Winter’s Light

by M. J. Hearle

  ‘Please, don’t be upset,’ he began, surprised as Winter rushed towards him, burying her head in his chest. Remember me! she willed him, his skin cold beneath her hot tears.

  ‘Hold me, Blake – just hold me,’ she sobbed. ‘Maybe then you’ll remember?’

  She felt his hands cup her shoulders and gently push her back.

  Blake stared at her sympathetically with his shining emerald eyes.

  ‘I’m very sorry, I can see how upset you are . . . but I’m not Blake. I’m Ariman, Blake’s father.’

  Chapter 61

  Winter felt her knees buckle and would have fallen were it not for Ariman’s steadying hand. ‘Help me with her,’ he called to Jasmine. Both of them gently led Winter to the stone bench beneath the tree. There, they were shielded somewhat from the relentless rain.

  ‘Is she okay?’ Winter heard Jasmine ask from far away. It was as though she’d fallen down a well.

  ‘Yes,’ Ariman said. ‘She’s in shock. Look at my eyes, Winter.’

  Winter could hardly see the two concerned faces floating in front of her. Darkness was pressing against the corners of her vision.

  ‘Look at me,’ Ariman repeated, addressing her the way he’d addressed the Demori. With authority and power. Winter’s eyes met his as she came back to herself, her senses sharpening once more. Ariman looked so much like Blake they could be twins. The similarity was cruel and, as irrational as it was, Winter found herself in that moment hating Ariman.

  ‘Win?’ Jasmine asked, gently rubbing her hand.

  Winter tore her gaze from Ariman. ‘I’m . . . okay, Jas. I’m okay,’ she repeated, more for herself than for the others.

  ‘Where is my son, Winter? Where is Blake?’ His intense, questioning gaze dropped to her necklace. ‘Why do you wear his lodestone?’

  ‘Hey, buddy! Do you think you could give her some space?’

  Winter shrugged off her friend’s protest. ‘I can speak.’ Blake’s father deserved the truth, even if the truth was painful to say. ‘I’m sorry . . . Blake’s dead.’

  Ariman’s mouth twitched, a small movement that spoke volumes of his grief. His eyes grew unfocused, staring past Winter. After a minute’s silence, his eyes narrowed again and grew dangerously clear. ‘The Bane?’ he asked through gritted teeth.

  Winter shook her head, forcing the words out. Her throat tried to constrict around them, sealing them inside.

  ‘No. The Skivers.’

  Ariman’s mouth dropped open in surprise. ‘Impossible! That they would take one of us!’

  ‘The Skivers were coming for me and Blake offered himself in my place.’ She paused before adding softly, ‘He died for me.’

  Ariman turned away, staring at the ground moodily. Suddenly, he jerked his head towards her, desperately seizing upon a possibility. ‘When? When did this happen?’

  Startled by the intensity of his expression, Winter drew a blank.

  ‘Answer me!’ he demanded, voice booming through the garden.

  ‘Th-three months ago.’

  The news seemed to both calm and encourage Ariman. Nodding to himself, he muttered, ‘Then there is still time.’

  This whispered utterance was enough to coax Winter from the place she’d retreated to inside herself.

  ‘You mean you can save him? Bring him back?’

  Ariman glanced at her distractedly. ‘Perhaps.’ He remained in thought a minute longer before giving the girls his attention again. Suddenly he graciously bowed to Winter. ‘I must go now. Thank you for my freedom.’

  He turned and began briskly walking towards the keep.

  Winter looked to Jasmine for guidance. Her friend could only manage a helpless shrug.

  ‘Wait!’ Winter called after Ariman, jumping to her feet. ‘Where are you going?’ She ran to keep up with him, almost slipping on the wet gravel. Jasmine followed reluctantly in her wake.

  Ariman did not break his stride, did not look at her.

  ‘There is something I must attend to in the castle,’ he said cryptically.

  ‘We’ll come with you,’ Winter said, struggling to match his determined pace.

  ‘Are you sure, Win?’ Jasmine asked from behind.

  ‘Listen to your friend, Winter,’ Ariman said, his eyes darting briefly to her.

  ‘I’m not leaving,’ Winter said firmly. ‘Not until we talk about Blake.’

  ‘I have no interest in discussing the matter with you.’

  ‘Too bad. I’m not letting you out of my sight until you tell me about Blake.’

  His jaw clenched in frustration but he didn’t say anything else.

  ‘I’m going to wait here, Win,’ Jasmine said, pulling up short before they reached the keep’s high-arched doors. Winter stopped, mindful that Ariman had continued on without her.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jasmine nodded vigorously. Too vigorously. ‘I just don’t want to go back inside. I’ll be safe here. The Demori have gone now, and if I hear anyone coming, I’ll hide.’

  Winter searched her friend’s face, bitterly torn. In the end, Jasmine nudged her forward, pointing at Ariman’s receding form as he marched up the stone steps to the entrance.

  ‘Go. You’ll lose him!’

  Still Winter hesitated. She watched her friend force a smile.

  ‘I’ll be fine. Go and do what you need to do.’

  Hating herself for doing it, Winter nodded gratefully and ran to catch up to Ariman.

  Chapter 62

  It only became clear to Winter where Ariman was headed when they entered the hallway on the third floor. So much of the castle was a mystery to her but this section she recognised. She and Sam had fled down these turns only an hour or so before. They were nearing the rear of the keep where the sleeping quarters were. And the chapel.

  Weak slanted light spilled in through the windows from the courtyard, catching flurries of swirling smoke particles. Outside, the floodlights had come back on but the majority of the complex was still without electricity. Luckily the fire had burned out, but the air was still oily and thick, making it hard to breathe. Some of the curtains they passed were still smouldering.

  Winter wanted desperately to question Ariman further, however, there was something forbidding about his silence. Every time she opened her mouth she remembered the way he’d snapped Benedict’s neck and thought better of it.

  The longer she was exposed to him, the more surprised she was at herself. How could she have mistaken this dark stranger for her love? It was true they shared the same face (though even in this aspect, Winter had begun to notice differences; the slightly narrower bridge of Ariman’s nose, his jawline broader, sharper), but there was a grimness about Ariman that was absent in Blake. He shared none of his son’s gentle melancholy. Instead, Winter sensed a wellspring of anger seething inside him. Anger and pain.

  A faint, erratic blue glow spilled around the corner ahead. As they rounded it, Winter saw the corridor was full of scattered torches. Some pierced the gloom steadily, others damaged, sputtered on and off, their flickering light lending the hallway an eerie quality. Momentarily distracted, Winter didn’t see the object at her feet and nearly tripped.

  Catching herself at the last moment, she saw what she’d nearly fallen over and cried out. It was a body, the skin hanging loosely off the skeleton in papery, grey folds. The eyeballs of the corpse stared sightlessly up at Winter, milky-white.

  Unbothered by the body, Ariman strode on leaving Winter to discover the hallway’s other horrors. There were more corpses sprawled amongst the shadows, blue torch beams picking out a leg here, a hand there. For some reason, seeing these scattered body parts in the smoky darkness was worse than seeing the entire corpse. Bile rising at the back of her throat, Winter wished she’d stayed outside with Jasmine.

  Ariman walked blithely through the carnage towards the chapel doors. They were wide open, the inside chamber invisible from her position. She saw him pause on the threshold. Fixing her gaze on his bare back,
Winter ran forward, not looking down even when she nearly stumbled again over something heavy and warm.

  Joining Ariman in the doorway, Winter let out another gasp of fright. The bodies in the hallway were nothing compared to the nightmare waiting in the chapel.

  Skivers.

  Dozens of them stood shoulder to shoulder, their bald, elongated skulls gleaming in a weak green light that came from an obscured source, somewhere towards the back of the chamber. As Ariman stepped forward, the Skivers slowly swivelled in unison to stare at him, moving as though they were one instead of many. A subdued clicking filled the air – a greeting or a warning. Either way the sound made Winter want to plug her ears with her fingers and scream. Ariman’s confident presence and the knowledge that these things could not harm her were the only thoughts that kept her by his side. She was not marked.

  The Skivers parted as Ariman walked slowly forward, Winter following close behind. She could feel their black eyes regarding them with curiosity, and caught glimpses of their grins expanding and contracting as though they were about to burst into laughter; a chorus of demonic clowns.

  The green light brightened as they drew closer to the back of the room. Winter saw the pieces of the Fatelus lying on the ground and what was throwing up the sickly phosphorescence. The emerald orb had cracked, its liquid contents spilling across the stones, pulsing like radioactive sludge. Mesmerised by the sight, Winter nearly bumped into Ariman when he stopped. She looked around him hesitantly, curious despite herself, to see what had frozen him in place.

  Magdalene knelt on the ground, a small crude circle of Warding Dust surrounding her. This was evidently what was keeping the Skivers at bay and likewise had forced Ariman to halt. The woman was finally veil-less; thick white hair flowing away from her haggard face in a mad tangle. She was sobbing quietly, gently rocking back and forth. The corpse of Radermire lay sprawled in front of her, his head resting in her lap.

  Sensing Ariman, Magdalene tentatively glanced up, the red Occuluma brighter than ever in the depths of her wretched gaze. Around her neck, the lodestone Winter had glimpsed during the ritual, shone dully. Now she realised why it had seemed so familiar. Ariman had used it to call her from the beach in Hagan’s Bluff. Somehow he must have stolen it from Magdalene.

  ‘She found you, I see,’ the old woman said contemptuously, not bothering to wipe the tears from her face.

  Ariman nodded, and said quietly, with a surprising amount of tenderness, ‘It is over, mistress.’

  Magdalene looked back down at Radermire as though she hadn’t heard him. ‘He loved me,’ she said, pushing back the man’s blood-stained hair. ‘We never spoke of it but I know he loved me. From the beginning.’

  Reluctantly looking at Radermire, Winter realised that Jasmine hadn’t murdered him as she’d thought. His face had the sunken, caved-in look of a Demori victim, though it appeared the creature hadn’t finished the job; there was still flesh on this corpse’s bones. Perhaps Ariman and Benedict’s battle had distracted the murderer, calling it away before it could drain Radermire completely.

  ‘The Fatelus is broken,’ Ariman continued in that same quiet, tender manner. ‘You have a choice to make.’

  Magdalene raised her head, a pathetic expression of confusion in her eyes. ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. There should —’

  ‘It was always going to end like this. I told you from the beginning.’

  Magdalene looked like she was going to say something more, and then lost the words. Instead, she bent down and kissed Radermire on his forehead, muttering something Winter couldn’t hear; a farewell. She then rose to her feet, smoothing the front of her dress and quickly combing her fingers through her hair in a gesture Winter would have found charmingly girlish under different circumstances.

  ‘Have you come to rescue me, my dark prince?’ Magdalene said, venturing as close to the edge of the circle as was safe. She smiled nervously at Ariman, her eyes too wide, the desperate fear swirling there clearer even than the Occuluma.

  ‘I’ve come to offer you a choice.’

  Magdalene’s smile faltered, and she stared at Ariman reproachfully. It might as well have been the two of them standing alone in the room, for all the regard she paid Winter or the Skivers.

  ‘Don’t you remember the kindness I have shown you over the years? How I would come and sit by your feet and listen to your stories when all the others shunned you.’

  ‘I remember the beatings. You should have set me free, mistress,’ Ariman said with a weary sigh.

  ‘I would have,’ Magdalene began, her tone growing hysterical. ‘It was my father! My father! He —’

  ‘Your father died a long time ago. Take responsibility for your actions.’

  Magdalene’s cheeks coloured, her gaze dropping to the floor. After a moment’s brooding silence, she whispered, ‘And so we find ourselves here.’

  ‘You have a choice. Me . . . or them.’

  Magdalene looked past Ariman and seemed to see the Skivers for the first time. They reacted to her fearful gaze, an awful, excited chattering briefly filling the chamber, sending shivers of revulsion up Winter’s spine.

  ‘What is it like?’ she asked, facing Ariman once more. All the colour had drained from her already ghostly white features.

  ‘It is quick. And painless. Better than what they have to offer.’

  She seemed to deliberate for a moment before nodding just once, the movement almost imperceptive. Taking a trembling breath, Magdalene stared into Ariman’s eyes and said, ‘Forgive me, my dark prince.’

  In answer, Ariman spread his arms, opening himself up to her. Her eyes drenched in fear, Magdalene quickly stepped out of the protective circle and into his arms. As Ariman embraced her, the mad chattering of the Skivers increased in volume. Winter glanced around anxiously as the grinning faces drew closer. She turned back just in time to watch a ripple of emerald flames wash over Ariman and Magdalene.

  ‘No! Don’t!’ Winter cried out, but they were gone before the words left her lips, their outline held in the shimmering ghost light for a second or two before fading into the darkness. Winter stared with incomprehension at the spot where Ariman had stood, feeling a harsh stab of despair digging into her chest. She was so upset that she didn’t immediately realise he had left her alone with the Skivers.

  Heart pounding, Winter felt terror obliterate her despair, sweep it aside like the tide covering a sandcastle. The Skivers gathered around her, black eyes and long, needle-like teeth reflecting the eerie light of the broken Fatelus. Winter faced them as bravely as she could. She felt their anger, their cold, inhuman hate. Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited for them to swarm over her. She wouldn’t scream. Not for the pleasure of these monsters.

  She opened her eyes a crack and saw that the chapel was now empty. The Skivers had gone, returned back to the Dead Lands. Back to where Blake’s spirit was still held captive.

  Chapter 63

  Winter walked out of the keep and down the stairs into the courtyard. He’d left her. Left her without so much as a goodbye or hint at what he planned on doing. She tried to feel angry and frustrated, but couldn’t hold onto the emotions for long. She didn’t have the strength. Mostly, she just felt defeated.

  Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, she tried to spot Jasmine.

  ‘Jas?!’

  A sound of rustling came from behind the rose bushes just out of the floodlights’ glare and Jasmine poked her head up like a startled meerkat. She ran to Winter, embracing her tightly.

  ‘I was thinking the worst thoughts,’ she said. ‘I should have gone with you. Did you see the bodies?’

  Winter swallowed nervously. ‘Yeah, I saw them. I don’t blame you for not wanting to go back in, Jas.’

  She looked comforted for a moment and then a faint crease appeared between her eyes. ‘What about Radermire? Did you see him?’

  ‘Yes. But you didn’t kill him, Jas. It was a Demori.’

  Jasmine’s tense expression rela
xed considerably. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yeah, you’re in the clear.’

  ‘Thank God!’ She exhaled forcefully, exorcising her stress and guilt with the breath. Winter was grateful she could alleviate her friend’s anguish. Now, if she could just alleviate her own. Glancing past Winter to the keep, Jasmine asked, ‘So, where’s Ariman?’

  ‘He left,’ Winter said, unable to keep the resentment from her voice. ‘He took Magdalene and just left. Went to the Dead Lands.’

  ‘He took Magdalene? Why the hell would he do that?’

  Winter frowned. ‘The Skivers were there,’ she began, trying to make sense of what she’d seen. ‘Ariman seemed to . . . take pity on her. He offered her a choice – him or the Skivers. She went with him.’

  ‘He saved her life?’

  ‘No. Just her soul. They had some kind of history but I don’t think he was going to forgive her for keeping him locked up all these years. Magdalene won’t be coming back from the Dead Lands.’

  Jasmine chewed this over. ‘And Blake? What’s he going to do about him? He said there was still a chance, right?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Winter looked away moodily into the courtyard. ‘We didn’t have time to talk about it.’

  While she’d been inside the rain had stopped. The storm had moved on to the mountain range in the distance – Winter could see thunderheads pulsing with purple and yellow flashes. The night was no longer full of screams. A subdued peace seemed to have settled over the castle.

  ‘Well, that’s good then, isn’t it?’ Jasmine asked tentatively. ‘Ariman will save Blake. We can go home now.’

  Winter looked at her friend’s hopeful expression and wanted more than anything to say, yes, but she couldn’t. Instead, she said, ‘Let’s check on Sam.’

  ‘I completely forgot about him! He’s okay, right?’

  ‘I think so.’ Watching Jasmine’s face fall, she was quick to add, ‘I’m sure he’s fine, Jas. Elena’s watching over him.’