Chapter 39 #2
In a flash, the sand rises in a column, right in front of me.
My mother stands there, twisted and wrong.
Her normally smiling mouth is curled into a smirk.
“Perfect? I couldn’t get the doors open.
If I could … maybe we could have all gotten out.
Maybe we wouldn’t all be dead. Maybe you wouldn’t be a ghost of your pain and worst memories, walking. ”
I swallow. “It’s not your fault,” I say, meaning it. “It’s hers.”
“And what have you done about it?” She takes a step forward. “I lied. You aren’t perfect. You are weak. You are an embarrassment. You should have died that day. The world would be better for it.”
It wouldn’t hurt so much if I didn’t agree with her.
Tears sting my already sand-crusted eyes, running down my torn-up cheeks.
She steps forward. “Your sister, she was perfect. She was always better than you. Prettier. Kinder. She could have made the world better. You? You just want to kill. Hatred lives in your heart. Love lived in hers.”
The sand thickens, twisting around me, blocking the rest of the desert, trapping me with her. It circles like a cyclone, howling, her words echoing.
The air is being choked away. My senses are, one by one, being snuffed out. My knees buckle. Slowly, I sink to the ground.
“You are nothing. You are worse than nothing. You are the reason everyone is dead. You are a poison. You are a curse.”
My breathing becomes panting as I try to suck in air that isn’t there, my lungs filling with sand instead.
As I fall forward, the last words I hear are spoken right into my ear, as if my mother bent low to tell me, “Do the world a favor and die this time.”
I stay down. For the world. For everyone that would be alive if I had just stayed down. If I had just died when the lightning struck me.
Sand brushes over me, covering me like a blanket. Soon I’ll be buried, just like the rest of this desert’s secrets.
And the world will be better for it.
For a while, only the sand whispers. Then there’s nothing. A thick layer has overtaken me. I can’t even feel the sun anymore.
The world is quiet below.
Until another voice ruins it.
Stellan. There he is, in the echo of a memory. “Why do you rise?”
“Leave me alone,” I say, the words barely reaching my lips.
“Why do you rise, Aris?”
“Leave me. Please.”
“Why are you doing this? Do you even have a reason?” The voice is above me now, as if he’s trying to find me under the layers of sand.
A reason.
He sighs. “You don’t, do you? Not a good one, anyway.” He starts to walk away. I feel his steps receding, leaving me here.
Fury lances through me, my veins igniting. I couldn’t feel my body before, but now I feel every limb, every bone, every muscle. They’re all tensed in rage. I shake with it as I break through the crushing weight of the sand.
I can’t even see the ghost of him—I can’t see anything—but these emotions will not stay buried. My voice is unrecognizable, a primal growl. I don’t need to just tell him. I will tell the entire galaxy if I need to. I will fill universes with my fury. I will shake the stars loose with my rage.
“I’m doing this because she killed her! She was my sister, she was innocent, she was everything, and that goddess fucking killed her because she fucking could!
And now … I’m going to kill all of them.
I’m going to burn those merciless gods to ashes, even if I burn with them.
Even if I am skinned and broken and bleeding and all my bones are shattered, I will drag myself to those gods, and I will end them, and if it kills me, then I will die with a smile on my face, because it will have been worth it.
They will be scourged from this world—and then, only then, finally then, will I know peace.
” My voice is a screaming rasp. “These ghosts … they’re right.
I am a blight. I am not honorable. What I want is revenge.
That’s all I want. That is the only reason why I’m doing this. ”
Blinking, panting, I finally see the shape of Stellan, in the sand. The shape of all of them, every single person I have loved and lost. All staring at me, on my knees, shaking with rage.
I remember what Vander said about the monster that makes you an enemy of yourself. I wonder if I’m looking right at it.
My lip curls. “Go ahead. Do your worst,” I say to the invisible creature making these shapes, digging a blade into my ever-bleeding wound.
I unsheathe my sword and stab it into the sand below, using it to steady me. Slowly, on shaking legs, I rise. They continue to tremble as I take a step forward. The sand shifts beneath me, but I do not fall. I dig my feet into the ground and stand firm.
A wicked, twisted laugh leaves my lips. “I have lost my entire family. I have lost everyone I have ever loved. This world is not large enough to hold my fury. It wants to knock me down?” I scoff.
“I would like to see it try.” My hands tighten around my hilt, and my blade’s energy runs through me, invigorating me.
“My worst nightmare has already happened, and I’m still standing. I’m not afraid of anything,” I bellow.
And the sand drops away to nothing. The dust vanishes with the wind. Everything settles.
Raker.
I race through the dunes, squinting through the grit—and that’s when I see him.
The Warrior Without Marks on His Armor. The Battle-Ender. The Devil’s Blade. So many names. And he’s earned every single one.
His hood is partially up. He’s battling an invisible source with the frenzied fury of a duel.
His metal sings, it glimmers, it moves in arcs like water, he was made for this, he is the best at this.
His face is almost expressionless, but I know him.
By now … I know him. I see the coiled rage in the set of his shoulders.
I watch as it bleeds into his movements.
They become more hurried. More reckless.
The illusions … they’re getting to him. I wonder what he’s seeing.
I’m not afraid of anything, he said. I think he believed it too.
But it seems even devils have demons.
When I get closer, his eyes close, like he can’t bear to even look at what’s appeared. What’s so bad that he can’t face it?
He winces. Winces.
It’s instinct to reach for him.
I take his arm, trying to pull him out of this dream, but instead of leaving with me, he lashes out, nearly slicing me through my middle. I barely jump away in time.
My chest is heaving. So close. He was so close to killing me.
I remember the circle of dead knights. I remember their heads, cracking against the stone floor, over and over and over.
A lick of fear slides down my spine. He can kill me so easily; I’ve known it this entire time. But I’ve never been afraid he might actually do it until now.
He’s not himself. He thinks I’m someone else—
“Aris,” he growls. I blink. He knows it’s me. And he still swung his blade. “Aris, leave me alone.” It’s an order.
I should. It’s the smart thing to do.
But aren’t those the same words I said to Stellan? I begged him to leave me to die, but he never did. Even his illusion didn’t leave until I was standing. Until I was free.
I will be a hand in the darkness. I will pull him out of this.
“I’m not leaving you,” I say, yelling so he hears me over the roaring sand.
His face twists into a mask of cold, cruel amusement.
It’s as if the worst of himself has taken over.
All the tenderness, all the understanding, has vanished.
It’s been replaced with the callous, heartless warrior I encountered in the rain.
“You never did have great survival instincts,” he spits. “But me—you won’t survive me.”
I have a feeling he’s right. But still, still, I stay.
He can tell, even with his eyes closed. He shakes his head. “You are a fool, Aris. Searching for shreds of humanity in a broken world. Searching for care that has never existed. Looking for beauty”—he spits the word—“in monsters.”
His blade is still battling that invisible beast. His eyes are still firmly shut. I take a step forward and duck, barely missed by the metal again. “You’re right,” I say, my voice just a rasp in the whirl of sand. “I see beauty in dark places. If that makes me a fool, then so be it.”
I reach for his hood, to pull it down completely, but he shoots back, then raises his sword right in front of him, a barrier between us.
“You ask why I hide? Why I wear the hood? The mask? The helmet?” he yells, face twisted. “I hide because I can’t even look at myself, Aris,” he says. “The things I’ve done … you have no idea.”
“I can imagine,” I say, inching closer. I just need him to open his eyes. Maybe if I touch him—
He senses me immediately and turns, raising his blade again. “You can’t,” he spits. “If you knew all the blood on my blade, you would run, Aris. You would cower. You wouldn’t look at me the way you do. You would never call me beautiful.” He laughs cruelly. He’s trying to scare me off.
“I’m not leaving,” I say steadily.
“Then you will die.” He says it like a promise.
I shake my head. My voice is unyielding. “I’m not afraid of you.”
His is pitying. “You really should be.”
He lashes out again—and this time, his blade meets mine.
The ringing of their joining echoes through the desert, muting the roaring winds for just a moment. The force of it spirals down my veins.
The one blade he can’t break. He pushes, growling as if he’s trying. He’s trying.
I push back, teeth grinding together, feet sliding. I put every shred of energy and rage and feeling into that one motion. Slowly, in a high-pitched wail, our blades begin to slide together as I get closer. Closer to him.
“Open your eyes, Raker,” I say. My arms are shaking with effort. We’re too close now. One sudden move, and he’ll skewer me on his metal. My voice is a whisper. “Please.”