Skotádi’s breath was coming in panicked pants. He could feel his senses shutting down. He couldn’t feel his legs. His fingers were numb. The unbearable throbbing in his chest was growing more acute by the moment. Slowly, the unbelievable began to dawn on him. The impossibility that was becoming reality.
He was dying.
Skotádi parted his pale lips, his flesh growing dark and cracking apart.
“I’m…afraid.”
“I know you are,” Storgen responded, cruelly tightening his grip even further. “Now remove their curse!”
The demi-god reached up with a black and cracking hand, and drew a line in the air. Far above, the alchemic circles flew apart and the curse reversed, stone becoming flesh once more.
Storgen’s grip slackened, and his head fell back weakly.
Skotádi’s eyes rolled back into his head, and his body went limp. He tried to sit up, but his frame was beyond responding.
As the void took him, a single thought rolled through his mind.
How? How did I fail to break you? I never failed, not once. All of the others broke so easily. Where did I go wrong with you?
His mind began to boil away, his thoughts and memories evaporating into nothingness.
How did you escape the tower?
Then everything became dark.
Chapter Seventeen
Fell banners rising up above the mists, signaling the alliance of the heavens and the underworld, a fountain of purity and a fountain of foulness flowing into the same vessel. Countless shining spear tips, winking in flashes of razor sharp metal, outnumbering the stars themselves. The low rumble of chariots, hooves of unicorns and flapping of pegasi wings. The rumbling became a thunder as the endless hordes of the Alliance charged the Infinite Wall. The Eternal Keep lay beyond, the final bastion of power left to the Fates as the forces of Sirend and the Forces of Fovos threw themselves against the celestial guards. The screams of demi-gods, the roar of deities, the heavens quaked from the impact, great tears rent between the stars from the power of their clash that remain to this day.
The siege lasted for three days. For three days, a thousand enslaved giants pounded the gates, but could not breech them. Gods expended their energies, draining themselves of all their reserves, immolating the gate with celestial flames that consumed the stars themselves, but the gate held firm. While dragons and pegasi clashed above, the great host was held back from the Eternal Keep.
Finally, it was Ferranus who brought forth a terrible work of dark magics and forbidden arts. A great cannon that dwarfed the continents, its bony stomach like clutching bones housing Dawen, the morning star, first of all stars to be kindled by Aga. The most pure light in existence. The star was sacrificed, its light forever lost to feed the monstrous hunger of the siege weapon. The gates were torn off their hinges by the blast from the weapon’s furnace, slamming inward into the tower keep, cracking the foundations laid down before the world was made.
Sirend entered first in triumph, passing under the archway of creation, which no god had ever passed through before. But his triumph was short lived. As they entered the keep, they found it abandoned, the treasures of destiny removed, the Fates themselves nowhere to be found.
At that moment the gods realized the terrible truth. Absyrtusis had betrayed their plans, and the celestial forests of the heavens had been set ablaze by the Fates.
- The Epoch of the Night Sky, oral history recorded in H.B. 212
Storgen could not recall ever being so disappointed to wake up. His entire body throbbed, his skin burned, his bones ached. Even without moving, he could tell that he was bandaged nearly from head to toe.
His right eye was far too swollen to see, but his left managed to crack open enough to see the ceiling of his cabin. The spray of the sea was outside. Through the porthole, he could see Ambera’s airship sailing away to the north.
Erolina sat by his bed, looking gaunt and tired.
“How long?” he asked weakly.
“Three days.”
“And Skotádi?”
“He’s dead. He died in the forest.”
Storgen found it difficult to breathe. A deep weariness seemed to be lodged deep inside him. “Did you just leave him there?”
“I didn’t have time to pull you both out. I barely had time to save you.”
He tried to sit up, but the weariness spread when he did so, so he lay back down. “How did he find us?”
“Captain Theron betrayed us.”
“So it was the ship’s cannons that fired those things. What happened to the captain?”
“A quick death was too good for him. I left that traitor marooned on Dasikí Chará. He can starve to death while he thinks about what he did.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “I still can’t believe it. You killed a demi-god. You, a mere human.”
Storgen stared at the ceiling. He felt like he should feel relieved, but he didn’t. “I didn’t even think it was possible for a demi-god to die.”
“Before, the tower came after you just to capture you. Now they’ll come for revenge. They’ll never stop hunting you.”
“Always nice to wake up to good news.”
“Tell me you’re at least a little bit scared.”
“Would it help if I was?”
“I suppose not.”
They sat there in silence for some time. The only sounds were that of Gáta lapping up her saucer.
Erolina sighed. “You know, I could have just left you there in the forest.”
“Yes, you could have.”
“How did you know I would pull you out?”
“I didn’t.”
“So what? You just wagered your life on a roll of the dice?”
“It’s what I do.”
She stared at him. “And you don’t think that’s arrogantly reckless?”
Storgen closed his eye. “It’s all I ever do. That’s my great grand secret, you see. My little parlor trick. Other people pull back at the last second to save their own lives. I don’t. I put everything on the line, I bet every chip on the table. I hold nothing back, and that gives me my one and only advantage.”
“And when you lose? What happens then?” she asked, throwing his own words back at him.
Storgen chuckled, but then winced from a cracked rib. “Yes, when that day comes, I’ll lose everything.”
She looked out at the horizon. “I guess you are not so different from an amazon, after all.”
She reached up and gently touched the locket around her neck. “I was wrong about you, human. You may not have the skill of a huntress, but you have the heart of one. It pains me to admit it, but I have not seen such great courage, not even amongst the warriors of my own tribe.”
“Well, thank you, that was...”
“You’re also an idiot, you know that? Probably the stupidest man I’ve ever met.”
“…Oh.”
“All I have ever done is treat you like garbage. Why would you stake your life on whether or not I would save you?”
“I didn’t,” he chuckled softly. “I thought that was the end. I thought I was going to die. I thought I had failed. Utterly and completely. The one thing that really mattered to me, having lived every moment of every day for one single purpose, was that I was going to die without ever having seen her face. You can’t imagine what that felt like. It was the most bitter feeling ever.”
A tear managed to work itself past his swollen eye.
“But here I am,” he inhaled sharply. “I live to fight another day, and I have you to thank for it.”
He turned to look at her with his one good eye. “You are an honorable woman, Erolina. Probably the most honorable woman I have ever met. You try to hide it behind a tough exterior, but deep down, I think you are a good person.”
She looked away sadly.
“No, I’m not.”
She could feel her emotions rising up. She took a deep breath, clamping down on them, forcing them back down deep inside of her
, where they could not be seen.
“You were right,” she said quietly. “I was exhausted during the fight. Had my reflexes not been so dulled, we might have fared far better.”
She closed her red eyes, waiting for some pithy remark. But none came.
“No, you were right,” he responded.
She looked back at him in surprise.
“When I refused to spar with you. You were right, I was being lazy.”
Her emotions pounded back at her, hammering at her resolve. She could feel her control cracking. She tried to keep silent, tried to project the image of a somber, stolid huntress as she had been taught to.
“Any amazon who falls is left where she falls. My people do not risk their lives to save each other. We are taught that to do so is a waste of resources. Anyone weak enough to require saving is worth being culled.”
She felt a million lessons telling her to say nothing, but her heart told her to speak.
“T-thank you,” she whispered, so softly he could barely make it out.
Storgen turned to look at her.
Her lip began to tremble, so she bit down on it. “No one has ever saved my life before. And to think, it was just a regular human who did it.”
He looked at her warmly. “You’re welcome. Thank you for saving mine as well.”
She balled her fists. She could feel her restraint splintering. Her emotions pounded on her like a battering ram.
“You were right. I never faced death before. Not like that. I never fought a battle where my life was truly on the line.”
Her emotions broke through, and came pouring out like a flood gate. Her eyes became wet, her fingers began to tremble.
“I was so…scared,” she gasped. “I was so scared I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I froze up, like some pathetic, little trembling child.”
She held up her hand and watched it shake. Try as she might, she couldn’t make it stop. “I have all these powers from my birth, all these gifts from my station, all these years of training with the finest instructors, and they all counted for nothing. But you, you had nothing, nothing but the sweat of your brow and the strength of your back, and you moved. You fought when I cowered; you triumphed where I failed.”
Unable to stop the tears, she hid her face in shame as she wept.
“I’ve never been so…”
She fought to form the word.
“…humiliated.”
She heaved, forgetting to breathe as her feelings came crashing down on her like an avalanche.
“All my strength meant nothing. All the skill I have struggled a lifetime to acquire and hone was made completely irrelevant and meaningless. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how hard I trained or how long I tried, I would never even come close to matching the strength you were born with. It’s not something you would understand.”
Erolina felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She looked over, surprised to see Storgen looking at her so tenderly.
“Yes, I would,” he said carefully. “That’s every day of my life.”
She began to laugh through her tears.
“I feel so stupid,” she wept. “Crying in front of you like this.”
“It’s okay. It just means that you’re human.”
“But I’m not human.”
“Well, a person, then. It means you have feelings, and that’s a good thing. I’m glad that even an amazon can cry. It just means amazons and humans share the same heart.”
She sniffled, then laughed again. “You know, I should probably kill you so no one would ever know about this.”
“Well, there’s a lot of people wanting to kill me, you might have to take a number.”
She laughed again, and then the levity passed, and she began to cry anew.
“I’ve never felt so humiliated before,” she wept. “He was standing over me, smiling with that terrible…horrible smile. And I thought, ‘this is it, this is the last thing I will see on this green earth, this is the last moment I will live, cowering like a wretch, trembling in defeat. This is the legacy I leave for my bloodline. This is the honor I bring to my tribe.’”
She was surprised that he didn’t say anything. She kept expecting him to make fun of her, to say all the mean and cruel things she was saying about herself inside. But he never did, he just listened quietly. Intently. And when she had vented all her repressed feelings, he just lay there patiently, his warm hand on her shoulder.
She couldn’t believe how much better it made her feel. It was such a small thing, such a simple thing, but in that moment, it meant the world to her.
“I lied to you,” Storgen admitted. “I told you once I wasn’t scared when I fight.”
She looked at him in surprise. “You are?”
He nodded slowly. “Every time. And not just when I fight. The truth is I’m always scared, all the time. I just hide it, because I’m afraid people will pity me if they know. I don’t want their pity.”
Knowing that made her feel even better. As a novice, she had often heard the older huntresses speak of adelfótita, the bond between warriors, the shared experience that creates a link, a profound understanding.
This was the first time she had ever really felt it.
“Why did you save me?” she asked again. “You could have just let him kill me.”
He smiled. “Because a very wise friend of mine once told me, that ‘belonging isn’t something you’re born with, it’s something you create.’”
He offered her his hand. “I don’t have many friends, but if you are willing, I’d like to add you to that list.”
She looked at it with hesitation.
“You don’t want it?” he asked.
“I…I mean, I’ve had female friends. Comrades in arms, really. But I’ve never had a male friend before. I’ve slept with men, sure, but I’ve never really gotten to actually know one. There didn’t seem to be any point. It’s a weird idea to me, being friends with a man. I wouldn’t really know what to do. Can’t we just have sex instead?”
Storgen laughed. “You know, you may find that we men are good for more than just seed.”
A playful smile crossed her lips, and she imitated Philiastra’s sweet little voice. “I doubt that. I doubt that very much.”
His mouth fell open. “You heard her when she said that?”
“Of course I heard it. An amazon’s hearing is thrice what a human’s is.”
“That is so awesome.”
“Not always. Sometimes it’s a curse. There are many things I’d prefer not to hear.”
“No, I mean that you used the word thrice.”
She laughed out loud. She had such a wonderful laugh, Storgen wished to hear it more often.
She smiled at him. She had such a beautiful smile. “Like I said, I don’t see any point in being friends with a male, but I’ll give it a shot, anyway.”
She took his hand in the warrior’s grip, grasping forearms, and gave two solid pumps.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just sleep together, Storgen?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” he chuckled warmly. “In fact, I can barely keep my eyes open. Right now, all I want to do is sleep.”
She watched him as he settled back down into the bed, her ruby eyes looking over him affectionately.
“Get, some rest, my friend. I’ll watch over you.”
Exhausted, Storgen lay back and closed his eye. As he drifted off to sleep, the world faded away. He couldn’t be completely sure, but he could swear that just as he drifted off, something warm and soft pressed against his cheek.
* * *
Storgen found himself in a void of charcoal, colors nothing more than a half-recalled dream, a fantasy of vibrant hues that never existed to begin with. The sun obliterated, day and night had no meaning, bleeding together in endless cycles of pain and anguish. Cold shivers in the darkness, black breath from within, black breath from without.
“Storgen, are you okay?” came a distant voice, muffled by layers of ash.
The darkness was ice, cold and hard, unforgiving and unyielding. Heavy, pressing down on Storgen’s body, crushing him with its weight.
“Storgen. Storgen wake up!” came another voice, concerned.
He could feel something shaking him.
The darkness was liquid, seeping and clinging, thick and sticky. Oppressive, invasive, abusive.
Storgen numbly cracked open an eye, and for a moment his world of darkness was parted. Fuzzy people were standing round him, talking in warbled voices. He could see his own hand, the skin black and sickly, the fingernail dark and dripping puss.
“He’s not responding to the medicine…”
He closed his eyes and the darkness returned, again, this time as a vapor, stinging his nose and throat, burning his lungs, biting at his skin.
“Storgen, stay with us. Stay with us!”
He could feel himself drifting away from his body, floating off, as if on a gentle breeze. Yet something tethered him, held him back, a warm feeling on his chest.
Slowly it reeled him in, pulling him back through the suffocating damp, musty void. He felt bound to it, drawn to it, a part of it.
Storgen slowly opened his eyes. His whole body felt cold, save for something warm pressed against his chest. He looked down to find Philiastra sleeping there, her cheek smushed up adorably against him as she slept, a spare blanket draped over her.
She stirred, opening up her beautiful jade eyes and realizing he was awake.
“Oh, Storge!” she burst, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. “Oh, you dummy. You big stupid dumb brainless moronic idiotic puerile dopey imbecilic dolt.”
“I missed you too, Phili,” he grunted, patting her on the head.
She squeezed him tighter, making him grunt with pain. “You did it again,” she whispered. “You made me worry.”
“I’m afraid I’m not very good at keeping my promises to you, am I?”
He felt a tear splash against his shoulder.
“We thought we’d lost you.”
“What happened?”
“You still had some fragments of the curse of Desmas inside of you. We couldn’t get them out.”
Ambrosia Page 36