In Eden's Shadow

by Amanda Churi

  Tah winced and forced her back to cooperate. She unpinned her shoulders from the rock, hitting her knees and crawling toward her brother. “Toboé…!”

  “I-I am okay…!”

  Maeve made another lap around Reeve, gaining speed as she traced over the already fire-greased paths her rampage reaped into the stone. She came around again, spinning, lashing. Webs of lightning twisting and grappling with one another burst from her vortex, reaching over the winter storm to slam Reeve at her back. A smidge of time was all Reeve had, and she threw her torso into her legs, sabers of ice exploding from her spine to create a piercing shell.

  The spikes were smashed off their foundation, dicing the air with bullets of blue and crackling electrical currents. They came at Tah with no time to prepare; they ripped across her shoulders and scathed her arms, throwing blood into the air.

  “TAH—!” Toboé’s scream cut off with a squeal, a spear of ice shooting through his throat.

  “TOBOÉ—!” A hunk of ice struck Tah in the face, knocking her back and sending her head smashing into a rock. She couldn’t find it in her to speak, seeing her blood fly around her, feeling her ears bleed and burn as she found her brother on his back, a gaping, throbbing hole in his throat with another blade of ice locked into his skull. His eyes were open; his life was bubbling through his open wound, pupils dilated, but he couldn’t stand—couldn’t move anything besides his fingers that twitched and sowed the earth, trying to hook down and stay.

  “To…Toboé…” Tah pushed power into her spine, trying to sit up. She had to get to him… Cover the bleeding fast! She could do it! She could!

  But nothing was obeying her, leaving her lying there as good and evil continued spinning in the background. No… It couldn’t end like this… This wasn’t what was supposed to happen! “T-TOBOÉÉÉ!”

  Her shrill cry bounced off his deaf ears and blind eyes. He did not react; the only part of him that still moved was his blood, and it did so through the path of death.

  Tah’s screams were lost to even herself; she couldn’t process how loud nor hard she was crying for him, yelling—demanding he get up. To come home with her. To stop being so weak. To come back. To live. But it didn’t matter how much she wept. He never flinched.

  The world was deaf—cold inside her chest. Breathless, she forced her throbbing eyes to Maeve, only to see the mage standing there. The flames continued spewing from her body, but her eyes were wide and vulnerable, shaking at the sight of the siblings.

  Tah started screaming without restraint, so much that she couldn’t even hear the curses coming from her tongue—so much that she didn’t even know what she was screaming about. She was just mad—broken. Her cell of sixteen years was open, spewing everything she had ever stuffed away. Her fingers were numbing with the rest of her body; the battlefield was silent, and she couldn’t feel the pebbles of ruin raining around her. Had she never come, this wouldn’t have happened! None of it! The tears were pooling around her and melting into the red earth, and they kept falling, hotter, harder from her eyes until she was almost blind. So much so that Reeve’s impending strike, a spear shooting through the whirling blizzard and heading for Maeve’s back, looked like nothing more than a blur.

  The demon that had almost eaten Tah was suddenly there, diving at Maeve and whamming her into the stone with such strength that Reeve’s strike ate only air.

  But the demon didn’t attack. He just kneeled over Maeve’s grounded body, staring.

  Tah screamed for Maeve to get up—to kill him, to kill Reeve—kept yelling and crying until she began to choke. Uneven bursts of air and pressure popped in her strained throat, an empty, hollow wind tunnel wheezing from her bared teeth. The void growing in her gut threw her bones into a panic stronger than before; her limbs spun so wildly that she managed to sit up, catching herself with slashed palms. But even now, she couldn’t get over to her brother’s body that began to take a coat of sand. She was petrified by her lack of voice, grabbing her throat, rubbing it first and then squeezing it, trying to get it to work.

  A burst of fire whipped up Tah’s traumatized eyes as Maeve blew the demon off her and sent him tumbling across the gory arena. Maeve turned immediately, tails of fire shooting from her hind and gushing forward with her palm that pushed the air. Each of the four tails pierced Reeve through her body—the head, gut, a leg, and an arm—carrying her into the air and pinning her against the clock tower dozens of feet above the ground.

  The ice spirit and child made eye contact as Tah continued to cry without a voice. Maeve unveiled a war cry; her liquid, flaming knives twisted together to form a screw larger than her body, and she plowed it toward Reeve, propelled by energy straight from God.

  And then their stare broke—because there was no one there for Tah to look at. Maeve’s wrath found empty, abandoned stone; her powers tore into the tower instead of Reeve’s body, wringing and twisting it in half, sending the remains crashing down around Tah’s stunted body. W-where did Reeve go?

  The massive bronze bell hit the ground, brewing a storm of rock and dust. The gong ruptured the earth, sent chilling waves through Tah as an orchestra of trumpets sounded, blaring their topmost notes.

  The ground fell to violent tremors, and what lie about them that the spirits had not brought to ruin began to crumble on its own accord. The air took a visible shape, moving as did ripples of water. Pressure built in Tah’s chest and wrapped around her like a ghostly hand, throwing her to her knees. A bed of coals so hot they burned cold snagged her heart and squeezed it tight, taking her breath away. Strange laughter echoed inside her, rattling her heart as the odd chill moved on to her brain, locking every joint when they needed to move the most.

  But even if she could have run, she questioned if she would have. Staring at Toboé’s body, she had no desire. She hadn’t just lost her mother, her brother, her home… But her own life at God’s wrath.

  Why? What did I ever do to You? I praised You… Stood for Your name… Why have You hurt me?

  The irony of it all made her ache more, down to the core of her bones. She mindlessly watched cracks fold the soil beneath her sheared knees, witnessing the world draw its breath as the earth tilted, concaved, swallowed the city. Idols of marble came down first; the house of worship a whiles way off fell immediately after, a slide of cobble, clay, and ivory racing down the mountain.

  Maeve took one look at the incoming doom, and her flames killed themselves. Her body took tremors upon itself that were completely separate from the crumbling city. Her eyes rushed to the demon that was struggling to get up and then to Tah, silently apologizing, before she tore away in a streak of sunlight, bounding over the growing mountains, over the bodies, and hurling herself off the wall, twisting her flames to create a paraglider that carried her away far and fast.

  Tah didn’t waste a moment more of her fleeting life calling for the woman who clearly didn’t care about them. Her worn head turned to her brother; her face painfully shriveled. Toboé… She extended her arm to him, but that was all she had the strength to do. I am so sorry I dragged you into this… So, so sorry…

  “You can avenge him.”

  Tah’s rusty neck creaked to the person suddenly at her side. Tah’s eyes were weighing her down, on the verge of closing what felt like for good, so it took a moment to remember who she was. If it hadn’t been for her purple eyes and porcelain skin, Tah wouldn’t have remembered the merchant at all.

  Tah tried to ask what she was talking about, but again, her voice had no way out.

  “Avenge your brother, Tah,” the shopkeeper continued. “Change your fate that would otherwise be met here.” Her arms slipped under Tah’s breathing corpse, lifting her over her shoulder as though she shared the weight of air. Part of Tah debated fighting—after all, what was she speaking of? And why? She only just met her a matter of minutes ago.

  And in those few, everything had gone wrong. Everything was gone.

  Whether it was from defeat or blood loss, she didn’
t know, but Tah didn’t raise a finger as she was carried away, watching the gaping earth stretch its jaws wider until the pit of its stomach was finally revealed as a cold, bottomless pot of black.

  Her eyes kept roving back to the demon that was still failing to rise; he was crying, playing his card of pity after ruining so much. He reached for Tah in a river of curses and tears, screaming for Reeve, but Tah didn’t know why… And didn’t care. Her weariness was strengthening and jumping on her eyelids, trying to pull her under, and finally, she gave way, watching the distant earth part in a massive gulp. The blackness raced, consumed all as the trumpets continued wailing. Toboé’s body was among the first consumed, the ground parting so rapidly he was seen one minute and sent into an endless plummet the next; so was the demon, who fought fang and claw, holding onto the expanding crater until an unseen hand seemed to grab him and squeeze out his life, yanking him down to where he spawned from.

  Embers of purple brushed over Tah’s cheeks and ran past her eyes; the air pressure increased tremendously, pounding on her back and skull. The shopkeeper tightened her grip on Tah, holding them together. “Don’t let go. If you do, there’s no telling where you may end up.”

  Like she had the strength… Tah had nothing, not even will, so she obeyed part-way: she didn’t fight the woman, but when the universe suddenly lapsed and pulled her into a tunnel of black stars and black air, she let go of her mind and fell into a broken sleep.

  Thirty-two

  Essence

  Why I did it—why I pushed Maeve out of the strike that would have ended it all, solved countless problems and conquered countless feats—

  I didn’t know the answer. But I knew why they were grabbing me as soon as I crashed back home. I knew why they were lassoing me with barbwire and using it as whips to keep me moving through Nortora and to the center square.

  I could have thrown any of them on their ass in a fair one on one, but now, I didn’t have a few enemies, curse a few people in my reclusive workshop—all of Hell wanted my head. The only reason they didn’t take it was because they knew if anyone was to punt my skull from my spine, it had to be Him.

  So many faces morphed with rage that my skeleton nearly crawled out of my skin; if I gave it much longer, it would have probably made a break for it and left the rest of me behind. Coruscus was very much the same; I had to direct way too much focus to keep it from lashing out and making matters worse, and even then, it still hovered out from my body, hissing and ready to cut down anyone that pushed their luck.

  Each step made my sanity totter a little more than the last. Nearly every face I saw I no longer recognized, remembering what they could not—begone faces that had been reduced to such deformed creatures. My eyes especially lingered on Korbu leading me along as he glanced back, his disappointment the most profound I had seen yet. I could hardly believe his transformation—no, deterioration. Not even his human form resembled how glorious he had once been, how happy, how we had once laughed without a care and cherished each moment existing.

  My focus slipped, and Coruscus swung, striking a demon that veered too close.

  “HEY!” A shi gripping the metallic teeth linked to my waist yanked furiously, sinking the barbs so far into my skin that they got stuck. Coruscus reeled again, nearly catching the offender.

  “KNOCK IT OFF!” another snarled, yanking me in the opposite direction.

  “EERO?!”

  Her voice came just in time because I was about to say “fuck it” and kick a bitch. Azuré came slithering up through the crowd with enraged pushes, fighting to get to the front line. “Eero?! What did you do?!”

  Korbu snapped his teeth. “Get back, Azuré! This is Satan’s matter, not yours!”

  “Shut up, Korbu!” She nearly tripped, pushing through the crowd in an effort to keep up with my death march. “Talk to me, Eero! What’s going on?!”

  “He spared her!” someone from the crowd bellowed. “He saved Maeve!”

  “He betrayed Satan!” another piped.

  “Betrayed us all!”

  “Sided with God!”

  They were acting like petty, gossiping hags. I wanted to swat away every syllable from my ear like some annoying gnat, but however much they ran their traps, I couldn’t say that they were wrong.

  My silence confirmed their rumors. Azuré’s ears slipped down behind her head like a cat, her violet eyes falling in hue, falling in worth. Her pace quickly slowed, and then, she didn’t bother to keep up.

  “No! Azuré!” I found myself panicking, the satchel at my hip searing my skin, and I plunged my tied hands through the flap, my nails clipping a sliver of the fruit and clumsily flinging it her way. “Trust me!” I screamed as they pulled harder. “Please, trust me!”

  She stared down at the slice that plopped at her feet, questioning, but she did not reach for it. She let them take me without another word, closing her eyes to keep the pipes from bursting.

  I had never seen her cry—never seen almost anything but mischief from her, so to see her like that…

  “Move it!” This time, the order came from Korbu, and his underlings gladly reinforced his order with yanks in all directions.

  I threw my fangs into my lip so hard that it burst like an overfilled sack. I cursed Coruscus to stay down. The skin under my nails was on fire with that juice of knowing, hoping she would understand what it was—that I wasn’t a loon, a liar, as they said.

  I squeezed my face painfully. Did I regret that bite? Yes. Should I have? No. And part of me didn’t. Maybe that was what made me act so brashly and save Maeve from that blow. Maybe I wanted an excuse to be thrown away rather than live knowing this—knowing the truth of what I could never undo.

  The crowd finally parted, revealing the void center of Nortora as the crowd built along the perimeter, so tightly packed that had a grain of sand been thrown it never would have made its way to the ground.

  Satan stood at the golden gallows, unmoving, unforgiving next to an execution-specific noose made from chain—my own demon-killing invention. A hush drowned the crowd as water thrown to a fire; the only twisting of the air came from the pitter-patter of lava droplets and glop of larger streams falling from the fountain in the center. Satan’s golden-white hair plumed in dark anger, His horns well above His head as sharp as knives and sticking straight up. His eyes were black holes, allowing nothing to escape, and His muscles quivered under His coat of skin, requiring immense control to keep Him from tearing forth and destroying me on the spot.

  And His weapon—that flaming, molten pitchfork that only kept itself together at His discretion—it burned not red but black, only confirming how royally I fucked up.

  A foot of bone blew into the backs of my knees, forcing me to a kneel. They did not remove my bondage or tie me elsewhere; I stayed right in their grasp, at their mercy, only able to confide in my tied hands.

  “Eero…” Satan was cautious, and He hesitated with His first words. Him. Of all creations. I would have rathered Him just sever my head and get it over with rather than prancing around the problem like some tipsy, afraid-of-offending pixie.

  “Satan,” I said back—quite bluntly.

  A shi immediately whopped me in the back of the head with their skinless hand. I didn’t take it back.

  “Why?”

  I waited for more, but His mouth stayed sealed. “Why?” I finally replied. “I don’t know why. I only know I did.”

  My answer made Him grow—His height increased by several feet with snickering, inkly wisps rushing from His pores. “Months…” He boomed. “Months out there, getting so close, and you just blew it… Not just that, but you did it on purpose.” He tore forward, crushing my throat with one hand and lifting me off the ground; the strength was so overwhelming that my rolling eyes hardly saw His pitchfork aimed at my chest, ready to kabob me if I even breathed too heavily. “I WANT ANSWERS! I WANT A ‘WHY’!”

  Well, it wasn’t like I could have answered Him even if I wanted too with Him treating my
neck like a sponge!

  He let me drop, the fall so unexpected that the ground caught me with my knees and face. I was spitting globs of blood and saliva while trying to lift myself up—a beaten child kneeling at the feet of his abusive father. I wasn’t lying: I didn’t know what I had been thinking at that moment, but, of course, I knew what brought it on.

  And since that bite, I was tired… Void inside yet filled with a longing that I would never satisfy. I didn’t know how many human years it had been, but knowing that uncountable generations had come and gone while I had been down here, so ignorant of all I once had… It left my views of Hell so grotesque and distorted that even being here now tested the threads of my sanity.

  “Just end me,” I finally said.

  He snorted hard. “Playing mute, are we?”

  A mute was exactly what He got—a deaf too. I wouldn’t even look up.

  Footsteps began to encircle me, so forceful they lifted the granules of dirt around my fingers. “To think I thought of you as more than a servant… Not even just a head forger, but a leader… A friend.”

  I felt my eyes cross, forced to their lowest point of range. The claws and knives were back in my spine, back to carving and slashing—the harvesting of my silver feathers as they flitted, abandoned on burning soil. Friend? How dare He…

  “Think of all we could have done when we won,” He continued with a growl, His words coming closer, deepening in severity. “We wouldn’t have had to be chained down here; we could have roamed freely—Hell, Earth, and Heaven. All just an extended plain to be ruled by us.”