19. Sun
Chapter 19
Sun
T his couldn’t be right. It just couldn’t. But the truth was forced upon me, whether I liked it or not.
I sat immobile, covered in blood that stank of something I couldn’t name, and maggots born from the bile, malicious and snapping, burning away like paper charms, lit on fire by an invisible hand one by one. It was disgusting and inconceivable, and Bracken was dying because of them. I could feel it in every bone in my body.
“No,” I wailed as a soldier knocked into me, rushing into the fray. I could hear the fight against Daaku behind us like it was from a far distance.
“He’s dying,” Hadi said, mirroring my thoughts, words I could not bring myself to speak.
Something like poison, but worse, was spreading everywhere through the tether, corrupting our souls.
I could barely bring myself to look at Bracken. Tendrils of what had to be black magic curled around him from his open wound. He looked worse than the undead horses who’d charged from the cracks in the Earth.
Another wail pierced the air, and I was sure it was Clem. But it wasn’t. It was Kiar who stopped trying to stem the bleeding and just held him. Bracken looked peaceful, eyes white and fading gray, a familiar empty gaze I’d seen hundreds of times over the years.
But his stomach contorted, bulged, and misshapen. Something was trying to break free of him. And with the last of his strength, he was keeping it in, dragging them with him to the grave.
Hadi, too, sat immobile, realizing we were all going to die, no doubt, his commands worthless now. And Clem, my precious Clem…
Clem was flashing every color of the rainbow, and then he went white. Bleach white. Bone white. I ripped my eyes away from him unable to look.
“I…” a sob tore from Clem’s trembling body, Bracken’s black blood seemingly etched onto him like tattoos, “I c-c-can’t fix this!”
Clem’s face fell into his palms as I made myself look at him again, the other set of hands covering his ears as he sobbed and sobbed. Hadi’s face twisted, shaking his head no, whispering, “Do something, Clem. Beg her. She has helped us so far. She is a goddess!”
“She can’t!” Clem shouted, never lifting his face, gasping for air between every whimpering breath. “She has nothing left. She tried to warn me. Even Taiyo tried to warn me! I… I can’t.”
I shuddered at that. No, no, there had to be a way. One missing wing shouldn’t kill him, but whatever curse Daaku placed on Bracken seemed to have done the trick. Clem just needed to break it!
“You can’t die on me. You said you were my master. You can’t protect me if you’re dead,” I begged as I leaned over Bracken.
Beyond the sorrow in Kiar and Hadi’s eyes swam fear. Fear any moment now, their hearts would stop beating with Bracken’s, and we’d fall into one mass grave.
“I…love you too, Sun,” he murmured, Bracken’s voice suddenly clear and resolute.
But his eyes were so misty and so very, very far away.
Deliriously, he lifted a claw to my chin, his hand swayed and jerked uncontrollably. “So utterly human. I detest it… But I love you.”
“Don’t say that,” I demanded, because those were the words of a dying man and he didn’t need to say it. None of them did. I already knew they loved me. It was clear as day.
His eyes widened, and genuine fear, fear I’d never seen on his face before, eclipsed the telltale signs of death.
“Clem!” he begged, “Kiar, Hadi, I’m–”
I thought he would say he was afraid, but then Bracken stiffened, head snapping back and forth, body jerking. Kiar tried to hold him down, then I joined and Hadi, but Bracken was too strong, shaking like a man possessed.
And then it stopped, all at once, and he lifted his head at an unnatural anger, his face pointed to Kiar, but his eyes trained on Clem.
“Why are you afraid?” he said, and I shuddered because Bracken was not speaking anymore. The voice was too weary, soft, and tinged with regret to be his.
“Why are you afraid…” the raspy voice continued, “my emissary?”
Clem screamed, the sound so sharp and heavy I threw myself at him and forced his face to the ground. All around us, those bugs swirled, and soldier after soldier threw themselves at Daaku, who raged above, with the swirling dark clouds, a vengeful demon who could not be stopped. We’d be dead before we could end him.
Tsuki, possessing Bracken, breathed deep, “Only way… to stop… the hellmouth must be closed. Magic he should not possess, stolen from me.”
She wasn’t making any sense to any of us, but as Clem tore at and then ripped out the fur around his collar, I knew he knew what she meant.
“There has to be another way!” he begged. But even speaking through Bracken, she looked so weak, and I knew; Tsuki was dying, too.
“Eternal night overtakes the land, and the children of light surrender to the darkness,” she said.
“Warrior, consume the evil; close the hellmouth forevermore. A soul dies for many souls. Eclipse the darkness, devouring gods.”
I blinked away my tears and grimaced. Her words conjured up old stories sung by traveling bards in the good days when I was too young to understand the messages in the music.
And then, she dropped a bombshell worse than Gaulu’s betrayal on me.
“Sever the tether, so the warrior of light may live.”
“What?” Hadi exclaimed, but Bracken’s eyes rolled back, but with a gasp from Bracken, she was gone as quickly as she came.
I shook Clem, demanding he finish the riddle that wasn’t a riddle.
“Break the tether? Didn’t you say that couldn’t be done?”
Clem raised his head, and now even his eyes were white, and I drew back. His sobbing had ended, and he was so very empty, like a corpse.
“...I was tricked. The book said the tether was an unbreakable soul bond, but there is one way…”
“Enough riddles,” Kiar shouted as Bracken wheezed, his eyes finally fluttering shut.
Clem looked at each of us, and then the book of spells appeared in his palms, trailed by glimmering moonlight, “A way to sever the tether. I thought it would save us one day. And it will.”
I waited, wondering why he wasn’t doing it, and then it hit me all at once.
Hellmouth? I didn’t know much about divine affairs, but I knew of souls now.
“Will… Bracken be gone forever?” I demanded, and our breaths hitched as Clem nodded.
“Gone. Gone… the only way I know how to save you,” Clem whispered. “And he will never be with us ever again.”
“Unacceptable. Find another way,” Hadi demanded, and Kiar’s head fell, resting on Bracken’s chest. His breathing was so shallow now. We didn’t have much time. Our choices were damn Bracken’s soul, or die with him. And Clem just dropped his head into his lap, defeated.
I stood resolute. Daaku would die. Jia and the others could and would find a way to assassinate Gaulu and build a new world. I was never much of a statesman, so I would do what I did best– kill.
“Keep him alive, Clem. Keep him alive until I have that bastard’s head. Hadi, Kiar, follow me.”
I didn’t look back as I jogged towards Daaku, drowning out Clem’s screams to stop, to come back. Then I broke into a run that would surely blister my feet. The world vanished outside of my target. And then there was only one emotion left inside of me.
White hot rage !