against it, but Harper quickly resumes control.
“For Em.”
Leaving the Phoenix to her final reflections, I move to Luca. My angel companion’s bruises have begun to lift from their lowest point as he sits at the room’s corner, sword in lap — just as he did on his downtime in the Obelisk.
“Here we are again,” I say, sliding down next to him.
Luca chuckles, balancing the sword on his thigh.
“It would seem so. A vicious cycle of being forced together for the greater good.”
“I would hardly call it vicious. I don’t know what I would have done if we hadn’t met, son of Tomas.”
Luca laughs — I don’t think I have ever heard that level of glee from his mouth, and make a note to remind him to do it more often.
“If there’s one silver lining in all this, it will be never having to hear that parallel drawn again,” he says. “I spent my whole life in my father’s shadow; expected to carry his guilt for all those who remembered what he did. The people in Atlas have a long memory, and live long.”
“It wasn’t fair that you paid for him,” I assure Luca. “There is no more pure-hearted angel in Atlas.”
He smiles.
“I owe you everything, you know.”
I shake my head, that burning sensation returning to my lower eyelids.
“You don’t.”
“But I do,” the angel argues. “I spent my entire life trying to set the right example — show Atlas that I was not Tomas, and would never let harm befall them. And in that, there was no chance of atonement. I would have toiled until the end of days, nothing more than their errand boy.
“But you — it didn’t matter how many gods or Maesters told you I wasn’t fit to stand among my brethren; no matter how many smears and justifications, you never fell for it—”
I interrupt with a hand on his much larger bicep.
“People always tell me, I’m a pain in the ass.”
Luca chuckles.
“Thank you, sister. From the bottom of my heart.”
Laying my head on his shoulder, this man makes me feel safer than I have any right to be. After a lifetime of turncoats, he is the first person I would genuinely call my friend. Not since six-year-old Alison Delahunt would I have assigned that label to another living soul other than my adoptive aunt and Tim Hawkins — the man who calls himself Death.
Looking over our final hours of sanctuary, there is one final conversation I must indulge before everything goes to absolute shit.
***
I find Tim in the Observatory, having wandered to make his peace with whatever powers he clings to solace. It surprised me to find he had disappeared from the Illumitory.
Wandering the palace’s lesser-known halls, searching empty rooms, a green light passed my face. I drew back as it zipped by me again. A low, familiar buzzing jogged my memory to that day in the Gardens when I first heard it.
Avalon’s insect. It whooped and squealed in the staircase I nearly ascended as I realized it was trying to hail me.
“What is it, little guy?” I asked, met with
more squeamish whines. Its threaded wings fluttered as it bounced left to right, turning and shaking its bright rear end at me. “You want me to follow you again?”
With a high-pitched affirmation, it trailed past my head, green glow bobbing against walls and the ceiling like a toddler with a sugar high. The bug bee-bopped out the hallway, around the corner and through the Illumitory doors. I caught Quorroc glancing at me as I followed it past Avalon, who noticed his friend, submitting a nod — as if he knew where it wanted to lead me.
Outside, the insect continues down the steps and out of God City. I trudge behind its excited, chaotic trajectory.
There are no signs of the dragons or Hannah’s gang of cosmic misfits on the God’s Road, only me and Avalon’s little friend. It squeals past the destroyed Coliseum district wall, dancing to withheld knowledge. Groaning at the distance spent in ignorance, I am relieved when it rounds the arch to the Observatory, following it inside.
The man who calls himself Death faces the nebula dwarfing the structure where the Council perished. His suit is gone— even pointed away from me, the tweed coat and khakis are a remarkable departure for the figure I’ve known my entire life.
He turns around as I enter through the arch — the beard he has kept for ages is clean-shaven, discarded at our feet like his celestial threads.
“I hoped you would come.” His voice is calmer, unlike the heartbeat which pounds and batters itself against my chest. “I am glad our mutual acquaintance could persuade you.”
Tim’s hand reaches out as I join him on the plateau before the final steps into the Observatory begin, taking mine inside of it.
“Yeah, well, it’s pretty hard to say no to something that fucking cute.”
Tim chuckles at my deadpan remark. His eyes drift to the crumbled wall before falling into the gap between us.
“There are so many things I have to live with. In mortality, the illusion exists that once you’re dead, all those problems are forgotten.”
I let him speak, consoled by the moonlight with no moon behind it — alone, as he and I have always been.
“I have made some terrible mistakes, Ramona. But I stand before you now, the very essence of who I am, to convey that you were never one of them. This whole time, I struggled to minimize my feelings. First, due to guilt, for allowing you to come to harm — then, due to my past relationship coming back to haunt me.
“But that is all beside the point — I love you. I have always loved you, Ramona Knox. I asked myself, over and over, why I was still here if I didn’t; thought, ‘there’s no way she could ever return it’.
“I would risk Creation a thousand times if it meant saving you once; invite dragons and demons and the ruin of everything. But that’s the crux of the argument, isn’t it?” he smiles. “I thought we were doing good — that somehow, I could atone for my predecessor’s bitterness and cavalier wish to end the world. I thought...I can’t possibly be as terrible as Hale. At least he wore his disregard openly. Mine has hidden behind this destructive, tempting thing called love; masqueraded as something beautiful while destroying reality around us. And in that regard, Ramona, I’m no better than Hale was.”
I take his other hand in mine — this man who has turned the universe upside down to protect me, ruining my life all the way. My conversation with Maya in the Gardens returns to me, and I repeat her advice.
“I love you Tim Hawkins — but you’re too hard on yourself.”
The man who has shed Death frowns.
“Pardon?”
And then, Maya’s wisdom is followed by Siskett’s, as we sat just beyond the hedge maze I would eventually meet my adoptive mother one final time.
“Someone once told me, ‘everything you have seen is the beaker in which your personal formula was built’. From the beginning, you have been here when nobody else was. You protected me when the world wanted to swallow me up, spit me out whole. If it weren’t for you, I would have died when Hardwick burned me alive. And because of you, I finally have a purpose.”
Tim shakes his head.
“No, Ramona — you made your own purpose. I helped you accomplish that, but everything you built is to your credit, and has always been. You are the most incredible person I have ever met.”
My hand reaches out, touching his cool, shaven cheek. His own hand pulls me in, kissing me. Whatever connotations come from locking lips with Death are absent — his lips are warm as any living person I have shared the act with. There is no hurried attempt to remove my clothes and get inside me, but a slow, withheld passion, as if he has waited decades, and would rush nothing.
The kiss lasts a long time. When it ends, we are not naked in the grass — only in gratitude we still have each other.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Reckoning has come.
If there is such a thing as a peaceful morning in the carcass of the supreme realm, it is lost on me. The sky around the Seat is a peaceful, solid blue with lazy clouds nestled in its canopy. The Behemoths are sentries to any outsider who might waltz into Atlas, see us all fighting like medieval savages, and think to put a stop to this madness. They remain south of the Spire as directed, well away from the Arena where the fate of Creation will be decided.
On this clear mockery of a morning, our group emerges from God City to find Hannah’s forces waiting. The blond woman wears a golden gown that clings too close to her bust. Her hair is wound in a confident bun, but her eyes are sunken and mascara does little to conceal the cost of her servitude. Seraphina lurks close, sporting white robes and an elaborate halo-like headdress, red strands sharply pulled in twin braids. Like Hannah, the High Priestess looks rough.
Barrett beams beside Mykul, who also seems to have taken on some modifications as Ziz siphoned his soul. Wielding the Habinar’s ax, the mutated angel’s demeanor is unchanged, but it’s almost impossible to miss the wheezes escaping Harper’s foe.
“What’s wrong with him?” I ask as our groups join on the God’s Road. “Doesn’t look so good.”
Mykul grunts, flexing the enormous weapon as Hannah shrugs off his condition.
“It is nothing you need to worry about, Miss Knox. Mykul is more than capable. Is your Champion ready to fight?”
A shared glance with Harper ends in a nod, and I look back at the blond woman.
“We’re ready. We’ll set up on the Arena’s northern quarter. Your champion can prepare from the south. The fight will begin in an hour. Agreed?”
Hannah smiles, and I take solace in knowing she will soon be incapable of it.
“These are very dictatorial requests when you haven’t even proven to be in possession of the Seed.”
The smile she receives is equally condescending.
“It’s nearby. If you win, it’ll be handed over at a time and place of my choosing.”
“Very well, Miss Knox. I can only assume your word is your bond. We will soon see, won’t we? But do try to remind your friend this is a winner-takes-all fight. If the Phoenix loses, she won’t be getting back up.”
Harper’s face lapses into a spiral I can only call hatred.
“Same applies to you. Light be with you.” I say before turning, pulling its last defenders with me. “Not that it would save a traitorous cunt.”
With that, we veer toward the Arena where the final outcome awaits.
If Light is with us, we won’t have to wait long.
***
On a clear, blue morning — the pleasant effect spreads to the Coliseum district, whose skies are often purple and moody — the carcass of Atlas carries the sound of death on its acoustics. The stands above fill with Brotherhood and other faces I don’t recognize.
Our group of Harper, Tim, Luca, Quorroc, Avalon and his two students— whose names I’ve since learned are Almed and Eriam — takes shelter in private quarters on the Arena’s northern end. Quorroc and the Magi are contemplative. Tim is composed, Luca steady.
That leaves only Harper, whose face is awash in beads of perspiration. Her
hands shake in the room’s corner, crouched with her back against the wall, eyes closed as I approach her. The Mother’s Star brightens as I draw near, alerting her to my presence.
“Need some last-minute encouragement?”
Harper scoffs — the slender hands continue to tremble, the only indicator to how deep her terror runs.
“Unless you have a magic sword you can pull out of a water basin, there’s not much you can say to mitigate it.”
“Hold up,” I say. “A magic sword?”
Harper smiles, shaking her head.
“Had to be there, I guess. But this is a whole different game. Situation, whatever. It’s one thing to want to die by yourself — but taking everyone with you if you fail…”
I kneel next to her, and take her trembling hand in mine.
“Listen to me,” I say. “You’re not going to fail.”
“Right. Got a crystal ball?”
“No. I got something better — this.”
Harper’s eyes widen at the tiny glowing object between my enclosed forefinger and thumb. It blots out of my fingertips, and I have not dared remove it from my pocket before now.
“You want to use the Seed to win? What happened to honor?”
“Fuck honor,” I say. “This is Creation at risk. You’ve been entrusted with our fates — might as well give you the means to win. Here, put it in your locket.”
She reluctantly takes it from my grasp, ever so careful not to drop it as she deposits it between the open halves. The Mother’s Star closes over it, and emits a bright flash, blinding the room’s occupants, drawing shouts from the other end.
When my eyes adjust, Harper is staring at her hands. As if imbued with new strength, the Phoenix flexes her forearm; it no longer shakes as her slack-jawed reaction meets my growing smile.
“Thank you,” she says.
“One condition,” I joke. “When this is over, you tell me how to get a moniker as badass as yours.”
My heart feels lighter at Harper’s new confidence, and the relief washing over her. But turning to face my other cohorts, I am met by a stunned Quorroc, who witnessed the whole thing.
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