“Yeah, did those plans include throwing a coup? Because that's what happened the moment you guys disappeared,” I say with a small frown. “It's bad. He has everyone locked in the banquet hall. I don't know where he is, or what he's thinking of doing—”
“Wherever my brother is,” Charaxus manages, as Virago sets her down onto the floor, leaning her against my hallway wall, “you can be assured that he is, right now, trying to retrace my steps. You did badly in following us, Holly,” says Charaxus now, and even though she's as white as a ghost, even though she doesn't even have the energy to stand of her own volition, she's still reprimanding me.
I try to take the high road and shake my head. “You looked like you were kidnapping the queen—and you really did take my girlfriend. I wasn't about to sit by,” I tell her, lifting my chin up, but Charaxus’ eyes—so sad—give me pause.
“Be that as it may,” says Charaxus, her voice low, grating, subdued, “it's probably too late, now. I have tried so hard to keep you safe, milady,” she says, and her voice sounds broken as she looks up at Calla. “But I have failed you.”
“No, you haven't,” says Calla, sinking down in her gown beside Charaxus, her skirts billowing up around her so that she's in a nest of fabric. She reaches out and touches her hand to Charaxus' cheek, cupping her face gently with her hand. Charaxus closes her eyes, breathes out and leans into Calla's palm, and it's absolutely impossible for me to think, right now, that Calla doesn’t know how very much Charaxus cares for her.
Or how very much Charaxus is in love with her.
“Charix wants you,” says Charaxus, her voice so soft now, it's faltering, as she stares up at her queen, “to open the dungeon, and to open the door to the goddess Cower.”
“Well, then he just won't have me,” says Calla calmly, kindly, as she gazes down at her vice queen, her green eyes brimming with tears. “You must rest, Charaxus, my faithful friend,” she says, rubbing her thumb against Charaxus' pale cheek. “Your energy is almost spent. You did well saving me. Rest now.”
“You are not safe,” Charaxus whispers.
The skin on the back of my neck is prickling as I hear something above the raging storm overhead. Thunder and lightning crackle across the sky; the rain pours down onto my roof… But above all of those sounds, I hear something out of the ordinary.
I hear my sliding glass door opening.
It makes a very distinctive whoosh when it opens from the outside, a small creak from the handle, a little groan from the lower part of the glass as it's pulled wide.
I hear that now, hear those small sounds merging together, even over the roaring rain, even over the bolts of lightning summoning thunder right outside the window. I turn, and I grip Virago's arm, my eyes wide as I lock gazes with her.
“There's someone here,” I whisper to her, and one brow goes up as she turns, glancing down the stairs, reaching up and over her shoulder for her sword.
Charaxus glances up, too, as does Calla, all of us turning to look down the hallway, toward the steps that lead downstairs.
The only light on in the entire house is the light above our heads, here in the hallway. It’s not a very bright bulb, but it gets the job done. But now, as the lightning flashes overhead, the thunder booming on its heels, the overhead light flickers...and goes out.
We are plunged into absolute darkness, punctuated by the flickers of lightning dancing through the sky.
Every time a portal has been created, every time someone comes through, something goes wrong with the lights. This isn't wholly unexpected, but it's the exactly wrong moment for it to be happening.
Because I can hear a footfall on the first stair, down below.
Someone is ascending the stairs, coming for us.
I look around, looking for something I can use as a weapon, and I've got nothing, not a single useful object in the hallway, unless you count the vacuum cleaner I have sitting in the corner because I figured that, if I tripped over it every night on my nightly pee, I would actually vacuum up Shelley's fur fluffs that collect in the corners of my hallway. But since moving the vacuum up the stairs last week, I've not used it once.
Well, I'm about to use it now. I grab the vacuum cleaner, and I'm getting ready to heft it up when my knees grow a little weak, and I swallow.
Because I can see what's coming up the stairs now.
Knights in black armor. The men of Furo, marching quietly, stealthily, including the giant champion, who towers over the rest of them. And right there, right in their midst on my staircase...
Is King Charix.
His big fur coat makes him look larger and more imposing than he already is—which is pretty damn imposing. He has a sneer on his face, and his lips are up and over his teeth. His eyes glitter in the dark, reflecting the lightning through the window behind us.
When he reaches the landing, he pauses.
“You have your orders,” he tells his knights dismissively, as if he's waiting in line at Wendy's for an order of fries. “Kill my sister,” he points with a wide, terrible smile, “and kill the knight and the woman. Subdue Calla and put her in irons, and then we leave this world,” he says, spitting out the last word as he glances around at his surroundings with disgust.
“Do you think you can best me so easily, Charix?” asks Virago, holding up her sword easily. “How many men did you bring?” she scoffs, tossing her ponytail and wolf’s tail over her shoulder and sinking into an elegant crouch. “Twenty? I have bested fifty before, and not even on a good day,” she says with a bright, wicked smile. And then she cocks her head. “I see we're protecting ourselves with a human shield. A nice touch.”
Charix, who is surrounded on all sides now by very burly, black-armored men, sniffs, shrugging. “Why get my hands dirty with this butcher mission?” he asks with a cruel smile. “Admit it, Virago—I have seen you in battle. I know how you move, and I know what you will do in this enclosed space,” he says, reaching out with a leather-gloved hand to pat my wall (painted this really awesome shade of lavender) condescendingly. Everything he is in this moment reeks of condescension, actually, as he stares at my girlfriend with a smarmy smile.
“How did you even find us, Charix?” asks Virago casually, her head tilted to the side as she casts the king a withering glance. I glance sidelong at her. Is she stalling?
“I followed the trail, obviously,” he says, shaking his head, pointing at me. “She tumbled through after that terrible witch opened the portal, and it was quite easy to follow. Come, now, Virago—surrender, and I will kill you quickly.”
“Surrender, sir,” she murmurs, her eyes glittering dangerously, “is not in my vocabulary.”
“Wait,” Charaxus growls then. Calla and I glance down to her, but Virago does not, only stiffens a little, raising her sword a bit higher.
But Charaxus is standing, having struggled to her feet, and now she's leaning against my hallway wall heavily on one shoulder, her breathing labored as she stares at her brother.
“Charix, you have Furo,” says Charaxus then, her eyes glittering with pain. “You do not need Arktos, too. I ask you for the final time, brother, to leave off these grotesque plans of domination. You will look foolish when you fail, and our beloved country will suffer because of your greed.”
“Sister,” says Charix, snarling as he shakes his head slowly, “you left Furo. Do you not remember? You were a child, and you left, and you went to Arktos, and that day, you sowed the seeds of your own destruction. You are not loyal to us. You are a deserter. And that is why you must die. I tolerated you being Vice Queen of Arktos because I thought you would possibly prove to still be loyal, and therefore,” he spits, “of use to me—but I was wrong. You are not loyal to us. You are loyal to them. And that is high treason. Kill her first,” he tells the knights on his right side, and they begin to walk forward, down the hallway, their swords drawn in the small space.
I take a step back, holding tightly to my vacuum cleaner (that I'm beginning to realize isn't much of a
weapon), but Charaxus and Virago and Calla don't budge, so I stand my ground, too, lifting the vacuum off the floor. It isn’t just a bad weapon, but it's also really damn heavy.
Charaxus is stepping forward now, and she's unsheathing her sword from her back. She's weak—it's obvious how weak she is—and she could possibly be wounded, too, judging by the way she's favoring her right leg. But Charaxus stands up to her full height (which is impressive), and she lifts her sword up to the level of her heart. She points the blade unwaveringly, straight and true, at her brother.
“Leave off this,” Charaxus hisses. “I challenge you, Charix. Will you face me one last time, brother?” she asks him, her voice soft but fierce, as she holds his gaze. “Or do you worry that your sister will best you yet again?”
“You are weak,” he snarls, laughing, tilting his head back and roaring with laughter. Outside, a bolt of lightning touches down far too close by, and the thunder that follows it, booming through the house, is practically deafening. The hallway is dark, but it's still easy to make out the knights, to make our Charix, perched at the very top of the stairs. It’s easy to make out Calla, too, standing next to me, holding her breath, and Virago, standing in front of me, gripping her sword, and Charaxus, all of us poised, ready to do battle in these close quarters, battle where life and death and the fate of entire country hangs in the balance.
Everything is so much bigger than us right now, and I can feel that, can feel the weight that every single second carries, every single heartbeat. I'm close enough to catch the scent of my beloved knight, the sweet scent of leather and metal, and something that smells a little of sandalwood. I can make out tiny details, like the creak in the leather of her gloves as Virago crouches there, hardly wavering at all; how Charaxus is standing, but her legs are quivering. I can see her from behind, can see how her whole body shakes, and how much she's trying to hide that fact.
Everything hangs in the balance in this one tiny moment that I'm going to remember for the rest of my life—for however long my life is slated to be.
It might not be for much longer.
“Done,” Charix snarls then. He turns to his knights. “My sister and I are going to settle something, once and for all,” he tells them in a low growl. “You know what to do.”
The way that the knights look at us then is pretty disconcerting.
I have a feeling that, whether Charaxus wins or loses, it's going to end the same way—with all of us dead.
Charaxus turns to look at us, and for a moment, she wavers. She's not looking at us, per se: she only has eyes for Calla. Wide eyes, eyes full of pain, of sorrow...of words left unspoken.
Charaxus steps forward, cupping her fingers around Calla's elbow. For a long moment, she says nothing, but then she murmurs, “Charix must battle with me, because of past scars we both carry, of siblings who were always locked in battle with each other. This is the battle to end it,” she says then, soft enough that only Calla should be able to hear it, but I'm standing right next to Calla. I glance away, but not before I see the tears glittering in Charaxus' eyes. “Get away, milady,” she tells the queen softly. “Do whatever it takes to get away. I will face the music when all is said and done. This, and more, I would gladly do for you. I am ever at your service,” she whispers, her voice breaking.
“Charaxus,” says Calla sadly, “I never wanted you to be at my service. You are a good and loyal friend, and you are good to Arktos. Thank you for...for everything,” she says, her voice catching. “You are a good friend,” she repeats. And Charaxus nods, turning away. To see her face in profile, so etched with pain, within and without—it’s heartbreaking.
Charaxus is Calla’s friend--and that is all she will ever be.
“Come on, come on,” bellows Charix from down the hall, gesturing with short, jerky movements. “I do this only to see the look on my sister's face when I run her through, by the way,” he says with a wide grin, laughing with his knights, as if he shares a joke with them. “The battle is already won, sister. You do know that, don't you?”
Charaxus laughs then, too. It’s a surprising laugh, a laugh of power as she glares, her eyes flashing. “Nothing is ever won...not until the very last moment. Do not be so pompous as to think you are the victor, my brother. This is why I bested you once...and I can certainly do so again,” says Charaxus, turning her sword in the air, the blade aimed at his heart. She sheathes the sword in an elegant, smooth motion.
Now she's standing perfectly well on the balls of her feet, not a single sign of strain in her body. For a long moment, I wonder if she was playing her brother for a fool; I wonder if she's bluffing now. But, no, she said it herself; she showed us how weak she was.
Isn't she?
God, I hope she's not. I hope she's perfectly well, and that she's going to fight her brother and win against him, and then we'll all fight the knights, and it'll be okay. We’ll be triumphant.
Somewhere in the back of my head, “Eye of the Tiger” begins to play as we're all ushered downstairs—in Calla’s case, pretty roughly, one of the knights shoving her down the steps, but she manages to catch herself before she falls—and then pushed out into the pouring rain.
Overhead, the storm roars, and beneath it we stand, drenched in an instant.
We form a loose circle around Charix and Charaxus—the knights from Furo, and Calla, Virago, and myself. Lightning arcs across the sky at that moment, a vault of light opening up overhead, and down here, in the muck and mud of my backyard, two black-armored figures draw their swords again.
The rain is coming down too hard for me to hear Charix's blade leave his sheath, but Charaxus' makes this bright shing in the air as she artfully lifts it up and over her shoulder, laying it across her chest as she lifts her chin.
“How is your wife, dear brother?” she asks, and she sounds almost jolly as she takes a quick step to the right, starting to flourish the blade in front of her, drawing a complicated figure-eight pattern in the air with a couple more spirals to it. She's smiling wickedly as she begins to circle her brother. “Does she still ask about me, perchance?” she growls.
Charix has his lip drawn up over his teeth, his long hair starting to stream down into his face, the rainwater pouring down around all of us. “Keep my wife out of this,” he says, sketching a quick, flashing circle in the air with the tip of his sword as he shifts the hilt in the palm of his hand, beginning to circle his sister now, too.
The two of them move in one large circle, taking dancer steps, foot over foot, as they crouch, as they study one another with almost unblinking eyes, prowling around like great cats.
Virago's fingers close over my elbow just then, curling gently but firmly. I shift my weight a little and glance sidelong at her out of the corner of my eye.
“Be ready,” she breathes in a low, almost-silent growl, and I stiffen, my entire body zinging with electricity.
Ready for...what?
There is a roll of thunder just then so loud, so jagged-sounding and deafening, that the ground beneath us quakes.
And that is when their swords finally meet.
It's Charaxus who takes the first step forward. It's one long, graceful bolt, and then she's slashing down with her sword toward her brother, and her sword meets Charix's with a clash of metal and sparks, flying into the night.
Charix holds his ground, and Charaxus steps away lightly, spinning her sword in front of her like a metal firework.
“That's the problem with you, dear brother—you fail to see things that are happening right under your nose.” She shrugs elegantly and turns, feinting with her blade at Charix's right side. He sidesteps it, but almost too slowly, and a bit of his fur coat gets caught on the end of Charaxus' blade. She tears the coat with a ripping sound, and the fur flutters a little in the wind with its new hole as Charix glowers at his sister.
“That's the problem with you, sister—you talk your way through a battle.” He steps forward, and with enormous strength, he brings the sword to the left, aiming
for Charaxus' weak side. She parries the blade, thrusting forward, but his feint was enough to knock her a little off balance. Charix immediately brings the sword down from overhead, banging it toward Charaxus, who has to lift her blade high to parry it.
Was she acting when she appeared strong? Or was the weakness an act? Is she hurt, and is she bravely trying to fight him, anyway?
If she's hurt, how long can she possibly fight without finally showing a tell to her brother? And if her brother knows how very weak she is...isn't he going to destroy her?
My heart in my throat; I can only watch as the flurry of blades comes faster now. There is no time for talking anymore. Grunts and growls fill the air as Charaxus and Charix exist in the very center of this maelstrom of sharpness, the blades flashing as they move over and over, trying to find a weak spot, seeking flesh. I realize I'm holding my breath when there are small black dots appearing at the corners of my vision, and I take a deep breath as Charaxus feints to the right, then does a magnificent spin and turns, coming in for Charix's back now.
She moves so fast, her entire body is a blur, but Charix moves quickly, too. And though the rain is pouring down all around us, though the heavens are emptying everything they've got, though my eyes are full of water, and it's so very, very difficult to see...
I still see a small flash in Charix's other hand as he steps neatly backward.
And I see it again when his hand comes through the air, moving much too quickly, to connect with Charaxus' stomach.
She curves forward, and at first, I think the motion is elegant...but I realize in a moment, as she crumples forward, collapsing onto her brother, that it's not...
It's because he stabbed her.
Charix stabbed his sister with a dagger. That's what I saw glinting in his hand; that’s what I saw slicing through the air toward her. He grabbed a dagger from a pocket within the lining of his coat, and he stabbed her.
It's over. The fight is over.
Charaxus is crumpled onto her brother, her sword sagging in her right hand, sagging down to the ground, the blade brushing against the grass and the mud there. Charix puts his other arm around his sister, the one not twisting the dagger in her guts, and he squeezes cruelly, laughing as she gasps.
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