The Wildest Woods

by S. K Munt

  You have GOT to be kidding me!

  Nope! You’ve got him by the balls and buckling at the knees, so hold tight, woman! I see now that Satan told you to encourage this sort of crap and even though I think it’s a dirty tactic, Kingslater likely deserves it! I felt Sam elbow me hard. So long as you remember where to draw the line between enchantress and enchanted, that is. We both know you didn’t fare so well the last time you were overcome by a man’s surface appeal!

  I’m not overcome and I’m not encouraging this- look at him! What use is he to me now? How on earth could any self respecting pirate captain surrender at the feet of a girl they find attractive? What sort of battle strategy is that?

  The oldest one in existence, Larkin- the one where a man is driven to accumulate all of the power that he can so that he might one day lay it at a worthy mate’s feet and win her affection’s with it. I hate to break it to you, but Satan didn’t just promise this guy happiness… she specifically promised him that he’d find a true love if he followed her lead- one that would make him forget his pain over losing his Iana. He doesn’t know a thing about you, no, but you’re so beautiful that he can’t currently imagine that other women exist at the moment, so he figures that you’re the one! I know the last thing you want to do is play this game but look at his men, Larkin- when a Viking bows at a woman’s feet, so too do his men, whether they like it or not!

  I looked up at the Captain’s crew and winced when I saw that every single one of them, though they had been protesting at first, had started kneeling down in the snow behind their Captain, and I was overcome with horror. They were all so frozen already that their beards were crusted with ice! This behaviour wasn’t just nonsensical, it was potentially fatal!

  It’s not nonsensical it’s biological! Honestly woman, do us all a favour and find a way to come to terms with how beautiful you are, because the sooner you work it out, the less confusing this world-and every man on it- is going to seem to you, and the better off everyone under your wing will be!

  ‘Get up!’ I protested to Cairo, leaning down and jiggling his massive shoulders, wishing my people would get a hold of themselves because more than one was tittering and it was humiliating, not just for em but for the pirate. ‘Captain, your men are kneeling in the snow, and they are too close to death for such foolishness. Get up, now, and we’ll-’

  ‘She was right!’ Cairo whispered, looking up at me with eyes full of adoration- enough to knock the breath out of me. ‘Do what you want with my ship, my lady, just swear that you will be mine!’

  Sam was sniggering in my head, and I was growing so hot in the cheeks that I feared I was going to give myself a cold on the spot. ‘I will make no such promise, Captain, but I will hold true to what I did pledge: do you truly swear that you will never harm another innocent soul again, unless it is in self defence?’

  ‘I swear,’ Cairo began to rise, but he left his scimitar on the ground. ‘I will do whatever it takes to win your heart! I will throw myself off those ruins if that’s-‘

  ‘What ruins?’ I interrupted him, feeling a spark of something other than humiliation inside me. Cairo turned and pointed to the north- the same way his prow was facing.

  ‘The thing we almost went over. It seems like there’s a dam over there, or was…. an old hydroelectric one because there’s a tall stone wall covering the cliff beneath a frozen waterfall. The water up there is too frozen to move over it, thank whoever was guiding us, but we came pretty close to ending up in the lake that’s probably on the other side. We tried to turn around and head south but-’

  ‘Everyone stick near to one another!’ I cried, pushing past Cairo and moving towards the ship and through his men. They were trying to get to their feet, but their movements were weak and clumsy and I knew they were all almost out of time. ‘Pirates back onto the ship and Sequestered behind me! Stay as close to the blaze for as long as you can, but the moment the ice starts to melt, retreat!’

  He said there’s probably a lake on the other side. A LAKE!

  ‘What blaze?’ one of the pirates asked me, hugging himself and almost toppling over as he rose. ‘I don’t see a blaze!’

  I set my eyes on the fires surrounding the boat, and although it was clear that they were about to go out, there was just enough warmth coming off either of them to provide smoke and a clear view of The Iana’s hull. I discarded my torch and smiled, feeling the power of the fire fuse with my own inner heat and become an inferno the closer that I drew to it. Then, when I was so warm that I was tingly, I exhaled a breath and drew up my hands and like music responding to a conductor, those tiny sparks and flames rose like a wall of pure, brilliant orange energy that turned the white snow into a sunset- and twenty dying pirates into believers.

  ‘That blaze,’ I said quietly, closing my eyes and lifting my face to the expanding heat, feeling ‘right’ for the first time since I’d taken that warm bath in Hope Station. ‘Mine.’

  *

  Within seconds, the ice began to groan and dissolve, and when Cairo ceased screaming out commands to his men and then moved to stand behind me, I didn’t have to look at his face to know that it was full of gratitude- for Satan- and that she was probably as grateful for his sudden, dramatic change of heart and attitude as I was wary of it. Had he honestly presumed that I was his soul mate, just because he found my looks pleasing? It was disconcerting, but it was power and I needed to filter every drop of power that I could get for Satan through myself, so I did not flinch when he pressed his forehead to the soft shoulder of my cloak and murmured something foreign that was probably even more over-amorous than it sounded. My mouth went dry and the muscles on either side of my spine locked up, as though my wings wanted to burst through my clothes and slap him away, but I breathed through my teeth and bore it, telling myself that it was my clothes he was touching not me.

  You’re all right, Larkin… I heard Sam whisper into my head, from wherever he’d drifted off too. I’ll tear his hand off before I let him touch you in a way that you can’t handle.

  Thank you Sam, I said, and I meant it, thinking of Satan’s reminder about gratitude, and understanding that she’d probably been referring to him too, even if she was kind of pissed with him. For everything.

  Wait… what? Satan’s pissed with WHO now?

  I smiled and lifted my heavy eyelids, checking on the fire as I silently assured Sam that all was well. The snowdrifts around one side of the boat were melting, and my flames were dancing and crackling in the wind, dissolving the snow that was still falling before it dared to land in The Iana’s vicinity. Like it or love it, my gift was definitely a substantial one, and it had now officially saved more lives than it had taken, which widened my smile.

  ‘Incredible…’ the pirate breathed, as we both turned our faces slightly away from the overbearing heat that was already throbbing off those incandescent flames. ‘I must have your name, girl.’

  ‘Larkin,’ I said before yawning, turning back to regard the ship again. It was already getting easier to talk, although the feeling of my skin defrosting wasn’t exactly pleasant, because I was starting to feel how bruised I was from my fall earlier. I was trying to keep my eyes on the flames, but I kept darting my gaze around to make sure that the ice was only melting on the port side of the ship, and not the starboard where its crew were converging. The last thing I needed was for them to go through the bloody ice!

  ‘Lovely. Larkin…’ Cairo breathed, and I closed my eyes briefly, delighting in the way ‘L’s’ sounded when they came out of his mouth. He rolled them and practically purred the ‘R’s’ so when he repeated my name, it sounded sexier than any other word I’d ever heard. ‘Larkin who? I must know the surname before I deprive you of it, and give you mine in its place.’

  I snorted, and then almost sneezed as a result. Uh-oh, on two counts! ‘I’m not the marrying kind, Kingslater. If Satan promised to provide you with a true love here, that’s her prerogative, but believe me when I say that it was not me that she had
in mind.’ I smiled gently when I saw the ship shift a little, straightening somewhat as the men that had run to its aid on the furthest side worked to pull on ropes that would help keep it from keeling over. Obviously they’d already tried that once, and had been thwarted by the ice gripping onto the hull’s other side, but now they cried out in excitement and I shared in it with them.

  ‘I don’t believe you, but Satan promised me that the true love waiting for me in the northern lands was a warrior, and you certainly fill the criteria, so even if you’re opposed to the notion of marriage presently, I suspect that we’ll both enjoy changing your mind.’ He nudged me gently while I chuckled. ‘But still, I want to know your last name. Is it as alluring as your first?’

  I sighed. ‘I honestly have no idea, Captain. First I was Larkin Whittaker, then I was Larkin of Eden…now I don’t know who I am or who I want to be, or what true names I have a genetic claim to.’

  ‘Birch is the only name that I care to carry forwards with me…’ Bastien said, appearing at my other side, ‘and you’re welcome to use that, but it is a false one that I invented for myself, and one that is still rather notorious in Calliel, so if I were you, I’d adopt your mother’s instead.’

  I snorted. ‘Because her name isn’t notorious?’

  Bastien rubbed my shoulder. ‘Not her surname, no. Do you know what it is?’

  ‘Actually I don’t…. why is that? I mean, everyone knows who Jesus Christ was...’

  ‘None of the soul-mates were given surnames by God, only Christian ones because back then, that was all that was needed. But we eventually had them bestowed upon us by the people that loved us enough to gift them to us at different points of our life… as a way of keeping our names distinct from those that were named after us.’ Bastien and I both cringed as the ship shuddered and sank more to the starboard side. For a moment it looked like it was going to overbalance, but it held and beside me, I heard Cairo exhale. ‘Mine was Lazarus, and it meant helper of God.’

  Raphael Lazarus… hmmm… I could see why he’d ditched it- it sounded medieval. ‘Probably doesn’t suit either of us right now…’

  ‘No. But your mother’s was quite lovely: Aztaroth, and though it has several meanings, she was given it to mean: ‘a light in the darkness,’ although it can also mean demonic or Angel of fire. Obviously towards the end of her life on earth, it was more associated with demonology than lightness, but you suit the rutilant mood of it all the same.’

  ‘Larkin Aztaroth?’ I let the name roll around on my tongue. ‘I don’t mind that…’

  ‘It suits you.’ Bastien leaned in and kissed my flushed cheek. ‘Ask anyone here right now, daughter of mine, and I’m sure they’ll agree.’ He sighed. ‘And you don’t have to worry about people automatically tying it and its origin together: in her mind, she was always going to be Satan Barachiel one day, so she rarely used her surname, and then after Heaven and Hell both fell and were thus created, no one was named after her anyway so there was no need for distinction anymore. There were hundreds of Raphaels and almost as many Lazarus’s’, and twice as many Miguels and Michaels, but no one else was inspired to name their child Satan after all hell broke loose.’

  ‘Afsakið?’ Cairo touched my other shoulder, forcing me to meet his gaze just as one of the fires melted the snow under it so much that it vanished into the dark water behind it with a large hissing sound. ‘You’re Hel’s daughter?’

  I looked at Cairo, who looked accordingly alarmed. ‘Does that bother you, Paris Kingslater’s son?’ I asked sharply. ‘Do you presume that it defines me in every way that matters? If so, shall I make the same assumptions about you and who you were named after...matey?’

  ‘No, I just… I don’t know. Maybe?’ He frowned and looked away, half/scratching half/pinching his graceful brows. ‘I don’t know how to feel about it at all, truth be told...’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ I said nonchalantly. ‘But I’ve only been aware of who my mother is for a few days now, so if it’s any consolation, I was relatively normal before I found out otherwise... I think.’

  ‘Troubled and neurotic, but normal enough,’ Martya agreed, coming up to us, and I smiled weakly at her. She looked as tired as I felt, though I presumed that being completely human, she probably felt much, much worse.

  ‘Thank you for saying so.’

  Cairo looked from Martya, to me and then to Bastien before his eyebrows tugged together again. ‘And you… are you Satan’s…’ his tongue sounded clumsy around the word that I now understood was foreign to him, ‘...lover?’

  ‘No,’ I answered quickly, seeing Bastien flush more brightly than my flash fire. ‘He did her a favour that made him my father, but that’s where it ended between them…’ I nudged him with my shoulder, loving the way his face was glowing now that I’d used the ‘f’ word out loud. ‘And he is as good and kind, as my mother is notorious for being otherwise. In fact, there’s a chance that even she might prove to be as good and kind as she is notorious, too. I don’t know for certain yet but you’ve got to admit-’ I nodded towards the boat as it splashed, rocked- and then up righted itself, ‘she’s on the right track.’

  Martya smiled at me. ‘As are we, don’t you think?’

  I looked over to where Cairo had indicated that the frozen waterfall was. ‘I think so.’

  Cairo still looked overwrought. ‘So you’re not evil then?’

  ‘No more than the next girl.’

  ‘That doesn’t comfort me much…but I guess time will tell if you’re honest and good or not.’

  ‘As with you, Pirate Captain Kingslater.’ He rolled his eyes and I smiled. ‘But for what it’s worth, ninety-nine percent of what I’ve said to you so far has been truthful. I think I am mostly good, though like any other human, I can be provoked into acting otherwise. Rest assured, however, that even if I do tell you a falsehood, I will not hide behind it for long. Sooner or later, the truth always slips out of me.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘Good,’ I smiled slyly as I brushed past him, making my way down to his ship. ‘Because we have to have a little chat about Elijah Barachiel…’

  22.

  The Wildlands

  Larkin

  I’d expected Cairo to be infuriated to learn that I’d kept the fact that Elijah Barachiel was already dead out of our dealings, but he was more heartsick than furious, and when I wouldn’t give him the name of Elijah’s assassin, he began to grow sceptical, almost like he believed that I’d made it all up in order to deprive him of his vengeful destiny.

  I spent a lot of time trying to convince him that I was on the level as I helped him bail out his ship (waves had filled it with ice-cold froth and frost when they’d crashed over the lilting side) but by the time they had secured it and anchored it in the water that was still flowing heartily, I was seasick beyond belief and he was still unconvinced. We parted on bad terms briefly as I went to prepare my people to resume our trek (I’d ordered the majority of them sit around a few other fires I’d built soon after the first had fallen into the ice along with most of those coughing, sneezing, red-eyed pirates) while he prepared his own men to follow us, but the moment we were off walking across the ice together as one large group, our arguing picked up right where it had left off.

  The truth was that I didn’t know why I didn’t give him Amelia-Rose’s name, but I suppose I was afraid that if the news was passed around like Chinese Whispers, someone brave like Ora would learn of it and confront the evil girl, picking a fight that my dear, sweet, friend simply wasn’t vicious enough to win. I didn’t know what had motivated Amelia-Rose to slay her king, but I had a few theories: One; that she’d just been so horrified to see a man of God beg for a courtesan’s forgiveness that she’d lost her pious mind, Two; she had plans to manipulate the Barachiel son of her choice and then hopefully herself onto a throne via a process of elimination, or Three; maybe she was just so determined to rid Calliel of the Companion caste that she’d figured framing one
for the king’s murder had been the quickest way to get us all ejected from Eden and out of her hair for good.

  Maybe I was wrong on all three counts, but she definitely had an agenda up her prim sleeve, and I wanted that to stay a secret as badly as she did for now, because I knew that so long as she believed that she’d gotten away with it, she was more likely to try something else. And if she did test her ethics again, pass or fail, there was a chance that someone else would witness it next time, so then I’d have more than my word against hers to confront her with if I ever decided to do so.

  Then again, maybe I hadn’t said anything because deep down, I kind of hoped she’d go on killing all of my enemies for me. My conscience had been cleared by my sojourn in the underworld, but my hatred for those that had driven me there, and my desire to see them suffer, had not. Like Satan, I was trying to be a good person, but I wasn’t there yet, not by half. The only thing I’d enjoy more than hearing that Amelia-Rose had killed Kohl, would be to hear that her own father had witnessed it.

  I could hardly explain all of that to Cairo though, so he forced me to go into a lot more detail about that night and then my time in Eden- probably because he figured that he might be able to pick up on some clues and work the murderer’s identity out that way, although it was pretty obvious to me that Kohl Barachiel was at the top of his suspect list, and I liked it that way even if it wasn’t the truth. Perhaps he’d become so desperate to win my hand that he’d find a sly way to kill Kohl without starting a war...

  But unfortunately for both of us, talking about my time in Eden meant explaining that I’d been raised as a prostitute, which to me, seemed like a more abhorrent admission than the one about me being Satan’s spawn was. Companionship was a practice that Cairo had heard about before, but the specifics of how I had suffered for it and the three prince’s so-called ‘affections’ sickened him, and although I’d expected him to immediately withdraw his offer for my hand, it instead inspired him into believing that he was exactly what I needed, because he’d never paid a woman in his life.