The Reaping Season

by Sarah Stirling

  When her eyes flickered up to him they were a luminous white. She grabbed onto his hand and a tingle ran through him as The Rook’s signature intertwined with his own, her body falling against his. Their signatures scrabbled for dominance before settling into a shared tempo, somewhere between the ancient crackle and the frenetic fluttering of their respective currents. Viktor could feel the rift shudder in response to the power that sparked up when they joined together, riftspawn circling around them in a maelstrom of colours against a blue sky.

  “What are you?”

  Viktor turned again, burying the bloodlust down as far as he could get it. He was in control. He had to be in control. There had to be balance somewhere, a scale he could tip in the right direction so that he didn’t lose himself completely. Where his hand was still linked to Rook’s he squeezed and found comfort when she squeezed back.

  “I am no one. You may see what you see and call me what you like,” he said, raising a hand with flame trying to escape the cage of his fingers. “Or perhaps I should say that I can be no one to you, if you let me be. But if not–” he clenched his fist and snuffed out the flame “–I can be a god, too.”

  One of the soldiers swore under his breath. The one who should have been in charge with the navy striped jacket was sprawled across the ground, unconscious. Or dead. Viktor probably should have been more concerned but he wasn’t. He might have slammed the lid shut upon the desire for blood but he would kill if it was necessary. If it meant saving himself. That wasn’t Vallnor, or the boy thief, or the spirit from beyond the physical realm. That willingness to live was all Viktor.

  His sensitive ears heard someone whisper, “He is – the prince come again.”

  “The phoenix flame.”

  “Shut up!” shouted a man whose nose had broken crookedly, nostrils crusted with blood and dark purple bruising forming around his eyes. Vikor recognised him as Redbeard’s companion when he stepped forward, a rifle clutched in his hands. “You think you’re so smart, boy?” The smirk cracking open chapped lips was unnerving when Viktor was the one looking down upon them all like a king imposing his judgement upon his subjects. But this man refused to be cowed.

  “You’ve been tricked! Do you think we didn’t know you would come for her?” The man swiped at his face, merely smearing more blood. “This was a trap for the real prize. Vallnor Siklo.” His name was spat like a condemnation.

  Viktor hesitated, taken aback by the soldier’s vehemence. What did a puny human like himself hope to achieve against a man with the powers of a god? How could they possibly compete with a man who couldn’t even die, with a fire at his fingertips and the creatures of the otherworld at his beck and call? Rook’s hand tightened on his shoulder. He spared a glance for her but he couldn’t get a read on her face, so blank he wasn’t entirely sure which Rook was most present.

  “What do you hope to do with that?” he said, calling flame to his hand. The more he did it, the easier it became to tug the line to his source of power, fire burning through his veins. “I’m not afraid of your guns.”

  “I never said you should be.”

  “Viktor –”

  He felt it before he had time to react, like all the energy had been sucked from around him and he was suddenly breathless. The signature was so overwhelming it made him numb, grasp slipping from the pit of his fire. In revulsion the phoenix shuddered with such force he gagged. He heard more than saw Rook move in front of him even though her breath was still coming shallow and weak, the scent of blood permeating the air.

  “You – you?” said Rook, her voice not entirely human. “You are not who you made yourself out to be.”

  With the phoenix still screeching in his ears, Viktor straightened and turned. Outlined in white light from the sun was the familiar figure of the short girl with the bobbed hair that he had saved. Vlankya. Her face was cool, as if she didn’t recognise him even though they had only just spoken back in the residence of the Riftkeepers. Somehow she had hid it then but he could feel it now, the power radiating from her in waves. Of all the signatures he had experienced, he had never found one the phoenix had reacted to so forcefully, bucking against the brunt of it. It invaded all his senses like a thick smog, choking him.

  “Who are you really?”

  She kept walking until she stood by the side of the soldiers still on their feet, ringing the two of them on the platform. “I am who I said I am. I did not lie to you.”

  “You said you were a – a –”

  “Rift maiden,” supplied Rook. “Who should not be bonded.”

  “I am one no longer. I also told you this.”

  Rook’s eyes danced over her face, lips pursing. “You are like him, aren’t you? You’re one of them.”

  Viktor glanced between them, his fists clenched at his sides.

  “Yes. My partner is like the phoenix.”

  “What are you doing?” snapped the soldier. “Arrest them! They’re traitors to the Empire and they need to be put down.” His rifle was still aimed on them as if it would do anything.

  Through gritted teeth Viktor managed to force fire from his palm, intending to silence the soldier. Vlankya clapped her hands together and the fire snapped out in the blink of an eye, a wave of alien energy crashing over him. Rook grabbed him to hold him steady, her humming signature giving him a point of focus.

  “Why are you loyal to them? They’re only going to use you.”

  “In which way would it be any different to how I lived before?”

  Rook flinched. “But this – you’re going to stop us from leaving?”

  “Yes. Because I could be a slave to the rift no longer. Now I am powerful enough to shift its tides.”

  “You’re still a slave,” snapped Viktor, groaning as her signature only grew stronger, exerting so much pressure on him he thought his skull might implode.

  “No,” she said. “I am no slave.” The words were laced with an odd tremble, the creature beneath seeping through.

  Viktor attempted to push past the force bearing down on him but it was too strong, his connection to the phoenix too brittle to withstand the weight. He didn’t know enough about his own abilities. It was why Fyera had tried to train him, because like this he was no better than a newborn, stumbling around with powers he didn’t understand. The phoenix was frustrated, simmering beneath his skin.

  “Who are you really?” repeated Rook.

  “You know who I am, Rook.” Her eyes shone with a bright light – not the smoky, silvery pale like Rook’s – but a blinding stark white like twin lamps even in the clear light of day. She smelled like decay, a thick, noxious stench wafting strong enough to make him gag. Rook’s grip tightened on his wrist enough to bruise but he barely felt it.

  “Shirtakk Kor.”

  It was not a term Viktor was familiar with. He glanced between them, brows furrowed. The two of them were staring one another down like it was the last stand. Perhaps it was, when it appeared that even Rook was afraid of what this girl could do. He certainly felt the strength radiating from her in waves, as potent as the rift. It was as if she was siphoning off its energy, corrupting it into the force she used to suppress his own abilities. Frustrated, he struggled against it. Viktor wasn’t about to be cowed.

  “It would make sense, if the phoenix lives, why not the tiger?”

  “Yes, indeed. I was gone for a long time. But one of us cannot reawaken without the others rising too. It is the way of things.”

  “Why you?”

  The soldier with the gun tittered but Vlankya pressed a hand to his forehead and in an instant he crumpled to the floor, flopping out on the plaza tiles. “To them I am expendable. And one cannot be the champion of death without bearing its toll.”

  “I don’t get it. What’s going on?”

  Nails were cutting into his flesh through his threadbare shirt. “The phoenix isn’t the only guardian. There are stories… Legends. I didn’t think it was real.”

  “You, Siklo, are the fire of
life. You can destroy, if you wish to corrupt your power, but in the aftermath the cycle will begin again.” She looked away for a moment, black hair shining, before her eyes tilted back. “I, however, am only death. I am the end. Where life fades into the aether, where the connection dies. By instinct you and I are enemies. We have always been and will always be.”

  The phoenix remembered. The phoenix knew her. Knew whatever beast lurked inside. For the first time he knew the taste of its fear.

  “You don’t have to be.” Rook’s voice cut through the spiralling in his head. “Make no mistake, if you do this now – you choose this.”

  Vlankya narrowed her eyes but she dipped her head.

  Viktor wasn’t sure when the clouds came but one minute the sky was saturated like an ink stain and the next the colours had washed out, tarnishing the plaza in monochrome. He realised then it wasn’t clouds, not exactly, but something more like a thick smog creeping in from the ocean, except it lacked the salty scent, stale and decaying in his mouth. As the sky darkened until it felt more like night time than day, he finally saw it. The smoke coalesced into a form behind her, glowing softly in the form of a skull with gaping black eyes sockets and rows of teeth. The stripes of its ribcage faded into the smoke, just the imprint of an image if he squinted hard enough. Even the soldiers looked taken aback, splitting apart in the wake of the tiny girl at the centre of the storm.

  The cloud seemed to repress all sound, everything eerily still as it slowly crept towards him. The phoenix wrestled with him inside his mind, desperate to take over, but Viktor pushed against it. From the way her eyes were glowing such a bright and brilliant white amongst the blackness he got the feeling she was giving no such resistance. His hands shook from the energy coursing through him. The rift sparked and sang. More and more riftspawn had gathered but they quickly fled when the black smog spread out across the sky. The creatures not fast enough to get out of the way dissipated in a flash of light, signatures snuffing out instantly. Gulping, Viktor summoned the flame to his palm, bringing the light up to his head.

  Remembering what he had been learning from Fyera, he balled the fire up, pushing so much energy into it he could feel the raw power spark. Pulling back, he launched it at her with a yell, the green ball cutting a hole in the black smoke and exploding out in a bloom of emerald and turquoise. His aim had been off but even so it was an impressive flame. Yet the girl barely blinked. The smoke knitted back together to fill the gap and pressed on. The aether trembled.

  “Viktor!” yelled Rook, crashing into him and knocking them both to the ground as a tendril of smoke whipped out from the cloud towards them. Pain thudded against his skull and he blinked up at her face above his, contorted with pain. Her eyes began to glow a shimmering silver and she snapped them closed, breathing heavily. Through her shirt blood dripped.

  Gently pushing her up he glanced back at the huge skeleton in smoke, now glowing a luminous white against a murky sky. He felt like he was underwater, everything muffled and unnatural, his movements sluggish and weak. Faintly he could still feel the rift and he knew it was the only way. Rook would be upset with him afterwards but survival was more important than anything else. If he saved them he would call it a victory.

  With a deep breath he drew as much energy from the rift into him as he could, the phoenix singing with the power coursing through him, and he let it build and build, transforming to fire. The girl’s shadow fell upon them and Viktor jumped to his feet, standing over Rook with a shield of flame before him. The skeletal riftspawn behind her reared up like a tiger and he felt the surge moments before it pounced. In one rush of breath Viktor released all the energy he had stored at once and was nearly blinded by an explosion of silent flame that engulfed the black smog. It unfurled like huge bird wings, the shriek faint beneath the dampening of sound, and it crashed into the riftspawn head on.

  The reverb threw Viktor back, slamming into the ground and rolling. A pained groan escaped him as he he flopped onto his back and stared up at the grey and green haze above, suddenly exhausted. Empty. It was impossible to tell the state of the creature when it only gave him such an absence of feeling and he awaited the verdict with a heaving chest, unable to pick himself off the ground. When nothing happened he thought maybe he weakened it enough for it to retreat, but just as he felt the first breeze of relief the silhouette of the girl cut through the swirling haze, diamond eyes piercing through the layers of it between them. Behind her the skeletal riftspawn faded into view, jaw gaping in a grin, as if it was mocking him.

  Scrambling from knees to feet, he grabbed onto Rook and the two of them broke into a run. Their footsteps made no sound despite the pounding of their boots upon the stone, running from a force they didn’t understand. The only thing Viktor could feel was the frayed ends of the rift, unravelling piece by piece. When the realms bled together would it be better for fighting this thing, or worse?

  “Look!” said Rook, pointing to the horizon.

  Following her finger he saw the line of the black smog meet blue sky in the distance. Except the blue shimmered with the colours of the riftspawn gathering on the edge between them, ready to stand with him if he willed them to. On that patch of blue sky lay promise, if only they could reach it before the drifting ghost of the skeletal riftspawn got to them first. Its looming shadow blocked out the sun and thrust them into darkness.

  “What is that thing?” he gasped, frazzled by how upset the phoenix was. Its fear was bleeding into him, settling deep in his heart.

  “It’s – I don’t even know. A riftspawn of the highest order. Death itself.”

  Viktor stole a glance behind him and his heart leapt at how close it was, looming over him so huge he could barely comprehend the scale of it, tiny toy houses dwarfed by its might. Desperate, he latched onto the currents of the rift, drinking in more of its force to replenish his energy. He would need it to run and right now he could barely get his legs to move.

  The first caress of the smoke sent a shudder down his spine, his skin raising gooseflesh. Like plunging into ice water head first, it stole the breath from his lungs, leaving him frozen and gasping. It leached the energy from him, his fingers turning numb until he couldn’t feel them. The dead feeling crawled up his hands. Screaming silently he tried to grab onto something but he couldn’t feel his arms and they swung around wildly, vision clouded by the smoky texture of the riftspawn’s aura. He was dying. Death itself. He could feel it, killing off the life force inside him, his heartbeat slowing down. The numbness spread up his chest, down to his legs, everywhere, until he was disembodied, nothing but a consciousness in the mist.

  Viktor didn’t even know if he was Viktor anymore. He shouted for the phoenix but he couldn’t feel its signature within him, the fire burned down to ash and dust. Silence all around. Fear became the only real thing about him; the only anchor rooting him to humanity when all his senses failed him. He was so scared.

  A distant rumble startled him, the fear spiking to a dizzying new height. In this darkness it could have been anything. He tried to shout, tried to claw his way out, but there was no purchase, no sound. Even his thoughts were slowing, trickling down to drops like a stream in a drought. Without the bond to the phoenix he felt dead, cut off from the rift and the complex spider web of spiritual currents of which he normally found himself at the centre. Dehydrated in a desert, Viktor could feel himself failing. Slowing. Stopping.

  Viktor.

  At first he thought he was delusional, his mind conjuring fantasies to mask the fear, but then a wraith sliced through the blackness and crashed into him. Swirling around in flashes of silver, Viktor felt the darkness subside just enough for flickers of feeling to seep their way into dead limbs. Rook grabbed him by the arm and gazed into his eyes. “Snap out of it. We need to get out of this.” Where she touched him sparks of her signature flared beneath his skin.

  His hand tried to find hers, fingers rusty and knuckles unhinged, missing a few times before he found a hand still holding her r
iftblade. The pads of his fingers ran along smooth bone and he nearly wept for the feeling of it.

  “Run!” she tugged on his hand and the two of them bolted through the fog, steel cutting a path free of the numbing energy of the deadly riftspawn. Her silvery aura pushed against the black of the smog.

  Eventually she managed to hack them free from the confines of the aura, the two of them tumbling out and still running. The warmth of the sun on his face through the clouds, the cobalt blue of the rooftops, and the faint smell of brine were enough to make him tear up in relief, savouring his ability to feel again. His connection to the phoenix flickered to a candle flame but he didn’t have time to nurture it when that terrible riftspawn still hung across the canvas of the sky, casting a great shadow across the city.

  “What – how did it do that?”

  Rook bit her lip as she glanced behind her. “I don’t know.”

  Viktor didn’t know where the girl was amongst the haze, and he wasn’t keen to find out, but he was so tired it was taking all his effort just to get his limbs to move. One foot caught on the other and he tripped, crashing painfully to the ground. The only flame he could find within himself was a smudgy ember that was smothered by a slight breeze.

  “Viktor!” Rook crouched down beside him, tugging at his shirt. “If that thing catches us again I don’t think we’ll think get out this time.”

  He patted her weakly on the arm. “I’m tired.”

  Her eyes flickered behind them, lip rolled between her teeth. Strands of her hair were matted to her dirt-streaked face, a feather falling when she whipped her head around, the movement so sharp it looked inhuman. Rook was no longer fully human. Something in her was different than before, the war between her and the creature fighting for her body assuaged into a new kind of alliance. Her hand rested softly over his and he felt the pulse of her signature, the rhythm more natural than it had ever been before.