Promise of Dusk (Endings #1)

Chapter 8

The sound of my steps are unhurried as they scrape across rough, hardened ground, even though my legs twitch to break into a sprint. I cannot wait to get out of this town. Armund needs to be tended to—soon. I’m glad that we found what we needed so quickly.

The mud that usually cakes the streets is now dry, cracking under the sun’s rays. I study my feet moving over it, trying not to cringe into Fionn’s side. There are two stationed on the corner as we round another alley. Their dark forms are under a mighty oak, shading them from the day’s heat. Their eyes elsewhere, for now.

I wonder what they would make of their brethren, lying in pieces over the herb garden my mother once tended. Did they smell the charred flesh and retch? Does the death of their own kind abhor them? They’ve never shown any signs of being anything but human, but what person could delight in the death and torture of other people in the way they do?

Fionn is the picture of calm in my periphery. His steps are swaggering and loud .

It is a mistake. Even the men too drunk to be afraid have a mousiness to their steps around here. We scuttle around corners, stay silent, stay unremarkable.

I do not see, but feel, the Crows as they move their gazes over to us. Dark, coaxing claws trailing over the back of my neck.

“You there! Come over here,” a dark voice, tinged with authority, barks at us.

Dead. I’ll be dead if they see my face.

I try not to let my indecision show—whether to sprint away or pretend to be someone else. To freeze or to fight.

Fionn takes the decision from my hands.

He throws an arm over my shoulders, the weight of it causing me to stumble as he tugs me against him, a seemingly protective gesture. When he begins pushing us forward, towards the Crows, I realize it is controlling. He’s making sure I don’t run, blow whatever plan he has in mind.

“Whatever seems to be the problem, gentlemen?” Fionn’s tone is cocky, taunting.

Idiot.

I look up at the two Crows from under my hood, hoping my features are still hidden. They both size Fionn up, looking directly at him. Usually, they have to look down. The Pretty King has a penchant for large soldiers. Their features are gaunt but filled with malicious excitement. Fionn is a fly in their web. Just being near them gives me the feeling of bugs crawling over my skin. Like trailing claws.

“You’re not from here. State your name and business.” The look on their faces says it does not matter.

I sink back as far as I can in Fionn’s restraining hold, hedging towards running if only I can break his grip.

As I lean back, I smell Fionn’s fresh scent, like cold mountain air running through a pine forest .

“Ahh, just two lonesome travelers seeking a place to call home for the night.” Fionn’s eyes are twinkling, excited. Like he is baiting them, rather than the other way around. “Looking for some privacy. If you know what I mean.” He winks.

Winks.

Their faces twist into matching sneers, attention shifting.

The one across from me reaches across and gruffly jerks my hood from my head. I have no time, no courage, to stop them.

It takes them all of one second to recognize me from town. To recognize a traitor.

Swords scrape against scabbards.

Fionn—in a blur too fast for me to track—slams one of them against the wall, grappling with him.

The second comes to grab me.

I duck under a grasping hand.

The hand grips my hair all the way to the base of my skull.

My scalp screams. I grab at the source of the pain.

He was five feet away just a moment ago.

He hauls me against his clinking armor and then slams me—face first—into the wall. I release my hair just in time for my hands to scrape against stone, saving me from having my skull completely bashed in.

Beside us I can hear the clashing of plated armor against the ground, the sounds of Fionn and the Crow.

The Crow holding me jerks me around to face him.

Lascivious eyes look into mine as he has me pinned to the wall. For good measure he pulls me forward and slams me back against the hard rock, bashing the back of my head once more. My vision blurs, ears ringing. I gulp in a breath and try to clear my eyes, my hands desperate to find purchase.

I push at his face, his throat, trying to choke him. He gets rougher.

My eyes clear; his black eyes stare into mine. He is not even trying—not even winded.

My panic intensifies—I think I’m sobbing.

Someone has gripped my heart and lungs in an iron fist. Like my very being is being pulled from my body. The corners of my vision begin to blur. I lose sensation in my toes, in my fingers that are now gripping his braces on his forearms. The ringing in my ears gets louder, drowning out the sounds of Fionn’s wondrous plan going to shit.

At least the people of Comraich won’t have to see the life leave my eyes.

At least I won’t have to look in their eyes as they decide my life isn’t worth the risk of speaking up. It would be good penance. I’ve done the same to others.

Heat blazes in front of my face. The sound of flesh sizzling breaks past the ringing in my ears.

I fall to my hands and knees, gasping, desperately trying to get my brain to reorient. The fog begins to clear and the frantic urge to run returns.

I stumble to my feet, intending to do just that, but am frozen in my tracks at what I see; A vortex of shadow and rippling wind, debris and dirt whirling within it. Two elemental wolves locked in a fight to the death.

The Crow holds his palms out before him in a dark force of manipulation. Shadows grow, licking up the Crow’s arms and legs. They seem to swallow the light surrounding him, blending into the black leather under his dark metal armor. The Crow pushes back with brute force. Dark swords jab, meeting broiling air, dissipating the ripples. They reach out as a cloud of darkness to surround Fionn, obscuring him from sight.

The air surrounding Fionn is waving, like ripples in a pond. Like the ground on a hot day. Fionn is graceful, his movements fluid as he manipulates the air with long, sweeping movements, almost too quick to track. Too quick for those shadows to touch his lithe body. The ripples rush outward in precise strikes. Some are enveloped in shadow and darkness, some lick at the armor of the Crow.

Red welts pop up along the Crow’s exposed face and neck. He claws at it. The skin on his face begins broiling, bubbling, burning. His hair ignites and shrivels away.

It looks like vengeance.

He screams.

Screams.

Screams.

It sounds like penance.

I smell his flesh melting and it smells like vindication.

I want more.

I look for the other.

Fionn’s Crow is lying, purple-faced and dead, on the ground. Asphyxiated.

Whispers of silver essence seep from the suffocated Crow in death, proof that even monsters have souls. My jaw slackens and I want to touch it—touch this alluring thing that souls are made of. I want to remember what it feels like.

“Alyx. Alyx, get up.” Fionn yanks me to my feet and out of my trance.

My thoughts jumble, fighting for dominance at what just happened as we break into a run. Several townspeople throw themselves out of our paths as we flee through the town.

Did I just hallucinate that? Does Fionn have some special power? Do the Crows?

Where am I ?

The answer plows into me as I round the corner.

I’m in the square.

At the Crow Stage.

I can see her stocking poke through the hole in the left boot.

It sways. Drifting calmly in the early summer breeze.

Diana’s hands—nails jagged, bloody, and torn.

Diana’s neck—tilted to the side, wrapped in a thick, rough noose.

Diana’s purple face—flies already covering her eyes and mouth. Eyes glazed, bloodshot, unseeing forever.