It’s all right, I tell myself. I can find her before it takes her.
I think that, until I hear her screams.
LEONIE
THE GLINT OF A KNIFE
My chest slams into the concrete and knocks the breath from me. The silver vapour covers the world around me, and I am alone.
‘Abi sends her love.’
My body is shaking. My head whirls. I don’t know what to do, where to look, what to think. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. My hand moves to my chest as if trying to scrape the breath out, but all that escapes me is a choking sound.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Jacob. Oh God. Jacob. He’s dead. He’s dead.
A cry finds its way out, and I rest my hands on the ground. I let my head fall and tears fall… and despair takes me.
Why?
Why?
Why?
‘Jacob,’ I cry. ‘Jacob.’
He was just a kid. He didn’t deserve… he didn’t deserve that. But the maiden doesn’t care about any of that, and now he’s gone. Was it only a minute ago I was talking to him? Was it only a minute ago his light was shining, bright and brilliant and bursting with colour? And in a moment, just a mere moment, it was smothered by darkness.
I cry out, over and over again.
Didn’t I promise that his light would continue to glow? Didn’t I tell him that the darker the world got, the more his light would shine? And it didn’t. It didn’t. It was extinguished as easily as blowing out a candle.
I feel the anguish, the pure misery, as if it were a solid weight in my chest. The coils of despair freely curl themselves around my hazed mind, finding no resistance. Let it come, I think. Yes, let it. Let it cut the thread I’m hanging on to. Let the maiden twist and warp and distort everything in me, my resolve, my hope, my light, a light just like Jacob’s. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be strong. It’s too painful to be strong. It’s too lonely.
‘Abi sends her love.’
How could Jacob know about Abi? I’ve never spoken her name while here. The answer is obvious: the maiden spoke for him. But then, how would the maiden know of Abi? From peeking into my mind, into my heart?
‘If they’re in the human realm, then humans are all under-fens have to feed off,’ I remember Korren saying. ‘Haven’t you ever wondered about abnormal murders, unexplained suicides?’
‘No, that can’t be right,’ I whisper. Did… did a maiden kill Abi, drive her to hold the knife to her own throat, just like Jacob did? And if that were true, why would a maiden attack Abi? Because she seemed vulnerable? Because there was always a sadness clinging to her? Or, I think darkly, because the maiden sensed the magic pulsing in my veins, and it was me who was supposed to have died.
Just like how I should have died instead of Jacob.
‘Jacob.’
I feel so cold.
‘Abi.’
I feel so lost.
‘I’m so sorry.’
I feel so hopeless.
‘Nothing in this world scares me anymore.’
My eyes widen. It’s impossible. It’s impossible.
I straighten up, looking ahead into the mist. I can see the outline of a body, and I know who it is. I know.
‘Abi,’ I breathe.
‘Leonie.’ I recall her smile. ‘I believed in this world. I really did.’ The single teardrop that trickled down her cheek. ‘Fool. What a fool I am.’ Through the mist I see the glint of a knife.
I close my eyes. Stop it, stop it, stop it!
‘Why didn’t you save me, Leonie? Why did you let me do this? I didn’t want to die. I wanted to be saved.’
‘What could I do?’ I yell, pushing my hands against my ears. ‘What could I do?’
Then, there is another voice, one foreign to me. ‘Pity the fallen! So dark, so hungry, so alone, so cold. Power—want it. Need it. Need it. Need it. Feed. Feed. Feed and despair.’
Though I can’t see it, I know the voice above me is the very thing that has caused this hell. I know that it is the one searching for me, pursuing me, hunting me.
The maiden has found me.
And I scream.
KORREN
ENDLESS SKY
Where is she? Where is she?
I don’t want to move too far into the mist and lose where we were; it might send me further from her. So I stay near Jacob’s limp body, searching.
She screams again, and my heart picks up. If I’m not quick to find her, I will lose her to this haze. I can’t let that happen. She’s my responsibility, and I refuse to let another Pulsar die because of me. Even though I thought I was capable of letting her die in here, in this moment, when I hear her cries, I know I can’t leave her to die without trying to help her.
The despair she feels cripples me as if it were my own. It’s more painful than my wounded leg, and I wonder for a moment if surviving is even worth it.
No. They are not my thoughts—they are hers. I need to remember that. I can’t confuse our voices as the same, otherwise we really won’t be able to escape from here.
I follow her cries through the mist.
‘I’m here!’ I say. ‘I’m here! You’re not alone, little lion! Listen to my voice. Feel the link that binds us. I’m here. You know I’m here, and I will find you.’
‘Korren?’ I hear her shout out. Her voice is so full of anguish that I speed up.
‘I’m here! Don’t listen to the voice! I’m here! Just me!’
And, as if the mist parts from my strength of will, I see my keeper on the floor, hands over her ears as tears stream down her cheeks. The mist slowly begins to cover her again, but it’s too late, I’m here now, and it can’t part us again. It won’t.
I have to approach her carefully. I know from experience that when in this state a victim can see allies as demons, and it doesn’t help that I look like one. I take cautious steps towards her, and she notices me.
‘No!’ she screams, alarmed. ‘It’s here, it’s here!’
‘There’s nothing but mist,’ I tell her, and continue towards her. She shouts, ordering me to hide.
‘It brought her back. I swear! I-I heard it, saw it,’ she says.
‘No one is here, little lion,’ I say. ‘It’s just us, alone.’
‘No, not alone! It was above me. I heard it! Couldn’t you hear it?’
I assume she means the maiden. ‘It’s not with us,’ I assure her. ‘This is what is does, remember? It toys with you. That’s how it brings you to despair.’
‘Then there’s no hope, is there? Th-there’s no point even trying! I can’t do this. I-I’m not strong. I’m not a Chosen. I’m not a Pulsar. I’m ju-just a kid who likes to play adult. I can’t face this reality. I want to go back. I want to go back to being normal. I-I don’t want this. I don’t want this. I don’t want to die! Please, just let me go back. Just let me—’
I tower over her. ‘You are not a coward! Nothing is too much for you. Don’t tell me all the things your father told me about you were a lie. Don’t tell me all your resolve is gone because of a maiden. Where is the girl full of hope, full of life? Don’t let the maiden snuff her out. Fight it. You can be strong, I know you can be.’
She stares at me, searching. To her I am not a monster, not a lower species, not a servant or a machine: I am the rationality holding her together; I am the only thing right now that she can hold onto.
‘It… it wasn’t real?’ she asks.
‘No, it wasn’t real.’
‘And there’s no… other people with us?’
‘No, and if there were, if anyone meant you harm,’ I look away from her, ‘I’d protect you.’
‘Jacob…’ she whimpers.
‘I know. I’m sorry he died.’
‘If I hadn’t insisted we save Dad…’
‘He would’ve probably died anyway.’
‘But—’
‘You don’t understand, do you? As soon as the haze
was created, the maiden burrowed itself into your heart. It’s not a matter of escaping the maiden before it kills you. It’s already in you. It’s already killing you. The only way to survive this is to try and keep your head unhazed.’
‘Jacob, poor Jacob.’
‘There’s no time for mourning. You can do that as much as you want later on. I’m risking my life for you right now, and though that might not mean much to a Chosen—’
‘It does,’ she says. ‘It does.’
Though it takes her a few moments, and though all I want to do is tell her to hurry up, she regains her composure eventually. She stands up, wiping away her tears with her sleeve.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says in a quiet voice, sniffling.
‘You don’t have to be,’ I tell her. ‘But you have to realise that this is how it must be now: no matter what frightening event occurs, if we survive it, it’s a matter of putting it behind us and moving on without another thought. So I need you to be strong. Can you do that?’
‘If it weren’t for you, I don’t think I’d be able to do it.’
Some Chosen might describe her obvious fear as disgrace-ful for a Pulsar, but I don’t. Raised as a normal human, knowing nothing of maidens and yet still being able to attempt survival is something I inwardly commend her for. She is not brave—she is courageous.
She turns towards the mist, her eyes rimmed red from crying, and she takes a big breath of air and exhales it. ‘Let’s go.’
She doesn’t have long, especially after Jacob dying. I know she won’t want this, but I must take her towards the portal.
‘It’s quiet,’ she says a little while later.
It is, and I wonder if anyone is still alive. The rebels said they controlled the maiden, and if that’s true, then as soon as the Thrones are dead, they will turn their attention to my keeper.
When I look around us, the silver mist immersing us in its indiscernibility, I think it impossible even for the rebels to find us in this.
‘Korren.’
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘What is what?’ my keeper says.
‘Korren.’
My heart thuds. No. No, that is not my keeper’s voice. It is…
‘…death is a wonder of this world, Korren…’
I shake my head. Impossible. I can’t be hearing her. I’m a kytaen: the maiden should have no power over my mind. I can’t be subjected to its visions, to its voices. However, haven’t I already faced reality: that this maiden is far stronger than any other I have come across? It’s not known why maidens don’t attack kytaen, but just because they don’t doesn’t mean they can’t.
‘Hey, you OK?’ I know my keeper is talking, but her voice is becoming distant.
There is a sudden wind, sweeping the mist past us and concealing us from one another in a mere few seconds. I hear her shouting to me, calling my name, but I am frozen, unable to move, because I hear Nara.
‘Why did you never visit the tree of my ancestors where I wait for you?’
I growl. Have I too been falling into despair? No, I’ve always been in despair. For two hundred years it’s been my only companion.
‘Am I so loathed by you, Korren?’
‘You betrayed me.’ I curse at my mistake. By respond-ing, I’m only widening the opportunity for the maiden to send me into insanity.
‘It was not I with your blood upon my hands. ’Twas you with mine.’
My chest is constricting, like barbed wire is cutting into it.
‘Was my life, nay, my death, of no consequence to you?’
Your death was of every consequence to me, I want to say. I have survived only because I’ve lived with the false hope that I could forget you. Even though I don’t say it aloud, apparently I am only weakening my wall against the attack, for an image appears in front of me, a ghostly figure of the girl I once knew. I close my eyes.
‘It’s a lie,’ I say. ‘It’s not real,’ I say louder to my keeper, ‘I’m here! I’m here! It’s all right! Just follow my voice!’ I can feel her worry over the panic in my voice; she’ll be able to feel my anguish. It’s a good thing. That means she is still close enough for our bond to register each other’s feelings.
‘That poor little girl,’ Nara—the voice, says. ‘You’re adamant on keeping her alive, though she may well share my fate. Does she mean more to you than me, Korren?’
‘No. Never.’
‘Then why do you allow her to push the memory of me far from your heart?’
‘I would never—!’ But then, I did allow it. I laughed today, I allowed myself to forget. ‘Losing you, the despair…’ I say, ‘…how it would strangle me, how it would try to drag me under. I have to forget, but I can’t. Every day, even now, I ask, where are you, Nara, what are you doing? One day, do you think I can know? You may not know, but I’ve been searching for you under an endless sky. I will never stop. Never.’
‘Then let us go back to those warm days, those ones you try to save.’
‘And if I did, would you smile like you did before?’
‘If you join me, yes, and I will forgive your sin.’
I imagine her, standing before the cherry blossom tree that she showed me. How it makes me want to open my eyes and see the image in front of me, to run to it.
I don’t.
‘I can’t,’ I say, ‘because my sin can’t be forgiven. It’s too immense.’
‘Then you would leave me in the cold, in the dark?’
‘There’s someone I have to protect.’ My keeper is alone right now, probably facing a similar torment. I don’t want her to suffer through that pain, and I don’t want her to lose herself. I need her to get through this, just as she needs me. ‘I won’t make the same mistake. That would be an insult to Nara’s memory.’
‘I am Nara.’
‘Do you think me so weak? I won’t fall into despair over a mere voice.’
It is silent for a moment, and I open my eyes, thinking her image will have gone.
And it has. It has, oh, but only to be replaced by something much, much more sinister.
‘Then what of mine, devoted servant?’ says that merciless voice, dark, unforgiving, hateful. ‘Do I still slither and writhe inside that bitter mind of yours?’
It’s an instant reaction: fear engulfs me, festers inside of me, and my body trembles. I retreat. My mind has lost its rationality, and I cannot reason with it. Terror terror terror—that’s all there is; that is all he gives.
He grins. ‘Yes, I remain much remembered by you.’
I want to run run run, to close my eyes, to burn his image from my mind.
‘Korren?’
I bare my teeth, a low rumbling sounding from my stomach.
‘Korren, y-you’re—’
I whip my head around, snapping my jaws, and my keeper jumps back. I flinch and take a step away from her, breathing rapidly. She stares at me, eyes wide. I try to relax my body, adjusting it to her presence. I don’t want her to be afraid of me. No, I don’t ever want that.
‘I thought you were someone else,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry.’
She is hesitant and eyes me warily. ‘It’s OK. I understand. It got to you, too, right? Even though you said it couldn’t.’
‘Yes,’ I admit.
‘How can it be so powerful?’
‘Some maidens just are.’
‘So how did the rebels get their hands on it?’
‘They must have tracked it somehow, but as to how they’re controlling it…’
‘If it got to you, then it might try again,’ she says.
‘No. It’s all right—you’re with me now.’
I feel her surprise over what I said, but she hides it in a firm expression. I didn’t mean anything by it; only that she is a reason to stay sane.
‘If you keep being nice to me,’ she says, ‘I’m going to think the maiden’s frazzled your brain. In fact, if I start being chummy with you or whatever, assume the same.’
‘Now is neither the time
nor the place for jokes and sarcasm,’ I remind her.
‘Right. Yeah. I know. Probably excessive inhalation of hallucinogenic mist working there.’ She frowns. ‘Just then, what you felt; I felt it too. Not the same as you maybe, but…’
‘I know. Don’t worry, that will go in time. Like you were told, the intensity of the soul-binding only lasts several days, if that.’
‘That’s not what I was worried about.’ She shakes her head. ‘Never mind. Let’s just hurry. We need to find my dad.’
So we continue through the desolation.
I look up to the mist-clad sky.
‘Yes, I remain much remembered by you.’
My eyes narrow.
Vynguard. How could I ever forget the keeper I betrayed to a fate worse than death?
‘Korren, stop,’ my keeper says.
I do.
‘Ahead,’ she whispers.
We see a figure in the mist, coming towards us. I move myself into a pouncing stance. We wait for the figure to come closer, and I’m about to attack when—
‘Sersu,’ my keeper breathes.
LEONIE
THE MAGIC IS THERE
Sersu looks at me as if I’ve stepped out of the sun, and then rushes towards me, pulling me into an embrace. It’s like being hugged by a bear. I push her away, taking in her dishevelled short blonde hair and pale face.
‘Sersu,’ I say, staring at her in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe it. Y-you’re alive!’
‘As are you! Thank the stargods! Oh, I was so worried for you! We searched and searched for you, all of us, but… but the maiden got to everyone else.’ She puts a hand over her mouth, forcing back her tears.
‘The Council members?’ I say.
She nods. ‘Dead, or at least as good as.’
I nod, too.
‘I thought you were dead. I really did. But look at you! You kept yourself alive,’ she says.
‘Not me. Korren. He kind of saved me a few times back there.’
She glances at Korren. ‘Thank you.’
He remains unmoving, but I can feel his surprise.
Sersu turns to me. ‘Why are you wearing these clothes, though?’
‘Korren thought it might help the rebels overlook us.’
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