Chapter 73 #2
The woman held out her hands. “Hell Gate? Hmm. No.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “No?”
“Hell Gate’s gone. Nearly everyone’s dead.”
If the solemn one cared about the girl or the innocent one, he would’ve asked if they’d survived.
He didn’t.
“What do you want then?”
“You,” the pixie-like woman said.
The man blinked.
“To come back with me. You left a few things unfinished.”
“No.”
“You don’t have a choice. I’m the princess rescuing the villain. That’s how our story works.”
The solemn one laughed. The sound was yanked from him like a rusty knife sliding up his throat. He grinned at the pixie-like woman. “Kill her.”
The response was instantaneous. The depraved beings rushed at the pixie-like woman like a vat of boiling oil dumped from a murder hole.
They crashed over her, tearing at her limbs, yanking at her skirt.
The wind shrieked and shoved at their sweaty, blood-crusted bodies.
Soon, the woman was buried beneath the frenzied mass.
They would tear her apart like animals ripping bark from a tree. They would break her limbs and fracture her bones. The wind ripped around them, shoving at the screaming beings.
The solemn man stood at the edge of the frothing madness. He stared at the pile of creatures, his eyes a flat, pitiless gray.
He was about to turn away when a leaf-shaking, bare-branched moan erupted from the pile of beings. The solemn one paused and watched, riveted, as the depraved began to weep. Then, as one, they shuddered, withered, and disintegrated like dried leaves in the fall.
The solemn one let out a stunned breath.
The wind rushed toward the pixie-like woman as she stood and wiped the dust from her torn clothing and her hands. The leaf-dust floated around her, and the wind blew it away.
The only beings left in the room were the pixie-like woman, the solemn man, the new ones, and the wind.
The pixie-like woman shook her head as if she were disappointed in the man. “What are you thinking? You can’t kill death.”
He smiled. “I can try.”
“How long have you been here?”
The solemn man looked around the room, his eyes narrowed, lips moving. The wind realized he was counting the heads. It huffed, sweeping all the dust around the ugly room.
“997 days,” he said finally, “and 998 nights.”
The wind whistled. Time was a strange thing.
Humans could feel the weight of it pressing down on them.
Sometimes, it weighed more, and in some places, it pushed them so quickly toward the grave that they were buried beneath it.
Time had avalanched over the solemn one in this den, while outside, it had barely moved a breath.
“Nearly three years,” the pixie-like woman said. “Hmm. For us, it’s only been a few days.”
The solemn one gave the woman an arrested stare, as if he were witnessing the birth of a strange creature he’d never known existed.
“If it makes you feel better, she tried to come back for you.”
“I don’t care,” he said, and the wind knew he truly didn’t.
“What did you have to do to survive here for three years?”
The solemn one gestured to himself. “I didn’t survive. I ruled.”
The woman laughed, and the wind flinched at the sound. “Well. Then I’m sorry to take you away from your kingdom. But . . . it’s time to get out of this place.”
The solemn one shook his head. His tentacles stretched toward the woman. “Can’t. I am this place.”
The wind swung backward as the solemn one’s tentacles rushed at the woman.
They spun around her, gobbling up the light.
They were the viscous, vicious, horrible heart of depravity.
The wind shied back, shoving at the black coils.
They swarmed the woman, taking bites from her skin, ravaging her flesh.
The wind screamed. The black tentacles wrapped the woman to the solemn man, tying her against him. They fed on her, smothering her in blackness. The room went dark, all the firelight extinguished.
The wind hid beneath the solemn one’s chair.
“I won’t bow to the leggerock again,” the solemn one swore. “I won’t do his bidding. I won’t be his Knife. I won’t bend to his will. I’ll never go back. I’ll die before I go back.”
The wind shuddered at the promise. Beneath the words was the quiet moan of weeping. They were the tears of the bereaved. The widows. The orphans. The left-behind. They were the bitter regrets and the sorrowful longings. It was the pixie-like one drawing death into her.
The black clouds screamed and rushed at the woman. The tentacles swarmed her, darting and stabbing. She pulled them into herself, swallowing the darkness whole. The tentacles unwound from the solemn one, yanking free of him.
“No—” he shouted.
He broke off when the pixie-like woman yanked the final tentacle free. He collapsed in a heap at her feet.
The black clouds shrieked and then fled, leaving the room to darkness and silence.
The wind crept forward, nudging the solemn one’s unconscious form. His heart thundered behind his ribs. His limbs twitched restlessly. His mouth turned down at the edges.
The wind sniffed his scarred skin. Blood. Sweat. The sharp, pitiless edge of a blade. A cold, metallic, dark-roomed scent. If there was light there, the wind couldn’t sense it.
The pixie-like woman sighed. “It would’ve been easier if you’d walked out.”
The wind helped the pixie-like woman to drag the unconscious, solemn man through the city streets and across the gravel field.
She yanked his legs, and he skidded on his back.
By the time they’d reached the forest edge, the man’s back was raw like ground beef.
He’d left a smeared trail of blood behind him.
The black clouds hovered close, but not too close. They were frightened of the woman.
At a tall tree, the wind helped the pixie-like woman shove the solemn one up limb after limb. Then, with the black, ropelike clouds roaring and churning, the pixie-like woman grabbed the solemn one in a tight hug and tumbled through a rippling, bright white light.
At the last moment, the wind grabbed onto her sleeve and tumbled out of the Den of Depravity.
* * *
A long sleep later, the solemn one woke up chained to a bed in a dark room in the basement of the asylum. When he opened his eyes, he arched his back, digging his heels into the narrow cot. He gripped the sheets, clenched his teeth, and held back a roar of pain.
Sweat dripped down his face, and his gaze frantically searched the dark.
Finally, he found the pixie-like woman. His chest heaved as the full weight of the leggerock’s will returned, slamming over him.
The wind felt the weight of it twist his bones and scald his blood.
It felt the roar of it enter his lungs and sear his heart.
It shackled him and held him absolutely in its grip.
There was nothing there to fight it anymore.
The sliver of good that had held it at bay was gone.
The solemn one collapsed against the bed, all his strength devoured.
“No,” he whispered, his pain-ravaged voice unrecognizable. “No! You don’t know what you’ve done.”
The pixie-like woman smiled. “I know exactly what I’ve done. I’ll tell the leggerock you’re back. Although I imagine he already knows. And Justice?”
The solemn man stared at the pixie-like woman, his breath tight in his lungs.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “Being here won’t hurt a bit. In fact, I think you’ll like it.”