Vulture (17 page)

18 - Happy Endings

Kaliel stood in the watchtower, her eyes on the mirror. The resemblance to her old self was striking. She had the same soft cheek bones and curvy pink lips. Her nose was straighter, and her eyebrows were bushy and black. She blinked and watched the deep black eyelashes sweep across the bags under her eyes. The skin wasn’t bruised but shaded, her face not as pasty white as it used to be. The only real difference was her eyes. They weren’t the same shining emerald they had always been. These eyes were musty green, like moss. Flecks of hazel swathed closer to the pupil, and ragged streaks of red shot through the eye whites. She tried to rest, but sleep wouldn’t come. That was another familiar thing–the insomnia. She ran her hands down the ivory dress; there was more meat on her bones in this body. She had a fuller chest and midsection but the same knobby knees and skinny arms. She held her hands in front of her face and turned them over. Faint white lines smattered the skin. Proof of damage.

Kaliel opened the box from Avristar, her birthstone resting against the crushed velvet. Taking it in her hands she stepped back and fell onto the bed. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, the birthstone had its familiar violet aura. Her heart ached with a rapacious longing for home. The rude awakening that met them was cataclysmic. It took everything not to lash out at Benir, not to burn trees from the inside out. And seeing Elwen tackle Krishani like that made bile rise in her throat. She would have gotten involved if she hadn’t been afraid of being hit. He didn’t look like the type that would care if she was a girl. And Pux was there, pulling her away. He acted like this was normal.

She sighed. Krishani was taking too long. His expression said he would see her later, but it was later and he wasn’t there. He never did this on Avristar. Their nights at the waterfall could be timed by the moon perfectly. She rolled onto her side and winced at the cramp in her abdomen. Pain felt so different. It spiked, sliced, and stabbed instead of throbbed and swayed. She didn’t like the sensations reverberating through her when she shifted the wrong way. Her eyebrows drew together as she stretched. She put the birthstone back in the box and slipped into her slippers. She went to leave but stopped, trading the ivory dress for the black one that used to belong to another girl. She swept out of the watchtower and clambered down the stairs, not really sure where she was going. She rounded the castle and came to the front steps. It was nearing nightfall, dusk falling over the land with its mismatched shadows and gray light. Torches outside of the hall were lit, blazing up to a half quad high. The doors to the hall were closed, which struck her as odd because she thought the hall was open to all.

Kaliel stopped, her heart leaping into her throat. Squealing, clucking, and balking came from the barn. This was something she wasn’t used to hearing. Animals in Avristar chattered, prattled, and brayed, but they didn’t squawk or squeal. She blotted out the sounds and continued to the stables. Her senses hitched as she neared it and heard someone shuffling around in there. The door was open a crack and she pushed the wide, light wood out of the way.

Krishani threw a knapsack over the backside of a piebald white horse. Kaliel froze and looked at the ground, licking her lips and then biting the bottom lip. He noticed her, but his face filled with alarm. She closed the distance between them and looked at the horse. “What are you doing?”

Krishani pulled on the saddle strap and stared at her with vacant eyes. “I won’t be long.”

Kaliel stepped back, heart aching, palms sweaty. She frowned and let out a long breath. “You’re not going to say goodbye?”

Krishani sighed and moved towards her with lightning speed, taking her hands in his and pressing them against his chest. His eyes searched hers but all they found was disappointment.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. She didn’t say anything, and he moved his hand to the small her back. His mouth came down on hers hard and clumsy, like he hadn’t planned to kiss her, but he didn’t know what else to do. She kept her hand firmly on his chest but he gripped her tighter, her arm crushed between them. Her head swirled with thousands of questions she wanted to ask, but it was hard to concentrate when he kissed her desperately as if the land would crumble if he didn’t. She curled her free hand around the back of his neck where his skin was clammy. Her fingers knotted in his hair and he pulled back, breathing hard.

Her expression hadn’t changed at all. Her eyebrows drew together and her hand pressed against his fast beating heart but all she could feel was the dread pooling in her stomach. She tried to stave off the tears but she knew something was wrong. “Why did you kiss me like that?”

Krishani seemed confused. “Like what?”

She sighed. “Like you’re never coming back.” She tore her hand from his chest and turned away. There were more than twenty stalls lined up, horses or colts in each one, saddles and reins slung over the sides. There were lots more travel knapsacks made with curved wire, bags hanging off either end of the horse’s rear. She didn’t like that everything in the stable spoke death to her. Krishani couldn’t leave so soon, not after she had just gotten him back.

Arms slid around her, his chest pressed to her back, lips at her ear. “I am coming back,” he said.

“Why do you have to go?”

“I promised I would do the work of a Ferryman.”

“Does the work have anything to do with the nightmares you used to have?”

Krishani let out a long breath. She whirled on her heel and crossed her arms. He had his head down, melancholy etched across his face. He shook his head. “The nightmares are real now,” he muttered.

That didn’t comfort Kaliel at all.

She let out a whimper, tears in her eyes. She went to say something but instead she shook, unable to get the words out. Krishani’s eyes widened. “They’re not Valtanyana,” he said quickly. He strode towards her and put his hands on her shoulders. When she wouldn’t look at him he hooked a finger under her chin and made her look up. “I promise they’re not coming back.”

She didn’t know what to say, but she nodded. “What are they?”

“Horsemen. They’re human.”

“Corrupted.”

Krishani hummed and nodded. “They’re exactly what Istar said I would be up against. Do you remember?”

Kaliel nodded and pressed her cheek into his chest. His arms covered her and for a moment she felt safe again. This was the only thing that made sense to her; everything else scared her or confounded her. She still had trouble understanding how she was alive and what she had done to destroy Avristar. She would always feel guilty and homesick. Krishani didn’t say anything. He held onto her and swayed back and forth.

“You have to promise me something,” Kaliel said after a long time. She struggled out of his embrace and looked at his mismatched eyes. Even if she had changed, he was still the boy she fell in love with. His grip eased and she fell away from him enough so she could see his face.

“Anything you want.”

“Find a happy ending,” she whispered.

“Oh, Kaliel,” he said, crushing her to him. She didn’t know how to explain it any other way. She needed him in a way she’d never needed anyone before. “What if I can’t?”

“Promise,” she pressed.

Krishani nodded against her dark hair. “I will try.”

They stayed locked together in an embrace for awhile longer, and then he detached himself and moved to the white horse. He checked the bags for his supplies and mounted. The horse trotted into the center of the stables, and Krishani took out a flat stone and held it in his palm. Kaliel stepped back, wrapping her arms around herself to hold in the crippling feelings of helplessness. A bright light flashed. Krishani and the horse were gone. Kaliel stumbled backwards to the door, a hand flying to her mouth.

He could transport.

She rolled along the door, feeling like she was horizontal on the floor and fell, landing on her hands and knees. Tears spilled over as she gathered herself and fled to the watchtower to spend the night alone.

• • •

Kaliel watched the little girl in the silvery night dress skip along the frozen tundra. Her bare feet kicked up a layer of frost, leaving a trail of black footprints across the land. She was laughing and singing a song at the top of her lungs. Sounds twisted into the sky as Kaliel drifted along behind her, a cascade of black hair dropping to her ankles. It shimmied this way and that, strands sweeping along the ground, writing faint lines in the tundra.

The girl stopped short, a hand placed on her brow as though she was trying to see far into the distance. Kaliel followed her view and her stomach lurched, smoke twisting into the sky. The little girl smiled gleefully and her song continued. Kaliel caught the words.

Everything is burning

Everything is burning,

Fire and brimstone,

Ash and smoke,

The Horsemen leave nothing,

Alive when they go.

She began skipping again but Kaliel stopped following. She was paralyzed, a lump in her throat, tremors lacing through her body. The Horsemen were burning everything, everything was burning. Krishani was burning. She squeezed her eyes shut and caught a single glimpse of his brown and golden eye, his face covered in flames. She opened her eyes, still surrounded by the never-ending stretch of tundra–short bushes, frost on the ground, horizon far in the distance, the sun creating an orange line of the sky, the rest of it cast in deep gray clouds. She felt claustrophobic; the big space making her feel like the land was compressing her into a tiny ball. The little girl glanced over her shoulder, her white face inviting.

“Come on,” she said, waving a hand in the air as she continued skipping.

Kaliel let out a breath and felt herself float forward. She wanted to escape but she couldn’t wake up. She struggled against herself but nothing happened. This was like the sandstorm, the same little girl who called herself Morgana, the little girl who brought the Horsemen.

She was the reason they were burning everything.

Morgana stopped. “You don’t want to miss the deaths,” she called, her voice ringing out like wind chimes. Kaliel recoiled from the sound, holding her hands to her ears. “Even the roads run red with blood.”

“No,” Kaliel whispered, unable to think straight. She fell on her knees and put her forehead on the cool frost. That was better. Anything was better than more nightmares, especially about things Krishani was supposed to fight. The Lands of Men weren’t safe, she realized that, but she didn’t know they were this bad. A piercing pain entered her heart. She looked up only to find the girl’s hand on her shoulder, the girl’s eyes knifing into her, big black glazed over orbs reflecting the clouds above them. They crackled with lightning. Her red lips parted, showing a perfectly aligned row of rotted teeth.

“It’s pretty,” she said.

Kaliel fell into the blackness of her dream and woke up panting, the quilt twisted around her. Heavy breaths slowed as she fought to keep the phlegm in her throat down. She swallowed hard and brought her hands to her face, realizing she was crying. Without thinking she threw the quilt off and stood, shakily putting on her slippers. She fell against the wall before ripping open the door and fleeing into the night. She didn’t get too far; all she could think about was the lake. The lake with the merfolk, the lake that was less than an hour from the House of Kin. Only when she rounded the castle did she remember she wasn’t on Avristar anymore. Moonlight glinted off the shallow waters of the small lake. Colorful, smooth rocks dotted the shore, the water not quite reaching the grass. She paced along the mound and sat, burying her head in her knees.

She thought of the prophecy. That’s why she was seeing the little girl. It had something to do with the prophecy, the one about the Ferryman and the Flame. She hadn’t thought about the Flames since her return. She assumed Klavotesi was taking care of them. Clamose was gone, she could sense it, and Klavotesi wasn’t interested in speaking with her. He was angry about her gallivanting off to Avristar. Three days on Avristar was three moons on Terra. It felt like time played tricks on her. Wasn’t it bad enough that she wasn’t wanted there? That she had been rejected? That stinging pain was worse than any lecture Klavotesi could give her about being three moons tardy for her first lesson. She hoped he taught Pux in the meantime but Pux hadn’t mentioned it. The idea of being a damaged girl was supposed to go away. She was supposed to be smarter, stronger, more successful, and yet, she still felt like a scared child, worried about everything that had a shadow.

She used to think it was because of what the Great Oak said, but now it was the prophecy and nothing but painted symbols to decode. She knew how it ended in the First Era. Things burned, she burned. She was there at the end, during the apocalypse. She shook. It couldn’t mean that, because prophecies were warnings, warnings about all the things that could go wrong. Nothing ever did. In the First Era the Valtanyana lost, and they were sealed in Avrigost. The Daed warriors supported them and the armies stood against Tor, but she didn’t know where those armies came from.

She lifted her chin and looked at the silvery surface of the lake. She couldn’t help but feel guilty. She was part of the reason people died. She always assumed she was on the right side of the battle. She never questioned whether or not she supported Tor or if she stood with the Valtanyana. Where had Krishani stood? And did it matter? Even when she was born to Avristar and raised by the land, she still betrayed and destroyed that land. They believed in her, loved her, protected her, and she tried to save them, but it wasn’t enough.

No, the worst of it is that you brought the foe here in the first place.
Atara’s words flooded her mind. No matter what she wanted to believe about blooming the flower of sacrifice, Atara, Istar, and everyone else on Avristar thought of her as the weed. She was something they couldn’t control or understand, and therefore she was banished.

She sat in the grass for what seemed like hours and cried. The crushing truth of reality settled on her shoulders and she welcomed the self-loathing. She couldn’t change the past, and the prophecy was a warning about her future. Her present was broken, stuck in a lack luster land with strangers, the boy she loved miles away. She sighed and got to her feet, brushing herself off. There was only one person who could make her feel better. She crept around the castle and tried her best not to wake the villagers or the animals as she opened the gate, passed the chicken house, and entered the barn. She climbed up the rungs of the ladder and crawled on her hands and knees through the bales of hay.