by Rachel Dunne
Fire burned inside Rora and made her scream, a scream that matched the one someone else was screaming with her mouth. She could feel claws under her skin, behind her eyes, like a swarm of rats crawling and clawing and trying to tear her to pieces, to get her out of the way, to take and take and take. Rora tried to hold on, tried to grab for anything, but how do you hold on to something with just your mind? All she had was her fingers around Aro’s hand, all she had to hold on to was her brother, and he was slipping, too, she could see the fires burning along their flesh, the ropes burning and falling away. The fire faded from her skin but it still tore through everything inside, and Rora felt like she was smashing herself against the walls of a cage, looking for a door or a flood or any way to stop the pain.
And then Rora stood up, only it wasn’t Rora choosing to do it. Aro stood next to her, and when she looked over at him, it didn’t even look like Aro anymore. It was like someone else had put on his face and it didn’t fit right, the angles were wrong, the eyes were wrong—
There was still the sound of praying, and Rora turned to look at it without wanting to. There was a priestess, and a fire, and a searing anger welled up in Rora, an anger that wasn’t her own, an anger at her Parents and their world and all that they had made and all that they had taken.
She would kill them all. Take their lives to fuel her radiance, take their lives so she could rise once more in her true form, her Brother ever at her side.
She was Sororra, and she would see the world burn to ashes.
Her Brother’s hand was around hers. They had been tricked and betrayed—of course they had, the cursed humans couldn’t be trusted. Humans could only be trusted to care about themselves, and damn the world. It was the truth her Parents had never wanted to see, that even the most loyal of their humans were rotten at their very cores. They could never truly love a thing that was not themselves, they would turn their backs when they were needed most, they would break and they would break you—
Fratarro was the only constant, the only loyal creature in all the world. He was screaming in fury and in heartbreak, grieving for his former host and the new one even as he raged against all his hard-won power being torn from him. He had worked so hard, tried so hard, and the humans had taken everything from him.
She was Sororra, and with her Brother at her side, there was nothing they could not do. Together, they would see the world burn to ashes.
Somewhere deep, deep down, there was a wailing. Sororra’s host, still clinging to the shell of her body. Strange. Was this what her Brother had felt, with his last host?
She heard the praying, words to her Parents that stabbed like knives into her ears, and her roving eyes found the priestess robed in their yellow. She knelt before a small fire, a puny thing, as though she thought it would be enough protection. It wouldn’t be. It would only be the first flames to fuel the Twins’ destruction.
There was a man who stood in stark terror near the priestess, his body quaking and his thoughts practically screaming to Sororra. Usually she had to actively listen if she wanted to know a human’s thoughts, but this one might as well have been shouting them aloud. This is wrong and How? and Please please please and I’m so sorry and I promised.
He would be the first. His life would give her power, and it would silence the inane babble of his thoughts. His life would be the first to fuel the second rise of the Twins.
The praying stopped, the priestess falling silent, and Sororra turned back to face her in the same moment the priestess punched one hand into the fire, like jabbing a spear.
All the world went silent.
And from above, from beyond, from a place that only Sororra and Fratarro could hear, two sharp voices reprimanded in unison, “No.”
And the power of the Parents burst forth from the fire. A massive wave of flame that shot toward Sororra and her Brother, growing huge, burning, burning . . .
One breath.
The man’s babbling thoughts: I promised Aro, selfish Aro, coward and fool and so used to being protected. Did Vatri listen? Destroy one . . .
Her Brother’s fingers in hers, a faint tremble beginning. He was screaming, but it did not sound like his voice. It sounded like the scream that reverberated within Sororra, the scream of her host, and both voices melded into a single plea: No. Please.
The fire raced toward them, enormous, powerful, unstoppable.
Sororra reached for her power—she had to try. She had to protect her Brother. It was all and the only thing she had ever needed to do. But there was no power to pull from. All her reserves, painstakingly shored up, had been robbed from her with the death of her last host. She was weak. She was powerless.
A second breath.
The priestess’s scarred face seamed into a smile, grim and triumphant.
The babble again: He knew his sister would give everything for him, and I promised. Destroy one, and you destroy them both. I’m sorry. I promised.
The wave of flame narrowed, sharpened, became an arrow, shooting straight and unerring—
Fratarro squeezed her hand. Her Brother. Her other half. The only loyal creature in all the world. So long as they had each other, there was nothing they could not do. She had always believed that.
A third. The final breath.
He asked me, he was scared and horrified and grieving and resolved and he asked for a promise: “If it comes to it, and you only need to kill one of us . . . please . . .”
Fratarro had begun to turn toward her, his eyes full of fear and of understanding and of acceptance. He still screamed with the voice that was not his own, but beneath it she heard him say, “Sister. I—”
The flames rushed forward in a blazing spear, and the fire pierced through her Brother’s chest without touching Sororra.
The clamor of the world resumed.
The fire burned through her Brother, dissipating into him, dissolving him. Sororra grabbed him as his legs buckled, cursing, sobbing, shouting, the second voice within her echoing her words, but the Parents’ fire glowed beneath his skin, and it ate the light from his eyes. He clutched at her arm with what little strength he had left, and Sororra screamed a scream that shook the world. She was weak, she was powerless; she had not been able to protect her Brother, all and the only thing she had ever needed to do. She had failed him, she had failed him . . .
His fingers fell from her arm. His light faded and was gone, truly gone, burned away by the power of their Parents, who had given him life and denied him the freedom to create.
Sororra fell, still screaming, still clutching the body that had housed her Brother, and it was both voices in her that screamed. She shuddered and wept and the world continued to shake around her, until her voice became only one very mortal voice sobbing.
Destroy one, and you destroy them both.
Rora knelt clutching her brother’s body, and if she had had the power to do it, she would have seen the world burn to ashes.
Above the still and meaningless world, the sun began to make its slow reappearance.
Chapter Forty-Three
The battle within the mountain ended with Neira.
Scal had not spared much attention for her as he stalked across the cavern, ready to do the last thing he needed to do. He did not even think to look to her until after the Twins lay at his feet, and the sword had gone dark in his hands.
Light filled the mountain, blinding. It cleared and Neira was gone—simply gone. Everything had stopped. Everyone blinking or rubbing their eyes. Even when sight cleared there was no rush to raise weapons once more. There were Fallen and Scal’s own fighters, many still standing close for combat, but instead they all stared.
Stared at Scal’s feet.
He looked down, and there was a third body at his feet. One he had not put there. A blue-robed witch, unmoving as all the witches whose powers and lives Neira had pulled. The witch’s hands rested on the Twins. And beneath his still hands, the Twins moved.
Scal held his sword before him. It w
as lifeless, or he was lifeless—no fire left, and no ice. He would face them alone, as he was. A final stand. One last thing, before his death took him.
Sororra rolled onto her stomach and vomited blood and bile, and then lay still. Fratarro sat slowly, his hand pressed to his eyes, and when he lowered his hand and saw the witch sprawled before him, tears welled in his eyes. He whispered, “Oh, Anddyr . . .”
Scal’s sword lowered by a length. This was not what he had expected, not at all.
Another voice said wonderingly, unbelievingly, “They’re gone.” Huddled at the back of the dais, a man with one harried eye and years piled upon his face. He started forward, paused. Started again and knelt next to the boy—who seemed, truly, to be just a boy and not the body worn by a god.
Scal’s sword dropped lower. The Twins were not here. He had done his part, he had done the one thing he needed to do. He had done the last thing.
And his death had not come for him.
“Look at me,” the one-eyed man said to the boy, gentle but firm. He knew some medicine, perhaps, or knew at least what wounds to look for. “How do you feel?”
The boy croaked, “You need to tell them.” His hand made a weak motion and, turning, Scal saw that the entire chamber stared. Both sides frozen in shock and wonder and horror, waiting to know, waiting to see.
Waiting to hear what had become of the world.
Scal heard the one-eyed man swallow, and he bowed his head. Whispered, “I can’t . . .”
There were footsteps, growing fainter, and Scal looked to see Deslan’s back. Down the tunnel they had come through, going to look at the world outside.
In the almost-dark of the cavern, it was hard to tell one side from another. Common clothes could look almost black. Black robes could be any color. They were only men and women who eyed each other warily, waiting to see if they needed to raise weapons once more, to draw lines once more. But for a few moments, they were united by uncertainty, and there was no telling one side from the other.
They stood among the dead and the dying and the changed, and they all waited.
The boy-twin dragged himself over to his sister, and when he moved, it jostled the witch who still sprawled over them. Scal got a glimpse of the witch’s face. He had thought that he had misheard the thing the boy had said. Even missing eyes, though, Scal knew the face.
He did not know how or why the witch Anddyr had come to be among the Fallen and in the mountain. But Scal knew that he had killed the children to drive the Twins from their bodies. He could see that the mortal wounds he had given them were gone. And he knew that witches had powers beyond telling.
Running footsteps, loud in the waiting silence. Deslan burst into the cavern once more, eyes wild, grabbing at arms whether they wore common clothes or black robes. “The sun!” she cried, and then raced away again.
There was a wild chase—all who had heard, streaming through the tunnel, hurrying to see what had changed in the world.
Soon it was only the dead, and Scal, and the one-eyed man, and the children. There was so much here Scal did not understand. The children should be dead. Scal should be dead—he had seen his death in Vatri’s fire. She had always told him the flames showed truth. He had been ready to die.
“You should leave,” the one-eyed man said urgently to the boy. “They’ll return soon, and they’ll . . .”
“They won’t do anything, Keiro,” the boy said. “They’re broken. They have no strength left.”
The man glanced to Scal and away. “I’m not talking about the Fallen.”
Scal wanted to say that his people would not kill children. He realized the lie before he said it. He had killed children—the same children. He did not doubt that most among his fighters had helped to drown twins at some point in their lives. They would all kill children, if it meant their safety.
Perhaps it would be for the best. These children had been the Twins. There was no telling what that had done to them, what they could still do. Perhaps they were still dangerous.
The girl lay weak and unmoving. The boy sat trembling at her side. They did not look a danger, and killing them once was as much as Scal could stomach. He had needed to, the last thing he needed to do. He could not do it again. He should be dead, and they should be dead. It was all wrong, and yet it seemed to have gone right. The sword fell from his hand, and clattered loudly to the stone at his feet.
“I will take them to safety,” he said. The words came from his mouth as he thought them, wrong and yet right. The last thing he had needed to do had not been the last thing. There was something that could keep a man going, even after he should have rightly stopped.
The one-eyed man stared. He might have been close to laughing, but he did not seem like a man who laughed. “You.”
“He will,” the boy said, and the man turned his stare. The boy gave a weak smile that shook so badly it looked ready to fall from his face. “Have faith, Keiro.”
The one-eyed man stared at Scal for a very long time, his face hard. Scal knew his face. A man who had seen too much. Done too much. A man who had been ready to die, and did not know what to do with the breath in his lungs or the life in his hands. He finally nodded. “Then we should go—”
“You can’t come with us,” the boy interrupted softly. In the empty cavern, full of the dead, even a whisper was loud. “You know that. There’s a different path for you.”
Scal had never seen the end of the world—even the sun’s leaving had not been the end. It had not taken everything, and smashed it to pieces too small to ever be put together again. But he watched the world end, for the one-eyed man. Pieces so small they turned to dust.
“I’m sorry,” the man whispered, tears streaming silent from both eyes. “For . . . I’m sorry I wasn’t . . .”
The boy reached out to hold the one-eyed man’s hand. “You’re a good man, Keiro. You always were, and you always will be. The gods ask so much of us, but they never ask more than what we can bear.”
The same words Vatri had said to Scal.
Releasing the man’s hand, the boy turned to Scal. “I think I can walk now. Will you carry my sister? I . . . she’s not well enough to walk.”
Scal nodded. A thing, finally, that he could do. He paused as he bent down toward the girl, paused over the sprawled witch whose half-turned face stared up sightlessly. Scal had known Anddyr so little. The witch had frightened him, for what he was and for his madness. Scal hoped he had found peace in death, finally. Words had never come easily to Scal, and they would not pass his lips now, but he thanked the witch. Perhaps the dead would hear a thought better than the words.
Scal lifted the girl, and she was motionless. Breathing, but asleep or unconscious or exhausted. He carried the slight weight of her gently as the boy rose shakily to his feet, took a few unsteady steps. Breathed, righted himself. Learning, perhaps, how to control his own body once more. He paused, too, over Anddyr’s body. Turned him gently, reached into his robe to retrieve something that he passed into the one-eyed man’s hands. A stuffed creature, lumpy and misshapen. The man clung to it as the boy turned away.
Scal walked at the boy’s side, through those who had fought and fallen. Two small armies had fought, but even a small battle could leave behind so many dead. A hand grabbed weakly at Scal’s ankle as he passed, but he did not pause, did not look to see the color of the clothes. With the boy he walked down the tunnel he had come through so recently, ready to kill one last time before he died.
All wrong, and yet.
Scal had to squint as he went farther down the tunnel, for light—true light—reached along the ground as he walked it. Blinding-bright, and he stepped blinking from the mountain and into sunlight.
Though it hurt, though he could hardly see through the watering of his eyes, he could not help but stare up at where the sun sat once more in the sky.
He stood, unbelieving. He had been ready to die. Had not thought that, if they did somehow win, he would ever see their triumph. Had thou
ght he would go from the dark world to the dark of the afterlife, among the stars in the night sky.
“—see their power is gone,” a voice was shouting, and it was familiar: Edro. “They are gone. The Twins are no more. They have fallen, and they will not rise again. You have lost.” Scal blinked his eyes, and could make out Edro standing atop a pile of rocks, tall enough that all who had gone streaming from the mountain could see him. In the light of the sun, it was very easy to tell black robes from common clothes. Easy to see who had won and who had lost, and not only by the despair on some faces. “If you still wish to fight,” and Edro paused to draw his sword, holding it ready before him, “then we are ready to face you. But know that you’re fighting for nothing. Winning a single battle means nothing after you have already lost the war.”
Some of the black-clad mercenaries twitched for their swords, but did not draw. They had fought for the Fallen, might have even believed in the fighting, but they had only ever been hired blades. Looking for someone now to command them, they found no one. They did not draw. They would not fight.
The Fallen themselves had always been peaceful enough. They fought when they had to. Even against the makeshift weapons of Scal’s fighters, their chances of winning were low. They were wise enough to see it.
There were no witches left.
Silence was Edro’s answer, and he took it. He leveled his blade, swept it in a circle before him. “Kneel. Surrender to me, and I may let you keep your lives.”
They did, all among the gathered crowd who wore black. It was not all the Fallen; there would still be many within the mountain, and they would need to be rooted out. Seeing the looks on the faces of his people, Scal knew they would take to that task eagerly. He wondered, if Edro turned his back, would the others still tear their new prisoners to pieces faster than blinking? The looks on their faces said they might.
Scal did not share that fire. His limbs ached, and he should not have been alive, and there was still one last thing he needed to do.