28 | Kiandah
Cliffs of Oblivion
What really happened
The winds are ice-cold and filter in through the burn holes in my dress, my hair and eyelashes freshly charred. Not that that matters. I’m probably going to die here.
Definitely going to die here.
All because I did something else stupid.
I glance at the little girl standing above me as I kneel in the center of the cluster of Omegas. There are three on my right-hand side, the little girl I once knew as and believed to be Margarite, included. When I was brought here, she gave me a wink and a wave before shivering into a different woman’s body. It was alarming and disorienting to watch, and ultimately disappointing, because it made me realize how easily I’d been played. I should have waited. I shouldn’t have panicked. I should have known that my sisters can handle themselves. Owenna, for example, seems right at home here. I was right about her, too. Once a traitor, always a traitor.
My oldest sister is among the two dozen people here working under Merlin’s direction, moving objects back and forth, clearing a space and setting rigging to presumably pull something up from the thrashing waters below. A boat? A getaway vessel? I’m not sure why they would need to bring it up, given the treacherous staircase carved into the side of the mountain that they could take down to it.
It’s no wonder Yaron’s people weren’t able to find Trash City — they were hiding, not below the Cliffs of Oblivion, not on them, but inside of them, in caves that no one in their right mind would have dared explore, connected to sea and surface by a staircase that no one in their right mind should take. But I suppose they aren’t in their right minds, are they? Owenna. Madame Zenobia. Merlin. The Fates.
Bastards.
I glare at Merlin, who sits atop a rock to my left eating an apple like she hasn’t got a care in the world. On her other side, Sipho hangs from a pole they’ve erected, covered in what look disturbingly like bite marks dripping in black venom rather than blood. He’s not fully conscious, though occasionally his face flashes with pain.
Between Merlin and me, a woman kneels in chains. She’s got her eyes closed, though she doesn’t seem quite like she’s sleeping. It’s almost like she’s meditating. If she is, I don’t blame her. It can’t be fun to be that viciously restrained. If she’s at all claustrophobic, it would have to be unbearable. I feel sorry for the woman and wonder what twisted turn of events brought her to this miserable state among these wretched people on this windy hill.
Merlin must be a mind reader because at that moment, she says, “Don’t feel bad for the little lady. She’s the single most dangerous person in Gatamora. Creates all the undead Alphas your family got in so much trouble for helping her out with and could kill you with the brush of her fingertips.” She waggles hers and a puff of orange fire blasts in her direction, knocking the apple from her other hand and her whole body from its wobbly perch.
“Silence,” Odette barks. She is the Fire Fate. Sy is the Mind Fate. Omora is the Beast Fate — names that I’ve only heard in whispers before today. Now, I hear these females responsible for so much death solidifying all that gossip into truth as they plot the destruction of my home and everyone I’ve ever known. “Ready the cage.”
Merlin dusts herself off, running her fingers through her blonde bangs, which are singed at the tips. She tosses Odette a dirty look but trudges off, past the Omega lying on the ground, who she kicks a tuft of moss at. I hate her a little more than I did for that.
As Merlin starts barking orders, the Fates chatter among themselves. They aren’t trying to whisper. I don’t suppose my overhearing their plans matters. “So you did find her, Omora?” Odette says to the Beast Fate, a very pale white woman with black hair that has streaks of white interspersed through it. She looks like she’s been through hell. She has bright red abrasions and scratches all over her arms, neck, chest and the two feet of her long legs that are visible beneath the hem of her simple black dress.
She looks nervous as she says, “I had her at the ports. She attacked me on my way here, and I…I lost her.”
Odette hisses, “You are a fucking disgrace. Adoqhina is stronger than that bonded bitch in Dark City. I am infinitely stronger than the Fallen imbecile who walked right into our trap,” she gestures dismissively at me. “And Sy’s Fallen Omega has yet to be discovered and may already be dead. But you…you are nothing compared to Freya and if you don’t figure out how to best her, then I will not stop Adoqhina the next time we suggest replacing…”
Omora slaps Odette across the face in retaliation. “Do not threaten me. The venom and the claws and the reason our undead army is so deadly, even to Berserkers, is thanks to me…”
“Enough. We don’t have time for your petty squabbles,” Sy says, her voice hard, her smile grim as it falls to me, looking absolutely nothing like the little girl she once did. Now, her pin-straight black hair hangs long and clean and untangled to her waist. Her monolid eyes shimmer when I look into them, making it impossible for me to tell their color. Her skin is pale, though not as pale as Omora’s. Her soul is just as dark though, her smile just as chilling.
Sy’s gaze snaps back to her sisters. “If Freya is gone, then good. We should act now before she returns. It was enough of an inconvenience having her harass us all the way across Zaoul.”
“Good thing she cares little for Betas and even less for Alphas, otherwise she might have made toppling Ruby City more difficult,” Odette suggests.
“She cares only for her precious little pets. Hopefully that means she won’t care what we do with this one.” Omora points offhandedly at me.
“If we hadn’t turned so many in the beginning,” Sy says, approaching the bound woman while pulling on a pair of black leather gloves. She pulls at the heavy chain dragging over the ground and the woman stirs. “Maybe we’d have been able to convince her to our side.”
“We’d have been even more powerful, then,” Odette mumbles, eyes growing distant. I wonder what fantasy she has conjured up in her mind. A world of undead. A Gatamora newly forged as a realm of witches and monsters.
With a single flick of Sy’s wrist, the chains fall to the ground with a loud clang and the once bound woman rises to stand. Sy holds up her hands, then winces. She approaches the female very carefully and rattles the thick length of chain. No longer draped in it, I see that the shackle is actually around the woman’s ankle. She’s not free, only unbound and capable of moving her arms and legs now.
“Are you alright, sister?” Odette says to Sy. The Fates are quite still as they watch the sleepwalking woman.
“Yes. She’s still fighting. It takes much more energy to keep her down than it did before.”
“It was easy when she was a girl. You hardly needed to influence Noon at all. She simply trusted us.”
Noon. The female’s name is Noon.
“I suppose we have Dark City to thank for that,” Omora snarls, massaging her injured shoulder. “No matter. It’ll be over soon.”
They all look to me then and the mood lifts between them, which for me can mean nothing good. “Lord Yaron will be here shortly,” Odette says, making me tense. “We will release the beast and he will walk willingly into our cage once he sees his precious little bondslave under our control.”
“And if he fights?” Omora says.
“He won’t fight,” Odette replies with a certainty I feel in my bones and hate that I feel it. I cannot be his downfall. “You saw how the Dark City Berserker was towards his Omega, and he is young and stupid. This Berserker is calculated and rational. He will walk willingly into a cage.”
They’re right. I know that. And I hate them for it. I’ll have to stop them. As if hearing my thoughts and knowing their futility — me, against three Fates, alone? — Odette gives me a knowing, evil look. I look away from her, over my shoulder, and happen to catch Owenna’s gaze. She shakes her head no once, swiftly, but for once I can’t read her and as quickly as she caught my eye, she looks away.
But Merlin sees.
The blonde is talking to a man with similar goggles to hers pushed up on his forehead. Through goggles of her own, she glances between my sister and me with her signature, trademark leer. The feeling of foreboding in my gut becomes nauseating. What’s she going to do? What are any of them planning? It somehow feels like they each have their own agenda here. Even the Fates…between them there is misalignment that, if I were a cleverer, angrier female, I might be able to figure out how to exploit…
Odette glances towards Shadow Ridge looming above us, separating us from the main island. “Where is he, anyway? I hate this fucking place. I’m ready to negotiate.”
“Negotiate,” Omora chuckles and the Fates all start to chuckle, and then that chuckle rolls into a loud laughter that fills me with ice, cold enough to douse my fire. I start to edge back, away from the Fates and the sleepwalking female and poor Sipho hanging in agony, but a boot to the spine keeps me from going far.
Merlin crouches down at my shoulder. “Whatever your plan is, you better get to it.” She chuckles when I don’t answer. “You just gonna let them kill you? Sheesh. Even Echo was made of tougher stuff. Had to shoot that woman a couple times and she kept crawling back. But you? You even got gifts?”
I purse my lips together and she shakes her head. She opens her mouth to say something else, but the caw of birds cuts between us like a strike of lightning. I flinch and follow Merlin’s goggled gaze up, up, up…and I gasp. Because the sky is filled with birds. Not one. Not a dozen — but thousands of them.
“She’s on us. Omora, handle it,” Odette hisses.
Sy says, “I won’t be much use to you until the Fallen Fire Omega is dead and I can wrap Noon back in her chains. As it is, she takes too much energy for me to concentrate on other illusions.”
“That’s fine. I have the Omega. Odette, you handle the Berserker.” Omora takes to the sky as a flock of vultures, all black with flecks of white among their feathers, and the two groups of warring birds meet in the sky like competing clashes of thunder.
“Well, things just got exciting,” Merlin says, giving my shoulder a squeeze that, from anyone else, I might have called reassuring.
“I…” I don’t speak — I’m not given a chance because a roar drags our attention back to the ground, back to the rocks that cascade down the ridge and the Berserker beast bounding down them looking…
Ancestors be…is that Yaron?
…he looks completely unhinged.
“Wow. Things have gotten very exciting. That’s my cue.” Merlin starts to walk away from me, and is she…is the bitch whistling? She glances over her shoulder with a grin and adjusts her goggles as she heads for the end of the cliff where the traitors are working feverishly at the ropes, positioning themselves into twin lines on either side of them. They start to pull at Merlin’s command.
The Berserker beast roars again. I switch my gaze back to the Berserker that I suppose must be Yaron, only I’ve never seen Yaron like this. The beast is frothing at the jowls, its strong jaws closed around the handle of an enormous axe, its eyes no longer storm cloud grey but black and ringed in red, the pupils glowing like embers.
Constant rumbling roars fill the air, emanating from his chest, and are even louder than the cries of the birds fighting each other overhead. I hold my arm up, terrified that I might get knocked out as birds drop all around us, falling like rain in blacks and whites but mostly blacks, but as soon as they hit the ground, they vanish in clouds like smoke, but even more effervescent.
“Mother’s bastards!” Odette shouts. “The Berserker is in fucking rut! Sy!”
“I can’t release Noon! We need him.”
“Then kill the Omega quickly and wrap Noon back in her chains! I need your help with this!”
“Can’t you do anything yourself?” Sy snarls, then curses, one of her knees buckling when the sleepwalking woman subtly sways. “Bring forth the creature, then!”
“Merlin,” Odette shouts, “open the cage!”
The traitors begin to pull the massive ropes on Merlin’s direction. Everyone but Owenna. She’s staring at me, an expression on her face I’ve seen many times before that makes my heart pound. She’s determined. And even though she turns towards me, the Fates don’t seem to notice. And shouldn’t they know better? Isn’t that how we all got into this mess? Underestimating a woman?
“Merlin! Now!”
An enormous clanging sound like metal hitting metal is followed by a roar. Owenna does not turn towards it, starting to come towards me instead, but I’m distracted. Everyone is distracted. How could they not be? Because the peek of a metal contraption appears above the edge of the cliff, one built strangely, in a sphere, without any bolts or seams that I can see. Just smooth metal disrupted by one great black opening, through which massive paws reach. The paws, each the size of my chest, are tipped in claws, black and dripping with what looks like ink. They sink into the soil and cut into the stone cliffs and haul forth the body of an undead Berserker beast.
My blood runs cold as the creature makes it onto land. The rotten head swivels back and forth, sniffing, though the nose is crusted in dirt and rot like the torso, which also boasts fur that might have, at one point, been light brown, but that’s now slimy green and blackened in patches, clearly burned. The jowls are massive and dripping globs of inky venom — but it’s black, not silver like Berserker venom ought to be. The eyes are black orbs shadowed in murky like the scum from a pond. One ear has been torn clean off and its back leg is half exposed bone, but its injuries don’t slow it down any. Instead, it prowls forward and tips its snout up towards Shadow Ridge. It releases a roar that sounds wrong, a burst of clicks that has me clutching my hands to my ears because it’s a horrible, grating sound. Yaron returns it with a roar of his own.
A battle cry.
The undead monster takes off at a sprint, running past me in a thunder that shakes the very foundation of the mountain. It meets Yaron at the base of the ridge, Yaron holding higher ground as their bodies collide. I lift up onto my knees and lift my hands, looking for my opening to burn the undead thing where it stands, but their bodies are too intertwined. Long limbs wrap around one another, and though Yaron fights with his axe in his mouth, he’s not able to keep enough distance between himself and the creature. I don’t want to hit him.
“Omora,” Sy shouts up at the sky, “call forth the other undead. Direct them towards the Berserker. Corral him towards the cage.”
A bird hits the ground feet away from me. I flinch, struggling up to my feet. Sy sees me moving and hisses to Noon, “Kill the Omega.”
I canter back, distracted by the sound of feet crunching over rock, scrabbling hands, rocks sliding and then crashing on more rock, and water thrashing below that. Bodies of the undead emerge from the treacherous staircase and start to sprint directly towards my Berserker. I hold up my hands and fire flows freely from them in a gigantic bright blue burst the size of our kitchen oven, taking out the entire line of them. Three fall over the edge of the cliff and four more stagger forward wrapped in flames. They don’t scream as they fall and somehow I find their apathy about the brutal nature of their deaths…their second deaths…their final deaths…even more sickening.
A blast of wind hits me, followed by orange and yellow flames this time. They wash over me, a cool balm that incinerates my clothes and my hair but not my skin and keeps Noon from coming any closer. I can hear the Berserker that is mine roaring terribly and Owenna screaming my name, terrified, though she shouldn’t be. This fire and I know one another well. It’s my counter, the red flames to my blue, but I run hotter and this fire does nothing to truly hurt me. All it does is slow me down and it will keep slowing me down, giving the Fates time enough to truly hurt the people closest to me. That is, unless I come to terms with the fact that I was wrong in what I told Zelie earlier. I can’t fight fire with fire. No, I can fight fire with something else that the Fate doesn’t have…I can fight her fire with my love.
I open my arms wide, my fire dying, and I pull all of the red flames towards me and then towards me further. Air and wind pick up the red flames, tossing them in the sky, bringing them to me in a cocoon that surrounds me, and then I kill it, cutting off the air around me, sucking it in like smoke. It dies like a candle flame under a snuffer when I wave my hand casually through it. The Fates are stunned and stare at me like they’ve never seen me before in their lives, Odette looking particularly stricken. I drop my arms, woozy now in the fire’s absence.
“Noon,” Odette says, sounding none too certain. Her bottom jaw trembles. “Now! Kill the Omega — ” But before she can finish her sentence, a dark shadow moves past me in a blur. Feet in brand-new leather shoes thump down onto the ground as Owenna charges the Fate of Mind and Madness. She reaches her in the blink of an eye and thrusts her fist forward, wielding a paring knife, which she manages to sink directly into the woman’s stomach.
Sy screams as she falls back, staggering away from the shackled Omega. She lands hard on her back beneath Owenna, who raises up, lifts her blade…and then screams. Owenna releases her blade and clutches her head as she rolls off of Sy. She sounds like she’s in agony. Behind her, still chained to the pole, Sipho seems to have woken up and starts thrashing.
I don’t understand what’s going on, but I turn towards Owenna, wanting to go to her, except Noon stands between us, blocking my path. I rear back, terrified after what Merlin said about Noon’s abilities, and hold up my hands. She’s blinking quickly now and glances down and around, looking so small. She looks so lost.
My desire to comfort her is strong, but I need to get to Owenna first. There’s too much happening. “It’s okay…” I start, but Noon shakes her head, her expression shuttering.
“It’s not…”
“Noon! Kill the Fallen Omega!” Odette screams. A screech shatters the sky followed by the rumble of a mad Berserker roar as Yaron swipes at the undead Berserker with axe and claws. He cuts into it every time, black blood spewing and matting his fur. The whole world shakes and I gasp as Noon starts running towards me. I hold up my hands instinctively, even though I know that, if she were to touch me, it would do me no good, but at the last second, she veers away.
I stagger back, stumbling over stones and my own two feet. I’m about to fall, but arms come around me and I know whose they are only by the smell they carry. She smells of gunpowder and body odor. Death and decay. She wrenches me back against her chest and starts to walk us towards the edge of the island, following Noon at the same leisurely pace she always has — the pace of a woman who has discovered everything there is to know about death and knows how to cheat it. Over my shoulder, I catch a glimpse of Merlin’s face. Her mouth opens and I catch a flash of her pink tongue as she licks her lips and grins.
“This is even more exciting than I thought it would be,” she cackles at the same time that my body starts to heat. “You think you’re gonna muster up a few flames for me, Kiandah?” I didn’t even know she knew my name and I hate the way she says it. Like I’m a child — no, not even that. Like I’m nothing. “You can try, but be warned — I’m fast. You better hope you’re faster.” Merlin’s warning makes sense then when it coincides with the press of the cold edge of a thick knife to my throat.
I hiss out a breath as Merlin turns us around, pushing me out in front of her, following Noon and the erratic path she takes to the edge of the cliff. It’s like she doesn’t see the edge, only a few paces away…
“Noon!” I shout, reaching for her. She may be a Fate, she may be able to kill with a touch, she may even be somehow responsible for the army of the undead, but I feel something towards her. Like…we’ve already met. And I don’t want to watch her die.
“Merlin, what are you doing? Kill the Omega and stop Noon! We need her!”
But Merlin doesn’t answer. She doesn’t let me go, either. She pushes me towards Noon, who stands on the edge of the cliff. With her heels practically hanging off of the rocks, she starts gathering up her chain, looping it around her neck and shoulders many, many times. She’s looking frantic, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds, looking down at the thrashing waters of Zaoul as if they hold all the answers before returning her gaze to Merlin and me.
Merlin just laughs and gestures at Noon with her knife. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna stop you.”
“Merlin!” Fire charges towards us, but I shield myself, shielding Merlin in the process.
She laughs, “That’s pretty nifty, there, Kiandah.”
“Let go of me,” I hiss.
She chuckles louder. “I don’t think I will. Your boy’s making good work a’ that thing though.”
“Forget the Omega, Odette! Help Omora! The cage will hold Freya, too!”
I look away from Noon to the birds overhead as fire lifts up from the cliffs to overwhelm them. I look away from the burning birds to Yaron, roaring his way towards us. I look away from Yaron to my sister who writhes on the ground, screaming next to Sy, Sipho raging down at the Fate. I look away from Owenna to Sy, from Sy to Odette running towards her, from Odette back to Noon, from Noon to Zaoul —
“Don’t!” I shout. Grief opens up in my chest like a mouth as I watch Noon take another half step back. “Let me help you,” I say to her, meeting her shattered gaze with determination that I’m not sure I have a right to, given the knife at my neck. I have to get to her. I have to save her.
“You really are a goodie two shoes,” Merlin says on a laugh. “Don’t let Echo find out you let me go, or she’ll kill you herself.” She kisses the side of my temple and I bang my head back into her nose, hearing the satisfying crunch of bone and Merlin’s responding curse. I decide then that I like bad things happening to Merlin.
“Fuck you, Omega,” Merlin shouts, but she’s also loosened her grip. I fall, rather than fight, and Merlin curses again when I hit the ground, shooting right out of her reach. I scramble over the stones, scraping up my hands and knees.
“Noon!” I lock eyes with her. Someone is screaming her name, one of the Fates. I say it again, too. “Noon, wait…”
But she only looks at me and whispers, “It’s better like this…” She takes a step over the edge of the cliff.
Not a leap, not a dive, no twist, no finesse. A simple step that could have looked accidental if I hadn’t seen the end written in eyes filled with such sadness. She disappears into Oblivion, into Zaoul’s greedy embrace, and I…I push at her with my wind, but it’s not enough to keep her here.
“No…” I gasp, scrambling to my feet — or trying to — but a hand that can only be Merlin’s grabs me by the back of my tattered dress and yanks me backwards. Something hot hits me. I can hear Owenna screaming. I can hear Yaron roaring. I can feel wetness on my back, dripping down my dress, but I don’t feel the pain from where Merlin just stabbed me until she withdraws her blade.
“Hawh,” comes my surprised gasp. I look down as Merlin pulls me back into her chest. She turns me around to face the cliff and all of its occupants, to face Yaron, who is thirty long paces away now, blocked by a Berserker that has taken tags out of his flesh. He’s too deep in his rut. He isn’t protecting himself. I should…I have to stop…have to…have to save… My thoughts are flickering and have begun to fade…
“Gatamora doesn’t need Alphas or Berserkers or fucking Omegas,” Merlin whispers in my ear. “Gatamora is mine, meant only for Betas.” Merlin pushes me away from her and slides her blade across my throat, slitting it. Blood spurts — my blood — and I gasp, choking on it.
I’m cold when she shoves me away from her body and I fall to my knees. “Kiandah!” comes the roar, this time, a man’s.
I blink and see Yaron caught in a transformation — half man, half creature. He jumps from the undead Berserker’s back, landing on two legs instead of four limbs. His distended jaw snaps shut, the axe falling from it into one of his hands. He cocks it back. Yaron bellows out a roar as the axe flies from his fingertips, inches away from my face. THUNK. The sound it makes when it connects with flesh.
Screams rise up. I can hear the voices of Trash City Betas screaming Merlin’s name. Running. So much running. A wall of crimson runs down from Shadow Ridge, meeting the dozens of undead and disposing of them. The Fates are sprinting towards the edge of the cliff. Their faces are elated, despite the loss of the chained Omega and of Merlin. They seem victorious and that’s when I realize that I can no longer hear the birds battling.
Yaron is rushing towards me, his limbs all distending and contracting uncontrollably, but the undead Berserker still has him in its sights. It tackles him to the ground. I choke on my own blood, but Yaron — as a man — manages to grab the creature by its back fur, toss it over his head and slam it on the ground between us. He charges it, diving into its deteriorating flesh and entering it as a man, but emerging from it as a beast.
Yaron…
Yaron explodes from its belly as a Berserker, drenched in black venom and reeking of blood. The lower half of his head shimmers in transformation, never fully forming into that of a man, even as he opens his jowls and says, “Do you accept my bond, Kiandah?” The raspy hiss hardly sounds like him and I know I’m not talking to Yaron at all. This is his monster. And it is mine. And it wants me to keep. And I am its. Because I was even before he knew I existed.
I nod as darkness comes for me. Pain comes next,stemming from my throat and my side, and then moving everywhere else. Heat and warmth radiate through my body. I don’t want to die.