Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In the cold hours of the night, the bed dips behind him.
He stirs awake, warmth unfurling through him and a strange, weightless joy seizing his heart. And then he is entirely awake, because the room is full of the bitter scent of embers and smoke, and everything is darkness.
The aetherlamps are out. The fire is dead. There is nettle-sharp terror pooling between his shoulders, dripping ice down his back. The weight shifts, as if it is leaning over him.
Ethram throws himself from the bed as the dark surges over him and sharp points of pain claw into his arm.
The floorboards slam into his shoulder, pain rattling through him.
Claws hook into his flesh, dragging him back.
He throws his free hand out, finds the cold iron of the fire poker, and slams it into his attacker.
Something is here. Something has found him.
The air shivers, thick with hazy aether, and Ethram tears himself free.
His skin tears too, bright, hot rips of pain.
He slams into the doorframe, tumbles into the hall.
Claws scrape, slow and patient. A kitchen chair topples under him, and he staggers against the table.
Floorboards creak in the darkness as some immense weight shifts over them.
He cannot see it. He can’t see anything, and through the draping darkness, the rattle and scrape of movement follows him. Closer and closer.
He makes one last dive, and by the grace of all the dead gods, he judges correctly. The kitchen door slams open under his hands, just as the hunting beast leaps.
He spills onto the gravel and dirt of the garden path and rolls to his feet.
Warmth drips down his cheek and into his mouth, salt-rich and sickening.
There is no light. No stars in the sky. He cannot tell which way to step.
His back is unprotected, his hands are empty, and the gravel crunches closer and closer, but he cannot say where the sound comes from.
There is no escape. The realisation spears through him as painfully as any claw. All these years later, and he’ll go just as his family did. Torn into pieces by monsters in the night.
The blow knocks his breath from him, tossing him sideways into the stone of a garden bed. The darkness shifts over him, sharp teeth glinting, and this, he thinks, will be the last thing he knows—the dark, with teeth, swallowing him.
And then the flood comes.
Silver crashes above him, as swift as winter’s fury.
For a split moment, he’s fifteen years younger and watching an aetherstorm crack open above his village.
With a gasp, he’s back, lying on cold gravel under twisting moonlight and rattling scales.
His heart shudders painfully in his chest, the night air like ice on his tongue.
Is ice. Flakes of thin, frozen water-scales fall from the air as his protector hisses.
There is a second beast above him. And it is no stranger to him.
Giant milk-pearl claws gouge into the soil on either side of him, and the creature roars. It is the howl of a river in flood, violent and churning. It shakes Ethram half to pieces as he hunches on the gravel.
Though the night is clear, it feels as if there is water all around.
An immense, endless echo of a flood tears at his clothes, scours his skin.
Glimmering fish twist through the air, there and gone in starlight glimpses, and Ethram reaches for one as if it will anchor him, only to have it ripple away to nothing beneath his stinging fingers.
The dreamlike river passes through him, and it washes the dark away.
The garden fades back into view, all the tangled, dying lot of it.
The stars glimmer once more. The ghost-fish crowd around Ethram, pressing nettle-stings against his skin.
And with a heart-dropping bolt of fear, Ethram sees what has been hunting him.
A monstrous stalking creature paces a ruined patch of garden.
It howls, a bitter, mournful sound, and the silver beast seethes over Ethram like a rising tide and slams into it.
Ethram ducks his face in his arms, shaking under the wave of aether that crashes down.
The gravel sprays up in sharp, angry little bites, and all around him is the rage of a flood, tearing at him.
Finally, there is a ghastly crunch, a wet tear, the dripping of something thick and viscous.
And then the scent of aetherblood is all around.
In the sudden, brutal silence, he hears the breathing of an immense creature. Something sharp and river-cold wraps him tight. Scales. Then, skin.
“Ky?” he says. It’s barely a breath of a sound.
The air shivers, and the immense weight falls away as familiar arms tighten around him.
“I am here,” says Ky, and his voice is torn and ragged, like he’s been screaming. “My heart.”
He takes a shaky breath. He is nothing more than a bundle of splintered nerves, and if he moves, he’ll tumble apart entirely. Carefully, he unfolds his arm. There is not much space in the clutch of Ky’s arms, against his body.
“I did not think they would come here,” Ky says, and he’s so heavy.
There is more to him that usual, Ethram thinks.
He’s rested against Ky’s chest many times, and he’s never felt quite this small.
He lifts his head, and yes. Yes, there is quite a lot more to Ky.
His skin, where his arms wrap around him, is silver-slick in some moments, there and gone, and nothing but seething shadow in others, as if he is shifting between many shapes.
“You were wrong.” He doesn’t turn around, even though he can feel Ky’s breath stir his hair. He just leans back into the comfort of his river-scent, all springwater and rain.
“I was wrong,” Ky says. “About so many things.”
He melts. Thinks that maybe this is all a dream, too, and he’ll awake in his bed again, cold. Thinks he’d learn to pray to the gods, if it meant he could keep this.
Thinks he doesn’t need to, because his god has him in his arms.
The gravel stirs, crunching like ice. Ky tenses, but Ethram doesn’t. He fears nothing in this moment.
“There you are,” Ky says, low.
There is still one creature left. It sits across the garden, on the far side of the massacred shadow-beast. It is also a creeping, jagged beast, but it is not made of shadow. It is made of moonlight, just like Ky, and it watches Ky in silence.
Ky hisses like wind through rushes. “Have you come to be eaten also?”
The creature does not answer. It dips its head and lays down on the gravel. It might be more and more the shape of a wolf, Ethram thinks. Or a dog. Whatever it is, it is becoming smaller. Surrendering.
“A fine choice,” Ky says after a moment. His voice rolls around the garden in rumbling echoes. “I have had enough feasting for tonight.”
“What is it?” He cannot help but stare. There are old statues at the university gates that resemble such things, he thinks. He’s never learned their names.
“It was an attendant once,” Ky says. “My attendant. A loyal creature by nature, but one that has been without purpose for a long, long time.” His long, clawed fingers hold Ethram tighter, cage him in. “There is no purpose for it here.”
The creature is silent, still.
Ky makes another rustling hiss. “Go. You were a guardian once. Find something worth guarding again. You are not needed here.”
It does, shifting to its feet and limping away. As it slinks around the corner of the house, it seems smaller than ever. A mere handful of a creature, grey as mist.
“Will it be alright?”
“I do not care presently,” Ky says. “It could not harm me, but if it had touched you, I would have killed it.”
It all slams into Ethram, then. The long, empty days and the cold nights and the blood dripping down his nightshirt. He sways, and Ky steadies him. “Are there any more?”
“No,” he says, with dark certainty. “That was the last.”
“Then take me inside,” he says. “Gods. I want a fire.”
“I cannot. Not like this.”
As much as Ethram wants to stay small, curled into Ky’s chest, he’s not actually a village boy anymore. He pulls away, drags himself to his feet. His shoulder throbs. His arm drips.
He stands, and Ky stands with him, and Ethram thinks he really shouldn’t have.
“No, I imagine you wouldn’t fit through the door.
” He steps back. It’s hard to see him clearly.
There is a haze in the air that could be aether, if one could see aether, obscuring him from clear sight.
He stands taller than he ever has, and his hair floats around him in a veil of starlight.
It might be beautiful if it weren’t for the teeth and the claws and eyes that shine like moons.
“Might you take a deep breath and settle down a bit?”
Ky’s breath is a rolling rumble. It is the hiss Ethram had heard the first night he’d arrived at his kitchen door.
Not at all human, and not at all pleasant.
And then the air shivers again, and Ky steps forwards, almost as he always has been for Ethram.
A little too tall, still. A little too cruel-faced.
But it’s Ky. It’s only spoiled by the dark aetherblood smeared down the side of his face.
“You are undaunted,” Ky says, wonderingly. He cups Ethram’s cheek. He’s still a little clawed, and the tips rest against Ethram’s scalp, spanning his face entirely.
“Incredibly so, it turns out.” He means it down to the last word. “Perhaps wash your mouth first, though. I don’t think the taste of aetherblood will agree with me.”
Ky drops his hand to Ethram’s arm. The gashes glisten dark in the moonlight, and now that he is looking at it, the wound aches sharply.
“I felt this,” says Ky. “I came as swiftly as I was able.”
Ethram lets his head fall to Ky’s chest, and Ky holds him close. “Is it done now? Are you home?”
“It isn’t done. Is anything ever done?”
“Don’t answer my questions with questions, you wretch.”
A sigh. “The danger has passed, for now. I am home. Did you doubt me?”
“Every day,” says Ethram with feeling, and Ky laughs, a silent tremor in his chest.
“No more, my heart,” he says, and takes Ethram up and into the house and sets him by the kitchen hearth.
As he coaxes the flame into life, it flickers gold on the winter-gaunt planes of his face.
Or perhaps that’s just him being sharper than before.
More monstrous. “Never doubt me. I will always come back to you. Remember that.”