Vulture

by Rhiannon Paille

  In the present, Jack squeezed Pux’s knee, pulling him out of his daydream.

  “I’m sorry,” Pux mumbled.

  “Don’t be. I think it’s endearing,” Jack said.

  There was a loud knock at the door. Pux snapped his attention to the banging, but it was Bethula who wiped off her apron long enough to answer it. She was met with the striking figure of the Obsidian Flame. Pux caught the apprehension on her wrinkled face. Her drab brown hair was pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck, and she wore a long beige tunic made into a dress by the apron that held the loose fabric to her hourglass figure. She put a hand on her chest as Klavotesi spoke. Pux didn’t catch all of his words.

  He moved to his feet, letting the blanket fall to the floor, stitches of cold pressing into his fur. Jack scrambled to his feet next to him, mimicking his look of concern. Klavotesi turned on his heel and disappeared from the threshold as Bethula closed the door behind her, hanging her head.

  “Mom?” Jack asked. She looked stressed.

  Bethula shook her head. “We need to meet at the hall at dinner. They have some thoughts on the storm and what to do,” she said it slowly, her voice catching between the words.

  Jack rubbed her shoulders. “It’ll be okay, Mom.”

  She threaded her hands together, and it looked like she was trying not to cry. “But the animals … I don’t think they’ll make it.”

  Jack gave Pux a look and he nodded, knowing it was time to go. “Come on, let’s get you to bed. I’ll go to the meeting for you. You need your rest. I’ll see what I can do about the animals.” He led her to a darkened part of the cabin.

  Pux braced himself and opened the door, descending the steps, trailing across the frozen ground. His bare feet stung and he winced as he neared the watchtower and pulled himself up the steps. He knocked on the door once and waited. There was no answer so he knocked again. No answer. He pushed the door open, finding Kaliel curled into a ball on the bed, a blanket wrapped tight around her.

  “Kaliel,” he hissed. He put a hand on her back and shook her, hearing her soft mumbles as she tried to shoo him away. “Kaliel,” he tried again. “They’re calling everyone to the hall.”

  Kaliel pulled the blanket down around her face. There were bags on her red, splotched face, and her green eyes were storms of seasickness. “I’m not going.”

  Pux cross his arms. “Did you tell Krishani?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said, tears pooling in her eyes.

  Pux sighed and sat on the edge of the bed his head in his hands. “Kaliel … I miss Avristar.”

  “Huh?” The bed creaked behind him as she sat, the sheets still pulled around her shoulders. He glanced at her and nodded.

  “I said I didn’t want to go home, but I do. I miss the creek and the forests and the apples, and I miss you.”

  “But I’m right here.”

  Pux shook his head. “No, you’re not. Do you remember when we were kids?”

  Kaliel frowned. “You used to turn birds orange and green.”

  Pux sighed. “And you swam with merfolk and talked to trees and squirrels and deer and rabbits.”

  The blankets shifted, and Pux let out a deep breath, the pain in his heart too heavy for him to explain it all. He didn’t know how to tell Kaliel who she was, how to make her remember that girl. He hoped since she possessed Aulises she would be the girl he used to know, the girl he lived with in Evennses. But no matter what he tried to do, the games he tried to play—the dances, the songs—nothing rejuvenated her spirit. She was always a shell of the person she used to be.

  And he hated what she had done because of what she had become. He didn’t know how to return the favor and heal her when she needed it most.

  “What about it, Pux?” she asked, a sharpness in her voice.

  He hung his head. “You never did anything dangerous on Avristar.”

  She hiccupped and her eyes were full of anger. Pux turned.

  “Yes I did.” She jumped to her feet, gasping at the cold and hurrying to find something warmer to wear. Pux buried his head in his hands as she pulled drawers open and stripped, putting on the thick black dress Aulises had worn. She rounded the bed and pulled Pux’s hands off his face. He glowered. He didn’t want her to believe she was a bad person. She was a good person who made a mistake. It didn’t matter how big the mistake was; it didn’t change the fact that she was Kaliel. She was enchanting, brave, curious, peculiar, mysterious, and pure. She was innocent, even when she was guilty.

  “I almost drowned in the lake once.”

  “What?”

  Kaliel crossed her arms and looked at the door. “You said I never did anything dangerous but I did. I went to the lake. I fell in love with Krishani. I caused an apocalypse and made a volcano explode. I can’t avoid what I am, or what I mean to the Valtanyana. They will always be after me.”

  Pux shook his head. He didn’t want to listen to her tear herself apart. It was one thing for him to berate her for her mistakes but another for her to be so sure of her own faults. “It’s not true.”

  “Why didn’t you ask me why they were coming for me?”

  “Huh?”

  “In the Village of the Shee. I told you I was the Amethyst Flame and you didn’t ask why they wanted me.”

  He smiled and almost laughed. “I didn’t have to ask.” His eyes were shining with tears. He turned his hands back and forth on his lap, inspecting the hairs on the backs of his hands. “I always knew you were special.”

  Kaliel scoffed and kicked the door. She growled. “I set the volcano off.”

  Pux gave her a blank stare.

  Kaliel pressed her forehead against the door. “Don’t pretend you know everything.”

  Pux shrugged. “I only wanted to know why you did it.” He didn’t know what to think about the volcano. He remembered the blast vaguely, but he was unconscious. He never expected her to lose her life in the process of escaping the Valtanyana. He felt dizzy and sick at the same time, and he desperately needed her to believe in herself. He needed her to come back to the person she used to be.

  She looked at him, her expression lethal. It said a lot more than her words. “You don’t know what Krishani is,” she whispered, her eyes hardening into hatred.

  And then Pux did understand. He rubbed his hands on his breeches and stood. She slunk away from the door and folded herself into the wicker chair, burying her face in her knees. He put a hand on the doorknob, still staring at her. “I’m sorry I came,” he said, ripping the door open and fleeing into the cold.

  • • •

  Kaliel stayed in the cabin all afternoon. She didn’t move off the wicker chair, knees hugged to her chest, teeth chattering, shoulders shaking with sobs. She cried until there were no more tears left to cry. She sat in the dark and listened to the gusts of wind slamming against the watchtower with so much force she thought it might be knocked off its foundation. She didn’t know how much time went by. Krishani was gone, helping the villagers. She woke alone and sticky regret pressed into her. What if he already knew? What was he doing? How would he look at her? She didn’t want to face any of that, so she waited.

  A long time later, there was another knock on the door. It didn’t sound like Pux’s methodical knocking, which had a pattern to it. This knock was softer, shy. She stretched her legs out, feeling pinpricks of sleep creeping around her ankle. She limped to the door and pulled it open.

  Jack.

  She didn’t try to hide her face; it was red, her eyes bloodshot, bruises forming under them. She knew she looked like hell, and it was exactly how she felt. Jack cupped the back of his neck and frowned, stealing a glance at the porch. He looked cold even though he was in multiple layers with a cloak and headpiece slung over his orange hair. He shivered in the utterly scary cold. She wondered how much the temperature had dropped since morning.

  “Pux told me to come get you. All the villagers are gathering at the hall,” Jack explained.

  Kali
el crossed her arms and looked down, poking her toe into the floorboards. “Where is Krishani?”

  Jack let out a breath like he’d been waiting for her to say something like that. “I don’t know. I think he’s already there.”

  Kaliel didn’t feel comfortable. Everything in her told her to avoid the castle, avoid the villagers. Thoughts of them rallying against her, outing her, judging her, and executing her crossed her mind, and she instinctively took a step back, shaking her head. “I told Pux I wasn’t going.”

  Jack held out his hand. “It’s about the storm,” he said, his eyes pleading. She knew that look, like Pux genuinely wanted her there but didn’t know if their friendship had anymore strings to hang on by. She took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Give me a minute.” She ducked into the cabin and pulled on a cloak, burying her face inside the hood. If she was going to show up, she was going in camouflage for good measure. She appeared at the door again. Jack had his back to her, his hands against the railing. When he let go she saw big red welts on his hand from frost. It covered everything; the trees and their leaves were all frozen over in a thick layer of ice. Branches, limbs, even the trunks were covered in a thin veil of white snow. Her breath caught as she stepped out of the cabin and saw the tops of the cabins dusted with snow, the sky full of lazy flakes.

  She couldn’t believe how beautiful and terrible it was at the same time. She closed her eyes, tears spilling onto her cheeks and crystallizing. Flashes of the first time she met Krishani at the waterfall danced behind her eyes—his shy smiles, his apprehension, his wonder. That was what made him everything to her. He could do wondrous things when she was there. Without her … he was an uncontrollable wreck. He made ice a reality, and she asked countless times for snow but never thought she’d see it.

  Jack frantically gestured to her from the bottom of the stairs. He looked frozen. She let the memory go and followed him to the hall. Hundreds of villagers were gathered. Kaliel stepped in line with them, flowing with the throngs of people. She ducked around the corner, tucking herself into the small crevasse of the hall, the place she’d sat with Pux after the battle with Crestaos. People stood in crowds in the middle of the floor. She squeezed between them and sunk down the wall. Jack was right behind her. He crouched and gave her hand a squeeze.

  “I’m going to find Pux,” he whispered, moving halfway to his feet. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

  Kaliel nodded, not knowing what was going to happen. She listened to the mindless chatter of the villagers, hoping she was invisible. It wasn’t long before loud clapping spread through the hall, followed by silence. Kaliel couldn’t take it; her heart thumped. She shrunk into a smaller ball and tried to hide. She couldn’t accept herself like this—a villain, a betrayer, a liar, a cheater. She was all the things she never thought she’d be.

  “Welcome!” Elwen said, his voice booming across the hall. Kaliel shuddered. “We’ve asked you to gather here to tell you that this storm isn’t natural,” Elwen began. There was a gasp from a few of the villagers. The voices of the guards rose over them and silence ensued. Kaliel wiped away the tears in her eyes.

  “This storm was cast by magic. We don’t know when it will end.”

  Uproar erupted from the crowd. Kaliel caught some of their strings of questions and accusations. The guards shouted louder, and Kaliel heard people scuffle. Someone threatened to throw someone outside to brave the storm without their clothes on and everyone stopped talking.

  “You need to stay in your homes. Dinner will be served inside the main hall. Avoid going outside at all costs. That’s everything. I’ve given you everything I have. I hope the storm passes soon.” Elwen’s authoritative tone faded in the midst of the cacophony, and the hall filled with unbearable noise. The villagers retaliated. They shouted about crops, animals, food stores, homes, children, and livelihoods. She felt sick to her stomach as she pushed herself to her feet. She pulled the hood around her face and kept to the walls as she slunk out of the hall unseen. She couldn’t stay and listen to their protests, questions, and disbelief.

  She knew the one thing they didn’t know. It didn’t matter if they died in the storm or not. It didn’t matter if winter stayed forever, if food never grew again. It wouldn’t matter because if the storm didn’t take them, the Valtanyana would.

  She slipped around the jutting rock of the castle, reached the heavy double doors, and stole away into the dark evening. She stayed close to the walls, but a hand touched her shoulder and pushed her hard against the wall. The hood fell off her face, black curls framing her frightened cheeks. The cold red eyes of Klavotesi knifed into her. He looked livid. “I know it was you.”

  She steeled herself but it was no use. Against him she was afraid, but nothing he could say would make it worse.

  His hand raked across her face. That made it worse. Kaliel felt like she had been rammed in the face by an ox he was so strong. She fell against the castle, barely able to brace herself as her hand smacked against the rock hard. She winced at the shooting pangs creeping up her arm. She tried to gather herself, gear up for another blow when Klavotesi took a step back.

  “I have tried, tested, and found you guilty,” he began, his red eyes filling with the black ink of the Obsidian Flame. Kaliel shook. She couldn’t even pull the Flame from the depths of her being. She silently begged him to let her live. He cocked his head to the side and frowned, reading every one of her thoughts.

  “I won’t kill you. That isn’t acceptable. You didn’t act alone, and you killed your accomplice,” he hissed.

  Kaliel looked shocked. “Cassareece is dead?” She thought back to the last dream. Morgana was looking for Cassareece, assuming Kaliel captured her.

  Klavotesi nodded. “That box was cursed, only Krishani could open it safely.”

  Kaliel hung her head. She didn’t look for Krishani inside the hall. She hadn’t looked for him all day because she wasn’t ready to face him. She blinked back tears and squared her shoulders. “She didn’t give me a choice.”

  Klavotesi looked enraged and disappointed at the same time. “You have no one to blame but yourself.” He took a step to her and she cowered against the wall, pressing her back into it so hard she was on the tips of her toes. She stared into his eyes and suddenly she could read his thoughts. The ability was as crisp as it had been with Mallorn in the forest. Beyond Klavotesi’s rage was disappointment and pain. This wasn’t a judgment like the others for him. It wasn’t the same with the thieves on Amaltheia. This was Kaliel, the best of the Flames, the one he believed in most, their fearless leader. She understood every part of his regret, melancholy, and pity.

  “I cast you out, Kaliel. You are hereby exiled from this village, never to return.” The words meant something; they solidified the process. She had no choice but to leave peacefully or be forced out by the magic of the Obsidian Flame. Klavotesi hung his head and let out an exasperated breath. When he looked at her again, his eyes were red. “You can stay until the storm has died down.”

  She made an incomprehensible sound, like she couldn’t even thank him if she wanted to. Using the moment, she pulled herself off the wall and ran, ran away from him, the cold, the castle, Krishani, Pux, and the villagers. There were plenty of things she could run from, but she couldn’t run from herself.

  * * *

  42 - Sunset

  Krishani scanned the crowd inside the hall for a sign of Kaliel. He frowned, seeing Pux, Jack, and the others he met going door to door. When it was over, he waited, trying to answer questions for the villagers as he pawed through the crowd looking for the one person he needed to talk to about his own ingenious plan. He ducked out of the hall and followed the trail to the stables. If there was something he needed to do it was make sure the horses had enough blankets. He also wanted to make sure the doors were secure so none of them would get spooked enough to run.

  He crossed the threshold and inhaled the smell of horses. Shimma was there behind him, like she followed him even tho
ugh he was trying to find her. She stepped into his peripheral vision, her fingers playing with the seashells on her necklace. Krishani wanted them so he could get Kaliel to the boats. He needed to get her to a safe place while he took care of the storm. He thought about going with her, but after visiting half the village personally and seeing the looks on their faces, he couldn’t let them deal with it alone. That was something Elwen would do, but he honestly didn’t care if that weasel died.

  “I came to say I’m leaving,” Shimma said.

  Krishani nodded. “I know. Get back to Avristar, take Kaliel … and Pux.”

  Shimma shook her head. “That’s not a good idea, Krishani. I’m not going back to Avristar.”

  Krishani stopped, anger singing through him. “Where are you running to now?”

  Shimma shrugged. “Nimphalls. I’m going back to my sisters.”

  “And you’ll just leave us to die?”

  Shimma dropped the seashells and put a hand on his shoulder. “You won’t die.”

  He didn’t even think about it. His clenched fist met with her jaw so hard she fell on the ground. Blood trickled from her nose.

  “You disgust me,” he muttered. She wasn’t even worth it in his opinion. Shimma knew what Kaliel meant to him and what Pux meant to Kaliel. Letting them perish in the storm with the rest of the villagers? It was unforgivable. He couldn’t save the villagers, the boat was too small for that, but he could buy himself more time.

  Shimma pulled herself to her feet and flew at Krishani, a dagger in her hand. She slashed his tunic, tearing it open. She stumbled backwards and gasped, staring at the black vines stretching across his chest. She wiped her bloody nose with her sleeve but it trickled over her mouth. Her blue eyes widened.

  “You’re changing.”

  “And you’re not helping,” Krishani said, shuddering against the cold.

  “I never stay when it gets bad,” Shimma said calmly.

  Krishani glowered. “Fine, do what you will.” He pushed the stable doors open and stormed to the watchtower.