11. Elia
Elia
“So, which one of you is the Sleepwalker?”
A chill crawled up Flora’s spine.
It was a scythe in its primal form—a sight she’d hoped to never see again.
It was much larger than the scythe they had faced as children.
Warm, humid breath tickled her hair, stinging in her nose with the stench of mildew and death.
The blackened demon crouched on the roof above, hunched low, aimed straight at her with cold, unblinking eyes.
Its muzzle wrinkled in a low snarl as its tail twitched, ready to strike.
Flora could hardly breathe, much less move, as a scaled, muscular paw reached down, talons stretching until they hovered inches from her face.
At the metallic click of Noec’s satchel unlatching, it paused.
“Over here, scythe. I’m right here.”
The creature’s eyes caught the daylight like polished coins. Its lips peeled back in a slow, soundless stretch—a grin far too wide, far too vacant. Each gleaming fang slid into view until the smile felt less like expression and more like the drawing of a weapon.
Elia, Flora thought. Where was Elia?
“Such a gentleman,” it purred, wearing Elia’s mellifluous voice like a stolen mask. “I’ll be taking you, dear, and I’ll be on my way.”
It inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring to taste the air, before a growl rumbled from its chest. Flora ducked as black wings spread wide, catching the sunlight in an oily shimmer just before it reared to take off.
In a blink, the scythe leapt from the roof, the gust of wind in its wake nearly knocking Flora over.
It dove just over her head and past Noec with a flash of silver claws.
Noec staggered, clutching at his shoulder. His bag fell open on the ground, the strap severed, and his ruby-studded dagger tumbled onto the grass. Noec pulled back his hand, and it was soaked with bright red. With wide eyes, he looked up.
“Flora. Run.”
Noec reached down for his weapon with his right arm, his left hanging limp at his side. He spared a glance at Flora, a look of stoic determination that surprised her.
“Forgive me, boy, my vision isn’t what it used to be,” the scythe called, an entertained sneer on its tongue as it glided in an arc, sailing back around.
Flora, too shocked to move, could only watch.
Noec straightened and spun towards the creature, dagger in hand, but he was a moment too late.
The scythe slammed into him, its steel claws digging into his ribs and pinning him to the ground.
Noec gasped as the air was knocked from his lungs, his only weapon flung from his grasp.
Heron burst through the door behind Flora. As Noec struggled, to no avail, to push the creature off of himself, Heron leaned back into the doorway, grabbing his hunting bow and quiver. He worked fast, his fingers curling around the bowstring as he nocked an arrow and drew back.
Suddenly, the bulk of the creature vanished in a flurry of crumbling ash. Noec gasped, clutching at his chest. Blood trailed down his arms as he tried to sit himself up, and there was a little girl standing above him.
She smiled.
Oddly, she looked different from the mimic on the path. Instead of a glowing white, her eyes were now lightless and gray, and rather than lanky and gaunt, she was once again the short and full-cheeked ten-year-old that had vanished two years ago.
Heron lowered his bow. “F-Feya…” he stuttered, barely a whisper.
There she stood before him, his only daughter, just as she had been the day he lost her. But at her feet heaved the man he called his son. With a shaky exhale, Heron quickly composed himself as he again took aim.
“I can hear the arrows rolling over in your quiver,” the girl said, her loving voice now cold and guttural.
She knelt down to Noec and jerked him back by his hair, holding him before her as a shield with only her head peeking out around him.
“Why don’t you take your shot?” she sneered. “Or are you afraid you might miss?”
Heron’s trembling hands became steady as he slowly inhaled and drew the string back to his cheek. Noec looked back at his uncle with a strained, yet sly grin.
Heron Eldon, the soldier of legend, never missed his mark.
But, the scythe was somehow keen to the impending danger. Before Heron could release the arrow, it ducked entirely behind Noec. Heron exhaled, disgruntled as he relaxed his draw.
Again, the girl burst into fire and ash, rising up in a swirl of shadow, releasing Noec to collapse forward. Black, ghastly wings erupted from the burning cloud as a growl rumbled through the air.
Flora’s chest trembled with the beating of her own heart, seeing the stain of wine red spread on Noec’s shirt.
He crawled forward, his hand searching for the dagger in the grass that was just beyond his reach.
Flora blinked, snapping from her paralysis.
She rushed toward him, falling down to her knee as she tried to help him up.
“Hurry,” she urged, glancing at the creek as she threw his arm over her shoulder and steadied him on his feet. “We can get out of here if we hurry.”
He looked past her, and she caught a panicked glint in his eye as he looked back to her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he pushed her away.
Faster than a flicker of lightning, the black demon dove from the sky behind where she fell back to the ground. It snatched Noec and lifted him up with its talons. He kicked and punched it as the ground disappeared beneath his feet. The creature spat and snarled, but it wouldn’t let go.
“Shoot!” Noec yelled frantically.
Flora heard the rush of air past her head as the arrow flew by.
The creature screeched, reeling at a new wound in its side.
Blood saturated the fabric of Noec’s clothes, dripping from the tip of his elbow as he struggled to free himself.
With fire in his eyes and a guttural yell, Noec tore the arrow from the creature’s side and stabbed it into its neck—then again in its shoulder, then again through its cheek as it tried to snap at him.
A second arrow flew through the air, skewering the scythe’s wing.
The scythe snarled and writhed, but with its pain came no dwindling of strength—only a suffocating contraction of tarnished silver claws, deepening the gashes in its prey.
Noec’s agony was evident in every slowing movement.
And just before Noec's shaking hand could strike again with the arrow, his arm fell limp and the arrow tumbled from his grasp.
“It isn’t him!” Flora screamed desperately. She stumbled forward. “He isn’t the Sleepwalker!”
The scythe hesitated, just long enough for Heron to sink another arrow into its chest. More villagers had gathered outside, brandishing their own makeshift weaponry on the ground. But down here, there was nothing they could do but watch.
The scythe spat and fluttered in the air, but Noec no longer fought as the claws dug into his chest. There was a brief instant where the air grew still, an instant in which the light in Noec's eyes was suddenly shadowed by a dark and empty eclipse.
Flora’s world went cold.
Another arrow struck the beast’s belly, and the creature visibly faltered now. Its talons scraped along Noec’s limp body as he fell from its grasp.
“NOEC!” Flora cried, watching helplessly as he tumbled downward. Heron fired his next shot.
Clothes catching the air like a fluttering paper, he crashed into the thatch roof of Rachel’s home. Flora gasped as, limply, Noec rolled to the edge and tumbled to the ground.
“Noec,” Flora whispered, watching through a haze as Elia rushed out of the crowd to cradle her son. But Noec lay there, unmoving, as the scarlet of his blood melted into the autumn leaves.
A flash of red caught Flora’s eye. She picked up the dagger by its ivory hilt, then glanced up at Noec, crumpled and broken.
It was supposed to be her.
The scythe staggered, beginning to descend as the labored beating of its wings slowed.
Another arrow struck, and the demon plummeted, crashing into the water of Crescent Creek, tainting Lunara’s sacred water with oozing violet blood.
It stood in the creek, heaving and spitting.
But as the bloody hole in its cheek began to shrink, it unsheathed its teeth in a twisted grin.
Its wounds were healing.
“Run,” the familiar voice whispered. And Flora did.
Flora ran, fueled by a ferocity that she had never known. She charged at the hollow glare of the monster that had taken Noec from her. She charged knowing she may never have the chance to run again.
The powerful legs of the creature crouched low, its whip-like tail twitching with anticipation as it unhinged its jaw.
Flora readied her arm to strike with all her strength, even if it would do nothing at all.
Every part of her mind screamed to turn away, but her soul was ablaze with something far less kind than grief.
Another arrow struck the creature’s neck. It yelped and hissed, its head turning and its ears twitching as it faced Heron. Flora could see the demon’s jagged teeth grinning with hunger as it crept forward and out of the water.
Those dull eyes began to flicker with a subtle light, and the creature froze in place. Just like the scythe in the road, it suddenly seemed as though it could see as that glow fixed upon Flora.
Flora’s breath caught in her throat, her feet sinking into the damp earth as she approached the scythe. She breathed out, and the heat of her rage grew cold as those bright white eyes seemed to dart toward Noec’s limp body.
“Useless,” the creature hissed, and it was as if it were shackled in place as Flora came close enough to strike. With its eyes aglow, it grumbled, “I said find, not kill.”
Flora didn’t hesitate. With the full force of her fury, she drove the dagger into the flat of the scythe's head, just as Noec had done all those years ago. The scythe’s eyes widened in shock, and an eerie dimness overcame them. A sight that should have sickened her tugged at the corner of her lip.