“What?” I whispered, ignoring the fiery pain across my chest as I strained to hold him, to pull him back up. But it was no use. It was all I could manage to hold him in place. Come on, Gunnar. Talon. Anybody…
“I really didn’t know about Dean—about Odin—but as soon as you mentioned his name, I feared today was the day. All I knew was that the day I heard that Thor had fallen, I would have to teach you one final lesson before I too fell. To Force you to rely upon Wylde—to shock you into using your Fae Magic. Your parents said it was critical—and with my gift for inducing panic, I was the best god for the job. The most reliable. I swore not to admit it to you until now, in this moment—facing my certain death. Another lie to you,” he whispered guiltily.
He coughed up more blood, spitting it out as he dangled over thousands of feet of empty space—and at the bottom of that fall was an ocean of roiling, liquid stone.
“There had to be a better way,” I rasped, straining to use my feet to give me that little extra I needed to potentially lift him up. But my feet were barely secure as is. “My parents are not gods, Pan! They don’t know everything!” I said, ignoring the tears pouring down my cheeks.
Pan shook his head. “They knew enough to see this moment, didn’t they? And look at you, reuniting with Wylde again.”
My fingers slipped in their own sweat, and I begged Wylde to come back for just a second—to help me at least lift him. I tried my wizard’s magic, but I must have used that up in the fight, too. Or Wylde had used it to supercharge some of my attacks.
“I chose this, Wylde,” Pan whispered. “And I would do it all over again. You made my existence worthwhile. Gave me hope.” And then he began humming a song my mother had often sung to me to calm me down when I was frightened. Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight…
The song calmed me, reducing my hysteria. “No, Pan. I need you.”
“You did, in the past. But this was the last gift I could give you.”
I shuddered. “No, no, no…”
“We all played our parts, but you should know your parents played each of us just as much as you, the clever shits. But as their tapestry of deceit unfolds…I’m seeing a marvelous work of art.” And he stared directly up at me, grinning through bloody teeth.
“We can heal you, Pan. Don’t give up. I didn’t hit you that fucking hard, you stupid goat!” I sobbed angrily, my tears splashing onto his bloody cheeks
He grunted, glancing down at his side, where a few shattered ribs poked out from his skin. I blanched, not having noticed until now. He was dying with or without holding onto the cliff.
“When the Knight woke, he spoke very little. Before he left, he was muttering about time as he drew something you should probably see. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, unfortunately. Maybe the Seer can find something in it, if you can find her.”
Pan abruptly let go with one of his hands to snatch up a nearby rock from the boulder that I had thrown at him. “Know what this is, boy?”
“A rock!” I gasped, feeling his cracked horn straining at the suddenly increased weight since he had released the cliff with one of his hands. “Let go of it and grab back onto the ledge, Pan! If you fall, I’m jumping after you.”
Pan frowned. “Feel it, Wylde. Feel the rock with your mind.” Knowing he wasn’t going to listen to me, I frantically obeyed, telling myself that doing so would somehow save Pan from falling. And…as I strained, I suddenly began to hear faint whispers. My ears popped, and I felt Wylde stirring within.
“Grab that feeling!” Pan hissed anxiously.
In my mind, I latched onto the sensation just as tightly as I gripped Pan’s horn. Wylde struggled slightly, but I kept a fingernail grip on that conduit between us, feeling the wind and grass and earth beneath me suddenly humming to their own faint melody—almost too faint to hear.
I realized I was staring at Pan’s fist—at the rock within. “It’s a diamond,” I whispered.
Pan grinned, squeezing his fist hard enough for the stone to crack. He opened his palm to show me a blood-coated diamond. “To remember me by,” he whispered, dropping it to the grass between us. “To remember that you can do anything you want, Wylde Fae. You just have to take a deep breath and slow down.”
His horn let out a loud crack.
“Help! Gunnar! Talon! Somebody! He’s slipping!” I screamed, my voice raw.
Pan grabbed back onto the ledge, but I could tell he was already well past his endurance. My eyes locked onto the feather tattooed on the back of his wrist. The one he had gotten to immortalize the doodle I had drawn there as a child. As Wylde.
Pan noticed, smiling sadly. “It’s time for me to float on, Wylde.” One of his fingers slipped free, and the rest were already sliding as he lost more of his strength. “The Macallan,” he hissed, gritting his teeth. “Check behind the white boulder in the cave. Raise a glass to me, will you? I meant well. We all did…”
Then his eyes glazed over.
And as his body went slack, the horn snapped, not strong enough to support his full weight.
He fell straight down.
“Noooooo!” I screamed, still clutching the end of his horn and punching at the earth with my other hand, blinking away my tears so that I wouldn’t miss my last moments at seeing Pan in this world. He fell into the stone ocean with a faint splash and was gone forever.
I dropped my chin to the ground and cried. Hard.
I don’t know for how long.
At one point, I realized I was staring at a strange root on the raw edge of the cliff below me, watching it swing back and forth in the breeze, ready to fall at any moment. My eyes widened, and I snatched at it a moment before it fell. Because I realized it wasn’t a root. I lifted it up and stared.
Pan’s necklace. The one with his pipes on the end. I rolled onto my back and clutched it to my chest, staring up at the sky as I tried to process the death of a close friend. That he had planned this death. I wasn’t entirely sure I believed that or if he had just been trying to save me from myself—from my own guilt.
Because no matter how one cut the cake, I had killed Pan.
I felt the diamond under my fingers and shoved it into my pocket without looking at it, the sensation of Pan’s blood on my fingers making me want to vomit.
I finally, unsteadily, climbed to my feet and turned away from the cliff. Gunnar and Talon were staring at me, tears falling down their cheeks, their eyes red as they stared at the broken horn and pipes in my hand.
“How…” I rasped, but it turned into a cough. “When did you get here?”
“Too late,” Talon sobbed, his furry cheeks stained with a dark line from his tears. “We had to save Alvara and Alice…” he whispered.
Gunnar was nodding, glancing back at the cave. “It began to cave-in, and we didn’t see you lying here. The wind changed slightly, and I finally caught your scent,” he added. “I’m sorry, Nate.”
Talon sniffled, wiping the back of his paws at his eyes. “I’m sorry, Wylde.”
I hung my head. “Don’t be sorry. He set it all up,” I said numbly. “We weren’t supposed to save him.” I opened my mouth to say more, to blame my parents, but let out a breath of anger. I wasn’t about to start trash-talking my parents. Pan had pretty much ruined that for me, and it wasn’t the time.
Pan had believed in them.
Whether misguided or not, I wasn’t about to cheapen his last words. Not here, only feet away from where he had martyred himself.
I still gripped the faintest of fingerholds on the conduit between me and my Fae senses, or Fae magic—I wasn’t sure which. I clamped down on it like Pan holding the edge of the cliff. Wading out into those cold waters of lost hope, refusing to let go.
Like my parents had told him to do…years before.
All things considered, they were very lucky they were already dead. Or I may have made good on the old stereotype of most gods from most pantheons—the children killing their parents.
Pan had as
ked me to do something for him, so I took one unsteady step. Then another…
I picked up my War Hammer and set it in my belt hoop.
Then I continued on, and my two best friends followed me.
As did the screaming silence of grief.
Chapter 25
I stared at the front of the cave—at the pile of rubble blocking half of the entrance. The damage from my fight with Pan had been extensive—both outside the cavern and within.
Alvara and Alice peered out at us from behind a fallen boulder just outside the cave—it had landed directly in the fire Pan had built, and it looked like the fire had spread before someone had doused it. I arched an eyebrow at Gunnar.
He nodded. “Wasn’t worth mentioning,” he said humbly.
Alice suddenly ran at me, tears running down her cheeks, and I felt like the worst kind of person for scaring her to death.
“I’m sorry, Alice—”
She leapt at me and wrapped her arms around my neck like tentacles, squeezing tightly as she sobbed into my neck. “You looked like you needed a hug, Manling,” she whispered.
My eyes misted over, somehow not yet dry despite how many tears I had shed in the last half hour. I nodded stiffly. “I did,” I rasped.
She squeezed tighter, petting my hair with one of her small hands. “It’s okay, Wylde. We haven’t found the happy ending, but the story isn’t over yet. We haven’t even seen a knight or a dragon. You can’t have a happy ending without them. Every princess knows that.”
I smirked at the bizarre comment. “Of course.” I helped her down, but before I could turn away, she suddenly grasped my hand tightly, refusing to let go. Alvara smiled at us with a haunted expression—no doubt imagining her husband again. Or she was thinking about her daughter holding hands with the Manling who had just killed the god he’d called a friend.
I stifled that dark thought.
Alice began tugging me towards a small opening in the cave. “I already checked to make sure it was safe to go back inside.”
We entered, and enough light shone through the opening to eventually point out an out-of-place white boulder, just like Pan had mentioned. But I didn’t see the Knight’s drawing anywhere. Probably buried under the rubble.
“What are you doing, Nate?” Gunnar asked gently.
I still held the conduit with Fae magic, but it was so weak that I didn’t want to risk trying to use it. Just holding it would build up my strength, hopefully retrain my mental muscles.
So, I lifted the War Hammer from my belt, and struck the white rock as hard as I could. Everyone gasped and cursed behind me, but I stared only at my target. The white stone shattered like glass, exploding inwards to reveal a vast, echoing room. I scooped up one of the stone-lights from the floor since most had fallen down from the walls and used it like a flashlight. Others quickly did the same.
Alice—still gripping my hand—giggled devilishly.
I stopped in the center of a tall, maybe ten-by-twenty-foot room. Crates and crates of fifty-year Macallan lined the walls. All the good stuff Pan had coveted out of my reach for so many years. I had finally found Pan’s mystical, secret stash. But my eyes were immediately drawn to something else.
I fell to my knees, my heart ripping in two. Alice squeezed my hand, gasping.
Others made similar sounds behind me, but I couldn’t look away.
The entire wall was covered with papers. Children’s drawings of horribly inaccurate stick figures, wizards, and even Talon. Awards, newspaper clippings, even an old sticky nametag that said Archangel—that I had worn to a convention soon after my parents died—was tacked onto the wall. I spotted a copy of the registered business license for Plato’s Cave, pictures of me with my parents, me and Gunnar playing as children, and other pictures of me growing up that I had never before seen, from all ages of my life.
On a lonely looking desk sat a stack of leather journals. Alvara rushed over to them, scooping up a handful and scanning them. “Manling Tales…” she whispered. “They’re numbered.”
I held out my shaking hand and she gave me one. I flipped it open to find a page with a single sentence on it.
I’m sorry for what I said before the cliffs…
I shuddered, almost dropping the journal. But…this journal was old, not recent. I flipped the page to see it was an entry on the day I had first met the cat Pan had found.
…and that beautiful child Named his first Name! Talon the Devourer!
Talon was standing beside me, so I held it up to show him. He gasped after a few moments, and I pulled it back, slowly flipping through the rest of it. It was a private journal of sorts, documenting each day of his time in Fae with our family and Talon. I continued flipping pages to find dozens of entries, intermixed with ornate doodles that took up entire pages and made me feel slightly dizzy. I snapped it shut and looked at Alvara’s stack.
Pan had been writing these for years to fill so many books. He really had known this day would come…
Talon tapped me on the shoulder with his soft paw and pointed at the opposite wall, his paw shaking. I hadn’t even noticed the other walls were decorated.
In huge letters, Pan had painted a message.
Family isn’t born in blood, it is forged in fire.
Star light, star bright, it’s not your fault, I’ll be alright.
Alice reached up and wiped a tear from my cheek, looking sad for me.
A small table sat below the mural. The table held three items. A piece of paper. A glass. And a bottle of fifty-year-old Macallan. I walked up to them, my legs shaking.
A small tag hung from the neck of the bottle. Pour me.
The glass had a similar tag tied to it. Drink me.
I obeyed, staring down at the paper as I uncorked the bottle and poured a healthy splash into the cup. The paper had a very short message, and old stains on it, proving that it was not freshly written.
Keep the journals safe. Someone will help you read them one day. This was my choice, boy, don’t blame your parents for being right. Drinks on me.
I took a drink, marveling at the taste. It was my favorite. I scanned his letter again, thinking. Why would I need help reading the journals? He hadn’t written them in any foreign language.
I turned at a sudden sound behind me. Gunnar was shaking his head at all the pictures, even letting out a slight laugh at one near the corner I couldn’t see from here. Alvara was holding up the journal to one of the doodled pages, and Alice was taking tiny steps back and forth, squinting at it from about six feet away.
“Ah! There you are,” she muttered to herself, finally standing still.
I frowned, but Alvara shot me a very dangerous look, warning me not to interrupt. Then she turned back to Alice, seeming on the verge of jumping with joy.
Gunnar glanced over, noticed my attention, and shrugged.
Alice stared unblinking at the picture for a full minute, her eyes darting back and forth as if reading something. She finally burst out laughing. “It’s a story! About you,” she squealed, turning to point at me. “An embarrassing one where you brought a baby Rarawk home, only to earn the ire of its angry mother! Your parents were not pleased.”
Talon coughed suspiciously. “I remember that.” I didn’t, but that wasn’t really the most important point.
I blinked at Alice incredulously. “You got all that…from a picture?”
She nodded. “Of course, silly Manling. Pictures are for kids!”
I hurriedly walked up to stand beside her, staring at the image, but it just made me dizzy.
“No, no, no,” she chastised. “You’re bigger. Tell me when to stop,” she said, slowly tugging me back a few inches, then a few inches more.
“Stop!” I snapped, staring at the doodle intently. It abruptly sprang to life, almost like the words danced right out of the picture akin to a hologram. I scanned it quickly, realizing it was indeed about a baby Rarawk I had wanted to nurse back to health.
The mom had shown up—drawn
by the baby’s cries—and had not been pleased.
And just like that, I felt a very faint click in my mind. And my grip on Wylde’s magic, suddenly felt a hair easier to maintain. Nothing life-changing, but…better.
I shook my head at Alice. “That’s…incredible,” I whispered.
Alice let go of me and the words abruptly shimmered back to a doodle. Had that been her or me? Alvara snapped the journal shut. “Art is the deepest language ever created. It seems Pan hid stories of you in imagery. Clever way to hide it, but why would he do such a thing if there are written entries filling the rest of this journal?” she asked softly.
I shrugged, having no idea.
Alvara turned to Alice with a proud smile. “I am so proud of your gift, child. I am glad I got to see you use it for the first time. What a wonderful, wonderful gift for a wonderful, wonderful child,” she whispered, wrapping her daughter up in a tight hug.
But something about Alvara’s demeanor made me feel like she was sad.
I turned to Gunnar. “We can’t carry all of these with us, and the amount of magic we used out there had to draw attention to this place. We need to leave.”
Gunnar nodded. “Can you send them back to the Sanctorum?”
I sighed, thinking about it. I didn’t want to risk losing my grip on Wylde by stepping back over to Chateau Falco. “I’m exhausted, man. I don’t know—”
“I will do it,” Talon said, scooping up the stack of journals from the desk.
I gripped his shoulder, handing over Pan’s horn and his pipes. “These, too,” I whispered.
Talon nodded sadly, staring down at them for a moment. Then he closed his eyes, and was gone a moment later.
He returned after a minute and dusted off his paws. “No one was there. I hid them in one of the rooms no one uses.”
I stared at him. “I, um, didn’t know you could so easily hop back and forth, Talon.”
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