by D. Fischer
The snow falls heavier from the sky and sprinkles my exposed skin. I close my eyes, the chill cooling the heat in my veins. “With all the creatures across the realms, it’s unbelievable how lonely it is, no matter which ground you stand on.” To the elves, all the other realms are beneath them. I shouldn’t care, but I do. It hurts to be unwanted even by creatures and beings who were folklore to me until recently.
The sandman grunts and then grants me a moment of silence to revel in the snow’s soft fall, but not for long. His voice lowers from the peeping listeners around us. “The only person who can fix this is you. Remember that, Katriane DuPont.” He proclaims my last name with a crisp “t” and stops, forcing me to hang on his last syllable.
I look at him and immediately get lost in his eyes. They’re completely white and swirl like fog, churning slowly. All the answers seem to be in those orbs, intellect and wisdom, a crystal ball.
“You are not alone,” he adds.
But I am. The darkness, the evil I’m capable of, is proof I’ll never be normal. It grips my heart with one good squeeze, a reminder of who’s in charge. I attempt a reassuring smile anyway, but my lips spread more like a wicked grin, tightening the chilled, chapped skin of my cheeks. Sandy narrows his eyes, searches my face, and grimaces at what he finds: A broken soul, gripped in the clutches of evil desires.
“I am alone,” I say, but it doesn’t sound like my voice. It rumbles, coming from a deep place within. I’m ashamed to admit, even to myself, that I enjoyed the deaths. I want to return to the arena, addicted to death.
A howl rips from within the forest as he swallows. The sound is ear piercing and raises goosebumps across my skin. The prenumbras lift their gaze to the forest, their pig-like ears perking. Inside those trees, predators roam just like inside me.
He grips my chin with a large dark hand, painfully pinching. It’s enough to push the loneliness away, and I draw in a sharp breath. Leaning closer, he forces me to meet his gaze. “You are only if you wish it. Don’t allow it to swallow you.”
Briefly closing my eyes, I count to three before I open them and switch the subject. “I still need to find a way to tell Jane’s daughter that she’s dead. Do you think the red-headed woman is still alive? The one who was a human plasma ball? Eliza?”
The sandman gracefully drops his hand back to his lap and turns to the fire. His clothes snag against the rough bark below his rump. I watch as the snow swirls around us, illuminating his dark and mysterious features.
“Kheelan’s queen was a hostage, Katriane,” he begins. “I believe she is still alive. I saw the demon take her. It is a small victory. She is no longer in the hands of Kheelan, and this brings me joy.”
“The demon?” I chuckle without humor, shaking my head. “She’s definitely dead then.”
A demon would take her back to Corbin. There’s no telling what Corbin would do with Kheelan’s wife. She’s a power source - a wealth of information. Even if Corbin is seemingly siding with Sureen and Kheelan, I’d bet my last dollar he has another angle. He’s conniving enough to do so.
I should have killed that demon when I had the chance.
“The demon was once her love,” the sandman murmurs, snapping me back to attention.
My mind reels. How is that even possible? “Do I want to know the details?”
With a hushed, gruff voice, the sandman replays the events which ultimately led me to be in the Death Realm in the first place. The demon, once named Aiden and now dubbed Thrice Born, was pulled from the void after his resurrection and second death. The shades had been recruiting the dead instead of the reapers, and in doing so, Aiden had fallen in love with a woman before they crossed to the Tween together. By the end of his story, he retells the demon’s detailed second death, and the tangled web of disasters hurts my brain.
Some of the information I already knew, however. But I’m surprised to hear that every creature in every realm is rebelling against their creator, including myself.
The short black hair along my scalp feels gritty as I push a hand through it in exasperation, tugging on the ends dangling above my eyebrows. “So, they were trying to uproot Kheelan?”
His head dips in confirmation.
“But Aiden - Thrice Born - is a weapon,” I growl, my attention to the number of topics flitting from one to the other. “If Corbin made him from his own little brew, wouldn’t he have no emotions like the rest of the demons? Wouldn’t he be a servant? If he took her, his intentions aren’t angelic, Sandy. Surely you can see this.”
This statement raises another question and many other possible angles. What’s to stop Corbin from making more Aidens? And if he does, or already has, what would be the result? Aiden has to have unimaginable capabilities. It’s catastrophic any way you look at it, and the void is chock full of fresh and old lost souls. And with the hundreds who died in the Colosseum, the total number has risen significantly.
My lips pinch. He wouldn’t . . . would he? Would Corbin raise all those who died a second death? My heart aches thinking about it. What if he pulled Jane or Tanya from it? Would they be the same? Or would they be pure demon - physically and mentally?
The sandman rubs his hands together and squeezes the fingers. “He loves her, and she loves him. Love is power, Katriane. Not a weakness. Fear is the true rift of possibilities. It can do many a great thing, or many a terrible.”
A strong demon roaming the realms with the wife of Kheelan, who clearly shares his powers . . . I’m going with ‘many a terrible thing.’
His words are wistful like he wishes he had the chance to find out for himself what love would have in store for him and what it would feel like to fear for them, to have the opportunity to do so.
Sandmen aren’t supposed to feel emotions, yet this one does. It’s most likely a result of me and the deal I made with Erline. He was my sandman after all - the one who sprinkled dust over my nose to aid me with dreams. Everyone I come in contact with either dies or is altered from their original purpose, all because of that one night in the forest.
I almost tell him that having feelings can either be a blessing or a curse. Twitching my nose, I sniff and squash the desire to rip the hope from him and save myself from enduring further philosophy.
“He’s right,” a musical voice announces beside me.
I narrow my eyes and whip my head to Erline. The assault of the growing blizzard burns my eyes with its frigid wind and stinging flakes, but I force myself to not blink. Blinking would defeat my expression’s purpose: to show that her presence isn’t wanted.
With a serene countenance as though everything around her is of little consequence, she sits on the log directly beside mine. Her posture is straight and proper, unlike my slouched and huddled torso.
“You,” I growl, jabbing a finger in her direction.
“Me.” She nods, turning her eyes to the fire. “I can see your memories in the flames,” she whispers, frowning. “Are you doing that?”
“She’s attempting to transfer the memories from one entity to another in hopes of destroying them,” the sandman tattles.
This must have been how he knew what was troubling me. I had assumed it was a perceptive ability, and the howls inside the fire were only happening in my mind. Knowing they can hear my inner struggles sends a swirl of anxiety through my lower, cramping gut.
I growl, and my thinned lips vibrate from the sound. I don't like being talked about as if I’m not even here.
In truth, I have no idea what I’m doing - transferring the weight of my burden to be consumed by the fire before me. It scares me, and I swallow thickly. The power I have is too great for even me to understand.
“You mustn’t,” Erline chides, bending closer to the fire and listening to the sounds. “You must take this burden and use it.”
“Use it?” I bellow. The prenumbras bark at my outburst. “For what? To do more of your bidding? To be the one who brings justice to the realms you and the other fee have destroyed?”
&nbs
p; She closes her eyes, hiding the guilt in her black orbs.
I’m not fooled, nor do I have an ounce of sympathy for it. I continue with a quieter, more fierce tone. “This was planned. All of this. You knew about The Red Death. You knew a witch would break the rules and ask for help. You had every intention of rebirthing your daughter into another and calling it a ‘deal.’ Instead, it was manipulation. You knew I’d help those I love.” She flinches, and I press on, unloading my burdens back onto the shoulders which they belong. “You played on my emotions, on my need to help others, and it turned into a bloodbath. When I travelled to the Death Realm, did you hope I’d destroy your enemies for you? Is that why I’m here?”
Her body is rigid and statue-like except for her jaw where a muscle works profusely as she takes the full brunt of my words’ blows.
Pulling the blanket tighter around me, I allow my tone to lose its ferocity. “I bet you didn’t count on your daughter being lost to the void forever, did you?”
“No,” she says after a moment of silence. “She was a casualty I didn’t anticipate.”
My heart thumps hard, flooding my face with pressure and heat. How dare she act like Myla, her own flesh and blood, was a casualty of war!
I lunge at her, the blanket falling from my shoulders to the gathering snow. The sandman strikes forward, impossibly swift, and grips me around the waist before I can reach her with outstretched, flaming hands. I have every intention of taking the life from her soulless body, no matter the consequences. She’s more to blame for everything than I am.
The sandman’s grip tightens as I squirm in his arms. I could easily wiggle from his grasp, use a little magic and make him soar across the realm, but his next words reach me through my crazed haze.
“Her death won’t fix anything, Katriane.”
Closing my outstretched hands, the fire dissipates when his advice sinks in. He’s right. Killing her would only bring more problems though I wouldn’t feel anything as I did it aside from utter relief. This, I’m sure of. I have little love for the fee, especially the one who has manipulated me the most.
I relax, if but a little, in the sandman’s arms, and the heat drains from my face. Tears prick my eyes in its absence, and I fight the lump in my throat as my emotions level once more.
“You manipulated everything, Erline.” I angrily swipe at my face. “I wouldn’t be here - none of us would - if you hadn’t intervened.”
Tucking a strand of white hair behind her head, the color matching the blizzarding flakes around us, she sighs through her nostrils, impatient. “You’re right. Dyson would still be in the Death Realm. The sandman would have remained Sureen’s unwilling lover.”
I gulp at the revelation. Unwilling lover?
She continues, ignoring my stiffness. “Eliza would be hostage to her fee husband. Aiden would be a powerful weapon in the hands of a sociopath with a vengeful agenda. The witches would be extinct.” She flicks her black eyes to mine, jutting her chin. “And with all that, to what fate, I ask you, do you think the madness would end?”
“All would be destroyed,” Sandy mumbles over my head, his deep voice vibrating my spine pressed against his chest.
“So, I was your weapon to even the odds,” I state.
Crossing her arms, she glares. “Yes. I am not proud of it, but I must do what I need to preserve life. Their fate remains in my hands, Kat. Mine. If I need to use you to ensure a peaceful outcome, I will.”
Sandy slowly releases me, uncurling his arms from my waist as Erline glowers back to the flames. Instead of scooting away and returning to my own seat, I continue to rest against him, untrusting of my own actions.
“And the red-headed queen, Eliza?” I ask. “What will be her fate?” After all, she’s the one we currently need to worry about. She and her demon lover. She’s a life - surely Erline has interest in preserving it even if she is wed to Kheelan.
Erline doesn’t speak for a long while, and the hushed chatter wraps around us while the snow blankets the remaining, unoccupied logs.
Lifting her hand, her magic licks the streams of a crisp breeze and the snow dances in it. The small flakes deter from their path and swirl in a circle of the space before us, building a moving picture. Two figures appear, and I watch, fascinated at the extraordinary detail the specs create. It’s abundantly clear that it’s a man and woman.
“When a fee takes a mate, it isn’t for love,” she begins. A few passing elves stop to watch the moving picture of snow. “Not usually, and not in Kheelan’s case. The evil can’t love.”
The snow sculpture of the man leans toward the woman, passionately kissing her. But the image quickly changes. The man and the white flakes take on a different hue, one of blood in color. The woman grips the man’s shoulders, attempting to push him away before she too is consumed by the red.
Erline’s fingers flick, and the image changes once more, swirling in obedience. “When the fee mate with one human, our power is shared, linked. It is our greatest strength but also our greatest weakness.”
When he breaks the kiss, the man’s hands raise, outstretched to his side. Soon after, the woman’s form floats above the man, her chest bowed, and her arms dangled behind her. Snowflakes shoot from her chest like a bomb, only to circle around her, a tornado, until all that’s left is a red woman matching the man.
“If the fee dies, the mate dies,” Erline murmurs.
She lets the image fall by the drop of her hands. The man and woman’s image dissipate with the next gust of wind, carrying the snowflakes across the village.
Erline huffs. “If one wishes to call upon the other, they can. If one wants to draw on the magic of the other, they can. But there is one twist. The mate can kill the fee, and live.”
I release the breath I’ve been holding, a curse passing my lips.
“She doesn’t deserve this,” the sandman fumes.
I turn to him, his face strained with unease. “Are you okay?”
He nods though his expression says otherwise. “She is Dyson’s friend. She helped save him at a great cost to herself. She is honorable.”
Across the path dividing the teepees, past the canines who’ve lost interest in my presence, I spot the teepee where Dyson is sleeping off the rest of his exhaustion. What had Dyson gone through in Kheelan’s dungeon? Perhaps . . . perhaps I misjudged the situation in believing Dyson would be fine and his sorrow couldn’t possibly match mine.
The sandman continues, “Kheelan took her for a bride as a final act to hurt Dyson.”
I glower. “How would that hurt Dyson?”
The sandman’s throat constricts as he swallows his troubles. Busying his hands, he squeezes his nail beds, one by one. “Dyson was the one Kheelan forced to kill Eliza’s love.”
“I see,” I respond.
We’re quiet, and it takes several minutes for me to sense Erline’s wavering nervousness.
I turn to her, knowing she has something else to say.
Ticking her jaw, the intensity of my lingering expectation too much, she meets me square in the eyes. Fear flicks along her features before she masks it.
“There’s more,” I spit, accusing, and wave my hand in the air.
“Yes,” she says evenly. She reaches forward, her pale fingers brushing the tips of the flames. The fire responds and plays with her skin, a cat arching its back against the palm of its owner.
During her stretching pause, an elderly male elf storms by, slinging his native language in our direction. By the tone, I imagine the words aren’t kind. The sandman hisses in return.
“Myla and Corbin’s mating contract-” she starts.
“Is now void,” I cut her off. “She’s dead.”
“I know she’s dead, Katriane,” Erline snarls, the fire roaring once and engulfing her hand. “There isn’t a need to keep reminding me of my failures.”
I snort, begging to differ.
“The contract still holds. Corbin was able to continue living because I did not allow his mat
e to die completely. And once I inserted her back into the living, he grew in strength.”
“Myla’s death does not affect him because the contract was swapped for another,” the sandman summarizes.
A shockwave scores under my skin, burning my bones and aching my joints. Like a slap across the face, my head whips back in disbelief. “Now, how is that possible? Contracts are void once the other is dead. You can’t hold a contract with the dead, and you sure as hell can’t keep one when the other is in the void.”
Removing her hand from the flames, she leans back to her straight posture and clasps her hands in her lap, resembling an impatient teacher. She stares at me, her eyes searching mine, waiting for me to draw my own conclusion.
I gasp, my mouth widening. “No.”
“Yes.” She nods, hissing the “s”.
“What?” the sandman asks, his head swiveling back and forth. “What is it?
“The contract exchanged to me, because I was merged with Myla,” I whisper in horror. “Her DNA runs in my veins, her magic now mine.”
Erline blinks affirmation.
“What does this mean for your future?” he asks, foreboding in his tone as if this signs my death sentence.
A new voice calls behind me, and I almost jump from my skin at the abrupt intrusion.
“It means Corbin can draw from her power whenever he wishes.”
I turn and watch Erma and a bulky elf approach our circle of misfits. The large elf’s expression is dark and settles on me. His trudges are lumbering, and he’s a striking resemblance to that of Tember’s friend, Jaemes. The bridge of his nose is wrinkled with fury, his eyelids tightened in contempt.
He blames me for all of this.
Join the club buddy, my answering scoff speaks. I’m done cowering, even to an elf who could squash me with his pinky finger.
My eyes bulge when I look past him. Clomping through the village’s path is a horse, but not the normal kind. Everything here resembles so much of the Earth Realm’s animals but much darker in creation. This horse has two heads, six hooves the size of skulls, and a mane and tail which blend with the snow, smoky and wistful. Its spine’s vertebrae stick out like knobbed spikes.