Promise of Dusk (Endings #1)

Chapter 39

I made it through Rheol, weaving my way through its sprawling riverside wealth and roosts fit for the murder of Crows that live there. I avoided the newsstands, fearful of being recognized. I’m sure they paint me in shades of wicked rebellion and depravity—I wonder if the colors would help the likeness.

Rheol, the river city, is built on the fork of three great rivers merging, the town is a central hub of trade and port for travelers passing through to the southern ports. Diana used to travel to the market far inland to stock up on supplies.

The people felt familiar as I brushed cloaks through busy roads, like the people of Comraich the last I felt them, firmly under thumb. Existing only to make it through the days, slinking through shadows and keeping heads turned ground-ward.

The ferryman carried me across the river Shana in his humble boat discreetly, though I spent my last coin for his silence, the sum given to me by the madame to aid me in my travels. The ferryman was a rebel at heart; I was nearly certain that he would have kept his tongue for the mere fact that I was clearly going against the Crown for one reason or another, but he took the bribe. He left me at the other side of the river with a parting whisper, tidings from the Ghaels, of safe haven for resisters.

What a pointless risk he took for a stranger. What a reckless whisper for the rebellion, sinking ships and all that.

Whatever rebellion lives there will surely be snuffed out by the time I come back over the river. The Crown suffocates all of us, perhaps because flames need air.

Days have passed in shades of gray and nights have passed in shadow monsters and paranoia since then.

Surely, I have died and am living in hell, a wandering specter.

What else could explain the torture of living in my head unable to retreat in apathy and nothingness? My fear won’t allow it. My one pillar of existence that is left, saving Fionn and the others, won’t allow it. It drags me, kicking and screaming, into reality, making me feel the unbearable every waking moment.

How could I have forgotten how cruel love is? I knew it before. God, I’ve known it in my bones. But knowing it apparently was not enough to stop me from grasping for it again. Like some starved street urchin grasping at a fallen crust of bread.

Is this love?

It seems right. What else has ever torn me apart like this? Only love can leave one so bereft but full of purpose. I’ve never felt so full—near bursting from terror and anguish. Like my guts are being held in by nothing but my own hand of purpose.

None of it matters. None of it. That’s what I say to keep my feet moving. What runs circles in my mind as I place one foot going up the mound. It doesn’t matter that I hurt, that I bleed, that I long for a wakeless sleep. My agony is inconsequential, because somewhere out there, Aine is parentless, and what’s left of the Fianna wanders in a world doomed. It is all moot when Fionn is imprisoned because of me. I wander free, yet he was apparently too valuable to give up. And now his only hope is me. What a sad prospect that must be for him.

He probably thinks I abandoned him or died. I wonder if it makes a difference to him.

Every step I take over days and days towards the towering mounds of Dun is made while swimming in these thoughts. I’ll escape them one way or another. I’ll either accomplish my mission or take my last breath.

Folks say that you can hear the Banshee’s cries from the town of Dun, leagues away from the foot of the first mound, but I hear nothing. Fionn said that no such creature lives here, that the being that dwells here is far more fearsome than a crying vow of death, but I see nothing. The only thing that warns me away is the scent of sulfur. A whisper of something wrong.

And so I wander. I look for my allies between blades of emerald grass, hoping the madame did not lead me across the country for nothing—that this is not some twisted joke. I reach for something, anything with my mind. I comb through the web of life in the grass, the tiny golden tendrils cover the ground as sure as the green strands do. And in my search, I find a lot of nothing. It disturbs me. There is not a hare nor a rodent in sight. The air is quiet of birdsong in the eeriest of ways. Not even the chirp of insects breaks the uncanny stillness. And so I wander, until dusk comes, its pink and orange radiance a taunt.

Such otherworldly beauty in an ending. Every day I have walked until dusk. And every time I look at it, painting the sky in promises, I wish that it would lie only once. It promises to always come back. That in the most beautiful things there is always more. That perhaps, no matter how hard the day is—at the end of it—you can always look to the sky and know that another day awaits in its twin. It promises that if you hold on one more day, you might get to see beauty and valor again. If the fates have a shred of kindness, maybe, there will be some beauty in your endings.

The sky is bleeding violet when I find it—the smallest of rocky crags in the otherwise rolling green hills, nestled in the foot of a mound, the scent of sulfur wafting from it.

Under the mounds, she said.

I pull from the grass, sipping down the tiniest spark of energy, just enough to suffuse my muscles, preparing for the unknown. I step down into the crag, twisting my way into the darkened tunnel below, feet first.

Up to my torso in the crevice, feeling more space in the cavern below—enough to swing my feet a little—I look to the sky. The stars are beginning to shine in the waxing dark. I remember looking to the sky and begging in another life—peering through cracks of light and begging for my useless life. And now I have a use, a purpose. Maybe this fullness was the cost—this clawing purpose that demands more.

I move further into the dark and find myself in pitch blackness. It must be a cave of sorts.

The rocks roll under my feet, small echoes in the dank space. I feel my way forward, hoping to avoid smashing my face into sharp stone.

Glad to have one version of sight, I reach out my mind, feeling many openings, long tunnels that reach out like fingers in the mound. I cannot keep track of where they go as they drift off beyond my mind’s eyes .

I take baby steps forward, kicking rocks and shuffling through narrow crevices, navigating the rocky tunnel until I find myself in a large room. At the end of the room I feel it—like a wall of pure life and energy, flat and powerful.

I move forward, steps echoing loudly, until I meet it with my hand. Solid as a rock but completely smooth, without flaw or blemish—like running your fingers over impenetrable, flowing water.

I reach out with my mind more closely. It twines together, infinite fingers gripping one another, forming a wall of glittering life.

And I have no clue how to get through it.

I place both hands on it, leaning my weight on it, searching for any obvious gives. Feeling foolish, I lean back, pulling my hands from its soft surface. At least nobody witnesses my naivety.

How did Fionn get through? He would have had to, to reach whatever hellish dimension he claimed lives on the other side.

I reach for it again, caressing its glowing surface. I try to weaken it by pulling from it, but I find no purchase, no loose thread to draw from; it is so wound together, so utterly one.

I try everything. I try throwing my body against it. I try begging it. I try waiting for it.

It’s impassable… impossible.

So frustratingly ironic. So laughably humorless.

My failure so stupidly predictable.

I’m so tired.

I’m so tired.

It builds in me—all of it. All of the terrible things assault me at once. The salty tears dribble down my face, unfettered, and pathetic, and because there is nobody here to witness it, I let them take me. The rocky ground is not kind to my knees as I fall to them, but I cannot bring myself to care.

“Please,” I whisper, pounding one weak fist at the wall where it meets the ground. “Please,” I whisper again.

It becomes a mantra, for I have nothing to offer it other than my pleas.

Its solemn silence makes me shrink further, like I can hold myself together only if I am as small as possible.

As I sit there, some crumpled, pathetic piece of life, I leave my hand on it, hoping that if someone ever finds my body, they’ll know I tried.

I tried I tried I tried.

I gave everything, everything . And it wasn’t enough. This was just another instance in a long-lived, cruel pattern—but I had to try, or else I was never worth any of his kisses and caresses, any of Aine’s outreached hands, any of Elva’s defenses, any of Armund’s sweet glances, of Konan’s tolerance. Any glances that could have been shared between mates that were spared on me. Otherwise, I was never anything but poison in the water—nothing but a bad omen. A sour girl who should have frozen to death at six, begging for her mom, instead of living long enough to ruin anything that could have been good. I fear that even this final act is not enough to spare me that condemnation, but at least I tried.

As I press my cheek to the rocks, wet with salt streams, I give whatever I have left, tired of taking. Too tired to move, too tired to keep trying. That makes me weak, and a coward, but I’m tired of trying to pretend that I’m better, even to myself.

My tendrils of life curl into the wall, the last dregs of energy that I stole from the grass. Something pulls in my chest as my head spins.

I feel the wall beneath my hand blink out of existence .

As I look where it used to be, I see the softest glow of warm light and with all I have left, I crawl towards it.

I crawl until I fall.

Right into Hell.

I never gave much thought to what waited on the other side of life. Some devote their lives to beliefs surrounding it, but I was always certain that even if I tried, I was always going to be irredeemable. The sight in front of me is enough to tell me I’m right.

The ground is scorched, blackened rock, rough on my face, rolling into rivers of flame that hiss and spit.

Smoke overtakes the scent of sulfur as I roll onto my back, pinpointing my location at the mouth of a cave, a world of fire before me.

Somehow, I still feel held by the needs of a body. Every bit of me feels bruised and bleeding. I lack the energy to lift my limbs or head, so I just lie there, closing my eyes once more, awaiting burning eternity.

My heart beats in my head, whooshing and pounding, louder than I’ve ever heard it.

A breeze picks up, coming in a rhythmic pulse, picking up my limp hair and throwing it around my face.

A grumble fills the air, vibrating my bones. The sound rattles in the lowest tenor, knocking anything else from it. Chills break out across my entire body as I jolt upwards, scrambling onto my palms. My eyes meet the creature of Fionn’s tales.

If there was a drop of liquid in my dehydrated body, I would piss myself.

Slitted yellow eyes observe me, grumbling menacingly, sizing me up to eat in one bite.

A dragon .

I scramble slightly back, every muscle shaking violently.

A green-scaled head the size of my house bobs slightly from side to side. Teeth the size of children fang out, creating rows in a slightly opened mouth. A long, forked tongue darts out to taste my terror. It approaches in a slow, stalking gait on four enormously clawed feet. The ground trembles with every movement. Large membranous wings block out the daylight.

It huffs a breath at me once it is arms-length away. The foul scent of rotting meat and scorching heat blows back my hair as I peer at my death approaching.

I’ve lost all ability to flee, frozen in its reeking breath as I await its blazing judgment.

I can only watch—watch as violet flame curls in the back of the monster’s throat as it grumbles again, rattling my brain in my skull. I close my eyes, not wanting to see my scorching coming anymore.

The flames never come.

Instead a scaled fist clamps around my torso. Claws larger than my limbs crush the air from my lungs.

I kick my legs in a fruitless attempt to wriggle from its grasp.

My stomach drops as it takes a running leap. Its wings—in two booming flaps—lift us into smoke-filled skies.