by A. R. Kahler
“Chris. From school.”
The phone went dead.
“The hell?” I asked, looking at the phone. “He hung up.”
“Try again?”
I was already redialing. It barely even rang when Erik picked up.
“Listen, I don’t want to talk,” he said. “Leave me the fuck alone.”
Then he hung up again.
I dropped the phone onto the bed and leaned back against the pillows.
“He won’t talk.”
“So he’s hiding something,” Ethan said.
“Probably.”
I closed my eyes and tried to remember anyone else who had been in the room last night. Anyone who could point a finger, or at least tell me I wasn’t crazy. The only one I could think of, the only one still on campus, was the one person who was the furthest away. Kaira. She felt like the only person who could save me. Which was ironic, since it was becoming more and more apparent that I needed to save her from myself.
“What do we do now?” I asked, looking over to Ethan.
He shrugged.
“We move forward, I guess. Maybe the worst of it’s over.”
It isn’t, Endbringer. Not for you. That, I can promise you.
I didn’t look toward the voice. Toward the wall. Toward the streaks of gold cast by Ethan’s lights.
I didn’t need to. I could feel the falcon there, his gaze trained on my throat.
You will suffer, he said. Until you let us in. Until you beg for it to stop. For you, the worst is only just beginning.
There was no way in Hell I could pretend the rest of the day would be normal.
Ethan and I spent an hour or so lying on his bed, listening to music and pretending the previous conversations we’d had never had happened. Finally, when he sat up to go finish some photo work and asked how I’d spend my day, I realized that he and I were never going to be on the same page. He thought something strange was happening. I knew it. I knew it in the pit of my bones in a way he never would, no matter how hard I tried to convince him. He couldn’t see the falcon that lingered in every streak of light. He didn’t see the ravens guarding Kaira like a coven of steadfast witches. He didn’t feel the clock ticking down with guillotine hands.
His neck wasn’t on the chopping block.
Still, he was looking at me like he expected an answer. Needed one. Something to continue to convince him that I wasn’t a suspect. Or a threat.
“I think I’m just going to work on my essay before lunch,” I lied. I felt terrible, but not because I was lying. I felt terrible because the lie itself was easy.
“Sounds thrilling,” he said.
“Russian lit usually is,” I replied.
And gods, it felt forced. We both knew it. We both knew this was a dialogue we shouldn’t be having, because there were more important things to talk about. The absence of what we should have been saying was like a weight between us, a void that threatened to drag us in. I knew, though, that there was nothing to say. My truths would sound like insanity to him. So I had to keep my mouth shut, and he had to continue to pretend that everything was back to normal—between us, with Kaira, and with the school.
I knew the way he looked at me.
I’d seen it on my parents, after my sister Bri died and I tried—just once—to blame myself for it, to say it was because I had been allowed to live. After, when they refused to talk about it, they would stare at me just as Ethan was now. Like they knew I had a secret, but they would rather pretend I didn’t than find out what it was. And they were angry with me for it.
He opened the door and I stepped out into the hall.
It took a few steps for me to realize he wasn’t following me. I paused and turned. What did he forget now?
Ethan was slumped in the doorway. A handful of pencils jutted from his neck, thin lines of blood dribbling to the floor, his mouth stuffed with paper, a notebook open in one hand. Even from here I could see the black and red circles splashed across the pages.
I stumbled forward. His chest was still moving. I could save him. I could . . .
Something caught my foot and I fell. It was another classmate, some guy I had only seen in passing. Or, it was part of him.
I held down the vomit and looked up at Ethan.
The shining god Heru stood in my way.
Even though I knew he was the same height as me, he filled the hallway; his wings spread out to brush the walls, and his halo of daggers circled lazily behind him. Those blue eyes pierced me sharper than the pencils gouged in Ethan’s throat.
“Why are you scared, Endbringer?” he asked. “Do you not understand your destiny?”
He smiled, and even that was brilliant. Even that was terrifying.
“What is this?” I asked. I had to move past him. I had to save Ethan. This can’t be real. This can’t be real! “What have you done?”
The guy—the god, the creature—knelt in front of me.
“Oh Chris,” he said, his voice deceptively soft. “You still believe I am the demon in all this? I didn’t give you your name, your title. This isn’t my doing. This isn’t my will alone. This, all this, is yours.”
He gestured with his hand, and my gaze obediently followed. We were no longer in the hall. Instead, a field stretched out around us, a great black tower piercing the clouds in the distance, its base as wide as the horizon. Something about it called to me, like a pulse, like a duty, but that wasn’t what made my breath catch in my throat.
It was the bodies.
They scattered across the field like ants, limbs broken, the ground marshy and red. Some carried weapons, but it was clear that not all were warriors. There were children piled against one another, and figures clearly caught while fleeing. My stomach turned at the sight, but I didn’t vomit. My hands clutched at the blood-sodden soil. Everything up to my wrists was smeared with red.
“This is what you were born to do,” Heru said, at my side. He stood proudly, surveying it all like it was his kingdom. And maybe it was. “Life and death are your playthings, Endbringer. This world is yours, ripe and ready to be plucked. So many offerings to be made. So much power to harvest.”
“I wouldn’t—” I began, but he interrupted.
“You would,” he said. “And you already have.”
“Chris?” came a voice.
“No,” I sobbed. The pain that struck was harsher than a lance, and it stabbed from the darkest shadow of my heart.
I turned my head.
And there she was. Bri. Standing atop a body. Not just any body.
Kaira.
“No!” I cried out. I forced myself up and ran over, tripping and stepping on bodies whose faces I didn’t want to see but did—classmates, teachers, friends. They piled atop one another, a mound of my madness, and at the top was Kaira. The pinnacle of what had happened.
Of what I had done.
“Chris,” Bri said. She stared at me sadly, her short dark hair limp and twined with seaweed, her eyes as pale as moons. More kelp tangled around her wrists and ankles. Like chains.
“Bri!” I called out. I couldn’t get close enough. Every time I moved, every step I took, the mound grew higher. Every action I made inspired more bodies. More loss.
“It hurts,” she cried. Despite the pain in her voice, she didn’t move. She was as still as a little porcelain doll. “Chris, it hurts so bad. Help me.”
“Bri, I’m—”
“You could save her, you know,” Heru said. He stood by my side once more; I didn’t spare him a glance. I could see the light.
“I’m trying,” I replied.
“No,” he said. “You’re not. You’re just pretending you are.”
That made me stop. My heart hammered in my lungs, and there was a desperation in my chest I hadn’t felt since Bri had gotten sucked out into the tide. The desperation was heat. A flame.
“How dare you—”
“If you wanted to save her, you would stop running. You would embrace the gifts I am trying
to give you.”
“This?” I yelled, gesturing to the bodies. “All this death? How is that a gift?”
“Because the more you sacrifice to the Tree,” he said, his voice quiet with reverence, “the more the Tree will return. You are the Endbringer. After all that came before has been lost, the world is rich with possibility.”
He looked up to the top of the mound. Was it my imagination, or were there tears in his eyes?
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You hold more power than you know,” he whispered. “It is your birthright. This death and destruction you see—it is not so dark as all that. It is the fire that cleanses and fertilizes new growth. Yours is the gift to start over. To create the world anew. You bring the end. And the end brings a new age. Some do not desire this. Some would change the plans of gods.”
A single body rolled down the pile, flopping limply at my feet. I knew without even looking that it was Kaira.
“Kill her,” he whispered. “Use the gifts I give you so freely. And then, in the wake of our victory, even the doors to death will be yours to open and shut.” He leaned in, his lips brushing my ear and sending fire through my veins. “Kill the girl, and I will personally bring you back your sister. Refuse, and I will ensure dear Brianna is cast to the farthest reaches of Hell, where even in your mortal death, you will fail to find her.”
I looked down at Kaira’s body. To her fluttering breath, her hair tangled over her softly moving lips, an arm over her brow. Like she was sleeping. Just fitfully sleeping.
And I saw the bruises on her neck. The handprints that burned with memory on my palms. There was another glow then, and not from the god at my side. It was golden and warm, streaming between my fingers. A different sort of fire.
“What have I done?” I whispered.
“Nothing yet,” Heru replied. “But you will. And you will delight in it.”
“Um.”
I jolted.
Ethan stood in his doorway, looking at me with one perfectly cocked eyebrow.
I was kneeling on the floor, my hands clenched against the hall carpet.
And I had been giggling.
The mirth cut short, and with it came a shot of adrenaline, a fear that pushed me to standing before I could think. What had he seen? What had he heard? What had I actually done?
“You okay there?”
I barely heard him over my pulse, over the frantic line of thought echoing in my head.
“I—”
But I didn’t have an answer. My words trailed off, and we stood like that, staring at each other, until the door at the far end opened and another student walked in and Ethan kicked back into gear. He shook his head and walked forward, toward the exit, clearly expecting me to follow. I did.
“Are you getting enough sleep?” he asked once we’d left the dorm.
“Not really,” I said. Which was the truth, save for the fact that I didn’t tell him why. He definitely didn’t need to know I’d snuck out to see Kaira.
Which, now that I thought of it . . . Maybe the ravens really were protecting her from me.
Because that was the scariest thought of all—the relief I had felt after what Heru had promised. The rightness. There was something in that power that made everything else insignificant. The fear. The isolation. The guilt.
With that much power, I could rewrite everything. . . .
“Earth to Chris,” Ethan said, tapping me on the temple. I snapped back to reality. What had he been saying? Clearly the look I gave him asked the question for me. “I said you should go get some sleep. Maybe see the nurse.”
His thoughts must have gone to the exact same place mine did: Kaira was in the nurse’s office. His look of concern turned to suspicion.
A small part of me flared in anger at that, that he would be so quick to assume I was faking sick to see her. But then again, wasn’t it a founded belief?
“I think I’ll just take a nap,” I lied. The plan I’d hatched from before was still valid. I wasn’t going to let Heru or the falcon get in the way of me saving Kaira. I wasn’t going to start believing they told the truth. They couldn’t bring Bri back. No one could. “Don’t think I can make it through the class day.”
He nodded, still looking at me suspiciously.
“Well then,” he said. He leaned in and gave me an awkward hug before stepping back. “Take care of yourself.”
I agreed and watched him wander off toward the art building. The second time he turned to look at me, I headed toward my room.
I was lucky: Mike wasn’t in. Probably meant he was out practicing, since he never seemed to hang out with friends. As usual, the place smelled like old clothes and stale food, thanks to his side of the room, but my disgust at it was muted. I was still shaking from what I’d seen. From Heru.
This whole shit about the Aesir and the Vanir was foreign. But it rang a bell. I’d been a huge nerd in middle school, and had lived in books of mythology and fantasy. I didn’t head to the library, though—I opened my computer and typed in the words that had been ricocheting in my head like cursed shrapnel.
The next few hours were spent poring through various wikis and articles and stories on Norse mythology. The Aesir, I’d already known of. They were the gods that had infiltrated pop culture: Thor and Odin and Loki and the rest. The Vanir were the second tribe, but I couldn’t find out much beyond that. As for Heru . . . he made the least amount of sense. Heru was an Egyptian deity. Most commonly known as Horus.
I sat back in my chair. Looked up at the ceiling. My head throbbed, and nothing made any more sense than it had earlier. Is this what Jonathan had been playing with? Trying to invoke the old gods? For what, though? And how did that relate to something that had happened to me nearly ten years ago?
Maybe he’d been similar. Maybe Jonathan had made a bargain with the gods, or been spared from death. Maybe he was trying to serve them, like Heru wanted of me.
But for what? For what?
I sighed and stood, my limbs shaking with the fear of what I was about to do. I pulled on my coat and boots and headed toward the nurse’s office. The trek across campus was silent. I kept waiting for someone to come out and demand to know why I wasn’t in class—I’d already missed lunch, and surely that was enough to raise suspicion. It didn’t happen. That almost made things worse.
“I figured you’d come here,” Ethan said.
He sat on a bench outside the nurse’s lobby, legs crossed and a book facedown on his lap. A bouquet of flowers sat beside him. He definitely didn’t look happy to see me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
I definitely wasn’t feeling happy that he was there either.
“Same thing you are,” he replied. He yawned and stretched himself to standing. “But I have a better chance of achieving it.”
“You were waiting for me?”
He shrugged and grabbed the flowers.
“You’re predictable. And underprepared. Besides, I wanted to see her too. I figured I might as well wait around until you showed—there’s no way in hell they’d let you in to see her on your own.”
I knew, though, that wasn’t the only reason he’d waited. Maybe it was paranoia, but I figured it was because he didn’t want me alone with Kaira. Whatever I learned in there, whatever she and I said, he wanted to be in on. He wanted to be proven right. Or wrong. Just like me.
Ethan walked over to the door and held it open.
“Afternoon, boys,” the nurse said. She looked up from her computer and gave us a warm smile. It was one of those smiles that said that—even in the worst of situations—everything would end up okay.
God, I wished I could believe that everything would be okay.
“Hey Bettie,” Ethan said, giving her his biggest smile. “How you feeling?”
She laughed. “I believe I’m supposed to be asking you two that.”
Damn it, Ethan was good.
“We’re just dandy,” he replied, somehow pullin
g off the word. He separated a single flower—a rose—from the bouquet, and held it out to her. “And I thought, on a dreary day like this, you could use a little brightness.”
Her grin widened and a slight blush rose to her cheeks as she took the flower. I could tell from her smile that she was on to our game.
“Thank you, dear. I’m touched. Who are the rest for?”
“Oh, these? Well, we were hoping we could see Kaira.”
She looked between him and me.
“You know that the point of being in the nurse’s office is to get a little alone time for recovery, right?”
“But flowers!” Ethan chirped. His grin widened. “Everyone knows that flowers aid recovery time by boosting the patient’s overall mood.”
She chuckled.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of that study.”
“Oh, it’s scientifically proven, let me assure you.”
She shook her head. Maybe she was trying to convince herself that she should turn us away, but the smile told me Ethan had already won. He was right—there was no way I could have pulled this off on my own. Which just made me a little angrier . . . Where the hell is that coming from?
“Well, far be it from me to stand in the way of science and recovery,” she said, still holding the rose. “Sign in, please.”
We did so, and maybe it was my imagination, but Ethan seemed indignant to hand me the pen. I was practically shaking with adrenaline, and my signature came out as a jumble. Bettie didn’t seem to notice. She slid back the clipboard and stood, leading us down the hall.
“Now, I don’t want you two disturbing her,” she whispered, pausing outside an open door. I could just see the footboard of a bed from this angle. “She needs her rest. But I’ll give you a minute to sit with her.”
Then, patting Ethan on the shoulder, she continued on down the hall. Humming.
Ethan stepped into the room, flowers held before him like he was using them as a shield.
The room was warm and dim, everything oak and burgundy—the antithesis of Kaira’s cold, shadowed dorm. Despite the illusion of healing, there was a sickness in the air that I didn’t think I was alone in feeling. A coldness that seeped up through the floorboards. The whisper of dark feathers at the room’s edges.