Kaliel almost relaxed when the woman put the pocket watch down and pulled something out of her jacket. It wasn’t anything Kaliel was familiar with, but inside the little chamber was a mouthful of glittery silver dust. Kaliel wanted to recoil but inside the orb there was nowhere to go. The woman approached with a mournful expression, and Kaliel felt herself heat up, spires of violet colored flames sparking off the orb. The woman jumped back startled, and mumbled something in a language Kaliel didn’t understand.
There was something like an apology as Kaliel reined her energy in and tried her best to remain benign, safe. That only lasted a second as the woman dug something metal into the orb and Kaliel wanted to scream but she didn’t have a voice anymore.
Glittery dust filled her, and it was like sand in her eyes and scrapes along her insides, and jagged little cuts along her skin, shallow grazes that repeated without end. Chills raked over her and then heat, and spires exploded off the orb in giant spikes, blowing a hole in the ceiling above her. The woman fled.
Kaliel was in too much pain to be angry, glittery dust working its intended magic, making her feel like she was skinning herself alive, turning herself inside out. There was a shove from her supposed center of gravity, and then the room around her wasn’t there, and darkness shrouded her in its icy heavy arms and she wanted it to be over.
Hours or days or minutes passed in the thralls of the forever fever that kept her encapsulated in intense pain, the feeling too impossible to explain. It wasn’t anything like the cuts or bruises that used to litter her fair skin. It wasn’t like the heat that blasted her into a million pieces in a volcano. She didn’t have a shell to protect her, this pain was inside of her, in the deepest crevasse of her soul, and it was pain in a place where she should have been safe. Nothing should have been able to hurt her there and yet—this pain lived there, its waspish barbs struck her, poisoning her over and over until she begged it to stop.
Somewhere in the throes of that awful burrowing pain was a spark of amethyst. Almost as quickly as the injection had come, the slivers of silvery dust turned to brilliant amethyst, working its way through the chain of foreign energy. Kaliel eroded the dust, transmuting it, changing it until it no longer existed and she was the same girl she always was.
The girl who brought death, the weed of temptation, the Flame of the Apocalypse.
Tor failed.
Kaliel didn’t feel victory in being alive. There were so many reasons she shouldn’t have survived. So many reasons she should have self-destructed. In those tiny infinite moments between the pain racing through her essence and fighting back were times when she wondered how far she could go. If she could give in and let this dust change her. Being conscious through it was the only thing that stopped her from stepping off the edge into the unknown. She couldn’t guarantee if she gave in, she wouldn’t become something worse than what she was.
And something worse wasn’t something she wanted to know.
When Tor returned, he pulled the fae woman off the floor and Kaliel blanched. She was locked in the same melancholy she had been before the injection, but she never realized how easily she’d killed the fae.
Tor checked her for a pulse before throwing her onto one of the slabs of wood with the straps and covering her with a sheet. He turned to the orb, and Kaliel regarded him in all his glory, from the leather pants and beige t-shirt, to the dark hairy arms and defined knuckles. He moved towards her a little grin on his face as his fingers touched the orb and Kaliel quaked. In this form, a touch like that was far more personal than Tor realized.
“I see my first experiment was inadequate,” Tor spoke, his tone a little lower than Kaliel had hoped. He seemed distracted, or he was trying to distract her, she couldn’t tell until he pulled out another metal barb and Kaliel wanted to cry. She bit down on the urge to go nova as the metal dug into her and the amplification of pain went from ten to fourteen.
“Test subject was unresponsive to first experiment. Second formula promises better results.” Tor said it as though he weren’t speaking to her at all. Kaliel heard the deafening scratch of coal on paper but she was fighting too hard against whatever Tor had poisoned her with this time to care. All she knew was that this pain was far from over.
Formula thirty-six didn’t wield the results Tor wanted, and neither did formula ninety-six. Kaliel felt exhausted, but it didn’t matter how many times Tor returned to the cluttered factory room, it didn’t matter how much dust he wasted, she always came out the same. She was always going to be the mistake he created and there wasn’t a way to take it back. She tried to tell him because she had learned the same lesson the hard way.
Once she cast Cassareece’s dust there was no turning back. She couldn’t stop the dust from carrying out its intended end. All she could do was sit back and wait as the catastrophe happened. Tor wanted a weapon. When he created the Flames he wanted weapons strong enough to defeat the Valtanyana.
He got Kaliel.
And just because he didn’t want her didn’t mean he wasn’t stuck with her. The dust was absolute—corrupt and absolute.
Somehow the doses were like breathing out and making little foggy shapes appear in the air. She was lost in a sea of cloudy shapes blurring her vision. They reminded her of trivial things like her birthstone from Avristar and the sky covered in snowflakes. The latest experimental dose took longer than the others for her to transmute, and even though she separated the tiny malignant specks of dust and transformed them into what she was, it didn’t give her any type of solace.
Time passed, and the factory came back into view with all of its misshapen contraptions and weird smells. She waited for Tor to return and half of her felt cold at the thought of another experiment, but an explosion broke her out of her daydream. It was overhead and unexpected. She instinctively closed in on herself, shrinking into the orb as much as she could but it wasn’t as though she had any control over her form. Not this way. A piece of ceiling dislodged itself and crashed onto the metal table across from her. She would have jumped out of her skin if she had skin. Instead the door rattled and came open all at once; slamming against something Kaliel couldn’t see. Tor was at her side in three long strides and he had the pocket watch.
She felt smaller and smaller as he forcefully drew her from the spacious orb into the watch and clicked the face shut, shoving her into his pocket. For awhile darkness encapsulated her, the sounds of bricks falling around her echoing off the metal inside the building. Tor moved fast and once again they twisted through time and space, disorientation making Kaliel feel weightless and nauseous.
Kaliel thought they would emerge somewhere quiet but the exact opposite happened. Tor let out a strangled cry, as though his windpipe were blocked and they dropped out of the sky wind rushing around them until Tor landed and for awhile nothing but crackling fires, the smell of burning tar and ash filled Kaliel’s senses. She couldn’t tell where they were, but laughter took the space around them. In Kaliel’s dark prison she strained to make some coherence of what was going on, but the laughter—she recognized the laughter. It came with squealing glee and damp hands clapping and tiny feet crunching the charred ground.
Morgana.
Kaliel almost pictured her grayish-tinged skin and long raven-feathered hair. She almost heard the squicky sound of blood on her hands as she clapped, blood smacking against blood like paint thwacking canvas. Kaliel wanted to ball up her fists and scream at the little girl for saying the things she had said, for coming for Krishani. Morgana awakened all of them—including Cassareece and because of Cassareece Kaliel had killed—destroyed—froze—she couldn’t even finish the sentence. She didn’t know how much she froze or who was caught in the cross fire of her catastrophe, but Morgana was there and Tor—what the hell was Tor doing?
Kaliel heard Morgana kick up the mud around Tor, and the High King of the Lands of Peace let out a groan. Kaliel wanted to die inside, she remained silent and still, in the hopes Morgana wasn’t astute enough to sense the
Flame. They were so close—Morgana could snatch her up and Kaliel could be pawn to a different master.…though being prisoner to Tor and being prisoner to the rest of the Valtanyana no longer made any difference.
All of them were ruthless.
Morgana clapped. “Awake! Awake! You have many things to do, Tor,” the little girl sneered.
Tor wasn’t silent for long. “Where are the others? Have you summoned them to this duel as well?”
Morgana seemed to shift away from him, and Kaliel heard something, a rumble in the distance, subtle but gaining. “You think this is a duel?”
“There’s no other reason to attack my compound and pull me into this forsaken wasteland, is there?”
Morgana tsked. “You are much too old to fight me, Tor. Have you any dust left?”
Tor seemed to right himself. “I have enough to end you.”
Morgana laughed. “You have nothing…”
Kaliel cringed as the rumble became a pounding, snarling and whinnying hitting the air with a myriad of crescendos. Morgana began whispering some kind of incantation under her breath but the words were slurred and reminded Kaliel of the sea. She felt herself being dragged by the undertow, the tentacles of a kraken latched to her former ankle like a leech, pulling out all sustenance, trading all bright, innocent magic for dull, lifeless mortality. She thought she heard bone crack as Tor fell to one knee, and she definitely felt the ripple effect as it washed over him, turning everything that was once demonic into something else—human.
Morgana neared him and Kaliel couldn’t wash the swamp-water smell out of her mouth. Morgana leaned in. “Bring me the Amethyst Flame.”
And before Tor could smack her she darted away, flitting gleefully through the mud, cackling laughter rising between snarling beasts. “You expect your small minded tricks to work on me, Morgana?”
The little girl stopped in her tracks and whirled. “My tricks have already worked. Go on Tor, try to escape, try to transport.”
Kaliel imagined the smirk on the swamp-water girl’s face as Tor clenched and unclenched his fist. She hoped he wouldn’t ask for her help. It was shocking how blatant Morgana was, as though Tor were one of her pawns, as though she owned him the way she owned the Vultures. Kaliel felt the crushing rock settle on her as she tried her hardest to blink away her consciousness. She wanted the comforting arms of death. She wanted to cease to exist so she couldn’t hurt anyone anymore either by her will or by someone else’s.
“What treachery is this?” Tor demanded, and Kaliel realized the tiny girl had beaten him. It wasn’t hard to believe, Morgana had beaten Krishani, she had beaten Kaliel. She seemed so innocent and yet so dangerous.
Morgana lingered until she finally spoke many moments later. “A trap, a trap, you’ve fallen prey to the spider and she’s got you in her web. Find the thing the spider needs and you’ll be free. Find it not and forever will you walk the earth—a human until the apocalypse.”
Tor growled and Kaliel never thought she’d seen him so angry. “Do you think you’ve taken anything that truly matters to me?”
Morgana scoffed. “I’ve taken everything else.”
Tor turned and Kaliel felt them walking but there was something at the foot of her vision. Morgana wasn’t with the Horsemen, she couldn’t be with the Horsemen or if she were it weren’t the same ones because Krishani killed them.
“Do you truly think you’ll find them both?” Morgana called after him.
Tor stopped and Kaliel felt the air change. It smelled like rain, soot and flesh. “I’ll find your wayward Horsemen, but the Flame is gone.”
Kaliel’s senses perked up, she wasn’t concerned anymore with Morgana and Tor, only with the sky, the churning, angry, smelly sky that—screech—there that was it, the Vultures. She wanted to crane her neck to see them, reach out with hands she no longer possessed to touch them. Somewhere in that hoard of inky black wisps—was Krishani.
Heart aching with such dire longing she could barely breathe she tried to taste the sky, but all she felt were the cold walls of her prison and defeat curling around her essence until she was tamped down, succinct and quiet. Part of her mind begged to play out the rest. Krishani had to be in the swarm—so close and so far and so untouchable.
And she was there, so quiet, so still, so trapped.
Because she lost.
***
Chapter 3
Krishani.
She wanted to call out to him, but as quickly as the Vultures had descended upon them, Morgana snatched them away like little the peons they were. She only knew what Elwen had told her about the Vultures—soul eaters, and it crushed her to believe Krishani was lost to them. What she had done was so permanent. She couldn’t believe Krishani was truly in there somewhere—that he remembered anything about the boy he used to be or the girl he used to love.
Tor ran.
He ran for such a long time Kaliel wasn’t sure where they were anymore, mountains and valleys, cresting hills and finding their way through rocks. They fought through a moist and damp forest, Kaliel recognized sea salt and pollen on the air. She wanted Tor to slow down, to try to talk to her but he kept her locked in that forsaken golden prison, hidden securely in his pant pocket for an infinite amount of time. She felt heavy and starved, bleak and corroded. Tor treated her more like a thing than a girl. The way he swept her into the pocket watch with no second thought, no apology. The brutal way he tried to fix her and the way he failed.
Silence hung around them when Tor made camp and refused to light so much as a fire. He stalked around trees until he settled against one and drifted. She didn’t understand what Morgana had done to him. He seemed weaker, and it was apparent she had taken something from him but he was as defiant as ever. She wondered if Morgana could truly end him, if there was some fundamental code that made it imperative he lived. She wanted sleep too but without a body there was no need and her mind clicked on, reliving the thousands of small moments she experienced with a boy she was never meant to have.
Touch—caress—hip to hip—chest to chest—lips to lips—hands roaming her body—hands gripping her—entangled together, that was what she missed most about life. The warm tingles that spread through her at the mere thought of her Ferryman—that was worth all the danger in possessing a body. Without the chance to be with Krishani again a body seemed unimportant—excruciating even if she was forced to remember the past. Tor had been kind to her once and she couldn’t conjure the memories of the First Era very well but she knew she fought for him. She made the stars fall and put the Valtanyana down. In return he tried to give her a life of bliss, but what had happened on Avristar was unexpectedly cruel. There were dark parts of her and in those dire moments she couldn’t see anything but her destructive nature.
And she didn’t know anymore if she and Krishani were right or wrong or meant to be or prophesied to bring the apocalypse. All she knew was that in a violent attempt to save him from what he was, her actions put oceans and lands and stars between them. The guilt of that atrocity never waned, but pulsed through her like its own experimental serum.
Tor woke sometime later though the darkness surrounding Kaliel never changed. He walked further and further through open fields with loud cracking winds and quiet dense forests with chattering small game. Kaliel was jarred out of her thoughts by the scraping sound of stone against stone, and the sudden change in temperature from blistering heat to frost-like cold in a matter of seconds. Tor traveled down long dank corridors, sloping further south and underground. Kaliel grew nervous as determination set into Tor’s gait and he huffed like he was out of breath until he stopped and drew her out of the pocket watch and set her upon a stone slab. He flicked it open and spires of bluish tinged orange light came into view. It was hard to explain the ringlets on the ceiling, reflection of some pond or something in the center of the room, illuminated by some unknown light source. Kaliel begged Tor to speak with her, but he turned his back and his words were positioned at someone else who had e
ntered the room.
“What I have here is primitive but pure. You will retrieve it from the catacombs?”
“Aye…” came the sly, warbled response. Kaliel realized Tor probably wasn’t speaking to another human but she didn’t have time to ponder who or what kept hold of the temple. He pulled her off the table and coaxed her into the pond and at first it seemed daunting, so much water she would drown, but Tor wasn’t known for taking no as an answer and as his intentions came down on her she found herself unraveling into the pool, stretching to the very edges of the small basin. It must have only been an arm’s length wide by a shee’s height deep but her essence filled it.
Time passed in intervals as Kaliel waited, expecting something—some kind of torture but there was nothing but the soothing water lapping back and forth, fireflies buzzing across the ceiling above her. Someone’s face appeared in watery lines over top of the basin, dressed in a crisp white cloak and Kaliel thought she was seeing things, but their face was that of a large cat, perky ears and long whiskers and dilated emerald eyes. The pond was so relaxing she almost forgot about the injections and the orb and the factory Tor had taken her to in some other reality.
“Is she prepared?” Tor’s voice cut through the empty space and the cat person nodded, drawing away from the basin. Kaliel heard Tor’s footsteps as he approached the small pool—vial in hand, tipping its blackened contents into the water. This one felt like a thousand teeth clamping down on her, tearing into her cells and ripping them apart, sewing them together as something new. The blackness chewed through amethyst flavored light and she lost consciousness.
It was blissful in the lull—some place between life and death, but she already knew Flames couldn’t die—anything from the First Era had that timeless quality about it. She could be absorbed, contained, and imprisoned but she couldn’t be killed.
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