Stain

by A. G. Howard

  “She left them behind when she ran—after spending all morning haggling for them. You can blame her pesky horsefly for everything. He had the prince trapped and on the defensive. I’ve known biting midges with better self-control than that half-wit donkey.”

  Crony snorted. “Have ye e’er considered that it’s her frolics with said donkey that made her wily enough to wrestle a trained prince and match his skills?”

  “Ha! Her fighting skills were honed by watching drunken brawls between our upstanding citizens here. No need to credit the Pegasus with that.”

  “Not so. She would ne’er have seen such skirmishes had ye been her only companion. Yer too protective. But Scorch led her into the thick of it all. Now, she be that prince’s equal, just as the prophecy said. I’m guessing that fact is turnin’ in our royal man’s head . . . that it be makin’ him think. Makin’ him wonder. I’m guessing he be searching for our ‘boy’ as we speak. That Pegasus may be an impulsive beast, but her walk with him has served a purpose.” Crony held up the two teacups so Luce could fill them. “In fact, best hope she’s walkin’ with him now. That ye didn’t send her hiding so deep none of us can find her.”

  “I didn’t send her anywhere,” Luce snarled, hesitating on pouring the hot water. “Stain’s always had a mind of her own. In spite that we stole half of it. If you had been honest with me from the beginning, just once shared the reason why you made your damned vow . . . why it’s so unbreakable, I wouldn’t have been so tempted to tell her some snippet of truth.”

  “Nay, ye still would’ve bubbled up like a pot put to boil. Ye can’t resist when she bats those lashes. It was my mistake trustin’ ye with any of it to begin with.”

  Luce tossed the full kettle into the yard with a clang, baring his teeth. The water gurgled from the spout and the opened lid, creating a puddle of mushy ash. “Well, let’s have a full confessional then. It was my mistake that killed that girl’s mother. My mistake that landed her here half-dead. Do you see why I might feel more responsible than most? Why I might feel a bit softer toward her than I care to admit?”

  Crony groaned. She set aside the cups and stepped across the threshold to retrieve the kettle, shoulders slouched against the blame weighing them down. A patch of bleeding heart had withered beneath the boiling water. She gathered the bright pink flowers into a soggy bouquet. A stabbing twinge caught in her chest as she worried over the princess’s own bleeding heart. In Stain’s eyes, they had betrayed her. And she didn’t even know the half of it.

  “I haven’t your wretched immortal body, old woman,” Luce said, recouping her attention while he kicked sand into the fire pit to stifle the flames. Some white feathers slipped into the mix and their burned stench soured the already bitter air. “I’ll die one day, from age, here upon the ground. Unless I continue gorging myself on the entrails of corpses. She was my one chance to undo the bad, to regain agelessness, and now that chance is gone. Her faith in us is gone. All because you wouldn’t allow me to tell her who she is.”

  Crony stood, her back still turned to Luce. “Ye think it easy for me? Keepin’ this trap shut?”

  “Yes. Because of your thick gargoyle skin. You’re impervious, don’t you see? You’re unaffected by the world around you. I’ve had burrs in my fur, I’ve had cuts on my skin. Ever since the moment I was grounded, I can feel. Just a prick of a thorn can incapacitate. Yet every day, that tender girl faces these things and more, going on without even a complaint. Becoming stronger instead. I was convinced she was unbreakable. But did you see the look on her face? This split her wide open, and at the worst possible time. And again, it’s my fault. Can you imagine what it’s like, knowing you’ve destroyed such a noble and inexhaustible spirit? Knowing the kind of queen she could have been? Knowing that you’ll never stop wrestling the guilt until you’re either cold in the grave, or you’ve flown so far into the sky, you no longer have to feel anything but the air and the wind?”

  Crony stepped back into the house. She crossed to the kitchen and stood before him, tilting her heavy horns so she could meet his glistening orange gaze. “I know better than any. And I be more to blame than ye ever could . . . I feel deeper than ye ever would. For I betrayed a kindred spirit, and destroyed the world entire.”

  He wrinkled his perfect forehead—an expression of doubt and anguish.

  “I’ve been too harsh with ye, frilly fox. Ye took on the task without ever lookin’ back, and ye did a rouse-about job. Better than this old biddy could’ve did alone. I owe ye a thanks.” She offered him the soggy bouquet.

  He took it begrudgingly.

  She gestured to the nearest upended cask. “Sit and I will share me own confession. For seein’ as the girl no longer trusts either of us, there be no more risk of ye spillin’ me secrets, aye?”

  Luce sat, and Crony did the same on the barrel opposite him.

  She wrestled the words at first; they’d been wound so tight upon the spool of suppression, it tangled her forked tongue to try to speak them. The stuttering lasted only until she remembered how tales prefer to be told: as one would a bedtime story—leading with the happy parts.

  “Once upon a time, some seven centuries ago,” she said, “there were an ugly, horned witch esteemed enough to live in the glittering ivory palace of Eldoria. Esteemed enough to be the mystical advisor to the king.”

  The words came easier as a fairy tale. They opened doors within her mind’s eye that she’d locked long ago. Yet the images weren’t covered with dust or cobwebs; nay, they were vivid and bright: She could see herself, walking among royalty, wearing sandals of gold and robes of white emblazoned with three stalks of wheat and a running horse in red. There was no personal sun to be celebrated as Eldoria’s sigil back then. They shared every day—every summer, fall, and spring—with Nerezeth, in the same as winter and the moonlit stars painted both kingdoms’ skies and shadowed their hearths. They shared also the creatures of day and night: the singing birds, the trilling crickets, the fluttering butterflies mingling with fuzzy moths. And the autumn leaves, spring flowers, drifts of snow, and summer storms swept across their terrains in equal parts, providing beauty in diversity.

  Eldoria’s strengths centered around their talent for farming and livestock, thus their sigil. Nerezeth, on the other hand, lived on the heavily forested lands closer to the mountainous, eastern edge of the sea, and chose a silver fish and antlers against a field of blue satin as tribute to their proficiency in hunting and fishing. Commerce was maintained via the imports and exports of each kingdom’s goods and services—a balance that benefited everyone. Nerezethites and Eldorians traversed to one another’s kingdoms and markets in peaceful alliance.

  In that unified world, Crony had an honorable title: Madame Cronatia Wisteria, Eldoria’s Royal Enchantress. She’d sworn fealty to the monarch, Kiran’s ascendant of earliest Eyvindur generations, King Kreśimer. Like Kiran, he was kind, wise, and noble, and she was honored to follow him. Her loyalty—to her king, the queen, and their three young princes—knew no bounds.

  Nerezeth had a sorcerer of their own, Master Lachrymosa. He was at once stark and striking: a complexion of chalky white with streaks of black drizzling from his pitch-dark eyes like oil. The same pattern continued along the lower edge of his black lips, making it appear he’d been drinking a vial of ink; he wore a beard that furthered the illusion—dark curling strands hanging from his chin to his chest alongside shoulder-length hair. His deep voice flowed and rolled, sweet and carnal through the ears, like a song of honey and thunder. Though he was young—barely twenty-three years in the world—he was powerful. He had but one downfall: he begrudged his half-blood lineage. He’d been born of an immortal sorceress and a mortal royal guard who had died while serving in the Nerezethite army.

  May-let his youthfulness was Lachrymosa’s ultimate downfall, for had he been older and wiser, he wouldn’t have considered himself half of something, instead of two parts of a whole. May-let he would even have found strength in both sides of his bloo
d, instead of attempting to flush out all traces of humanity.

  But wait . . . Crony was getting ahead of herself in the telling, for that wasn’t one of the happy parts. She backtracked, returning to the beginning when things were good between both kingdoms. When two magistrates—Kreśimer of Eldoria and Velimer of Nerezeth—joined forces to rid the skies of their common enemy: the poison-spitting drasilisks that could turn anyone to stone with one puncture from their scorpion-like stingers. The only way to kill them was by beheading with a halberd’s axe-like blade, a process only possible once they were grounded.

  Crony first met Lachrymosa at a convocation between the kingdoms’ councils. He appeared at first glance to be seated beside an empty chair, with Nerezethite’s king on the other side. When Crony and her own king sat across from their counterparts, a three-eyed woman took shape in the empty chair next to the half-blood sorcerer. Master Lachrymosa introduced her as his mother, Lady Dyadia. She was there to contribute magical insight into how they might defeat the deadly plague upon their skies.

  Crony had heard of her kind, descended from chameleon chimeras—a striped sorceress sharing her son’s coloring, though the pattern was more elegant and subtle upon her, like a snow tiger. Even now, so many centuries between those memories, Crony still found herself captivated by that first meeting . . . by Dyadia’s ability to blend into her surroundings, to be invisible. How often since had Crony wished for such a talent herself? Or at the least, to close her eyes and have the world disappear.

  While working together, she and Dyadia became fast friends. Crony demonstrated the technique behind memory transference and herbal elixirs and potions, and Dyadia impressed her with the ability to enchant objects and divine prophecies through her third eye. They had things in common that no human could appreciate: laughing about mistakes made when first learning their crafts; commiserating over broken glass and shattered spells.

  Crony paused. Luce, who’d been listening—enthralled—leaned forward.

  “There must be more. You’ve yet to speak of betrayals, vows, or curses, Madame Cronatia.” His elbows rested on his knees, and the wilted flowers drooped where his pants draped his shins. “Don’t stop now. I’ve waited over a decade for this tale.”

  Crony ground her jaw to repress a sad smile, for how short of a time was ten years in the grand scope of things. “May-let we trusted one another too quickly with too much, Dyadia and me. She confided the fears she be havin’ about her son. Worries o’er his dangerous ambitions, his dabblings in necromancy in hopes to find immortality. In return, I admitted me one fear.”

  Luce lifted a red eyebrow, looking entirely too wolfish to be so handsome. “And that would be?”

  Crony shook her head. “Nothin’ ye need know for the tale.”

  Giving up her immortality to grant the princess another chance at life . . . that was something she still couldn’t tell Luce; it risked interference, for should Luce know, it might affect the outcome in ways Crony couldn’t predict. Nay, she wouldn’t chance it. She opted instead to be crafty with her words. Distract him with an emotional revelation.

  “Immortals be but a distinct few. We’re given the opportunity upon conception to live on the earth, or on the celestial plane, out of sight of mortals. Only six of us walk upon the terra, each of us descended from ancient beings: gargoyles, chimeras, seraphs, or demons. Those four immortal classes were enemies, historically. So we be hard-pressed to find someone with which to live out an eternity. In the mortal mindset, to stumble upon another like yerself, to have trifles and tricks to learn and trade, it be a gift. But for an immortal, to feel as if yer long, plodding steps have been bestrewn with new paths flaunting two pairs of footprints instead of one—it be a miracle. Dyadia and me, we both be wise enough to hold it close, in the beginning. I cherished her. For her frightful beauty, for her mystical talents, for her maternal ways with her son—something I would ne’er experience for meself. Harrowers don’t be made to have offspring. We lose that ability the moment we take the power. And we keep the curse till we be flushed of our magic, passing it to another soul. Whether mortal or immortal, monstrous or indistinct, a harrower recipient must be a willin’ vessel, and ready to swear off any hope for children however long their commission. Me mistake was takin’ on the power while being immortal. Eternity be a long time to live without family.” Crony dropped her gaze to the flower stems curling down to Luce’s shin, finding herself thinking upon the princess again, wanting so much for the girl to find her way, but unable to make it happen herself. Is that how true parents felt? “But there be a downfall to an immortal having a child, and it is far greater than the pain of ne’er havin’ one.”

  Luce nodded. “Because they will one day outlive said child.”

  “Aye. That was Dyadia’s greatest fear. Hard to becalm such a worry, but I heared her each time she needed to be heared. It seem to satisfy her some bit, to have a companion such as me. And on me end, none I had met in that long walk felt so much like home. Like belongin’.” Crony’s chest warmed in remembrance of those happier days. “Dyadia became me beloved family, and more.”

  Luce smiled, gentle and heartfelt. The sort of expression she’d only seen him impart on Stain. “Well, smack my snout and call me vixen. Never thought to hear something so pretty from the lips of a puckish old witch like yourself.” His eyes were teasing, but his features fell to somberness. “Something horrible happened. For you to be so far apart now, to have lost one another to opposing realms. Tell me . . .”

  Crony disliked this part of the fairy tale: the moral test, the downfall of the hero. Better she leap in without hesitating, better to fall headfirst—eyes painfully open, always open—into those final memories; better than to pause and anticipate the agony, to remember how her heart would rip anew when she relived her grandest mistake.

  The final battle to save the two kingdoms from the drasilisks had been won. Between the hand signals used by the infantries so the halberdiers could carry out their lethal formations in silence, and Cronatia’s and Lachrymosa’s presence on the front lines combining their magics—her ability to make weapons of nightmares and his to communicate with the creatures mentally—the victory belonged to the kingdoms.

  No more drasilisks were left. Their gargantuan, beheaded, rotting forms laid coiled in fields set afire. The noxious stench of their burning scales—like puss-filled boils roasting on a spigot—signaled freedom at last. A proclamation went out, and both kings sealed an alliance swearing if any sign of the destructive creatures appeared in Eldoria or Nerezeth, they would be hunted down and eradicated, for the good of all life. The people celebrated, anticipating a future without fear.

  A future that was short-lived.

  “Some five months later,” Crony said, her voice shaking now, “the sun began to bow to the moon at unreasonable hours. The winter came early, when spring was just raising its pink-petaled head. Fear crept ’cross both kingdoms once more.”

  The drasilisks had preferred to hunt at night, and over time had developed an uncanny ability to call down the moon, even in midday, to darken the skies so they might feed on those out tending fields or fishing. Now, even with the creatures extinct, confusion fell upon the two kingdoms once more, though nothing fell from the sky.

  King Kreśimer called Cronatia to his throne room early one afternoon, when the skies were cloaked in midnight. He believed he’d discovered the cause of the strange occurrences; after having Eldoria searched and finding no sign of drasilisks, he reached out to King Velimer to do the same. However, the king had fallen ill, and their sorcerer, Lachrymosa, was serving as regent—the king’s eldest son being too young to rein. King Kreśimer had sent missives to the sorcerer, asking him to search Nerezeth from border to border, but each one came back unanswered. So Kreśimer sent spies into their kingdom, and it was soon confirmed Lachrymosa was harboring a live drasilisk, though no one seemed able to find it.

  Crony didn’t tell her king that day how she’d been in contact with the sor
cerer’s mother via a one-eyed albino crow. It would visit weekly, perched upon Crony’s window to converse, as if Dyadia were sitting right beside her. Crony didn’t want her king to doubt her loyalty to Eldoria, for that had not changed in spite of her friendship with a sorceress from the opposing kingdom. And she wasn’t hiding anything of import, as Dyadia had refused to confirm or deny her son’s guilt during those unconventional visits.

  On a gloomy day, the sky heavy with dark clouds, Eldoria’s infantry prepared to march into Nerezeth with intent to behead the beast and the sorcerer responsible. They planned to leave within the week. Crony had received another message from Dyadia, this time in a note tied to Thana’s scaly white leg. The sorceress pled for her to come to Nerezeth’s palace in the depths of the forest posthaste, but to keep it secret, for her son had made a tragic error.

  Crony left before the infantry, telling King Kreśimer only that she was to investigate the strangeness in the skies by meeting with Dyadia.

  Thana flew above her during the three-week-long journey, as if to ensure she came alone. The albino crow took her leave once Crony arrived at the black castle and was escorted alongside Dyadia through the glossy, obsidian halls. Dyadia dismissed the guards then grasped Crony’s hand and spoke casually, as if catching up over tea. Her forced composure made Crony uneasy, but she played along, sensing the depth of Dyadia’s pain, knowing somehow that her son was dying, seeing it in her eyes. Knowing more, with every step, why she had been called to the sorceress’s side. Though dread filled her heart, she followed on.

  They walked down a sloping staircase that led into the dungeon, past cells rife with the scent of urine and body odor, and the moaning of prisoners. When it looked as if the corridor stalled at a dead end, Dyadia magically manipulated a row of stones, coaxing the wall to open another set of stairs. These led deeper into the earth, into a passage almost a full league beneath the castle.