The Reaping Season

by Sarah Stirling

  Viktor nodded although he did not feel very reassured. He glanced further down the corridor, wondering if it would be rude to keep moving. Having so many watching eyes upon him made his skin prickle.

  “Come on,” she said, taking his arm, “I’ll show you the gardens.”

  He could do nothing but let himself be propelled along as they moved through the corridor and out towards another series of arches, moonlight spilling across the black and white floor. Built around a large courtyard, the white stone almost seemed to glow in the light of a full moon, a fountain in the centre shimmering in its reflection. Atop the fountain was a statue of a great bird with its wings outspread – the phoenix. From its mouth spouted water, the trickle and burble of the stream into the pool below soothing to his restless mind. All around huge leafy plants swayed in the sea breeze, held aloft by stalks as thick as his wrists. Their sweet smelling aroma was enticing, hitting the back of his mouth, sickly like honeysuckle.

  Summer nights with the hum and crackle of cicadas. Soft flute music over the sound of the fountain, sitting under moonlight and feeling the salty air kiss his skin. Feeling at peace in these fleeting moments, when all the world had gone to sleep and left him awake, fingers plucking at the lute to match the music of the young servant girl. Once this place had been a luxurious palace; the envy of many.

  When Viktor ran his finger around the rim of the top pool dust gave way under his fingertip, the marble cracked, nail catching on a chip. In the time since he had last walked these halls – an inexplicable, indeterminable length of time to his mind – this palace of grandeur had become a carcass of its old self, decay setting in around the marble bones. It stirred in him a sadness he couldn’t explain. Why should he feel sad about some old crumbling building?

  “How long have you been waiting?” he asked, gazing up at the twinkling stars above. So many eyes upon him, lighting up the darkness. “How long have you known who you are?”

  “I began to remember very early on,” she said. “At first I did not understand it, nor did the family I had been born into. You know how children are, always letting their imaginations run away from them. They thought it nothing more than that, until the day I drew a powerful riftspawn into our home and nearly killed them all.” She huffed a laugh, shaking her head slightly. “I hadn’t a clue what I had done, or what this strange creature was. But it wasn’t long after that that the memories started to come back, at first in a trickle and then in a steady stream, until I could remember it all. That’s not an easy thing to explain to anyone, believe me. Especially not when you’re little more than a child.”

  “You remember everything?”

  She nodded, the motion shaking her dark hair that had been piled atop her head, now cascading down her back like a waterfall. Gems of red and white shone in the moonlight from her beaded headdress. “There are others who remember. Those who have been entrusted to look after this place in the event of our family’s demise and those who wish to be rid of the vermin from across the sea that plague these isles. We can take it back, Viktor. We will have it back.”

  In her eyes a fire shone, just the shimmering edges of the green flame they shared. He could feel the tingle of it with his enhanced senses, calling out to him. It resonated deep inside, bringing with it such quick flashes of memory he couldn’t begin to hope to interpret them. His own fire surged in response until he was aglow with it, smoking from his skin in wisps of iridescence. In wonder he looked around as riftspawn rose all around him, sleeping residents of their palace gardens. Swirling, colourful forms circled around him, filling his senses with a warmth and vibrancy that felt euphoric. Suddenly colours burst into taste on his tongue, humming into zesty smells and fragrances that tickled his nose. It felt alive. Vibrant and bold.

  Fyera giggled and clapped her hands together, now glowing with a twin flame. The riftspawn were sucked into their orbit, shimmering in the puckered reflection of the fountain pool. Viktor could see his own expression, alight with the wonder of it all. With hope.

  “This is our legacy. To be born again. To rise again. To be the eternal guardian over this world and to hold the gates to the next. You were born for this.”

  Born. Viktor had been born to poverty and fear. Exhaustion had been stamped into weary bones, bruises and dirt the only adornments he had worn for most of his youth. Some core part of him still recoiled from the thought of it; that he should be born a prince. Perhaps it was the cruelty of it, that he should have been raised in luxury and riches only to have suffered so long at the mercy of the streets. Even so, he felt an imposter. Here he stood, in his ragged clothes, shirt torn and stained, across from a woman in the finest of robes, gem headdress dripping with jewels that must have cost more yurel than Viktor had ever seen in his life. To believe they were related was so very unsettling when the gulf between them stretched so wide.

  “Will I eventually remember as you do?” he whispered, afraid to break the hush that had fallen upon them. Riftspawn continued to appear, snaking around him in lethargic circles, colours flashing in the periphery of his vision. “Will I remember everything?”

  “Yes, you will.”

  “What will happen to me then?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “This version of me. Not Vallnor – Viktor. What happens to this version of me when that happens?”

  She could have been one of those paintings on the wall for all that she moved. An errant breeze betrayed her, ruffling her hair, gems around her temples chiming together. “You will be renewed. Reborn. Like the phoenix the old version dies to make way for the new.”

  His stomach dropped, body turning cold. Hands clasped into fists of his own accord, skin damp. A sharp sting registered as he dug his nails into his palms. “A person can’t just disappear. I can’t just… not exist anymore.”

  “Vallnor – I mean Viktor,” she sighed, stepping towards him. “People are constantly changing. The person I spoke to this morning is not the same one I speak to now. Tomorrow you may think differently from how you feel today. That is the nature of people.”

  “But I’m not him. This me, I’m not the person you want me to be. I can remember some of the things he experienced but that doesn’t make me him. I’m not going to become him.”

  Fyera walked a few paces away and sat on the edge of the fountain. She gestured for him to sit but he remained where he was. “You will see in time, brother. It is not as you imagine. Think not of it as a replacement. It is an awakening of who you truly are. Of who you are meant to be. You will see it. I promise you that.”

  It was her who did not see. Or did not care. Viktor couldn’t be sure. She looked at him and was so desperate to see the brother she had lost that she assumed they were one and the same. It wasn’t the truth – could never be the truth – because he wasn’t about to forget everything that had shaped the man he was. Every line and scar on his skin the ink of his story; of being bitten by a stray cat as a child, of falling whilst running from a soldier and cutting himself on broken glass, of crashing from a roof when jumping from one to the other, and of the many other escapades he had fallen into as a youth growing up in Nirket.

  “I need a minute,” he gasped, chest tight, and he stalked off back the way he had come with her voice calling out after him. Tugging at his collar, he sucked in air like a man drowning, the world a blur of sights and sensations that barely registered on his mind. He could only picture himself as the puppet for this prince, dancing to the strings of the stranger in his head.

  Pausing in the middle of the corridor, he didn’t know why he looked up, only knew he could feel the eyes from above looking down upon him. Those eyes were two chips of flinty rock, set into a face that would have been handsome was it not so severe, high cheekbones and a strong jawline distinctive to the family. It triggered a wave of heat that pulsed over him; a thick, gelatinous dread. He knew this face. Had stared back at it from the looking glass so many times it would be imprinted in his mind forever. He knew before his
eyes even fell to the plaque. He knew but still he had to check, grasping at some vague, fleeting hope.

  Vallnor Siklo.

  Viktor was staring at his own face from a painting centuries old, recognition lodging heavy in his throat. A soft noise escaped from his throat as he fell back against the far wall, a hand clasping over his mouth. It was him. It was him and it wasn’t him and he didn’t know how to reconcile the difference. Maybe he never would, truly, but it was knowledge he was going to have to live with from now on.

  Viktor stared at the painting of himself in a former life and wondered what it meant for the one he lived now.

  *

  A long night Seeker spent in the cells, drifting in and out of a restless sleep. When he awoke he startled to consciousness in bursts, panting into the night air, shivering and grasping dumbly at the fleeting images of dreams he could not recall. Every time he closed his eyes the blackness taunted him. Without his connection to Niks – without the abilities she afforded him – everything felt so dull. Dead. His eyesight had been badly damaged since his opening of the first rift back on the Yllzlo but it was only now he felt the real effects of it, blinking into a hazy world of indiscernible shapes. It frightened him, more than he dared admit. Without Nik’s voice in his head he felt impossibly lonely, cut off from a world that had once been opened up to him, like a flower under the sun.

  The beserker girl in the cell next to him disconcerted him too, the way she asked so many questions, making him think about things he had long learned not to linger on. Although he could make out little more than the pale cloud of her hair and the dark lump of her body curled up in the corner, that she was so quiet told him she was most likely asleep. Had she been awake he would either be subject to endless questions or the drone of her humming some melancholy song that only heightened his anxiety. He didn’t need anything to exacerbate the tension thrumming through him. Not when a sudden cough would shake him so violently he could feel blood on his hands, wheezing breaths squeezed through corrupted lungs.

  Seeker was going to die soon. Soon, and with no one to mourn him when he went. His only friend had already died and left him alone. Now Niks had disappeared and left him weak. Weak, pathetic and useless. It was probably better he die now. He served no purpose. He wouldn’t be missed.

  The screech of a door grinding against the floor startled him, his heart pounding. Untangling himself from his cramped form, stiff and sore, he scooted back until he was in the furthest corner of his cell from the door, listening. Voices rumbled over the sound of footsteps, too low to make out the words. His hands gripped his trousers tight in fists and he clenched his teeth to stop the chattering from drawing their attention. Not that it mattered. He and the beserker were the only ones in this prison.

  His worst fears were confirmed when the footsteps stopped outside of his door, the jingle of keys and then the rattle of the lock making him breathless with dread. What did they want from him? What were they going to do?

  Seeker couldn’t really make out the features of the woman who crouched down to unlock the chain around his ankles, but he felt the whisper of her breath against his skin and shuddered, repulsed. His hands trembled but he couldn’t tell whether it was due to the cold or to the stone of fear that sank into his gut. He attempted to scramble out of the way but she latched onto his wrist, grip constricting and far too warm against his feverish skin. Not being able to see her face only made her that much more terrifying.

  “Come,” she said. “Do not fight.”

  Seeker attempted to get up but he could not control his limbs, feet scrabbling against the stone floor without finding grip. The exertion only winded him, another barking cough spilling from his mouth, lungs full of cut glass.

  The woman tapped her toes against the ground and then sighed. Suddenly there was another presence in the cell. Hands pulled and tugged at his body, weak protests leaving his lips as he found himself hauled onto someone’s shoulders, the buttons on his coat digging into the flesh of his stomach. The more he squirmed the tighter the grip squeezed until he felt like he might burst. The ground lurched below him with each thudding step the man carrying him took, disorientating him. It was too dark to see where they took him.

  The next thing he knew he was falling, flung onto a small cot much like the type supplied in the military barracks he had slept in for years. Hands held him down as he squirmed until he was strapped tight, the leather cutting off his blood flow. A yellow light shone in his eyes from a swinging bulb, the motion so hypnotic he couldn’t tear his gaze away. The room was otherwise featureless and the soldiers that had taken him could only be seen as dark shapes out of the corner of his eye.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” His teeth still chattered, rattling in his skull.

  Whispers sounded around him, shared between conspiring confidants. It only ignited his fear, sweat slicking his skin. His limbs bucked against his bonds, shuddering under the force. Every noise amplified with the tension until footsteps reverberated through him. The rustling noises behind his head grated his eardrums. His breaths felt like they echoed, heaved from frantic lungs.

  “Release it,” said a man’s voice.

  Seeker’s heart jumped. He didn’t like the sound of that.

  The snick of a latch being opened was the only sound he heard for a long time, the wait stretching out agonisingly long with his eyes squeezed shut out of instinct. His fingers were clenched around the metal frame of the bed, so tight his hands shook with the force of his grip. He struggled to draw air into his lungs, bonds restricting his air flow. Gasping, terrified, his eyes flung opened and a scream was smothered in his throat. Squirming, he tried to get away but he couldn’t when he was lashed down to the bed.

  Above him was a riftspawn – a large, horned creature vaguely the shape of a crocodile with rows and rows of teeth in rings and a long spiny tail. Along its sides were wings that moved so quickly they blurred, its body a translucent red the colour of congealed blood. Yellow eyes locked upon him with a predatory intensity and he felt his fear curdle, whole body locked with it. It swirled in loops around the ceiling, as if sizing him up in preparation for swooping down.

  Images of corpses seized his mind. He’d seen it before, back when he had first encountered Niks. The shrivelled out husks of bodies hadn’t even looked human, every ounce of life drained from them until all that remained had been skin and bones. And it was about to happen to him. Niks wasn’t here to save him. There was no storm on his fingertips, strong enough to fight off even the most powerful of spirits. Even without his abilities, he could tell this creature was powerful from the sharp, angry movements, like the sand serpents in the desert, preying upon anyone who strayed too far on their own and lunging from the sand with a snap of jaws.

  Pillars save me, he thought. Back in his home town he had long been prepared for death. His father had spoke of it in length, preaching to the townsfolk in his sermons about how they had to live lives of the modest in order to be taken in by one of the Pillars in the afterlife. When his conscription had first come through, Seeker had resigned himself to it, thinking death would be preferable to military service. In a way it had almost been a relief, not having to continue bearing his father’s disappointed looks, or repenting for days in the dark with an empty belly. Back then a quick death had seemed a mercy, and he had assumed it an inevitability. Never did he think he could have survived all the years he did. Even if he’d only just survived, he had done it.

  Now, however, Seeker had been given something to live for. Purpose he could believe in. Companionship. A whole world beyond anything he could ever have imagined, revealed to him like light to a blind man. For the first time in his life, Seeker had chosen life. He had felt passion and a desire for living. He had dreamed of the days beyond the present. Of possibility in the future.

  Now it had all been torn away from him, ripping him apart until only a hole remained. He was dying anyway but as he faced down the circling beast above, he clung onto the sensations of hi
s beating heart, his dry mouth, his chattering teeth and gooseflesh; signs of life. It felt like reaching the Pillars at the end of his journey. Of finally being told his true name – of earning a name he could call his own. Only he hadn’t waited for someone else to tell him it. He had claimed his own.

  I am Seeker Riftbreaker and I do not want to die.

  The riftspawn’s tail twitched and then it dived. Eyes slamming shut, he tightened his slick grip on the railing and held his breath. The moment felt impossibly long, like time had stuck, cogs grinding together. Too long. He should have felt it by now. Shouldn’t be able to think like this. A cough rumbled up from his lungs and he gasped, sucking in air, eyes flying open. The spirit was suspended above him mere inches, glistening strangely in the yellow light. It was almost as if some kind of visible barrier prevented it from getting any closer.

  “I told you he was the one. Look – it’s not reacting to him.”

  Although he could hear her voice, he still couldn’t see either soldier. They must have been hiding from the spirit in case it went after them. But there shouldn’t have been any way to prevent it from possessing them if it decided to pursue them.

  “No, something isn’t right. He’s not reacting.”

  “We could try giving him a shock. See if it brings out the creature.”

  “I’ll try it.”

  Seeker wished he couldn’t hear them. It made the fear worse every time they mentioned things he didn’t understand, his mind tormenting him with horrific images that warped memories of corpses and visions of torture into a waking nightmare. He opened his mouth but words wouldn’t come out, dried up by raw terror. He hadn’t been possessed by the spirit, even though his bond to Niks had been snapped by that warden woman, but it seemed like there was worse to come.