77. Maren
Maren
The wind died. The rain thinned. All around, the fighting slowed, heads turning toward us. Thaan gazed at the hilt protruding from between his fourth and fifth ribs, with a sense of distant and slowly descending disbelief. His talons left my chest.
He struck, snatching Selena by the neck as he stood, her feet dangling just over the ground. “You can’t,” he ground out. “You couldn’t have. I’m your master.”
“Oh, but she did,” cooed a smooth, silky voice, a wisp of shadow.
I opened my bleary eyes, watching a curling strand of smoke hover over Thaan’s shoulder.
“She made a vow to herself, some twenty-five years ago, that she would end your life. An oath that predates the one she made to you. Why do you think I came to help you tonight, with no payment at all?” He tittered, amused, before disappearing through the cool night air.
Selena said nothing. Throat tight, she pulled her hand from her pocket, unfolding it for us to see. Blood ran from her hand, draining between her fingers like crimson streams escaping a dam. In the center of her palm, two vibrant crystals lay bloodied and broken.
“No,” Thaan breathed, hand roaming to find the knife still wedged in his ribs.
The stars fell from above. I blinked at first, thinking I’d lost enough oxygen to hallucinate their fall.
They poured like something from a dream, diamonds dropping into the center of the subdued fight, hovering over the trees until they began to shift and whirr into a face of serene and terrifying beauty.
“Hello, young mortal,” Love said, smiling coyly at me.
“I see you found your cordae again. I knew that you would.” She reached through the air, and as Thaan realized she aimed for him, he turned to flee.
Her hand caught the back of his tunic just as Love’s sisters spun into the air beside her, each of them taking Thaan’s arms.
He screamed as if their touch burned, lunging away, rolling and kicking for freedom.
His talons clawed at the earth, heels carving a path as they dragged him back to the center of the fight.
His feathers fell, his skin began to slough away.
He was half-decayed when the stars rose again, flying straight to the sky, taking him with them.
His scream echoed out of existence, until all that was left was warm and shining silence.
The trees breathed around us, leaves rustling high in the palms, grasses tickling my calves. Feathers drifted lazily across the ground. The drones looked at each other blankly. As if Thaan’s death was a language they’d never learned to speak.
“Leihani,” came a murmur behind me. I turned, throwing myself at it in shock and awe and heavy mistrust that this was all real. Kye tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, smiling sadly enough for me to remember the staggering price of victory. Dimas. Aitne.
My eyes roamed for more, terrified at what I might find. Bodies lay everywhere, draped in silks of silver and black and Parian white. Dark cloaks, too, scattered across the grass and under palms, hiding the faces of the drones who wore them.
But they came to me, through the shredded remains of battle. My mother and father, Hadrian and Diara, Aren and Nori and Olinne.
Pheolix stumbled from behind a wall of drones who were now beginning to wander aimlessly away. “Selena,” he said, forcing his way blindly through.
At the sound of his voice she seemed to wake, tilting her shaking hand until the bloody crystals fell to the soil below. “Pheolix.” Every inch of her trembled, adrenaline flooding any sense of calm, and I thought for a moment she might drop to the ground.
Aren took Pheolix’s arm, leading him to her, where he snatched her up and hauled her in tight.
“Are you healed?” Selena asked in a strange, far-away voice. Something about it made me pull from Kye’s arms, pushing myself to my feet. Selena had always spoken smoothly, softly.
Never weakly.
My mother did the same, glancing at Selena and then at me. My breath froze in my chest, dread gusting over my shoulders like a frigid deluge.
Your blood will always keep the score.
Selena’s knees caved. She dropped against Pheolix, the color leeching from her skin. He seemed to crumble around her, letting his own weight buckle until he sank into the long pili grass, stroking her hair from her face.
“Please. Please,” Pheolix said, staring up at the shadow hovering over them. “I’ll give you anything. Please, don’t let Death take her.”
Darkness only gazed at him, and I remembered his words under Sylus Lake.
You should know, pet, that it’s the souls with a broken heart I send away.
“Give her a few minutes,” the god of shadow said. Under his hand, silver dust glimmered to life, sifting sands until it became the shape of something like a large hound. Darkness’s shadowy fingers delved into it, stroking it as though it were fur. Death sat on its heels, patiently waiting.
Letting us say goodbye.
It was a favor, I suppose. A blessing. A miracle. Death and Darkness stalling against time, allowing us a final moment together. It didn’t feel like any of those things.
It felt like my throat had been ripped from my body. Like a knife had plunged into my heart, like every breath was tight and laced with fire, threatening to swallow me whole.
Cebrinne leaned across them, taking Selena’s hand.
Hooking Selena’s pinky into her own. “You told me, when we said goodbye once before, that I was never afraid. That you didn’t know how to be brave without me.
” Her voice broke, and when she blinked, tears sprang from her eyes.
“You were always brave, Selena. I was never brave without you.”
Selena smiled at her, the corners of her mouth frail. Pained. Her blood began to simmer, threading toxic heat through her veins. But she curled her pinky into my mother’s. “Until the ocean dries up.”
Cebrinne nodded. “Until the moon burns out.”
A furious tremble entered Selena’s limbs as she fought to stay, each second a battle. Her eyes met mine, and I suddenly didn’t know what to say. A lifetime of words melted over the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t have time to speak them all.
“I was wrong,” I said, for once not caring that I sounded like a child, sniveling and hoarse with desperation.
Everything hurt, the scrapes and cuts along my skin, a finger I had surely broken, a bleeding gash in my thigh I didn’t remember receiving.
My ribs felt like they’d been crushed, my lungs burning, each drawing breath like small blades razing my chest. Nothing hurt as much as my heart, battle-worn and shattered. “I did need you. I still do.”
Selena cupped my cheek with her hand. “You were right.” She slanted her gaze up at Pheolix, who looked as though he’d forgotten how to breathe.
“I’m not ready, heiress,” he whispered. “I still need to take you to see the Polaris Lights. Do a dance on a beach in Rivea. To find him.”
Him. The word eddied in my mind, circling like tiny leaves caught in the wind. We were protecting someone from Thaan.
The silver dust crept forward on its paws, sliding its narrow muzzle under Selena’s arm. Its ears laid back, shining eyes closing.
“You will do those things,” Selena said back to him, her words thin. Tired.
“What if…” He swallowed. Shook his head. “What if I forget?”
“You won’t,” Cebrinne said, reaching for his arm. “We won’t let you.”
Selena gathered a slow, rattling inhale, her fingers leaving my cheek to stroke down the burr of stubble lining Pheolix’s jaw.
“You were always my escape,” she breathed.
The silver creature dissolved, dust vanishing into nothing before it sank to the ground.
Leaves swished, branches snapped.
Kazimir staggered from the night, dropping to his knees, his eyes devouring the sight of us cloistering around Selena, his mouth parted like a small crack in the earth.
“She’s gone?” he asked, almost dazed with disbelief.
I shifted away, leaning on my hip to launch slowly in the opposite direction, back to Kye’s waiting arms. “She’s gone,” I said, urging strength to find my voice once again. “Thank you, Kazimir. You’ve completed your oath. I release your blood.”