33. Remember The Pact of Our Youth
LUCIAN
The fatta scorpion is not only deadly. In old Irisan, the venom possessed in its stinger was called filumaniram. Roughly translated to shredder of souls.
– HISTORY AND CORENTHS BY JJ ARIST (UNPUBLISHED)
Black, blue, red.
Green, gray, purple.
I push the vision from me with the last bit of wit I have to offer. Occasionally, there are Lucents who can invoke their own visions–forcing themselves to see the future. We call them Seers. That’s what I am. However, I was a smart enough child to not let Lusia and Labyrinth know that.
I’ve never used this power for fear of them discovering it.
Only now, all I want to know is the end of whatever I could call this phase of my life. The end of the weapon, Soma’s involvement, the Arcanes, and Isa.
The end of Desdemona, even though that is the only thing I do not want there to be an end to.
There isn’t one—not explicitly. All I have on this canvas is a jumble of colorful shadows, all still against a backdrop of swarming black figures.
I’m not supposed to be in my art room. The entire academy has been sent into lockdown in their suites. Meaning the halls are desolate, and I’m surprised that Soma hasn’t sent the finest guards to the academy. Because it is their academy, after all.
A droozen Leiholan hasn’t even been assigned hall watching. Not that he and his sword could do much when he’s filled up on vesi. Perhaps I should have a drink. Sounds a better idea than any as I walk back to my suite.
Back in my room, bottle in hand, Azaire walks in. We haven’t exactly spoken on more than a surface level since I tortured Freyr, who is still in the dungeon below the school.
It’d be a shame if a corenth got to him before I got answers out of him.
“Can I have some?” Azaire sits on the floor, leaning against the wall haphazardly.
“Certainly.” I give him the bottle.
He takes a chug longer than any I’ve seen from him, belching after and looking thoroughly shocked by himself. Passing it back to me, he says, “I think Wendy is going to break up with me.”
“Why would you think that?”
“She came in asking me about the amulet she gave me,” he says, as though it’s all the explanation in the worlds.
“I don’t follow.”
“The lockdowns are because of the corenths.” Yes, that much was obvious. “She fought the one that got past the barrier.”
“I still don’t follow.”
He swipes at his eyes, slowly. “It was the way she was talking. The amulet she gave me is some sort of token of protection and—” he wipes his eyes again. “She wasn’t telling me something. There were gaps in her story and–and… she still hasn’t told me she loves me.” Azaire’s sigh is long and certainly heavy. “It’s not that. I don’t think that she doesn’t… love me, you know? I just don’t think she believes in me the way I do her.”
I take the bottle away from my lips and the room spins ever so slightly.
“Can I have some more?” he asks.
“Be my guest.” The bottle is in his hand again. “Look, I’m the last person you want relationship advice from. But perhaps you should talk to her.”
“I talk to her all the time. Luc,” he leans forward, “I know her. Something’s different, and I’m not sure if it has to do with me.” After taking another sip, he says, “I think she thinks I’m weak.”
“Show her your snakes again,” I offer. I have not even seen his snakes. In fact, she’s the only one who has that isn’t dead.
Azaire tugs at his beanie and frowns. “Normally I feel… I don’t know… free when I’m with her. It’s okay that it feels different now, things change, and no matter what happens I’m gonna love her, I know that. Even when I feel like this…”
“How do you feel?”
His eyes wander around my room. This is his thinking face. “Incapable. But–but I don’t blame her for that.”
“Zaire, you are the most capable person I know. If Wendy thinks you’re weak, that only means she has more to learn of you.” No one who’s been through the things he has and can spin it into something that serves him is weak.
“I don’t know what she’s thinking right now. I guess that’s part of the problem. I mean, she knows what I’m feeling, all the time, and I guess I just wish I had a little bit of that.” He takes a sip and laughs to himself. “And she’d gladly give up that power, and I’m sitting here wishing I had it, just for her.”
I lean down, plucking the bottle from his hands and taking my sip. Azaire has never held alcohol well; it amplifies his doubt.
“I want to go back to yesterday,” Azaire mumbles. “Everything changed today.”
“You said she fought another corenth?”
“A kappa,” he says. “She washed the blood in our bathroom.” He laughs dryly and drags a hand over his face again.
She’s becoming quite the fighter—first a pernipe, then a kappa. No one would expect that from an Eunoia. Though, no one would expect a Nepenthe to be so soft-natured either, and Azaire is sitting across from me.
I sit on the floor and lean against my bed. Then I take another sip of vesi for good measure.
“Corenth or not, killing is never easy.” He knows that. We both do. “For Wendy, she feels it all. It’s different from you and me. She’s processing, and whatever she said that made you feel weak or incapable, it could be her not wanting you to have to kill.”
He stares at me for a long while. Then he says, “Can I have more vesi?” He takes a sip. “You sound more like me than you.”
“Hope so,” I shrug. I could use him rubbing off on me further.
The room slips away from me in an instant, plummeting me into the hallway of the academy. Azaire’s still with me, but this version of him wields a sword. We fight in a blur, and in the end I stand over a fatta scorpion, its heart in my hand and blood on my sword. The other is turned to stone.
The corenths are going to get past the last of the wards protecting the school’s walls, and Azaire and I are going to kill two of them.
This could be my only chance to find out why they are here. To find out whether or not Desdemona is involved.
My room comes back to me like pieces of a puzzle being put in their rightful place, and Azaire looks at me. “What was it?” he asks, knowing when I go in and out of my visions.
“There’s something we have to do tonight.”
* * *
I’ve compiled a collection of different swords on my bed. I run my hands over the blade of my heifa before moving over to the merai knife. “Which do you want?” I ask Azaire.
“I don’t know about this,” he says, despite him honing a sword on a scrap of leather. “It’s a fatta scorpion, those things are like, borderline mythical.”
“Exactly!” I exclaim, and say again, “exactly.” The fatta scorpion is from Iris, the same land the Arcanes are from. If they got from Iris to here, there is a reason, and that reason could involve the Arcanes.
The moonaro.
Desdemona.
The prospect of an answer, if I can slip into its subconscious.
“That’s why we do it together, like always,” I say, pouring honing oil on my sharpening stone. “If you’re going to use that old thing, at least let me sharpen it.” I already know he’ll be taking the merai knife—which suits him. That’s what he held in the vision. I’m only waiting for him to choose it for himself.
He stops honing his sword. “You know the consequences.”
“Consequences be damned.” There are no consequences. I’ve seen how this plays out—we win, game over.
“That’s not exactly your best strategy.” He balances the sword on his knees.
“Happens to be my favorite.” I smile.
“I know.”
“I saw us kill this thing.” I meet his eyes. “No surrender.”
“Why do you even want to do this, Luc?” I turn away without meaning to. “Just because you had a vision doesn’t mean you have to follow through.” Don’t say it. “Your choices become your fate, you know that. I kind of worry about what you’re choosing lately.”
Lately meaning since I found out about the unions. I may be acting recklessly, but I don’t lack self-awareness. I see the path I’m going down. When your life isn’t your own, you’ll do anything to hang on to that last bit of control you have.
At least I will.
“It’s about taking some agency,” I say. All I’ve gotten this year is nothing.
I found out about a weapon, only to not be able to do anything with it. Yet. I fell for a girl, only to discover that she’s involved, in some way, with my sister’s attack and possibly the greatest evil in Elysia.
Perhaps killing would at least be something.
“Let the consequences be damned, because there won’t be any,” I go on. “We’ll kill it, and then you and Wendy can talk about your shared experience.”
Azaire ducks his head. “She said she didn’t want me involved. That’s what made me feel incapable. I don’t think she thinks I could do what she did yesterday.”
“Then show her you can.” I begin sharpening my blade, and I pause. “I want to get into its subconscious,” I tell him. “Find out why they’re here and attacking.”
“I see,” he says. I think about telling him it’s my battle, that he doesn’t need to join. But he does. The vision showed that one was killed by his snakes. If he’s not there, I don’t know what will happen.
I hand him the merai knife, by the hilt. “No surrender?”
At first the short, thick knife looks awkward in his hands, but he fixes his grip and he looks every bit the fighter I saw in my vision. In a way, though, it looks wrong. He’s not a fighter, and for a fraction of a second, I begin to doubt my nature as a Lucent.
“No surrender,” Azaire says, shaking my doubt.
I finish sharpening the blade of my heifa while Azaire hones his, then we venture into the vacant academy hallways. Every light has been turned off, making the crescent moon, stars, and glowing apala trees the only offering of light.
“I don’t think there’s anything in here,” Azaire says cautiously after making it to the west wing.
“I can feel it.” That of burning, starkly different from Desdemona. While she felt like the warmth of the sun’s rays, this feels like the smoldering of a soul.
The burning grows, and I know we’re getting close.
Finally approaching the fatta scorpion, I see that it is much uglier than the depictions we’ve been shown in class. Its long, soul-ceasing stinger hovers a foot above its already humongous stature.
Its six legs click against the floor as it walks slowly toward us. Azaire turns to me and I nod. Shadows wrap around the fatta’s stinger and it shrieks, standing up on its back four legs. I swing at its claw, the clink sounding like I’ve just hit full metal armor, and its heat pours down my blade. It burns the hilt and with it my hands, and I fight to hold onto my sword while I cover it in shadows.
The claw comes against my arm, burning me on impact and sending me harshly against the marble wall. I fall to the floor while my head spins. Azaire runs for the fatta and jumps higher than anyone other than a Nepenthe ever could. I restrain the venomous stinger, then the claws. The fatta writhes against the chill of my power.
Now on its back, Azaire strikes against the top of its head and the fatta jerks up, sending Azaire to the floor across the room from me. The creature stalks toward him, its stinger pushing past my shadows. The backs of my eyes burn with the cold as I work to wrap the fatta’s body further. I feel the lack of energy in my chest as the fatta works to break free of my hold, though I’m clearly already immobilizing it.
I get to my feet, dragging my heifa sword across the floor. The fatta turns from Azaire, slowly, and I swing again as a distraction.
Then I push into its mind. At first it’s hard to breathe, feeling as if I’ve swallowed a burning ember. The further I push, the less it burns and the more I ache.
Come on.
Its stinger comes for me, ready to stab me, to steal my soul.
“Stop,”I demand it when I’ve finally anchored myself. “Be still.”
It stops.
“Can you speak to me?”I look into its black, beady eyes as it tries to move. “Answer me!”
“Yes,”the voice in my head is soft. “I speak.”
“Why are you here?”
“Broken barrier, breaking borders.”
“Breaking borders?”I ask.
“Universal.”
“You’re breaking universal borders?”
“Not us.”
“Who?”
“You know.” I’m about to ask for clarification when I feel the connection severing. I see its legs moving, its claws shaking, the stinger bouncing.
“Be. Still,” I demand, but the connection is weak, and I’ve allowed my shadows to drop to preserve my energy.
The fattas claw swings at me. “Zaire!” I shout, blocking the claw with my sword. Its stinger comes to me, to my chest, and it’s about to stab, but it stops.
“Zaire, beanie off!” I shout, my voice straining as I raise my hand, summoning the shadows around me to create a shield around us.
“You do me a favor, Lucian Aibek. Fighting you was against my duties.”
Within moments, the fatta loses its vibrant red color, turning entirely to stone. I release our shield, but I wish it wasn’t dead.
I want to know more. Luckily, there will be a second.
Azaire lets out a small groan and I turn to him, ready to come up with our second plan and tell him what I’ve heard.
Only, he’s not. A small stinger, half the size of the fattas we’d just defeated, sinks itself into Azaire’s stomach. He’s looking down at the stinger, then he’s looking into my eyes, tears falling and his mouth wide open in shock.
The snakes on his head are already dead.
“Azaire!” I run to him, slicing through the stinger in one fair swipe, the fatta crying behind me. Azaire falls to the floor. The sound echoes through the hallway.
What have I done?
Shadows force the smaller fatta into its place and I stab the filthy, disgusting thing in its heart, grinding my sword against its shell. Then I stick my hand into its chest and pull out its heart, twice the size of my bloodied hand.
This is it. This is the vision I saw.
Dropping the heart, I run to Azaire. I run to my brother.
I pick up his bloodied body, holding him in my arms, and I start running the halls. “You’re not going to die,” I promise him.
Blood spews from his mouth with a cough. “Don’t lie to me.” His voice is already weak.
“It’s not a lie,” I proclaim. But it is, isn’t it? We’re too far from the infirmary for me to make it there before he bleeds out—the stinger has gone entirely through his body. I can feel it poking my torso as I run.
“Please,” he coughs, “stop.”
“What?” I run.
“Just let it be peaceful,” he whispers, the blood in his mouth forcing out a sickening gurgling sound with the words.
“What?” Tears prickle in my eyes, and I blink them away while I run.
“Look at me, Luc,” his voice is so weak, there’s no way that I couldn’t do what he’s asking of me. I stop, against my will, and I look into his glassy eyes. Soon to be lifeless eyes—no.
He’ll make it. He has to make it.
There isn’t a world where he won’t make it. There isn’t a time, there isn’t a universe where he dies. Where he doesn’t exist.
I won’t allow it.
I force shadows into every inch of his bleeding wound that I can. It stops some of the blood, but not a worthy percentage. It keeps gushing through. Even magic can’t fix fatality.
Mortality.
The stinger is too far into his body.
No.
“I’m ready to surrender.” Azaire grabs my arm, but his grip is so loose. So lifeless. “I surrender,” he whispers again, weakly nodding his head.
“No,” I shout. “No! You’re not dying because of me!”
“I love you, brother,” he whispers, his eyes shuddering closed while he strains to keep them open. His hand slides down my arm that holds him, trying to clasp onto mine but it falls right out. I pick up his limp hand for him. “It’s not—” he chokes, “your fault.” His eyes open for one, single second. His voice is hoarse when he whispers, “I’ll never blame you.”
“Azaire, open your eyes!” I start running again for the infirmary. They can do something, the Eunoia are made to heal. They can mend him.
Blood oozes from his mouth. “It doesn’t hurt, Luc.” I can barely hear him. “Peace.” His eyes are closed and his red mouth is open. His heart is beating. It won’t be for long, will it?
I surrender.Those words permeate my brain. Peace. I suppose I can give him peace.
I bring him to the ground and pull the stinger from his body, praying that the venom has not spread enough to cause permanent damage to his soul. I hold his hand, hoping that I can offer my brother some semblance of his final wish in his final breaths.