The Tangled Tree

by S. K Munt

  Oh Martya had explained it, partially at least, but it still didn’t make any sense to me, and my curiosity was so overwhelmed by questions that I was feeling light-headed. There were babies waiting to meet me? I was going to help father wipe out the Given Caste? This had to be a warped dream, or another, impassable level of Hell!

  Having wings is hard enough to come to terms with! I thought, feeling panicky and claustrophobic again. But... saving the world from God’s wrath? Immaculate conception? Jesus Christ!

  ‘Close,’ my mother said, reading my mind again and smiling, ‘but you’re a lot prettier- and twice as powerful as Gabriel’s first child was.’ She leaned in and wrapped her arms around me in a tight embrace, lifting my face to hers and smiling wickedly. ‘And soon enough, everyone will know it!’

  I stared into her eyes and felt not fear- but a growing sense of anticipation now. ‘What is it I have to do?’

  Satan sighed, looking apprehensive. ‘You have to break that curse or find your way onto a powerful throne. That would have been accomplished more easily if you’d let them all die, but you have asked me to save them and I can only do what is asked of me or what I want for myself so long as it doesn’t interfere with free will. It is good for your feathers that you have saved them, and good for mankind because I think God would return if he felt the loss of Miguel’s entire legacy... but despite your powers, you were born from a mortal woman and not hand-crafted by God, so you can still be killed my dear- rather easily- and soon, they will try to do exactly that, and I will not be able to linger much longer to shield you as I have tonight.’

  My eyes widened at that. ‘Why?’

  ‘Like God, I must retreat from the mortal coil to recover, and I have exhausted myself this night- I will have to be gone by morning before my body begins to fade and will be unable to return until your actions have won me more hearts, or the Barachiel’s evil actions have won me more hate.’ She motioned to Bastien. ‘He will stay with you to guide you to a safe space and fill you in on a lot of important details along the way, but his power isn’t an offensive one like yours, merely defensive, so you will have to find a way to protect yourself from the Barachiel crown’s reach however you can, until it is time for you to be the one that attacks from an equal if not greater position of power.’ She met my eyes steadily. ‘Can you do that, sweet girl? Can you make your life a priority over all else if it means saving others? It might mean doing things that are unpleasant… but ultimately for the greater good.’

  I thought it over while my heart pounded in my ears. ‘I think I can,’ I eventually admitted, feeling power stirring inside me. ‘But first… do you have a knife?’

  Satan looked confused for a moment, but then she read my thoughts and winced.

  Don’t tell him! I warned her. It must be done! And he will try and stop me if he sees it coming!

  Yes, he will. Oh dear… this will take the last of my energy, you know. And I’m afraid it will pain me to watch it happen.

  And watching me deep throat a vine didn’t set off your maternal red flags? Please- you should have thought of it before you checked me into the whore hotel.

  I told you, I can’t separate that part of myself from this part of myself! And before you sass me with one of your snappy little comebacks… ask yourself who you inherited your quick wit and forked tongue off, hmm? You think it was bashful Bastien? Pfft. Some of my supposed ‘negative’ traits have been a crutch for you, little bird- one of these days, I hope you find a way to see me in your reflection, and be grateful for what we have in common! Starting with that superb chest of yours.

  Oh yes my breasts have been so helpful! They’re like an evil-male magnet!

  One you needed!

  ‘What?’ Bastien asked, seeing the way we were glowering at one another. ‘What’s the knife for?’

  I shook my head. I have to do this quick before I lose my nerve, so get out of my head, all right? And please… just heal me after? I swear that’s the last thing that I will ask of you.

  Like I’d leave you to bleed to death! Just... be careful, and slice only where you feel it! Here... I nodded when I felt her trickle a warm line across the inside of my lower abdomen and Satan opened her hand, producing a beautiful, silver knife. Bastien had been watching us with confusion, but now alarm lit his lavender eyes.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded, stepping forward as I grasped the handle in my hand. ‘What is-’

  I twisted the knife and jabbed it into my stomach, screaming as I did and buckling at the waist as actual, physical agony ripped through me. My father bellowed but my mother held him back and they both watched horrified as I pressed my fingers into my womb, felt around- and then tore out the tiny vial that had been inserted on my sixteenth birthday. It was blood and gore covered, but it was glowing a faint golden colour in a way that it hadn’t before, and I tossed it onto the sand before I fell to my knees.

  ‘It’s time to follow a real leader boys,’ I croaked, cupping my hand to my stomach as Satan rushed forward and pushed it away so that she could heal the gaping hole. ‘But do it without your beacon or my trail of feathers to make the path easier for you!’ I collapsed onto all fours, panting and sobbing as my mother’s warmth radiated through my womb, restoring it at last while the tide lapped beneath my hands, catching the tracking device, rinsing it free- and then dragging it out to sea.

  And then I gave into the blackness again for what I hoped to be the last time, letting it consume me without panic this time, knowing that when I awoke, Satan would be gone and I would finally be free.

  Loss of consciousness is indeed, a funny thing. Sometimes it’s your body’s way of telling you that it cannot cope with your life as it is. But sometimes, it is your body’s way of ensuring that you get the chance to recover from all you have endured, and wake up again with eyes that are finally wide open.

  Epilogue

  Kohén Barachiel

  I watched my brother’s twisted body twitch as the healers ran their hands over him, feeling like I was having an out of body experience. My mirror image was standing in the doorway of our private suite, arguing with Ora about damage control and she was arguing back about how she didn’t know what was damage control and what was concealment of crimes, my uncle was sobbing in the corner over the bodies of my parents that had been stretched out on a large day bed, my former Companions and a few others were huddled on the other side of the felled king, crying like their hearts had been collectively broken, John of Arc was insisting that they should leave this wing of the castle at once so that the family could grieve in private and I… I felt nothing.

  I knew I’d lost the girl I’d thought was the love of my life forever, and yet I felt nothing. Nothing at all, not internally anyway. Not anger, not empathy, not grief, not desperation or anguish… just everybody’s palpable dislike of me, which I knew I’d earned. I was the prince that had been healed and then commanded to go sit in the corner like a naughty dog while they focused on healing the one that actually mattered, and that wasn’t even bothering me the way it should. The healers has written off my dry eyes and vacant stare as being symptoms of shock or possible concussion, but I wasn’t so sure if that was the case, or if I was just an awful person. Could a good person sit in a room with his dead parents and feel such indifference to the bodies? It didn’t seem likely. We’d quarrelled yes but…shouldn’t I be crying? Or at least acting out like my twin was? He seemed more upset about Lark’s’s disappearance into the ocean than I did, and yet she’d been mine! So where was my despair for the girl I’d been obsessed with since the age of five?

  ‘If you want to handle it that way, then you go out there and do it while I stay with him for I can only report, in good conscience, what I know to be true!’ Ora cried, throwing up her hands and storming past Kohl, who watched her go to the long couch that my elder brother had been stretched across while wearing an anguished expression. T’are’s corpse was on the floor in the middle of the room too, covered with a sheet, b
ut no one seemed to pay him much mind as they stalked past, and that actually struck me as being sad, because I knew he’d died trying to get my mother out of the burning building after spending days serving me and decades serving my father. How important he’d been once to castle life, but how quickly he’d been disregarded, and how insignificant and lonely he seemed now! I wiped at a tear, and wondered if my shock was wearing off and if I was about to be slammed with a wall of grief forged by everything else that I’d lost this night. I hoped not- I was rather enjoying the numbness, and actually kind of wished that someone would tell me to just go to bed or something, because the dominant feeling in my body at that moment was definitely exhaustion.

  ‘And I don’t know if I believe that a word you’ve said is true, Kohl! I’ve heard so many sides of this story tonight that I’m starting to wonder if any of this is happening at all or if I’m having a horrible nightmare!’

  ‘Did you not see her wings?’ Kohl wheeled on her, following her across the room, and I watched him, wondering if I walked and looked exactly as he did when I was angry. ‘Can you not see the state we are all in, especially your darling Karol? This wasn’t done with fire or electricity- she did this, Ora! You’ve told me that she admitted as much!’ he sobbed. ‘I don’t want to believe that any of it has happened either, but it has and the kingdom has to be warned about how dangerous she is! Especially if she went around saying awful things about us first to turn people against us before she flew out of the bloody building!’ he stomped his foot, clutching at his chest. ‘I loved her more than anyone else did! I would never have hurt her! She simply lost her mind when that brand came out, and I tried to talk them all out of it but…’ he dropped his head into his hands and moaned, leaning against the edge of the grand dining table between us. ‘This is a nightmare, but it’s not yours alone!’

  ‘If you are speaking the truth, then eventually, I will believe it, Kohl…’ Ora said, slipping in to grip my elder brother’s hand and not looking back at my twin. ‘But I will speak to Karol about what happened in his room and what Lark said to him before I believe another word anyone else says, understood?’ she sniffled. ‘That’s if he ever comes to! Bloody hell Karol…’ she sighed, cupping his hand with both of hers as though praying, and I though how lucky my eldest brother was to have someone fussing over him so. ‘It’s not yet midnight, so you can’t leave us! Think of all of the birthday kisses you will miss out on if you do?’

  ‘God…’ Joan Of Arc got up from beside my father’s body, smudged her own sheen tears away with her fingers and moved to embrace Kohl, blocking my view of all that was happening on the other side and thankfully, of T’are’s corpse. ‘I saw Lark kill your father Kohl,’ she whispered to my twin, touching his face tenderly. ‘I believe that she is all that is awful and more, and I will help your people understand that too, all right?’ she turned to me and the shadows around me, smiling sweetly, and it was the first time that she’d struck me as being incredibly pretty. ‘You too, Kohén. I know how much you loved her, and how she took advantage of that fact.’ She stretched across to grip my hand and squeezed it in her soft one, comforting us both at the same time. ‘No companion has ever been as well treated as she, and I will not let people twist your vulnerability to her into something ugly.’

  I didn’t know if she was being honest or not- but I smiled crookedly and mouthed a thank you, then took my hand back as Kohl pressed his face into the Shepherd’s daughter’s shoulder and sighed.

  ‘Thank you, Amelia-Rose,’ he said hoarsely, and I moved to cover a yawn- certain that Ora would stab me herself if she heard me do something that insensitive while my brother was fighting for his life. ‘It’s nice to know that at least one person in this room has faith in me.’

  How long has it been now since I awoke under the hands of that strange, black-haired healer? Ten? Twenty? How much longer am I going to have to stand being inundated by everyone’s feelings, without having any of my own?!

  ‘Oh Lark…’ one of my Companions moaned from beside my father’s body. I couldn’t tell which though- they all looked so alike in their white togas from across the room- and I really didn’t care. ‘How could you?’

  ‘You don’t know that she-’

  ‘We know that she killed Elijah, if nothing else,’ the weeping girl whispered. ‘And if she did that then it’s likely that she’s responsible for the others too, isn’t it?’

  ‘Kohl’s not a liar,’ another admitted softly. ‘I’d think it was a story if it came from Karol or Kohén, but not Kohl.’

  I raised an eyebrow at that and looked back at my twin, wondering how he’d managed to garner so much faith from my companions. Hadn’t I treated them well?

  Not well enough, apparently… the thought came to mind unbidden. At least one was miserable enough under your watch to be inspired to go on a murderous rampage! I swallowed hard, my palms sweating and then crackling with energy. I needed to get out of there but where could I go? Apparently the castle was overflowing with people that wanted to throttle me now! People that wanted to ask me questions that I didn’t have answers to!

  My room! I thought then, glancing around. I’ll say I’m going to wash my face and change my clothes, and that will buy me some time alone, won’t it? Maybe once I’m alone, it will all hit me and I’ll feel… something...

  ‘Oh! Karol!’ someone suddenly cried: Ora.

  ‘Oh! His eyes are open- he’s regained consciousness!’ another voice, one that made me stand up and look over with renewed interest. Was he truly going to live? That would mean something, I knew! If he’d died, my father’s crown would be passed to my uncle Ewan because I was the second in line but nowhere close to being thirty and old enough to assume a throne yet, but if he lived, I would step up and become the crowned prince- something that I knew would matter to me once the shock wore off.

  ‘How?’ Kohl cried, bursting from Amelia-Rose’s grip and storming to our brother’s side. ‘Wasn’t his neck-’ there was a collective gasp and then I saw my older brother sit up looking… fine! He’d been a blistered, charred body minutes before, one twisted like wreckage, but now he leapt off the bed, knocking his saviours out of the way and causing everyone else to shrink back. His eyes were green fire as he searched the room and finally, saw me. Those eyes slitted and then his head jerked to study Kohl’s face- and by the time they’d seen our parents’ bodies, they’d darkened from being the colour of emeralds, to algae. My heart rate began to accelerate as his muscles bunched, and for a moment I was sure that he was going to bound across the room and flatten me, but then he looked at Ora, then Amelia-Rose and then finally, lifted a hand and thrusted it towards the door.

  ‘Everyone out NOW!’ he roared, and though Ora tried to protest and step forward, he pushed her out of the way. ‘All of you! Leave us! I thank you for saving my life, but we are facing a disaster and an emergency at once and I MUST speak to my brothers about the witch that brought it upon us in confidence before I speak to anyone else! So go!’

  It wasn’t the fastest recovery in history I was sure, and possibly the ugliest one. Couldn’t he at least hug Ora? Kiss one of his healers on the cheek or something?

  ‘Witch? Oh god, so it is true?’ Ora tried to reach for him again but he turned away from her, and she was quickly collected by my startled companions as they swarmed around her and began to hurry her out the door. ‘She really did try to kill you? Karol…. talk to me! Surely you and I have become closer this week than you have been with your brothers?’

  But: ‘Out!’ was my brother’s only response, and mine was to flinch on the heartbroken girl’s behalf.

  Well if I am a monster, there’s a good chance it’s hereditary...

  There had been at least eighteen people in there with us before, but it emptied quickly. Amelia-Rose had been the last out and had turned, asking if she could stay and offer spiritual guidance, but had received a hostile look in response that had provoked her to close the door behind her. Once she’d skittered out, th
at left only me, my brothers and the three dead bodies on this side of it.

  Oh man… I shifted in my seat uneasily as Karol prowled towards me. This doesn’t look good...

  ‘Fuck Karol, you almost died!’ Kohl said, sounding both nervous and agitated. ‘Why don’t you sit down for a minute and collect yourself so I-’

  ‘Kohén Barachiel!’ my brother eyes were startling and bright again, seemingly glowing from within as he cut Kohl off dead and then loomed over me, smacking his palms so hard into the table that the entire thing shook. ‘What the hell happened here tonight? Larkin says you branded her? That Kohl killed mother? That you both tried to rape her-’

  ‘All lies!’ Kohl declared, stepping forward and ripping Karol back by taking his shoulder, making me wilt in relief. ‘Father tried to have mother brand her, and mother refused and branded Kohén instead the second father left to go looking for you! She screamed that the entire family was evil, except for me, and tried to attack Kohén again! I knocked her out of the way to shield him, and she hit her head on the spring, falling unconscious!’ I watched Kohl with eyes that had been stretched to the point of watering, as horrified by the grisly tale as Karol was. ‘Lark became a psychotic in a heartbeat, and accused me of killing mother! We tried to restrain her and assure her that mother was still breathing, but she started screaming rape and all sorts of things, and declared that she was running away from us so Kohén branded her so she wouldn’t get far- and she burst into flames! Nephilim flames!’

  ‘They were siding together?’ Karol asked, looking dazed. ‘But mother hated Lark for so long-’

  ‘Well apparently they’ve been two peas in a nephilim pod since Pacifica, because neither seemed surprised to see the other unleash their powers on us,’ Kohl snarled, and Karol’s eyes bugged and I saw how red and veiny they were now, telling me that he hadn’t been getting much sleep either.

  ‘Mother’s what?’