19. Sadie #2
“What’s there to say? ‘In dark light’ is super clear, and the good news is we have war and fighting to look forward to, and oh yeah, the gods are dead.”
Aran nodded at me and slowly relaxed. She grabbed the pipe and took a long drag.
We were on the same page—ignore the weird poem that no one wanted to hear and pretend like it had never happened.
And do drugs.
They were always the answer.
Everyone knew that.
“We should talk about something else,” Aran said, her fingers shaking as she struggled to hold the pipe.
Nodding, I turned to the window. “Wonderful weather in this realm. Do you think it will rain tomorrow?”
“Most likely.”
A head popped into the room.
I screamed.
Aran jumped.
The maid opened her mouth, jaw distending unnaturally as once again a male voice boomed out a poem:
“ One must join and raise the rear,
Other must break and bring the kings,
One must grow and lose the fear,
Other must die and rise with wings.”
When the voice stopped, the maid leaned forward like a marionette doll and slammed her head into the wall.
She fell to her knees, then hastily stumbled to her feet while looking around in confusion. “Did I bring the towel?”
“Leave!” I yelled desperately, terrified she’d open her mouth again.
She stood still, eyes wide with shock.
“Please leave.” Aran pushed her forward gently. When the girl had crossed the threshold, Aran slammed the door shut in her face and screamed, “And never come back!”
Aran twisted the lock, then slumped against it, breathing heavily.
“Great, more good news, also something about breaking and dying,” I choked as an awful weight settled in my gut. “Do you think they knew we were going to ignore it…so it came back?”
Aran itched at her back, then keeled forward like she was going to throw up. “Fuck, maybe.”
She took another drag of the pipe. “Quick recap, so it doesn’t. One, which I bet is me or you, must join, raise the rear, grow, and lose fear.”
Aran inhaled desperately, like she was drowning in the air.
“Other, whichever one of us isn’t ‘one,’ must break, bring kings, die, and rise with wings.”
Nodding casually, like I wasn’t totally freaked out, I slammed my head into the antique mirror on the wall.
The crack echoed.
Cold glass crunched therapeutically under my forehead as I said, “Odds are I’m ‘other,’ with the whole break and death thing, although I’ve always wanted to be a bird. That could be a win.”
Aran smoked more, not even flinching at the blood dripping from the gash on my head. “Then who are the kings? Jax, Cobra, Ascher, Xerxes? That doesn’t really make sense.”
“Couldn’t Cobra be considered royalty? Maybe the pack by association?” My gut was telling me that was what it was referring to.
Aran shivered. “I don’t know. That doesn’t seem right to me. The last time a poem read itself to us, it said,
“ Blood burns red, through the air it’s blown,
Blood pours bright, across the fated throne,
Blood draws truth, and rips apart the mind,
Blood creates pain, it kills the weak-spined.”
Aran snapped her fingers with excitement and pointed at me. “Then you discovered you had blood powers and attacked my mother, who sat on the fated throne. You ripped apart her mind and killed her. Actually, the poem was all very literal.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Wait, how did you remember that poem?”
“What do you mean? Did you somehow forget it?”
“Never mind, I definitely remembered it.” I’d forgotten it completely. I mean, there were a lot of words to keep track of.
Aran grimaced. “That reminds me.”
If there was any more bad news, I was offing myself.
The men were cheating fucks who were interested in one of the prettiest females I’d ever seen in my life (I was confident enough in myself to admit she had the “it” factor, while I had the “are you sure you took a shower” factor), I’d had a vivid hallucination of drowning, and now creepy poems were reading themselves to us again.
My quality of life was nonexistent.
It literally couldn’t get worse.
I inched closer to the window, prepared to dramatically throw my body through it in a display of sheer unwellness.
“You have that damn test tomorrow for the trial, so you have to study tonight.”
That was it.
I couldn’t live like this.
Lunging for the window, I almost slammed my way to freedom, but Aran intercepted my path and chucked me easily onto the bed.
“Come on,” I moaned. “This is so unfair.”
Aran wrestled me into a headlock, her arms and legs wrapped around me like a pretzel, so I couldn’t move. “If I have to keep living and dealing with this shit, then so do you.”
“Ugh, don’t be so selfish, Aran.”
“Don’t be so unhinged, Sadie.”
“Don’t be so ugly.”
“Don’t be so scrawny.”
I gasped with hurt. “Take it back. You said my muscles were looking bigger, you lying cow.”
“Moo, bitch.” Aran released my limbs from her death grip and climbed off the bed.
A terrifying thought struck me. “Oh my sun god.”
“What?” she asked.
“Do you think the ancient fae voice is an alien ? From the stars,” I whispered with horror, remembering a human movie about a weird blob thing in a basket.
Aran rolled her eyes.
“First, no sentient beings live on a sun; the temperature is way too hot. Second, aliens are a ridiculous human conception. Of course there are people from other realms. Planets are connected by portals. The different realms are all just individual planets, duh.”
I gasped, the world shaking around me.
“Wait, so I’m an alien?”
Aran narrowed her eyes at me. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or actually an idiot, but I’m going to pretend for the sake of this friendship, and apparently a prophesied war, that it’s the former.” She rubbed at her forehead tiredly. “Also, I know you’re deflecting from studying.”
“I’ll show you deflection.” I took a running jump off the bed and spun in an impressive roundhouse kick.
Aran caught my foot in midair and pulled it up, so I tipped over. “Very impressive. Can’t wait to see you with wings.” She chuckled. “I’m envisioning you flying into a building.”
Funnily enough, I also saw that for myself.