Chapter 17 Daesra #2
We’re not yet close enough to see any dock or bridge stretching out to it from the shore, but I imagine there must be one for any shade to be able to reach the Blessed Isles.
Unfortunately that means there are shades nearby, those who were either granted entry to the golden sanctuary or those who are foolish or desperate enough to try for it anyway.
I even make out scattered groups of travelers in the distance.
“But how do we get there?” I wonder aloud, unease creeping over me.
“You don’t.”
I spin at the sound of a harsh, grating voice behind us and slide in front of Melé at the same time. Pogli is already growling before I realize who has landed in our wake on silent wings. What, rather.
A Gentle One.
“Godsdamnit,” I hiss. “What do you want now?”
“I want what my sister wanted.” She has the same shape as her sister: a woman’s face and bare torso, with snake hair, bat wings, and raptor legs complete with wicked talons.
Her features are just as beautiful, but her crimson lips are twisted in an ugly snarl that readily reveal her sharp teeth, and her slitted eyes are less like a snake’s and more like a daemon’s—bloodred.
“I represent the Mother, and I deliver her justice.”
I can certainly remember the Mother’s disappointment, that central figure spinning the threads of lives over her blood-drenched lap. But whereas she was calm, eerily serene, even, this creature is the embodiment of fury.
The Maiden’s Jealousy, now the Mother’s Wrath. Perhaps it’s fitting that I should be judged and punished by these representations of the women in my life. Especially the mother figure.
But then Melé slips in front of me, raising her hands as if to fend off the Gentle One. “I’m his actual mother, so you should leave us be.”
The creature bows her head, but when she looks up her eyes are just as furious as before. “I will not harm you, sweet shade, devoted mother, since you are destined for the Blessed Isles. Step aside. He does not deserve one such as you to defend him.”
She’s right, I can’t help but think, until Melé’s voice cracks like a whip.
“That’s not your decision, you bat-winged bitch.”
Both the Gentle One and I blink at her in surprise. Oh gods, I think, she is learning from me.
“I-it’s the Mother’s,” the creature stammers, the jagged edges of her voice dulled in mild bemusement until the heat rises again. “And he defied her.”
“How did I defy her? Let me guess,” I bite out before she can perhaps reassess Melé’s eligibility for the Blessed Isles.
I reposition myself in front of her once more, despite her noise of protest, and I make my tone as scornful as possible to draw the Gentle One’s attention.
“I’m not supposed to be here? I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere?
” My mind sifts for the words the Mother spoke after the Maiden.
“Ah, I should be left forever inflamed.”
The creature nods once. “You belong in the Pit of Hell, awash in the River of Fire.”
“But you already know I’m not going that way.” I gesture off into the dark jaws of the harsh mountains looming beyond the lake, the faint orange glow barely discernible through the heavy clouds. When my hand returns to my side, my sword is in it. “We don’t have to do this.”
“Oh, but we d—”
I try to consume her soul before she can finish her pronouncement, even knowing what it might do to me.
Because what she might do otherwise could be worse.
With unseen hands, I reach straight for the bright-hot heart of her aether, ready to rip it out—but she blocks me, like her sister did.
Except instead of knocking me back with the bluntness of a shield, the Gentle One cuts me in return—on the inside.
Dark, invisible claws rake through me, leaving equally invisible wounds. But I can feel them.
I gasp, staggering, even though I’ve received no physical blow.
Which gives her a true opening. She flies at me in a blur, nearly sending me into a spin over the sand and landing on the other side of me in a sliding crouch.
When I face her, I feel the hot blood running down my arm.
Hear the golden drops pattering on the ground from my fingertips.
Too much of it for me to try to reabsorb while fighting.
And just like that, the clusters of shades in the gray, misty distance pause in their migrations… turn… and begin to shift toward us, like flocks of birds responding to an unknown signal. Except I know exactly what draws them.
Fuck, fuck, fuck is all I can think as I parry the Gentle One’s next two attacks, which come faster than a mortal blink. I can hold her off for now, despite my wound, but the shades will reach us in no time, and then I’ll have to—
Pogli barrels into the creature, except he’s no longer small.
The size of a lion, the chimera smashes the Gentle One to the ground, flat on her back in a furrow of sand, his huge claws digging into her chest, his oversize jaws snapping in her face.
Her own claws flex, her talons rising to gut him—no, no, no—but then they drop back down with the frustrated hiss from her snakes.
She can’t hurt him, I think giddily. Pogli is too pure. I raise my sword, wondering how I can take her head from her shoulders without risking him as well.
And then Melé cries out a warning—the nearest shades are almost upon us, running at full tilt toward us, kicking up sand.
Pogli lifts his huge head at her call, and then he leaps off the Gentle One.
Moving like a winged storm, he careens toward them, scattering them like mice with his ferocious charge.
When I turn back to the Gentle One, she’s gone.
I seek out the next group of shades in a panic. I need aether to combat her. There’s nothing else for me to do.
I have no choice.
Melé must follow my gaze, because before I can close my eyes to focus my inner sight, she screams, “Daesra, don’t!”
Grief already streaks her tone—and I suddenly can’t bear the thought of adding to her misery. I let out a ragged groan of frustration. But if I can do anything, it’s to not disappoint her so thoroughly.
So I don’t. She told me to question whether or not I must become a monster. So I do.
I let my invisible grip fall away with a despairing sigh.
All-too-solid talons sink into me from behind, piercing straight through both shoulders.
I cry out as agony jolts down my spine. My sword slips from my numb fingers, and all I can do is thrash helplessly like a fish on a hook, only making my injuries worse with the Gentle One clinging to my back, buffeting the sand and jerking me with the flapping of her wings.
Pogli is too far away chasing shades to come to my aid, and Melé is frozen, her mouth open in a silent scream of horror.
Even now, when there’s nothing else for me, I can’t stand consuming the shades’ souls in front of her. Not that I could necessarily concentrate through such pain to manage such a thing.
“Remember not to blame yourself,” I rasp out, holding her panicked gaze. Before I can add for my behavior, the Gentle One coils her strong legs and spreads the great span of her wings.
The ground rips out from under me. Those cruelly hooked talons dig deeper into my flesh and bear me up and up, and then out over the Lake of Misery—leaving Melé and Pogli far behind.
The last I see of my mother is her running through the sand after me, growing tinier and tinier below, her eyes wide with terror, her hand reaching hopelessly for me, her desperate cries swallowed by the howling rush of air.
At least the Gentle One isn’t headed toward the sea. At first, through my haze of pain, I imagine she plans to drop me from a great height into the middle of the deep blue lake, or even onto the rocky shore on the other side, where the mountains soon rise in wicked points.
But then she hisses down at me over the wind, her voice a harsh promise, “The fires in the Pit of Hell await you.”