Chapter Fifty-Six #2
It was then that I felt them—the tendrils of his power, sunk deep into my mind.
They spidered like a root network over the curve of my brain, vaster and more complex than I’d ever encountered before, thinner, like vines twining through rock.
With each breath I drew, they seemed to flex gently, a hand lightly gripping my skull.
My pulse skipped. He’d been using my anger, I realized—hiding behind it like a shield to disguise his own movements.
And this was the result.
At once, the tendrils speared down. The pain was unimaginable—a heated knife, cleaving my mind in two. Behind my eyes, strange images appeared, pulsing against my skull:
A flock of crows, red-eyed and screaming. They were crowded together, beating their wings in a black cave—it took me a moment to realize it was my own head they were trapped in.
A field of mice, flooding out of a dead sun. Below them, a yellow forest spread out, sulfur plains.
Dark water, filling up my lungs. There were forms moving within it—ancient fish, as long as my arm and sharp-toothed. One tore into my heart—
I screamed. Altogether, it was less than a minute before I dropped the pistol.
My mind was still throbbing when Bastian approached. I’d sunk down on my knees—to scramble for the gun, I thought—though it was hard to keep track of my motives. They surged like jelly in my head, feeble and ever-shifting, coming apart when I tried to grasp them.
Kneeling, the Weaver King picked up the pistol. I went still as he jabbed it against my temple, my limbs too weak even to attempt resistance. The bite of the metal was soothing, like a damp cloth draped over my brow.
“I am glad, at least, to know you were out there,” Bastian hissed, leaning closer. His eyes were intent, that pearly brushed gray—so much like his son’s. “I was so worried I would always be alone.”
I let my gaze drop as his fingers moved to the trigger. Timidly, my heart beat: once, twice.
Neither it, nor I, were sure whether it would get to a third.
There was a sound: the strike of metal against bone. A shriek followed directly after it, agonized and ragged, arcing above the distant crashing of the waves.
Time hitched. It took me a moment to realize that the cry was not my own.
Abruptly, the gun fell away. When I looked up, it was to the sight of Noé crouching over us, a knife plunged deep into his father’s back.
“You are alone,” my husband panted from above me. “But she is not.”
Relief poured through me. Noé’s clothes were soaked through with seawater, his hair like ink, wet and dripping from the ocean.
He’d abandoned our rowboat about a quarter mile or so offshore, swimming the rest of the way to the island while I continued in the vessel—in case Bastian sighted our craft and realized there were two of us in it rather than one.
I knew that after fleeing Fortblanche, the Weaver King would expect me to track him down—just as I knew that when I came for him, he would assume that I’d come alone.
It was what he would have done, after all, and in his mind, he and I were reflections of one another.
Neither of us could trust anyone other than ourselves.
Once, his guess would have been right. Once, I’d had no loyalties; I’d made alliances only to break them, just as he did. But then I’d met Noé.
A sound brought me back to the present, harsh and grating, like nails over stone: Bastian was laughing.
“Well…well,” he wheezed. He was bent over the ground, hands flat against the earth, his fine suit already damp with blood. His cane lay to his side, the metal rabbit staring blankly into the distance. “You can’t say…I didn’t put up a fight.”
He let out a grunt as Noé jerked his blade free. Moving to his father’s front, he took Bastian by the chin, pulling his head up toward him. “You tried to take my wife from me.”
His voice was hushed—almost intimate in tone—as if he were asking for an explanation. Rather than answer, Bastian coughed. Spittle had gathered at the corners of his mouth, stained pink from his injury.
“If you were stronger, you could have stopped me sooner,” the Weaver King spat between labored breaths.
“I tried to raise…a lion. The world gave me…a fawn. Your heart…has turned you into something…suckling and weak.” Feebly, he grabbed at his son’s collar, hauling him closer. “A mewling, sniveling babe.”
Noé did not flinch. “And yet, I am still yours.”
“You do not belong to me.” Retching, Bastian let his arm fall. Blood spattered over the ground, bright against the moss. “I never knew you.”
His face was downturned. For a moment, I wondered if Noé would take hold of it again—saw his eyes flash, as if tempted—but in the end, he bent down, wiping the blade of his knife against the moss.
“Then you will die in the arms of a stranger,” he said.
He pulled his arm back.
“Let this be a lesson to you, Father. My wife is not yours to steal.”
The Weaver King looked up at him. I glanced away the second before Noé’s blade made contact with his father’s throat.
There was a wet slash. A gurgle. And then nothing at all.
Moments later, Noé’s hands were on my shoulders. His skin was slick with blood, warm and tacky; still, I let him cup my cheek in my palm as he asked, “Are you all right?”
His shirt—his neck—was painted with red. Touching his jaw, I questioned, “Are you?”
My husband flinched. Inhaling, he turned over his shoulder, to where Bastian’s body lay slumped against the ground.
The Weaver King’s eyes were closed, his expression haggard, his lips slightly parted as though to cry out.
“Do you know, when my grandfather passed, my father told me, ‘One less rat to kill’?” Noé asked softly.
“That was what family was to him.” He tensed. “Now there are no rats left but me.”
Shaking his head, he twisted back toward me.
“His allies will soon be after us,” Noé said. “Next move is ours.” He sat back on his heels, looking at me. “Do you wish to fight or flee?”
I studied him—his dark hair, his pale skin, an exact match to that of the man whose body lay cooling in the dirt. So much like his father. And yet, so different.
Generations turned. Lions birthed fawns, and peace came from war. There was hope.
“I will always fight,” I answered. “Until my very last breath.”
My husband smiled. “Well then, Mrs. Alaire, let’s begin.”