by K Kazul Wolf
As if someone could hear my thoughts, a line of fire stretches along the walls, flicking hungrily along a trail of oil. The room is smaller and more earth than stone, but my gut twists as—for an instant—I can’t help but think of this as the slaughtering chamber in Caelum, can’t help but think of myself as helpless, as already dead.
But I can see Vito. So many scars, so much wrong about his form. What has she been doing to him all this time? Why? Are those burns on his back? And that wing…I reach out and over his head, about to touch it—
“I was a little disappointed that you never found him on your own.”
I turn, finding Bricius facing me with a sword in each hand, shifting them as I take him in.
“Why?” I whisper, turning from Vito, shielding his head with my body. “Why would you do this? Did Carita really…is she behind this?” My mind is turning too fast, too consumed by joy and anger and sadness at once. Carita couldn’t have. She had to have.
He nods, gripping his hilts tighter. “We had wings, even if we didn’t know how to use them. All we had to do was to fix them, and we could launch an attack. But we needed one more thing: to find a dragon’s weakness. When you and Vito fell again, it seemed perfect.” He says it so calmly, so plainly, as if stabbing people in the back was a daily occurrence.
I shake my head slightly. “But…no. Why are you telling me this?” I want to call him a liar, but how can I ignore the evidence? Even with my mind as blurred as it is, I can see the overwhelming proof.
“Because I think you deserve to know. You did a lot for us. You might as well have the truth before you die.”
Die? He…he’s going to kill me. Bricius, of all people.
Vito roars behind me, something that shakes the walls. Anger rolls from him in waves, currents tiding around the room.
Bricius shrugs. “I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done about it. Carita can’t have you knowing. Her goal is to destroy all the dragons, and we knew you would never be willing to give us this one without a fight. And her goals are my goals. We have the wings. We’ve learned to use them. We need the dragon, not the illusionist. She’ll be disappointed, though.” He looks at me kind of squinting, like he’s appraising me. “She liked you.”
That’s it. Something in my chest breaks. I’ve been pulled and bent to the point I can’t take it anymore. Nothing matters. Nothing at all.
I laugh, hysterical giggles building to the point that they make me cry. Both of them stop moving, both Bricius and Vito staring at me.
“Y-you…” I struggle between hiccups of laughter. “You actually think she cares about anyone? After she would do this? To someone who did nothing but help her? You’re a fool, Bricius.”
His eyes soften, swords falling a little. “Sometimes, I wish she didn’t care,” he murmurs, so soft I have to wonder if he actually said it or if I am completely delusional at this point. “Don’t claim to know someone who’s never let you in.”
I snort. “Well, if you’re about to kill me, I don’t exactly have an opportunity to judge her, do I?”
Vito huffs softly behind me, a warning. I reach a hand backward to press on his snout, but otherwise try to ignore him.
He shrugs. “Shall we get this over with, then?”
I toss the crystal in my hand. “Might as well.”
“You’re so ready to give in?” He doesn’t believe me.
“If I don’t do it, what will happen to Vito?”
His mouth twitches down, taking in my logic—or maybe lack thereof.
Then he shrugs.
Tossing the stone up again, I draw in an illusion, my tattoos almost sore as it pulls on energy that’s barely there. Another version of me steps forward from where I stand as I cloak myself in a mirage. The other me walks toward Bricius. Vito snorts nervously and I press my hand closer to him. He keeps it up, but I hope he notices my hand, I hope he doesn’t really panic.
The other me kneels in front of Bricius, lowering her head.
Bricius’ eyes narrow as I step away from Vito. “You’re so complacent,” he notes.
I wait until I’m standing in front of him, then as he shrugs again and raises a blade, I draw my sabre and let the illusions drop. Before he can comprehend the change, I run him through.
Blood spurts from the wound, hitting my skin warm and crimson.
He gapes, dropping his blades and reaching to his stomach. I draw the blade back.
Before he falls forward, he whispers, “Well played.”
Blood pools everywhere: around my feet, soaking through my sandals and in between my toes. Sticky. Warm. Metallic. It makes my stomach roll, and the room spins around my head.
No, not yet. I can’t pass out. Not yet.
Maur drops from the shaft now, running toward me. “Run!” he screams. “She’s coming, and we need to leave before she gets here.”
“Who?” My tongue feels foreign in my own mouth, hard to learn and work. “Where?”
“Carita, idiot! And I don’t think she’ll exactly be happy to see your handiwork.” He wraps an arm around my middle, dragging me farther into the room. Without letting go, he kneels, and metal groans and clinks. He’s popped the chains off Vito. “There’s another entrance, somewhere—they can’t have brought your dragon down that shaft. Move!”
Vito’s snout nuzzles into my hair. I reach up, touching his warm scales.
And then Carita drops through the roof, sliding down a ladder I never saw before.
Even with the world shifting around me, I can make out the anger of her face, the fire in her eyes.
But it all disappears when she sees Bricius. She pauses as her feet hit the floor, then runs to his side. As Maur pulls me again, dragging me toward whatever’s in the back of the room, she kneels by his side, taking his head in her hands, lifting him. Tears stream down her face. She doesn’t even look at us, her eyes only for Bricius and his slack face.
I stumble and Maur picks me up, throwing me over his shoulder as my eyes flutter shut.
I guess Bricius was right and I was wrong.
She does care for someone.
And I took that person from her.
34
The Human Under the Beast’s Skin
I can’t tell the difference between what’s a dream and what’s reality. I know that some of it has to be real: the jostling and the warmth underneath me, the smells of sweat and dirt, and the flashes of light. But there’s also darkness, and crimson, hot, sticky blood, and I can’t tell what’s on me, what’s around me, when I’m sleeping, when I’m not. But sometimes there are brown scales, large dark eyes, and all I can do is hope that those aren’t a part of the nightmare. That’s what haunts me more than any image.
Is he alive or is he gone?
A door hinge creaks.
I sit bolt upright.
I’m sitting on a large blanket, ratty and torn. There are no windows, but light creeps in through cracks in the poorly built clay walls. The room itself is small, empty.
Well, empty other than my sabre, lying in its sheath by my side. I snatch that up, waiting for another sound to echo into the room. But nothing happens. Not even wind whistles through the holes in the walls, no voices come in from outside.
Cautiously, I rise to my feet. It burns my legs to flex their muscles and I nearly fall back down. I catch myself with a hand on the wall, the slap making me jump and nearly fall again.
That draws some attention. There’s shuffling on the other side of the door. I draw my sabre, slowly enough that no one should be able to hear it.
Where am I? Why am I alone? Why am I inside a house when we should have run from this town? It would be easy to assume we’ve been captured, except that I have my sabre and I don’t think anyone would be quite that stupid.
I reach out, raising my blade as I swing the door open.
It takes a moment for my mind to process what’s in the room beyond. The floorboards are worn wood, clay walls barely illuminated by a small glassless window, all aver
age for a house in this town. What isn’t average is the giant lump in front of the doorway, all brown and scaly and feathery—
Vito.
It’s Vito.
With a shaking arm, I reach out toward the scales, hesitate. This can’t be real. None of this can be real.
My fingers brush the scales.
A snarl shakes the room, the scales flying out of my grasp and stopping halfway across the room.
There’s something different about his eyes. Fear and anger clash in them with a power I didn’t think was possible. His ears are flat against his neck, lips pulled back to show vicious teeth.
He is angry with me.
Whatever happened before, that was a fluke. He doesn’t forgive me, he doesn’t care, and I can’t blame him.
The fire slowly fades from his eyes, lips curling over his teeth. His eyes flick to my hand—the sabre.
I shove it back into my scabbard as fast as I can, nearly taking off a couple of fingers in the process. “I-I’m sorry.”
He lowers his head, pulls his wings tight against his body. He’s afraid? Of me?
Again, I reach out an arm I can’t keep from shaking, taking a step forward. I’ve ruined it, whatever we once had it’s gone. I destroyed it. “I w-won’t hurt you.”
His ears flick forward, his head tilting. Surprise.
At what?
With slow movements he steps forward, limping as his foot with the missing toe touches the floor.
I wince every time. My heart thunders in my chest. He’s alive. It’s not real, it can’t be real. He hates me and he’s alive and I can’t believe it.
He pauses as he’s inches from my outstretched hand, hunched from the low ceiling of the building.
A small part of my mind tries to fathom what he’s going to do, but a larger part goes silent, goes afraid. I’ll accept whatever he does to me. I’d even accept if he finally decided to eat me. Except he has to know he can turn human whenever he wants first; I won’t let him live under those stupid dragons’ rules.
He closes his eyes and presses his snout into my hand, letting out a shaking breath.
He’s warm. His scales are smooth, fine things that are familiar under my fingers. I can feel his pulse in the air, stronger and slower than my own.
He’s real. Very real.
And he’s okay with me enough to touch me.
I reach my other arm under his head, pulling him close and clutching his face to me. He pushes a little closer, almost knocking me over. I laugh, clinging tighter to him as he keeps pushing, backing me into the room I was asleep in and pressing me against the wall.
A rumble moves up his throat, but not an angry one. A happy one.
“I-I’m so happy.” The tears pour down my face, though I don’t remember them starting. “I can’t b-believe you’re alive.”
He pulls back, eyes wide. You thought I was dead.
I nod, wiping away the tears. The relief shakes through me with a power more potent than the words on my arms, making me slide down the wall instead of letting my legs give out underneath me. “Carita told me you were.”
A growl rips up his throat, the war I saw earlier flashing through his eyes.
I reach toward him and he lowers his head into my hands, closing his eyes.
“I know,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry. For…for everything.”
He takes a deep breath, letting it out and opening his tawny eyes again without the anger behind them.
I wish he could talk, tell me what he really wants to say, ask questions so I can tell him whatever truth he wants to know—
He can.
He can do it, and maybe I can show him.
“Vito.” My voice goes quieter, like if I say the words too loud, they might be less true. “You can turn back into a human.”
His eyebrows pull in, lips turning down. You know what I need to do to change back.
I shake my head. “No, everything they told us was a lie. The only reason you can’t change back is because you believe them.”
He snorts in my face. You think I haven’t tried?
“No, of course not, it’s just…” This isn’t working. I have to show him.
With a deep breath, I take my hand off him, instead holding my arm in front of me.
He raises his brows, meeting me in the eye.
“They aren’t for decoration, idiot,” I tease. “Do you recognize some of them?”
He squints at the symbols for a moment, taking a step closer and then sitting. Then his eyes pop open.
Some of the lines are from the stories we read, some of the words in the languages I managed to teach him. He knows them nearly as well as I do.
“These are…these make up who I am. They make it so I don’t need pain as a focus. I know this sounds insane.” Honestly, it is a bit insane. “But how else could I have found you? I had to use illusions to track you down, things like we’ve never seen before.”
He meets my eyes. Like?
I scowl. I don’t have the fancy tricks that Maur has, and he obviously isn’t here to help me out with this. “I-I can’t show you. But maybe…maybe I could teach you.”
He leans in closer, nosing my arm. Go ahead.
His pulse picks up. Excited?
I nod, take a breath, and then point at a small character on my shoulder. “This is for the strange man who taught me the runes. You don’t know it because I never had the chance to teach you this one. It means, well, old one, wise one.” And grandfather, but that might be a bit much. “You recognize this, right?” I run my finger across lines of poetry, drawing lines between guilt and struggle I’ve never truly understood until I fell. “That…that is for what happened before we fell. My father, and your sister.”
I close my eyes, taking a breath. “These are my truths, who I am. It’s like…” Maur didn’t ever explain it very straightforward, did he? “It’s what I am. It’s my truth. It’s my power, what makes me me, what matters and fuels me. Laid out for everything to tunnel through, for it to be my focus instead of the pain. More important than the pain. You find what’s true to you and you let it rise to the surface, draw it out so it shows on your skin.”
He’s quiet for a moment, eyes roaming the dark markings spread all over my arms. Heat rises from my chest, burning my cheeks. He knows me better than anyone, even after all that’s happened, but it’s different now. I’m showing it to him instead of leaving him to find it out on his own.
With a tilt of his head, he raises one of his paws. Ever so gently he traces a word at the center of my arm, a sprawling, curling thing that takes up more room than seems necessary for so few letters. But more words curve off it, creating a complicated spiders web, a ripple of words spreading across the surface of what’s most important to me.
“Those are yours,” I whisper, not daring to look at him, see what his reaction is. Maybe he forgives me enough to talk with me, but I don’t know if he feels anywhere near the same as he used to about me. “This one…” I trace my finger around where his claw presses delicately into my skin, “This is about feeling out of place. About how different life was when I wasn’t sure I was going to see you again, how nowhere was quite the right fit no matter what I tried.” His claw brushes on a short one next. “For all the conversations that would or could happen, everything I’d imagined saying, everything left unsaid.” The next is sharp, twisted, characters more like pictures than letters. “How exhausting it is to watch the city kill and murder, all the senseless acts of violence…on both sides. More than I ever knew.” I trace the longest word of the bunch, curving and wrapping around most of the others. “How none of this feels real, how every time I develop a routine, the past becomes fake. How I’m sure that every time I wake up, you won’t be far from me, but in reality, you were gone.” The second to last word juts around in a short, sharp curve. “How small I am in this. How small my troubles are, how small my wants and needs are in the bigness of the world, in what happened to you and so many others.”
> My finger hesitates over the largest word, the one I’d had so much trouble accepting when my mother mentioned it. It’s complicated, a word that means so much to some and so little to others, a word that stretches across all the languages I’ve ever studied.
“Love.” The word comes out as a breath, as a confession.
His heartbeat stutters, just barely.
Maybe I shouldn’t have told him. Maybe I shouldn’t have offered the explanation so readily. Maybe I’m less to him than he’s been to me, maybe he resents me now.
And yet…I don’t regret admitting it. It hurts, but saying it aloud is more freeing than writing it on my arm. There’s more meaning to it. To me.
Something pulses through the air, rolling through me like a wave, knocking my back against the wall. I look up, reaching for Vito, but I can’t quite see him. His image ripples, a reflection after you drop a rock into a pond, the same sort of ripple I’d seen a million times when I was younger, not too long ago as the king himself walked into the execution room.
The brown in my distorted view ripples back, ripples down, slowly growing smaller and lighter until the form reaches my level and the illusion fades away.
Tawny eyes meet mine, blinking rapidly as if to adjust to the new height difference. My hand finds dark umber skin beneath it, sharp cheekbones leading to thin lips, up to slim ears and dark hair still shorn as awkwardly as it was the last time I’d seen it. It’s so strange to see these features grown, more distinct when his eyes are so familiar, his skin still smells like smoke and cinnamon. More here and real and beautiful than I would have ever imagined.
My fingers fall to his jawline, the rough stubble growing there, trying to comprehend the texture of it, the warmth under my fingertips. He’s so different, but he’s still so…him.
A dark splotch catches my eye. Among scratches and bruises that line his neck, right along his collarbone there’s something other. It’s small, so I lean in to look.
It’s a word.
One single word.
Ava.