Promise of Dusk (Endings #1)

Chapter 9

I become aware of the sharp gravel digging into my knees at the same time I realize the muffled keening sounds are torn from my own throat.

Clamping my palm over the source doesn’t help.

They just keep coming.

How many times did I hear a family wail at the sight of a loved one swinging? How many times did I feel nothing as I walked by somebody’s child, murdered to prove a point? How many times did I glance up apathetically?

I’m paying for it now.

The price is too high.

I think I’ve gone mad.

Nothing. I have nothing left.

I left her.

Nobody was there to stop them. I slept through the night and when morning came, I thought of staying on the ground instead of going to her.

Images flash in my mind of her frail body fighting against those Crows. The Crows that do what they want, take what they want, regardless of the consequences. I try not to think about her bloodied hands clawing at the floors as they drag her by her feet out of her home.

I need it to stop.

The sound of footsteps sprinting at me, rapidly crunching the gravel jerks me out of my daze.

Fionn, who had momentarily halted beside me, stunned at the same sight, leaves my side to engage with a pair of Crows advancing towards us.

Some justice-driven part of me hopes he doesn’t turn back. Hopes that he leaves me to my fate.

More Crows bleed out from side streets, the sound of their armor clinking through the panicked gasps of the people milling about the square as they take-in this escalating battle.

Having taken out the pair of adversaries, Fionn sprints at the Crow Stage. His tanned fingertips brush along one of the beams for a second. A spark bursts forth and hot purple flame lick up the wooden beams, rapidly consuming the frame, the rope, the body—fanned by some invisible power. Violet hands destroy this unholy stage.

As the flames obscure the final view of her body, Fionn lopes back over to me and throws me over his shoulder; it bites into my abdomen. He begins running out of the square and down the nearest road, heading south.

The jostling and the smell of burning flesh battle to make me vomit. I choke down the acid burning my throat.

Even with the tossing of my vision, I see the square disappearing from sight. Crows lie dead, scattered along the ground in the square, arrows protruding from eyes, heads, chests. There are at least twenty of them. People are watching from windows, peering out from businesses, from behind curtains. None of them has been brave enough to venture out and witness the scene first-hand. Their alliances lie firmly within the walls of their homes.

I see a shadow on the roof of a building overlooking the square. Not a shadow grown and manipulated by an evil being, but a living shadow.

The woman from Fionn’s group.

She shot down all of those Crows. The speed with which she sprints across and leaps between rooftops, sloped and uneven, hints at more than archery training.

The shadow leaps down from the rooftops, meeting us on the dirt road, matching our pace. Even her feet pounding the ground is quiet.

I think if Fionn lets me down, I may crumble to the dirt and never get up again. So I let him carry me out. He doesn’t try to put me down, not until we have made it deep into the forest on the southern edge of Comraich.

I vomit all over the ferns when he does.

I can feel the eyes of the group on me as the shaking begins. I wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my cloak.

I usually feel better after purging what little food I consume, though this time it was just yellow bile, and I feel far from alright.

“We need to head west, for the bog again,” Fionn’s firm voice whispers from my right.

The group shifts on their feet restlessly. I pant through my mouth, hands on knees.

“Should we expect them to trail us?” The father gruffly breaks the uneasy silence.

“Yes, but I would say we took out a generous portion of their group this afternoon. It felt good,” Fionn’s voice holds a hint of a grin, his knuckles cracking. “It might take them a bit to gather themselves. ”

The words make the light roaring in my ears grow to a deafening cry.

He did it on purpose. He never intended to get in and out peacefully.

A menacing laugh comes from the man beside Fionn, the pale one with the crazed eyes.

“What is wrong with you?” I croak. I’m still panting, staring at a fern leaf, its little red dots coming into focus. We use it for stings, from other plants, from insects. You rub the red pollen on the affected area.

The laughter stops.

I tear my eyes away.

Fionn’s fisting his dagger—the one I had tried to steal—as he meets my eyes. His thumb starts lightly running over the bottom part of the blade as he fists the handle.

“We just… those Crows will be chasing us across all of Suri for the rest of our lives. Diana…” I point in the direction of town. “She’s dead! Did you see what they did to her?”

“You!” My pointing turns accusatory as it turns to aim in Fionn’s apathetic face. “You just—you just… What did you do? Their skin was burning from the air! You lit the stage on fire. You burned her.”

His face reveals nothing. The others shift restlessly, unwilling to step in.

He’s not going to tell me anything. I see it on his stupid, stoic face.

Helplessness is far from unfamiliar to me. But I’ve grown tired of its company. Tired of its relentless chains.

My field of view is lost in a cloud of cold rage as I lunge for him, my balled fists pounding wherever I can reach: his chest, his dumb arrogant face. He pins my arms to my sides with ease, but I just start kicking—my fight or flight has not left my body yet, and it wants to fight for once.

“Alyxara, stop,” the voice of the shadow says, exasperated.

I’m not sure I could if I wanted to. And I don’t want to, I want him to bleed.

Fionn takes me to the hard dirt, pinning my legs out of reach of him. I turn to bite and gnaw, wild in my need to take. I want to take a piece of his vile, smirking arrogance out of his flesh. Payment for disrupting my entire worthless life out of his own carelessness.

He shoves my face into the dirt, laughing at my feeble wrath. As if he is forged in cruelty and vengeance—created from it. Mine is just a cloak I wear, hiding the anguish that is the beginning and end to all I am. And he can tell. It amuses him.

“Let her up Fionn—” Armund says, stepping up beside us.

Fionn’s mirth and Armund’s presence distracts Fionn just long enough. I wiggle one arm out of his clutches and tear the page from Diana’s book from his pocket. He reacts too late, secure in his superiority. I yank away from him just enough, one of my hands still firmly within his grasp, and begin tearing it up between my hand and my teeth.

The page is in shreds before he tears me back by the shoulder, gets me in a chokehold and tries to wrench the scraps from my claws and gnashing teeth, even as they bite at his own hand. I toss the pieces to the wind, and they scatter, fluttering their escape, carried away by the taunting breeze.

The breeze dies mid-flight, a breath halted within lungs. The remnants of Armund’s hope drop to the ground. Fionn launches himself off of me, scrambling to pick them up. Many pieces are carried away in the stream beside us, boats on the sea of water trickling, slipping over the river stones, rounding bends, off to the merciless seas leagues away. Multiple days of trudging through the forest will bring you to the cliffs off the coast of Suri.

Armund scuffles after them immediately, even without knowing what they contain. It almost lessens the high from my victory.

Fionn frantically searches the torn bits of parchment, trying to make sense of them. “You spiteful bitch! What about Armund?” The air around him begins to shimmer; the others behind him edge backwards. He snarls as he goes on, “I should have left you to your fate with the Crows. It might have provided some entertainment from this droll country to see you try and fail to survive with nothing but your stupidity and hatefulness. It still could.”

He’s right. But his words do not incite fear or shame. I survey my audience. They all look at me in varying states of outrage.

“What ever will you do now?” I can feel the deadness in my eyes as I cock my head at him. “What will all of your blistering air and sneaking about do to save your friend?” The silence hangs off the end of my sentence as my nature is revealed to all of them. What does life grow into without light? Without proper care and nourishment? Something brutal and wild, something selfish and ruthless in its quest for survival.

“I could help you,” I offer, my voice chilling, even to my own ears. Do you remember the diagram? The picture of that little bog plant? I do. Do you know what ways to use the plant? Do you have an idea? Are you willing to bet Armund’s life on your guess? I could tell you everything about that plant on the page. Not just it, but all of the herbs and nettles that cover this forest floor. From this sea to the Cliffs of Marwholl. All of the lichens and mushrooms that feed from the decay. This will not be the last time Suri bites you or your kin. So let’s start answering my questions.”

The family is eyeing me with new wariness. The crazy black-eyed one is fighting the urge to throttle me, in good company with Fionn. I swear the shadow is fighting a hint of a smile, just a flicker at the edge of her full mouth. Maybe she thinks Fionn deserves it too. Armund, his damned pitiful expression, is full of betrayal. That he had trust in me at all was astounding. He must have a knack for picking the wrong sides.

“You would let an innocent die to spite us for keeping things from you? Truths you have no right to?” His voice is low, like thunder in the distance, eyes narrowed.

No.

But I don’t let it show.

Fionn lets out a growl of frustration as he looks away from me and meets the eyes of every person in his cadre. Taking their measure. Armund turns betrayed eyes to Fionn. Fionn is considering. Considering if Armund’s life is worth their secrets. It almost makes me give up my bluff.

Armund’s warm brown eyes drop to the ground, looks at his arm, and then back at me with an expression of misery.

He’s not a fighter, not even for his own life. I tear my eyes from him before I can change my mind.

“For every question I answer, you answer one about the plant. That is how this is going to work.” Fionn sneers as he bends down to pick up the knife that fell to the forest floor in the skirmish. He should have just stabbed me in the gut. He’s probably thinking the same thing.

He begins running his thumb over the edge of the blade again.

I struggle to my feet, feeling the weight of the past two days like an iron weight on my shoulders.

I think through the wording of the question very carefully before I continue.

“What did you do to those Crows?”

He stares at me for a few moments, the eyes of the others darting between us.

“I’ve always been able to do it. It’s like having another sense, like smelling or seeing. I can feel the energy in things. I can will it to move, to change, bend it to my will. Become hot, maybe leave someone’s lungs, if I’m feeling prickly.” His answer leaves so much unanswered. Leaves me with even more questions.

His thumb whispers over the steel of his dagger while he considers his question.

Where did he get this sense? Can everyone in this cadre do it? Where did he learn it? I don’t think that those questions are the top priority at this moment.

A quick glance to the rest of the group shows them giving nothing away either.

He quirks his head to the side, eyes still narrowed. “What part of the plant should we use?”

I run my thumb over the jagged edge of my middle fingernail. I want to bite it off so badly.

“The roots, the leaves, the petals, all of them.” No telling him about my treatment plan. “If you have that power, what are you?”

“Human,” he states blandly.

“Strange type of humans you are,” I say suspiciously, peering around at the group. The girl stares at the ground, as opposed to her usual shameless gawking at me.

I turn back to him.

“More strange that you wouldn’t just say Surin, or Ashvian, or anything else, really. ”

He moves on. “What do we do with the plant to make this medicine? Brew them in a tea? Make a paste?”

“It’s so strange it is almost surely a lie.”

“So do I need to make a tea with the plant?”

I resolve to play the game he wants to play.

“You toss them over your shoulder,” I say, my jaw set.

“What?” His face blanks in confusion.

“The parts of the plant. You toss them over your shoulder and sing a merry tune and then the wound heals itself.”

He kicks the ground, the thumb running over the blade more roughly. I’m surprised he does not scrape the skin off.

“Funny. I thought this was now a game of lies.”

Armund lets out a soft noise, almost a whimper, eyes cast pleadingly to the sky. The fair-haired woman rests a hand on his shoulder. “Fionn. Just answer her questions so we can go. She is no threat to us.”

I bite off the jagged edge, still waiting while he looks at his group, deciding.

Finally, it breaks Armund.

“We are not from here,” his words rush out. The others look at him wide-eyed. “We are trapped here. We are Fae, from another realm.” He pushes back the deep brown curls around his ear with his good hand, revealing a fine point at the tip of it. “We fled our homes, forced out by the Crows, through some sort of rift in between worlds. They eventually showed up here. We aren’t even sure exactly how they got here, nor how we could get back. Or even if we could or should.” He gulps down some more breaths as he fights to make me understand, empathize enough to help him.

Fae? Is that supposed to mean something to me? The ears are interesting. I’ve never seen such a thing.

I look around at the others, all of whom have their ears covered by long hair, or a hood in the shadow’s case .

Armund pleads with me with his eyes but I only hold my chin higher. But I want to see how much he will say. How much they’ll let him say.

“What Fionn did in town… We all have the ability to feel energy and we all can do things to manipulate it. He just forced energy into the air, warmed it, made the air shift and become wild, destructive—”

“Perhaps that’s enough.” Fionn claps his hand on Armund’s shoulder, making him wince.

He speaks of power from folklore. Like stories of witches and their spells that parents spin up to keep their children in line. No such power exists here. No such creatures exist here. It’s all stories from drunken sailors and bored wives.

Armund shoves it off, turning on Fionn. “What is the problem? Are you afraid she is going to turn on us? Run back to her best friends in the empire? Seems like without us, she’s dead. I doubt she will pose much of a problem.”

I could actually. I could bargain for my freedom with this.

Fionn seems to know this by the look on his face, but he doesn’t want to point it out to me in case I haven’t yet figured it out. “She doesn’t need to know.”

“She should know. I wish someone would have warned us,” Armund states boldly before turning to me. “Those Crows are beasts of a different kind. We don’t even know what they are fully, only that they are greed and destruction. They came from our realm, somewhere across the sea. They call themselves Fomorians. They said they lived in tribes in a land far away, in our home, Danu. But none of us had ever heard of such a place.” He’s taller than me, but about as thin, his cheekbones sharp and jawline defined. The dark circles under his eyes make him look pitiful. He might be cute otherwise with his brown curls and warm eyes. “They are monsters, Alyx, and you should be afraid of them. And you do want to stay with us, because they will find and kill you, without mercy. It will be worse than any death you could ever imagine. It wasn’t until we had watched them here that we realized what their favorite meal is—souls. They feed on the souls of humans, along with all the energy their bodies contain.”

The silence hangs between us as I try to process this—try to find some way to believe him, reconcile it with the reality I know. They speak of other worlds, of a race of people called Fae, and powers far beyond whispered lore of witches and flying fire-breathing beasts, but of manipulating the very makeup of the world, of the ground beneath my feet. He spoke of soul-eaters. Even though I had referred to them as monsters in my own thoughts, before today, I thought them monsters of the human kind. I’ve been held in their grip, walked beside them on my way to work each morning. I cannot deny the truth now that it stares right back at me. Those things are not human, these people are not like me.

If what Armund says is true, there is too much I don’t know. I can’t even take a human male in a fight. I couldn’t even go one day without getting caught by a band of “raiders,” although I’m still not sure who these people are. I do know there are raiders out there. Warriors from Ashvynd. There are other Crows out there and they are going to be looking for me once they see what I’ve done, and after the incident in the square. My best shot is still to be with these… people. Fae.

My options are slim.

I pat Armund’s good arm, silently apologizing for forcing his hand, but thanking him for telling me.

I address them all .

“I want to help you. But only if I am one of you. Not an outsider. I want to be a part of your group. I can go with someone to the bog. I can make the medicine. I can heal Armund. We can both benefit from this.”

They all look unconvinced, aside from Armund.

“I won’t be any trouble. I’ll pitch in. I won’t betray you.” My pride is somewhere dead and buried. My eyes meet the gaze of everyone in the group. They still look the same as when I tore up Diana’s page, like they see through me—right to the feral animal that will do anything to protect itself.

Fionn takes the measure of the group silently. I don’t watch. I can’t watch.

“Fine. But just know, there will be no going back. You cannot be allowed to leave the group once you’re in it. Too much risk for us.”

I am already in too deep.

I would have nowhere to go regardless.

There is nowhere safe for me to run. Nobody to run to.

I nod.