《Nowhere Stars》 Death Inverted 1-1 phase 1: what grows in the seedbed of sorrow ~~~ Nothing that makes us human is physical. Everyone knows that, but its very little comfort to my soul in its crumbling shell. A glass elevator carries us to the top floor of the New Claris Regional Hospital. Its view as it rises looks out at the citys western limits, where a field of wildflowers blooms between us and the untouched forests. From this height and distance, their shapes and hues blur together into a carpet of colorful foam on a green sea, faintly shifting in the wind. I dont really like flowers. Oh, theyre quite the sight right now, but in no time at all theyll wilt, die, and linger as rotten brown husks. Flowers are beautiful because they fade. People who want to sound wise say things like that sometimes, but its all garbage. Theyre beautiful right now. Theyd be beautiful if they stayed like this forever. If those people were wilting, theyd agree with me. Before long, the elevator comes to a stop with a soft ping, and its doors slide open into a wide hallway. Dad steps out, two bags of my luggage in tow, and I follow. Ive never been to the seventh floor before. To their credit, theyve done a good job of making it look like a real place. The hall is bright with soft ambient light, and it opens into a large space that feels more like an upscale living room than a hospital, with earth-tone walls, a high wood-panel ceiling, round tables surrounded by plush seats. Planters line the tall, wide windows, and the air smells strongly of mint. The only immediate sign of where we are is the square desk in one corner serving as a nurses station. Some of the people seated around the room, a rough split of residents and nurses, look up to watch as we enter. At her age? What a shame None of them say that, not with words, but I can feel it in their eyes. Ive felt it quite enough to know it by now. Ah, is that Liadain? We just heard youd be here soon. One of the nurses approaches to greet us. And you must be? Her father, yes, Dad confirms. Alban Shiel. Nice to meet you. The nurse briefly glances up at him and down at me as he reaches out to shake her hand. We look nothing alike. Apparently I take after my mothers side. After a moments uncomfortable small talk, she ushers us down the hall to my new room. Well! This is a nice place, eh, Lia? Dad says, his tone artificially light and casual. Like the lounge outside, its decor is quiet and cozy, with just one thing out of place. The bed is covered with a soft blue quilt in a simple diamond pattern rather than sterile white sheets, but laid over the same thin wheeled frame as those on the lower floors, with a tray table, steel IV pole, and remote control attached to one side. At least its the only bed here. Every room on this floor houses a single patient, a small relief compared to some of my last stays. Do you need any help getting things in order? Dad asks. No, thats fine. Just put everything here in the corner. Ill bother one of the nurses if anything comes up. Ah. Ill let you get to it, then. He nods, expressionless, drops his share of bags, and steps back to stand in the doorway. He silently looks over the room again as I start to root through my things. Atop a tightly folded pile of my dresses, the round pink face of Pearl, my stuffed axolotl, smiles up at me. At least one friend is still standing by me through all this. Ill come by after work tomorrow to see how youre settling in, Dad lies. You take care, alright? I have nothing to say to that. Hes been doing his best to act like I was going on a fun trip somewhere, and I cant be bothered asking him to quit it. Hell be gone again before too long. Right. Ill show myself out. His brisk footsteps quickly fade from earshot. Just buzz if you need anything, okay? Well show you around later, whenever youre feeling up to it. The nurse slips out after him, gently closing the door behind her. Ive waited to cry, swallowed my pain for as long as I could, and I lose my hold on it as soon as Im alone again. I set Pearl down beside the bag, out of the way of my tears. Eight months since I last left this place. Modern medicines best efforts granted me eight months to live in the world, for all the good it did. Just enough time to have my thirteenth birthday forgotten by my once-friends. Maybe they didnt forget. Maybe they all just decided to imagine that they lived in a world where things like this, things like me, simply didnt happen. I guess it doesnt matter anymore, really. Theyll live their lives. Theyll find other and better friends until Im nothing but a sad little memory. I, on the other hand? Im not sure if Ive had a life at all. I spent most of those years in and out of this hospital, pushing through the pain while doctors worked to keep my blood from eating me for just a little bit longer. Now, at last, theyve given up. Two failed transplants was already more than my body could handle. Now the only thing left for me to do is die. ~~~ The first thing the doctors here asked, when my old treatment team handed me off to palliative care, was where I stood on serving as a test subject for any experimental medicine they came up with. They didnt say it in those words, but thats what they said. Theres only one cure for what I have, and that one just failed me for the second time. All that remained were the salvage drugs, the last resorts. They might make whats left of my life more livable, they might kill me sooner, they might even work. Miracles happen, just not to me. The seventh floor is only for the dying, but nothing says I have to promise to die to stay here. Most residents choose the lightest medical plan possible, whatever will keep them moving and getting the most out of their last days. I have nothing to lose and nothing I want to do but live, so I told them to try what they could. I very often regret it. The best they came up with was something to slow my symptoms down and keep me from suddenly getting worse. Three days a week, for the first two hours of the morning, I wait while a clear solution with a name I cant pronounce drips into my veins. By the time it finishes, Im dizzy and shaking and sick to my stomach, as I will be for most of the day. I wonder why I bother on these mornings. Why put myself through this for the sake of a body thats hindered and hurt me every day of my life, when it doesnt seem to help at all? When in the moment it actually feels like its making me worse? Its one of those mornings now. I sit by the windows opposite the sun in the central lounge and idly shuffle one of my tarot decks with shivering hands. Mostly, though, I just watch life on the seventh floor go by. Pearl sits to my right on the table, looking out over the room with quiet interest. When I first heard of the seventh floor, I imagined it as a tomb. A cold white place even more bleak than the rest of the hospital, where people laid down and withered away when they lost their last shreds of hope. Ive just spent a week here, and Im still not sure what its supposed to be. Its not just the decor, the bright windows with their nice views of the city, the fragrant plants in every room hiding the faint but distinct smell of death. If you ignore all the nurses and helpers, the wheelchair-bound residents with their oxygen tanks and IV bags, it seems like theyre doing their best to make this place anything but a hospital. Aside from the nurses station and a small examining room, most of the floor is set up for social gatherings, hobby groups, even occasional exercise classes for the ones who can still stand. More than that, visiting hours here never end. The ward is hardly bustling, but the comings and goings of faces I dont recognize are common enough that its almost never just patients and their helpers gathered here. There are technically lists of approved visitors somewhere, but they only ever question guests about whether they have anything communicable. It all reminds me that Im the only person here younger than forty. The others have lives to leave behind, people who will weep when they die and remember them well. Even if I could find someone who cared, would I want them at this point? Wed have a few months together, maybe a year, and then what? What could I do in that time that would make any of it worth the grief? My old friends were probably right to cut their ties early. A man boards the elevator, helped along by his family. Im not even allowed to leave. In my current state, catching anything contagious would be very bad for me, and Im not ready to write myself off and let whatever happens happen. I turn away, pull a card from my deck, and flip it over on the table. The Six of Pentacles. Gifts, sharing, generosity and gratitude. In my case, the promise that I can care for myself and get better if I just ask for help with it. I sort through implications, alternate readings, other ideas I might reflect on through this cards lens, and they all bring me back to one point: Thanks. I dont need you lying to me, too. I banish the Six of Pentacles to its deck box and set to shuffling the rest. Some of my books contain strongly-worded warnings about how you obviously cant remove anything. You would unbalance the deck and nothing would work the way it should anymore. Well, cards, life has never been balanced, and if you dont want me to cheat you should stop mocking me. Do you read often? Eh? Someone is standing by my table. A woman in comfy clothes you might still call stylish, old but not quite elderly. Her grey hair is kept in a neat tapered bob, and her attention is still on the cards splayed across the table rather than me, the lines around her eyes creasing as she narrows them in focus. Im not sure when shed appeared there, but then I wasnt paying the closest attention. Ive seen her around at a distance, I think she leads the pottery classes in one of the art rooms, but shes the first patient to actually start a conversation with me. Not really well, yes, its just been a while since I did for anyone but myself. I see. My son used to love all this old folk magic, but he hasnt touched it since he aged out of Promise range. May I impose? Not if youve got it in you, if youre feeling up to doing anything at all today. She just asks. Fine, but I cant promise anything exciting. I straighten my personal deck, tuck it away, and fish out the one I use for other people, scattering it into a messy pile. Finish shuffling these, if you would. I nod to the seat across the table, and shes quick to join me. Ive never caught your name, have I? Only that youre one of us who still bothers to wear clothes in here. I dont know how some of them manage, shuffling around in pajamas and gowns all day. She groans theatrically. No reason you should have to act sick. I do love that dress, by the way. Oh, I thank you. I hadnt thought of it like that. I just like that I can still have a say in at least one part of my mornings. The dress is one of my standards, black and white and just a bit frilly, with big roomy pockets on either side. Im Liadain. Noirin Hearne. Just Noirin is fine. She finishes stacking the deck and pushes it across the table, a spotty patch of rash peeking out from her knit sleeve as she does. All set? No, keep it. Its better if you draw your own cards. Noirin shrugs. If you say so. Everyones got their own routine with these things, dont they? Where do we start? For now, the same way I do when I dont want to get too fancy. Three cards: what was, what is, what will be. Is there any one thing youre asking yourself about, or did you only want to keep me busy? She shakes her head. Oh, just an old woman getting a bit nostalgic, mostly. Lets start from scratch and see where we end up. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Suit yourself. Pull your first card from anywhere that feels right to you, then. The deck order doesnt really mean anything. Noirin flips the top card and sets it in the center of the table, displaying a picture in muted oil-paint colors of two riders in a canoe, paddling from a dark sea into a sunlit horizon. Six blades carve through the ripples left in its wake, each thrust from beyond the bottom edge of the picture and meeting at a point just under the boat, forming a triangle. The Six of Swords, I announce. The storm and the calm that follows. Loss, maybe, and change, but change leading into something gentler than what youve left. Is this calling anything to mind? Hm, hm. Noirins foot taps steadily under the table. Shes quiet for what feels like a long time, her eyes lingering on the boat in the center of the image. Well, when I think of it like would you mind if I prattled about my problems for a bit? Go ahead. That kind of comes with the territory. Thank you. Noirin looks up from the card, out through the window with its cityscape view. Ive been living here for about three months. My family all took it rather hard when I checked in, and it hasnt been any easier for them since. I know, Im sure thats nothing out of the ordinary, but theres a little more to it. They dont no, nevermind about that. She sighs, shaking her head. The short of it is that were having trouble agreeing on how to spend this time. Thats where youre coming from. Your context. From what it sounds like for now, Ill just note that this card can also mean learning from things you cant erase. I gesture to the deck. Whenever youre ready. Out comes the second card, a man scaling a mountain on bars of light jutting out from it like the footholds of a ladder, adding the top rungs by hand even as he climbs. This picture faces me rather than Noirin. She frowns, reaching out to turn it over. Wait, thats supposed to happen! I set two fingers to the card, holding it down. The Nine of Wands inverted. See? Hm, is that right? My son never used to turn them over like that. She cranes forward, trying to get a better look at the upside-down image. Everyones got their own routine, like you said. Her sons probably made him one of those love-and-light types who thought reversals were too gloomy, but no need to stress that point. An inverted card is usually something out of place somehow, missing or incomplete or overpowering everything else. Right now, this one is a line where persistence turns into stubbornness, or where it falls just short of what it needs to be. This disagreement. Its something you cant compromise on, or dont think you can afford to give up? Well, yes, actually. Thats about the shape of it. Im sure I know what we need, but I expect they feel just as strongly, and as it happens theres no way to do both or take turns. I nod, indicating the deck. To where its leading, then. Noirin picks up the top card. Before she flips it though, she pauses, considering something, and puts it back, cutting the deck and taking a new one from the middle. The one she sets down is a misty expanse around a small circle, like a little eyehole in the fog, through which a girl can be seen handing a gold bowl filled with flowers to a boy. Five more empty bowls are arranged beneath them. The Six of Cups. Nostalgia. Memories of simpler, happier times. Before I say anything, what are you thinking? That its odd to see something like that here. This one is meant to be the future? I nod. Hm. A pause, then Im still not really sure. Fill me in? What I think is that theres a journey here. Across the boundless sea, up a mountain that cant quite be climbed, back to how things were before this entire misadventure started. Maybe not exactly how they were, but the past is never really past, and it sounds like what was important about it is still there for you. Maybe theres a wall that cant be crossed around one thing, but youve still got everything else. If your argument cant be won on either side, and its not doing anybody any good, maybe you should talk to them about just accepting that, putting it aside, and doing as much as you can of whatevers always made you happy together. I cant be certain about that without knowing the exact nature of the problem, it might be something so huge or awful that theres just no way to work around it, but its the best I can do. It sounds good enough. Noirin purses her lips and cups her chin as she studies the now-complete row of images. Shes quiet for a long time. Finally, she looks up at me, grinning warm and wide. I just might do that. Thank you, Liadain. Youve helped clear at least a few things up. Oh, I havent done anything. People see what they need to see, thats all. Im not going to give the entire show away, but that much is true. Well, if it works, it works. She waves the point off, still smiling. You should do this more often. We old bats appreciate candor, and sometimes we can use a hand being frank with ourselves. ~~~ So I do. Tarot is only a game I play with decks full of pretty pictures, of course. No energy or will moves these cards. They dont know a thing about you, and certainly not about things to come. As far as I know, prophecies dont exist. Even Keepers have never been able to tell the future, not really. So the only force working through the cards is simple psychology, but I still think theyre an interesting reflective tool. Ive spent a lot of time sitting in hospital beds with nothing better to do than read or browse the Coral Sea, and I learned a lot from sorting through the roughly even mix of genuine insight and weird faux-mystic nonsense in my tarot books. The ideas you pull from a bunch of vaguely symbolic art say something about what youre thinking, sometimes before youve found the words to think it properly. Their value is in what those thoughts teach you rather than glimpses of a future nobody really knows anything about. Plus once I started regularly setting up shop in my corner, the nurses let up a bit on trying to drag me to activities. I guess telling pretend fortunes is social enough to count. Mr. Enfield owned a seaside restaurant, which hed managed for most of his life and stayed involved in until he was too sick to possibly work. It looked very likely that the business would leave the family after him. The new generation had all found different callings, and the head chef, his protege, was offering to buy the place. Ive never seen the man visibly worried about anything, bizarre as that is in a place like this, but hed come to ask about whether his lifes work was in good hands. The smiling old man sets his final card on the table with an unsteady hand. The Page of Pentacles. My first reading today has been so straightforward that I almost wonder if the cards really are taking a hand in this one. Almost. This is a stable, successful future in the hands of a rising star. Youve built your foundations as well as you can, and theyre set to hold strong. Ah thats a relief. Im very proud of what we had, but I really ought to have taken my hands off it by now. I want my family to remember me as well as my customers, and nobody looks back over their life and wishes theyd clocked more hours at work, do they? Mr. Enfield lets out a soft, wheezing chuckle. You know, miss sometimes I wonder if this all wasnt for the best. If what comes next is any variant on everything happens for a reason, Ill vomit. He keeps on. He wears oxygen tubes, and the words are clearly an effort to push out. Im sure Ive leaned on my kids more than I meant to. About the business, probably plenty of other things too. Goddess knows what Id give for more time with them, but theyve gone their own ways, and thats alright. I have to be alright with that to get the most out of what weve got left. Were together now, well be happy for however long Ive got, and I dont need to worry about any of that. Things, they find a way to work themselves out in the end. Thats what I think, anyway. Sure. Happy to help. I gather the cards, pick up Pearl, and leave without another word. ~~~ Her eyes open to a dream of children frolicking in their sanctuary. Though her thoughts are as grains of sand passing through a sieve, trickling piecemeal into the vessel apportioned to her, she knows her purpose perfectly well. She looks up to the vast quilt of stars swaddling this world, glimmering wisps twined together by threads of emptiness. Their neverending dances are of no concern to the her who has awoken here. She thinks only of her goal. Her reason for being. She turns her gaze to the city, a teeming garden of life. Spires in all shapes and sizes are spread out before her in clusters at once chaotic and calculated, sprouting from the earth like flowers of glass and stone. She looks, and she listens. Deeply, subtly, gently beyond comparison. Thousands of hearts beat to the selfsame rhythm no matter how viciously their spirits conflict. A few of these heartbeats rise above the refrain, guiding its melody, and two in particular resound in her above all others. It is beautiful, in its way, but not what she is here for. No, what she seeks is the one new heart beating in dissonance with its own murmur. The song of a soul crying out for release. ~~~ Mr. Enfield died a few hours later. I dont know exactly what happened except that Dr. Hines, the director of palliative care, was pale and grimacing on his way out. Its just past midnight. I cant sleep, so Ive gone wandering for a bit. The lights in the lounge are dimmed nearly to the point of being off, but theres no actual curfew, and at least a few residents always end up falling asleep on the couches after they turn off the TV for the night. The nurses still seem a bit tense, and they dont even give me the usual disapproving looks I get on my late night walks. For the moment, I sit in my usual corner, looking out at the city. Pearl perches on my shoulder, where she can see over the plants on the windowsill. I wonder if Mr. Enfield still felt the same way when it happened, or if he felt anything at all. Plenty of people his age take naps and never wake up. I wonder about his legacy, too. Id obviously never met his successor and never plan to. Who knows if anything I told him was true? What will happen to Pearl when I die? Somehow, of all the thoughts and fears swirling around in my mind, thats among the most persistent. Dad wont want to keep any of my things around. I have no friends left, no family Im close with, no little cousins I could will her to. Maybe Noirin has grandchildren who would like her, but then Id have to spill my guts about something this stupid to a woman Ive known for a few weeks, and she must have her own things to sort out. Plus, how would I trust some kid Id never met to take good care of her? This isnt helping. I start back toward my room. Splish. Eh? A puzzling noise echoes from just beyond the door to Mr. Enfields room, like the sudden plunk of a rock being dropped into a lake. Bizarre these walls are soundproofed well enough. More than that, there shouldnt be anyone in there at all, and what would make a noise like that even if there were? Something in the pipes? Plunk. There it is again, pattering numbingly along in intervals with no pattern I can place. For a moment, I figure its just the steady dripping of water from a faucet somebody failed to turn completely off, but then it goes silent without the faintest trace of movement otherwise. If I could hear liquid trickling from beyond that door, shouldnt I have heard the faucets handle being turned to shut it off? Or the steps of whoever turned that handle? Then it starts again. A surge of rapid little taps like heavy rain against a window. My knees tense and my spine stiffens. This doesnt feel right at all. I rap my knuckles meekly against the door and wait a moment. Nothing. Then, after a longer gap than the last, it starts again, and this time, rather than fade, it stretches out, becoming the sound of swishing your hand around in a bathtub, or maybe dragging something through a swamp. I try the handle beneath the electric card reader and find it unlocked. Wait wait wait! Just before I crack the door open, my hand shoots back almost on its own, like Id touched a burning stove. Stop. This is wrong, this is dangerous, these are all the kinds of warning signs they talk about when It happens. A nauseating riot of color surges out from underneath the door, like a second skin festering over it, crawling up its length and spilling out across the floor. It spreads just slowly enough for me to jump back as blotchy ooze swallows the tile Id been standing on an instant ago. Its hard to focus my eyes on its presence makes it hard to see anything at all, hard to endure my own senses. The brown of dried blood swirls with living, twisting shades of grey, and parts of the growth bubble like a pool of hot mud. The rainshower in my ears becomes a howling torrent. Like a drum pounding loud and fast enough to split my head open, mingled with the rhythmic slamming of my heart against my chest. I can smell sour air and I want to puke. Just seeing it makes my eyes burn, but I cant look away. Even as the muck rises out of itself, slowly pulling itself upwards, rising above my height, I cant look away. It wont let me. The thing looms over me, a thin shrouded figure sculpted out of wet, oozing clay. It has no face, no features at all. Its body splits down the middle, opening like a mouth into nothing. A dozen thin black limbs like insect legs reach up through the tear, dig into the shredded clay, and start to push. A dark shape crawls up and out of the muck, like something inside is molting Liadain! Get away from there! A girls low, even words call out to me, tinged with faint urgency. Theres no clear source of the sound. I actually dont think I even heard it at all, just thought it in someone elses inner voice? Whatever it was, its enough to briefly cut through the haze of panic choking the air. I turn and bolt down the hallway, clutching Pearl as I run. The pounding water rapidly dims, and if the thing is following me, I cant tell. A moment later I stumble through my door, slamming it behind me. I squeeze the doorknob so hard it hurts and lean back, pushing my entire weight into the door. This lasts a few seconds before my legs give out and my socks slide forward, leaving me in a crumpled heap on the ground. Its all I can do to turn my head and press my ear to the door, shivering and choking all the while. This isnt the slightest bit safer, its still here, still right outside, still coming to But that doesnt happen. Nothing does. The soft, wet sounds are completely gone. Good. Stay in here and I should be able to protect you. For the moment. Im still not alone. At those voiceless words, I turn around and look up at another strange visitor. She stands beside my bed, studying my tarot cards where Id left them on the nightstand. A child? The rough shape is of a little girl in a heavy blue-grey cloak, the color of the sea on a cloudy day. When I see her face, I realize that the girl is very clearly something else. Her skin is marble white, but slick and shining like a dolphins, with the tips of the thin tendrils that trail down from her head like hair tinged a faint blue. In place of a nose, she just has two nostrils set directly into her skin. She watches me with sapphire eyes that have no pupils, only the thinnest rims of white around solid colored circles. What is she? Not a Keeper maybe one very deep into Emergence could end up like this, but she looks too young for the Promise range, and more than that, theres something deeply inhuman about how she carries herself. When her gaze lowers to meet mine, she moves in an eerily fluid, precise way her head takes the clearest possible path to exactly where it needs to be, and there it stays, never shifting or blinking. Harbingers arent supposed to speak, at least not in ways that make any sense, and a Harbinger would have eaten me or worse by now. That only leaves She starts to speak again, and her mouth doesnt move at all. The words come from that same strange place somewhere inside me. Theres nothing you can do about what you just saw, not as you are. But you can be more, if you wish. ~~~ Note: If you are reading this on a website that is not https://nowherestars.net/, Royal Road, or Scribblehub, you are reading a pirated version and that website does not have the permission of the author to host the story. Please instead read the story on one of those sites, where it is completely free to read. This story has not been published on Amazon. If you find it there, please reach out to me through DMs to Anemone on Discord or Royal Road. Death Inverted 1-2 The lectures only ever said that Harbingers were terrifying monsters and wed know them when we saw them. That didnt do them the least bit of justice. The thing in the halls was unforgettable and too awful to remember at the same time. Thinking about it feels like picking shards of glass out of my brain. I do my best to shove it from my mind, but every single line of thought ends with wondering where it is now and what it might be doing. Are you sure its safe here? Really really sure? Reluctantly, I look back at the door, trying to keep the girl in the corner of my eye. Nothing is crawling through the cracks. Her gaze circles the room. Her nostrils crinkle like shes trying to place a smell. No. Its very hard to be certain of anything about Harbingers, even newborns. She closes her eyes, opens her mouth slightly, and lets out a wordless song in a whales low, howling voice. The lightbulbs above take on a very faint moon-colored glow which scatters into bright flecks dancing along the walls, like sunbeams beneath the sea. After a moment, the song stops, but the tint remains. There, the girl says, again speaking directly into my head. Ive warded this room against Wound intrusion. That and my presence are the closest things to safety I can offer you right now. Save, that is, for the power to protect yourself. The power. Thats youre I know the answer, but I cant make myself say it. I dont know what Ill do if Im wrong. If shes gotten me to hope for something just to dash it a few seconds later I just stare at her and squeeze Pearl a little tighter. The girl raises her arm to her chest, as if to place a palm to her heart, but theres no hand at the end of it. Instead, the limb opens into something like an undersea flower, seven pale petals around thin blue stalks. My name is Vyuji. Im a Messenger of Claiasya, and your yearning has called me here. She spreads her arms from her hips and bows her head, taking an almost prayerful position. Your soul rejects its foundations. You stand at the boundary of the world, and with one more step, you can move beyond it. You can be a Keeper, if you but choose. Exactly what I thought, then. The whiplash of it all leaves me paralyzed. This is happening right now, when I was staring at pure horror certain Id die not a minute ago C when Im still fearing for my life. For her part, Vyuji just waits, silent and still. Why me? If you wanted to choose me, why only now? Can you tell me? Do you even know or is this just how its done? My vision blurs as the words tear out of my throat. My nails dig into my arms. Vyuji tilts her head curiously. This is the first time Ive felt your call. The only choice I made was to answer it. That doesnt tell me anything about why. Not many Keepers talk about the mystery of what earns them their blessing, but the ones who do say their Messengers dont even seem to understand the question. This is what they mean, then. Because I know you, Liadain. I knew you and loved you from the moment I felt your will. Nothing I can do will change the past, and nothing I say will apologize for the life you have led before now. All I can give you is my word that what comes next may be different. That it will be different, if you accept what is yours. Dont talk about knowing me. Whoever you are, whatever youve seen or havent about me, you waited what, were you sitting and waiting to tell me this until I gave up? On everything? What I know, what you would know if you meant that, is that I have nothing! No life! No future! Just the years Ive spent making my peace, and now, now you wont even let me keep that! What am I doing? Has it been so long since anything good happened that Ive forgotten how to act when it does? I break down into choked, ugly sobs. Vyujis face falls, heavy with some unplaceable emotion. I am sorry that it couldnt be sooner. Truly, I am. It is a monstrous thing that the world has refused you a place in it, simply for being born. I will not try to justify it, because it cannot be done. Her gaze meets mine. What is that in her eyes? Pain? Remorse? Yet more pity? But I can still help you carve a place for yourself. Please please go away. I dont care what shes promising. I cant bear to have her standing there staring at me anymore. The Messenger frowns. She watches me, still unblinking, for another silent moment. I cant choose for you and wont judge your decision, but are you certain? Yes. No. I mean, thats not to say no, get out of here and never come back, I just I need to think. Alone. Do I have to decide right now? Vyuji finally looks away from me, a very small mercy. She puts a flower-hand to her chin and stares up at the ceiling pensively. Theres a pause just long enough that I worry Ive ruined everything, but then No. Sometimes these things are more sensitive, but in your case this is an open offer. Ill note that you dont even need to make the Promise to protect yourself or these people, if you dont want to. If you call emergency services and tell them youve just spotted a Harbinger, someone will be here to handle it soon enough. This doesnt appear to be an urgent crisis just yet. That said, if it is left alone, it will feed and grow until it becomes one. I have no way to predict how long that will take, so I do suggest that you make your choice quickly. Fine. I dont think itll take long, Im Im just really tired. Will the Harbinger be back as soon as you leave? I believe it will look for somewhere more secluded, but its not impossible. Given that, I would like to keep a distant watch on this floor. If you need time to make your choice, you have my word that unless I have to intervene to protect you from something, Ill leave you alone until you invite me back in. Is that acceptable? My stomach scrunches up at the thought of that filth seeping beneath the crack of my rooms door while I sleep and rising up to spill over me. My nose and eyes and tongue burn at the memory of its scent. Itd probably burn my skin just to touch it. My throat lurches as an image forces itself into my brain against my will; that sludge swallowing me whole, dissolving my flesh away until Im nothing but rotting bones and drain-clogging hair carried away on a current of sewage alongside Pearls soiled remains. It feels like my heart is dangling right above a pit thats been dug into my chest, and the moment Vyuji leaves, itll be snipped right off my aorta like grapes from a tree and plummet down into the void, taking the whole rest of the night with it in a spiral of shuddering dread as I cower beneath my covers praying the monster wont get me before morning comes. Wait, thats wrong. Grapes dont grow on trees. They grow on vines, right? But I could have sworn I saw a grape tree once, on a school field trip I was well enough to take. So maybe they do exist. I just dont really know. And I realize how weird it is that I know more for sure about the blood vessels connected to my heart than I do about grapes. And the way things are now, itll always be that way. And I hate that more than anything. I hate the fact that Im almost too exhausted to be afraid at this point, because if I''m going to die anyway with nothing to show for it, why should it matter if a Harbinger kills me tonight or my own worthless blood kills me next week? The truth is, Im here on the seventh floor exactly because its already over for me. I hate it. I hate it so much that my jaw clenches shut and my nails dig into my palms hard enough to sting and, without even thinking about it, I raise one of my balled up fists, pour all the strength in my tiny body into it, and hammer it into the door Im leaning on again and again and again while the Messenger across from me just looks on without saying a word. With just those three knocks, my pointless tantrum is already over, because thats all it took to get me panting hard enough that its hard to talk. Thats really all I had in me. Fine, do it, I finally say after Im done catching my breath. Id rather not have that chance on my mind. Just dont sit right in here and watch me sleep or anything. Part of me expects that this is one last cruel joke, that Ill be eaten or die in bed as soon as this meeting ends. If she wants to cut off at least one of those possibilities, Ill take it. Thank you. Sleep well, Liadain ah, as well as you can in these circumstances. I hope Ill see you soon. She raises an arm, opens the petals at the end of it, and waves farewell once. Then shes gone just gone, blinked out of existence without a trace. The room brightens in the same instant, losing that strange bluish tint. I tuck Pearl in, but dont join her just yet. My rooms windows face east, toward the city. I prefer it to the flower fields on the other side, but not by enough that I spend much time enjoying the view. After tonight, though, I do want to look out over the world beyond the seventh floor, the world I just might still have a future in. At this hour, most of New Claris is lit only by the moon and stars. The night lighting is sparse and carefully targeted I think thats true almost everywhere by now, but our city was rebuilt with the specific goal of being kind to the planet more recently than most. A few scattered rooms in skyscrapers are still bright, a few homes still active. The main roads are outlined in thin trails of ecoluminance, narrow lights cast over rows of reflective trees and shrubs, and the sidewalks and back streets blink with smaller motion-sensing lanterns. I cant clearly see anyone from here, but I can trace their steps by the lights that brighten their paths and vanish as they move on. As I watch them go on their ways, I think about the people who still belong to that world. Mostly I think of the Keepers patrolling the city, and what it would mean to be one of them. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Ive dreamed that dream now and then. Of course I have. Everyone spent their youth hoping at least a little for the day theyd meet a Messenger, but while other kids were sketching what they wanted their costumes to look like, I did my research. I learned how rare it was for that day to come. Only a very few children would be chosen, and there was no way to plan or practice to be a Keeper, since nobody knew what the Messengers were looking for. Whatever the conditions, I''d doubted Id ever meet them. I wasnt a hero or an innocent or the greatest person in any sense. More important than any of the facts and patterns, I knew how painful hope could be when you mistook it for something else, so I learned not to hope. I buried my dreams, quietly hated the world that wouldnt let me have even the smallest of them. I lived with the promise that so long as I expected nothing, nothing could disappoint me. I guess I was very wrong. Life has always looked for ways to upend my plans. Oh, Vyuji promised the world in return for the bitter peace she stole, but it isnt that easy. Keepers never visibly age another day after they make the Promise, but the ways they change beyond that are not predictable. Some can make themselves enormously stronger and tougher than any ordinary person, but they cant stay like that forever, not unless thats where their Emergence takes them. You need more power than the Promise offers on its own to really, fully rewrite yourself with magic, and that power can only be taken from Harbingers. Thinking about those nightmares and the heroes who hunt them, I wonder if the Harbinger that nearly killed me is out in the night, stalking someone else or looking for a new home. Right. The Harbinger. I pull the curtains closed and crack my door open, peeking out into the hallway. No signs of the thing Id seen waiting for me outside. Slowly, I creep along the wall and glance past the corner at the door to Mr. Enfields old room. At least for the moment, its just a door, and I sigh with relief at the sight of it. Satisfied, or as satisfied as I can be, I find one of the currently-empty public rooms with a phone installed. The police cant do anything to a Harbinger, but theyll pass it on to someone who can. As I pick up the phone, though, Vyujis last words come back to mind. Im too dead to think, I dont really know what I want to do, but I havent decided not to make the Promise. If I do, calling for help right now would cause some problems. Thered be someone else chasing the only lead I have, hunting in my backyard where they might run into the new Keeper and trace me to the hospital, altogether making my life a lot more complicated. Theres also the matter of Keepers patrolling certain sections of the city theyve claimed or been assigned to, but frankly I just dont want to deal with other people, if I can at all help it. When I think of it like that, it sounds really ungrateful to the chosen children whove probably kept me safe from any number of disasters I never learned about, but it is what it is. Ill call tomorrow morning if I decide to turn Vyuji down, but right now I really am too tired for all this. I stalk back to my room, fall into the bed, and do my best to sleep through my whirling thoughts. ~~~ I wake, as I usually do, to the sun glaring down at me through gauzy sky-blue curtains. Shortly after I moved in here, I asked if theyd replace them with blackout shades. They would not. Something about sunlight being good for you in all sorts of ways, as if that was going to save me. I roll over and gather as much quilt as I can around my head without suffocating myself. I can never actually get back to sleep when this happens, but I try anyway. Eventually, someone knocks on my door, then cracks it open when I dont answer. One of the nurses, here to take my vitals after yesterdays infusion. I drag myself out of my nest, keeping my protests to myself for the moment. Is Dr. Hines around yet? I ask as she pokes a thermometer into my ear. Hm? Oh, I think hes out today. Did you need anything? No, I just had a weird question. It can wait, dont worry about it. I dont think the Promise on its own would cure me, but I dont know that it definitely wouldnt, and it still might help in some way. Oh well. I havent decided how to broach it yet, anyway is treating Keeper-specific issues even something normal doctors do? I have no idea. Theres probably never been a Keeper with exactly what I have, so even the experts might not know where to start. Shes finished before too long. I sit in bed a little longer after she leaves. Why did I even want to know? If the cold comfort of misery is a scab over my wounds, its just picking at it to entertain an idea like that at all, isnt it? I lay Pearl on the pillow and push myself out of bed, into my morning routine. After I dress, take my small mountain of pills, and brush a forest of tangles out of my hair, I pull my first card of the day from my tarot deck, a simple single-card reading. The Six of Pentacles from my personal deck is still in exile, where it will remain until I no longer hate it. It may be a while. The Sun. The dawn on a dark night. Enlightenment, if you like, or an omen of a recovery to come. For all I used to look down on other kids childish hopes, I did try to sketch my costume once, a long time ago. Im no artist, so it didnt end up looking like anything at all, but I tried. I break down again, this time in wild, uncontrollable laughter. Maybe someone outside is hearing and thinking Ive lost my mind, but I dont really care. It starts to let up just as it gets painful, but then another thought strikes me I hate the sun. None of the meanings in the tarot books are things I see in it, and theres no real reason for me to take it as a good omen. Rather than spoil my mood, that only brings forth a renewed burst of cackling. Once the ache in my sides fades, I wipe my eyes on my sleeve, stand, and speak to the window: I didnt dream you, did I, Vyuji? If youre still there, Im ready to talk. Im happy to confirm that you did not. Just as I hear the words, the Messenger appears next to me with no warning or fanfare. How are you faring today, Liadain? You dont really look like a Messenger, do you? I ask. I vaguely recognized Vyujis name when she first gave it, so I must have picked it up somewhere, but I don''t recall anything specific about her. Stores are full of Messenger merchandise, cuddly toys and mascot charms said to be made in their images. Enne, the most popular of the six, is apparently some kind of fluffy pink cloud-animal. Art by Keepers or sourced from their descriptions shows him as a round tuft of wispy fur with big dark puppy-eyes, two front seal flippers but no back limbs, and no visible mouth under his shiny black nose. There are never any little stuffed fish-girls on the shelves next to him. Vyuji looks down at herself wryly. Would you prefer it if I did? Honestly, something about her does feel more genuine than speaking to the Goddess through a stuffed animal. No, I guess not. I didnt think so. Otherwise, youd have met one of my siblings. We are what our children need us to be. Does everyone you come calling for see a different Vyuji? And if they do, what does her well, her say about me? My children need me to be sincere. Right. Anyway, Im better, I think. More or less. Im sorry I- Dont apologize to me. Ever. She waves an arm dismissively. I came here for you. I exist for you, and for children like you. You needed to say something to me, so you did. I hope it helped you organize your thoughts, but either way, youve nothing to be sorry for. Uh, if you say so, sure. Ill remember that. I might have something youll like better, anyway. I take a heavy, steadying breath. The Promise. If, and thats if I wanted to make it, how does that work? There is a way to these things, but its quite simple. Once a potential Keeper understands the conditions of the Promise, all they need to do is accept them of their own free will. Theres a sudden warmth to her mental voice. Its subdued, but definitely sounds something like happiness. Those terms are also simple. On Claiasyas behalf, I pledge to foster your growth as a Keeper and guide you through your new life with whatever knowledge I can offer. You pledge to embrace and nurture the magic sleeping in your soul. Should you accept it, you are free to do with it what you will. Really? Keepers just take all this power and use it for whatever? Anything you want. A Keepers magic is theirs and it is them. All we do is open the door, and all we ask is that you use what comes surging through. Right then. In that case, tell me about Emergence. Ah. Of course. Vyuji smiles, very slightly. Keepers stop aging from the moment they make the Promise, but they dont stop changing. The religious types say magic shapes a Keepers vessel to best express the inner truths of their soul, and whether or not thats really what happens, it does mark its users. It starts small, maybe your hair recolors itself or your eyes start glowing with power, but can get very strange if you last long enough. Frozen Sun Iona Fianata, the citys eldest Keeper and founding hero, has ice-sculpture eyes and a bubble of endless winter following her wherever she goes. I dont really care about any of that. What matters happens beneath the surface. A Keepers role in the world is to protect it from Harbingers. Nothing obligates them to do that, but most find their own reasons. Seeking Emergence is often among them. A fallen Harbinger is not completely destroyed something remains of its heart, and it is not good for such a thing to linger and float freely in the world. A Keeper can claim that essence, purify it within themselves and fold its power into their own. Emergence is the souls maturation, the process through which a Keeper grows with their power. Like all magic, its wielders emotions and wishes give it shape. When its handled properly, a Keeper can direct their own evolution. Rewrite themselves to better suit their needs. So if I want, say, perfect health or complete immortality, eating enough Harbingers will give it to me? I cant predict exactly what your path might look like, but if that is your dearest desire, then your magic will create a way for you to sustain yourself forever, she says without hesitation. I glance over her shoulder at the pill bottles covering my nightstand. Whatever I said going into this, its honestly a little hard not to throw myself right into the deal. Okay. Great. About how many Harbingers does this take? Vyuji gives a tiny shake of her head. She barely moves as she speaks, not the slightest gesture or twitch or visible breath, so any motion at all stands out. Magic is not so neat and predictable. Harbingers come in all sizes, and the metamorphosis is a path you walk rather than a single boundary you eventually cross. Every step will bring you closer, but there is no reliable way to say how long the road to your goal will be. Apologies. Ah, and sometimes a Keeper desires something too wide to be accomplished purely through Emergence. In those cases, there are special arrangements we can make. This doesnt happen often, but its important that you know the option exists. Will I need to use it for what I want? Ive heard of something like this. I dont know how it works or anything, but miracles that change the whole world are rare enough that the Church calendar uses them to mark eras. The current year is Kuri 74. No, Vyuji says simply. Then I wont worry about it for now. What else? Thats all. Those are the conditions in full of the Promise between Claiasya and her children. You, Liadain Shiel, are now a party to it. Ah, this isnt part of the terms, but one last thing Her silent speech lowers, darkens. I brace myself for whatever catch is coming. A Keepers first steps are always difficult. Theyre different for everyone, so Im afraid theres no way to tell you how to prepare yourself, but I, at least, believe you deserve to know before it happens. If you choose for it to happen, of course. Knowing all you know, do you accept this Promise? I grimace. Of course nothing could ever be easy, but it didnt change anything, in the end. Thinking about it, there was probably never any chance Id turn her down. Maybe thats part of whatever makes a Keeper. Yes. Vyujis expression softens into something very warm almost maternal, or so I imagine. Then welcome to the world, Liadain. It isnt pain that shoots through me as she speaks my name. It isnt a feeling at all, or maybe I just dont have the senses to process it, but I know its there. I have just enough time to be disoriented before it shatters me, bursts from within like a bird cracking its shell or a star being born or like theres never been any other me holding it in at all Death Inverted 1-3 White. I look up at a blindingly white world. A medical monitor beeps, softly and steadily, from no source I can place. For a moment, I think Im alone in a completely featureless place, but Im not floating or falling there is a surface beneath me, smooth and cold to the touch. Looking around, Im in a small room of some sort. There are shadows in the corners, though I dont see any light sources to cast them, a bed covered in ratty sheets next to a tall IV pole, and a round white table with simple chairs on either side. Someone is already seated at the far side of the table. She leans over it, chin resting on folded hands, and And shes me. Pale, sallow skin. A thin face beneath a fall of feathery black hair stopping just at the shoulders. The same white ribbon I wear as a hairband, tied in the same way. Other than her eyes, which are changed from my dull grey to a shade of poisonous green so bright they nearly shine, shes my exact double. Her dress is more antique than anything Id be comfortable in, a formal mourning gown so black and lusterless it seems immune to light. The doppelganger glowers up at me thats how it feels, anyway, but then my face could twist even the mildest expression into something sour. Her gaze moves to the seat across from her. When Vyuji warned me about what came after the Promise, I think I imagined those first steps as soul-shredding agony, maybe even hoped it would be that simple. It was a silly thing to hope for, she obviously could have explained this is going to hurt, but I know pain. Ive learned to live with pain, and I could handle a little more. This, on the other hand, I have no idea what to do with. I assume for now that its not a dying dream, but that doesnt tell me what it is. Is this how magic works, or a push to figure out how it works? I dont feel any new senses, no power at my fingertips. All there is to do is play along and see where this goes, then. I take the free seat, returning my doubles glare. Alright. You know who I am, youve decorated with me in mind, so who are you? What exactly are we doing here? She doesnt speak. Her expression doesnt change. She just sits up in her chair, raises a hand, and suddenly shes holding my tarot deck. She didnt pick it up or pull it from her sleeve. It wasnt there, then it was. After last night, though, a trick like that barely feels worth noting. The top card of the deck faces me, displaying the Fool. I could take that as an insult, but metaphors are the first lesson of tarot. The Fool isnt stupidity, Death isnt the physical end of life, the Undreaming doesnt predict literal Harbinger attacks. Whether Im talking to some kind of reflection of myself or something else that knows me well enough to stage this scene, she should know that too. The meaning is clear enough. The beginning of what? I ask flatly. In answer, she scatters the deck across the table, swirling it around into a giant messy heap. Expectantly, she pushes the pile over to my side. Right. Now I understand everything. If we cant just talk to each other, I guess I know this way as well as any, I sigh, putting the deck back together and setting it on my left. The usual spread? She gestures permissively. With a flourish, I draw and flip my first card. A roughly circular web of many-colored ribbons, the colors trailing off into darker shades and eventually pure black on one side. Right now, the dark half is pointed up. The Wheel of Fortune inverted. A sudden turn for the worse. Things falling apart in ways you cant expect and certainly cant control. Well, I couldve told you that, I mutter. Is this supposed to be Without any warning or transition, the world changes. ~~~ It smells almost like a garden, but not like fresh rain and tilled soil. Dead earth baking in the summer sun. My head throbs in dull pain, and my ears feel like theyre plugged or filled with water. I cant move. Something warm and heavy pushes down on me, a pressure like the weight of the sea, but solid and grainy. I cant see. Everything is dark no, thats not right, my eyes are just closed. I try to open them. Immediately, they start to sting, something black and dusty filling my vision. I slam them shut, but there it stays, lodged underneath my eyelids. Im buried. Buried alive, or am I really dead after all? I start to scream, but dirt fills my mouth and smothers my voice. Unthinking, I flail and grasp and push against the weight of the earth, feebly trying to make space to breathe. I try to move as if swimming, but it doesnt work at all. I try to push up with my legs without knowing which way is up or if there even is an up here. Just as I shove any dirt out of the way, more shifts and falls into its place. I really am dead. Ill drown here, Ill Light leaks through the cracks in the earth. In one place, then another, the dirt gives way as my hands claw up into the air. My head surfaces a moment later, choking and crying and coughing up soil Ive desperately tried not to swallow. I pull myself free and collapse on the ground. Terror slowly gives way to exhaustion. And to pain, the burning in my lungs as I breathe slow, heavy breaths, the sharp aches in my fingers where my nails have cracked. Pain is good. I know pain, I can use pain. It means Im really still here. Dead on arrival, says a flat, lifeless voice. What a pity. Im in another hospital room, but the entire floor is made of loosely-packed soil, and everything in sight is worn and dirty. The blaring lights of an overhead medical lamp, a circle of sun-bright eyes, bear down on me almost like a spotlight. My battered hands clench into fists, and I drag myself to my feet, searching for the speaker. Nobody is here, not that I can see, but in a circle all around the room are rows and rows of auditorium seats stretching up as far as I could see, like an old-fashioned operating theater if it were built to seat hundreds. All the rooms lighting is centered on me, and looking up at them is like looking out a window at night. Yes, what a shame. A different voice, sourceless or coming from every possible direction. Such a waste. It isnt an operating suite, I see now, but a delivery room. Next to the reclining central bed is a plush chair and a small wheeled cradle covered in monitoring equipment. On each sits a framed photograph lined with black ribbon. I dont look any closer. I dont need to. The whole family with her, too. One little twist and theyre already dead, all of them. These two just dont know it yet. Fate can be so cruel, cant it? The first speaker laughs drily, and ~~~ And the scene abruptly vanishes, shifting back to the first white room. Its different now, though, more decrepit. A jagged fracture runs across the table, the whites are blotched with greys in places, and the sheet on the bed is now little more than a rag. My fingers, at least, are intact, and I dont see any dirt its just like the last scene never happened. What was that supposed to be? Why would you do that? I know all this. You obviously know all this. Whats any of it got to do with the Promise? The whole point was... I trail off. I agreed to it, I must have known what I wanted out of it, but right now I cant find the words. To live, yes, but that doesnt finish the thought at all. To be rid of the weight Id carried all my life? To not be the me who carried it? Is that what it comes down to? You know why. What was. Your context. What brought you here, the double says, using my voice for the first time. Her tone is cold and even. Thats the way we always start. The past is never past, and without it, none of this could be at all. You dont need to thank the life you''ve led for bringing you here, you dont need to embrace it, but you do need to know it. Curse the world all you like once you understand. Her eyes move, glancing down at the table, and she reaches out to trace the Wheel of Fortune with one gloved finger. The spread tells one story, not three. It isnt finished yet. Whenever youre ready. Is this going to keep happening? The girl grimaces and lowers her gaze, breaking eye contact. Tears well in the corners of her eyes, but dont quite fall. Why do you think were here? Right. I guess that was a stupid question. The room is still sealed, with not so much as a tightly-shut doorway anywhere in sight. If I was going to wake up, Id have done it by now. Only one way out, then. I reach for the cards, but my hand stops halfway across the table, trembling. Whatever waits at the end of this nightmare, the thought of diving back into it makes pulling another card feel like trying to willfully shove my arm into a fire. You do it, I finally say, pushing the deck back to her side of the table. Its not my usual method, but thats allowed, right? Her head shoots up to glare directly at me, though her eyes are still faintly bleary. Wait, then. Sit alone and pray for change that will never come. Wait until the world leaves you behind. Even now, I wonder if theres any hope for us. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. What did you expect me to do? I snap back. Go off on an adventure like my life is some stupid movie about a cute little dying girl? Sure! Ive always wanted to visit the Freezing Sea, should I have taken a trip up that way? Id die the first time I caught a cold, probably before I managed to leave the city, but I could smile and tell myself it wasnt worthless after all because at least I tried! Do you think that would do anything? Do you think it would have gotten me the Promise sooner? The double shakes her head slowly. No. Not really. Im you. What could I do that you couldnt? What could I expect that you didnt? All Im here to do is remind you of the paths forward that werent there a day ago, more of them than most people ever see. You still need to walk them for that to mean anything. The frigid sharpness of her speech fades as she speaks, softens into something quiet and sad. I could finish the reading. There are no rules here that you didnt make. But I wont. This is only a dream, and soon there will only be you to take those steps. Gently, she pushes the deck back to me. I wont give her the satisfaction of saying so, but she is right. Nobody ever said that Keepers had it easy. Not the Church, not the Keepers themselves, not even Vyuji, whose reason for being is to sell me on the Promise. This is a dream, and even if it can actually torture me, it cant be much next to whats expected of me now. The thought of it makes me sicker than usual, but when this nightmare is over and I have my magic, I still plan to go find that Harbinger as quickly as possible. Well, if I cant do this Quickly, like Im handling something hot, I draw the next card and set it at the center of the table. The Nine of Swords. Thats what the frame reads, but the art isnt anything I recognize. It shows me splayed out against a wall, surrounded but not yet pierced by nine huge hollow needles, like a butterfly waiting to be pinned. The background is in the same awful riot of mud-and-gore colors that marked the Harbingers presence last night, and just like then, those colors are swirling, alive. The next shifting of the world comes before I can say or think anything clear. ~~~ I sit bolt upright on a hard bench, feeling like Ive just been startled awake. Rubbing my eyes and looking around, Im in something like a hospital waiting room, butthe walls, the floors, the counters, everything is covered in wounds, like theyre all made of skin, gaping and bleeding. Thick, pulsing veins crisscross the windows like overgrown vines. In several places, bulging eyeballs poke through the surfaces, all staring directly at me. The sounds of my own heartbeats and rushing blood play in my head as if through a megaphone. Something wet stirs beneath me. Frantically, I roll off the bench, stumbling to the floor and to the first unmarred spot of white I can see. Thin lines tear or crack themselves open all around the room. Veins steadily grow out along the walls, but not in toward me. Nothing is coming for me or following me other than the steady tracking of the eyes, it feels almost like this place wasnt really meant for me, wasnt paying much attention to me at all. Somehow, disgust wins over panic. I curl up on the little island still made of hard tile, retching as the world twists and tears. What is this? Why is this? The last scene that was made of things I knew, things that had happened, just ran through the filter of nightmare logic. This thing, this cage of flesh growing around me, its just an awful directionless spectacle. I study it from my tiny perch, looking for as long as I can bear, but... nothing. No sudden shift comes. The room is only so large, and eventually Ill be completely encased in its growth, but it seems like the only thing to do with it is wait and see if it has a point. Wait and see. Nightmare logic. The Nine of Swords is the card of nightmares, fear, trauma. Not sickness or death, but the despair those things carry with them. In my favorite deck, its picture is a horrible mass of bone and maggots and socketless eyes still trailing nerves. All are skewered on nine swords in a neat row, and once you process the initial shock, its easy enough to see what youre looking at. I think of it as a warning against becoming a prisoner in your own thoughts, even when the fear that created them is completely justified. What am I lost in? What brought me here, kept me here? I used to think of life as a long, long stay in a waiting room. I knew I was very sick, but there were things they could do to make me better. I still thought that the first time they took me out of school. I just had to sit through this and then I would be better. My real life hadnt started yet, and it was taking a little longer than it did for most people, but it would. Someday. It took me longer than it should have to realize it was hopeless. I think it was after the first transplant failed, after my few friends started to pull away and the time I spent in the hospital was simply devoted to keeping the rejected marrow from killing me outright. I cant remember a single moment when I decided that real life was never coming, but I did. I was dying, nobody else would care when it happened, and nothing I could do would make any difference. The only thing left was to detach from my botched life, read my books, look out the window at the world I was no longer part of, and wait. And all the while, death was coming for me. It could be the sickness, the medicine, the Harbinger, some freak accident that had nothing to do with any of it, but it had been at my shoulder all my life. It wouldnt be much longer. And whatever I say, whatever I do to cope with the life I was stuck with, I dont want to die. I dont ever want to die, if I can help it. Why else had I not climbed the fence on the roof and thrown myself off? Enough of this. Im leaving. I cant wait anymore. For once in my life, I dont have to stay helpless. The world doesnt hear my words and vanish. It doesnt change at all. Of course not. Taking long, careful steps over holes and tears in the floor, I make my way to the front doors. Theyre already thick with flesh-vines, but not completely sealed off. Hesitantly, I push on one of them, maybe hoping the whole tangle will dissolve into smoke as soon as I challenge it. It does not. It just pulses a little faster under my hand, hot and faintly sweaty to the touch. I draw back, feebly trying to pull it with me, but it quickly slips my grip and snaps back into place. I dont think I can pull them loose, I certainly cant rip them, and I still dont feel any magic at my call. The only way out is through, then. After another glance, I spot a hole in the web that seems not like a clean exit, but enough of a gap that someone my size could squeeze through it with only emotional trouble. I shudder at the thought, but take a long, heavy breath, hold it, and crawl in, desperately hoping that the vines wont close around me or drag me back in. Its like pushing through a path blocked by warm, sticky, stretchy branches, and as disgusting as it sounds, but the barrier makes no active moves to hold me back. Finally, I tumble headfirst through the gap, barely thinking to look at whatever waits on the other side, and roll out onto the weathered white-and-grey floor of the first room, just beside the table. No trace of the flesh-cage remains. To an observer, I must have dropped out of open air. My doppelganger still sits at the central table, watching impassively. I dont resent this process any less, but Im starting to see its point, and the shape of my still-unfinished reading. Okay. I take my seat again. I wont waste time asking who dreamed that up. I guess I did, and I dont need to add self-hatred to my list of problems. Lets lets just finish this, alright? Still whenever Im ready? She blinks, looking almost surprised, but nods. Go right ahead. I grit my teeth, close my eyes, and draw the last card. What will be. A bulls eyeless corpse pierced by a forest of blades. The Ten of Swords, the direct and natural end of the last cards events. Failure. Ruin. Disaster. Being shattered by a power entirely beyond your control, with only the fact that things couldnt get any worse for comfort. Nothing changes. No new vision swallows me up. This time, the dream just left me alone with my thoughts. Those thoughts are bad enough. ...Thats it? Thats where this is going? Thats why we went through all this? My voice breaks. What am I supposed to take from that? Even the Promise cant offer someone like me a life? Is that the message? Was this all just one last laugh at my expense before I get myself killed? It was, yes. A day ago, that was the end we were hurtling toward. The dream-double narrows her eyes and smiles for the first time, a wide, triumphant grin. Youre forgetting something, though. That was then. The future, our future, has changed. And we constantly cheat at tarot. Repeat a reading we dont like here, exile a card there... She puts a finger to the table, and the venomous light in her eyes flares. The card starts to glow in that same color, brightening until nothing of it is visible through the light. Slowly, the color fades, and when it does, the card is a different one entirely. A black and white image of a crows skeleton, the skull facing me. Death inverted. See? She nods, satisfied. This one isnt a challenge or a lesson, is it? I whisper. Not for us. Its a promise. Traditionally, Death reversed meant being trapped in or haunted by the past, resisting a necessary change, fighting something that couldnt be avoided or that you needed to accept to move forward. In another context, it might have been just as terrible an end to this reading, a statement that I really should just heed the worlds wisdom and make peace with my doom. Death is endings and beginnings, though, and right now, I read it as an awakening after a long, long winter. Rejection of the end, and with it, rebirth. Oh, its still a sort of lesson, the double says. Start thinking with power. If you cant accept your fate, then make another. Theres something a bit ghastly in her features as she says that. The scene shifts again. Now we both stand on an invisible surface in a pale grey void, infinite and empty. But youre right. And with that, weve done all we can here, she continues. Its almost time we moved on. Are you sure? For all this I still dont feel any different. I dont know any more than I did when we started about how Im different or what I can do. You will. Theres just one more thing. She starts to lose her definition, somehow, like a figure in a picture drawn with no outlines. In the next instant, she becomes a silhouette, a solid shadow ran through with veins and serpentine spirals of sickly green radiance. The color separates itself from her, slithering outward into a halo of baleful light that clings tightly to the shadows edges. The aura begins to gather itself into shapes, now around rather than within her, then slowly darkens and solidifies into an outfit too elaborate and impractical to be mistaken for anything but a Keepers regalia. A black bell-skirted dress, adorned at the bottom and sleeves with ruffled white lace. Tall flat-heeled boots. At the top, a heavy hooded capelet with a deep green bow placed over the chest, the only color anywhere on the ensemble. Finally, the shadows eyes appear from the gloom as she resolves back into my body. I stare, silent, until she strides forward and hugs me tightly. As I stiffen at the contact, she dissolves again into shadow and green light, this time melding into me rather than taking a new shape, and the world around me rapidly fades. I guess all I have left to say is live. Because youve never asked for much and you deserve better. Because when the world has given you nothing, its not wrong to take what you need from it. Because you can. ~~~ And Im back in my room, just where I started. Welcome back, Liadain. My children always do have a certain flair to them, Vyuji says. She hasnt moved an inch. Im glad to see youve kept that tradition up. Death Inverted 1-4 That was does everyone have the dreams? Mostly. All of my children do. I look down at myself. No time seems to have passed at all during my dream, but its followed me back into the waking world. The regalia my shadow wore there is mine. Its fabric is impossibly light and strangely, soothingly cool to the touch. Thin black gloves wrap around my hands like a second skin. I take a few hesitant steps around my bed, ending in a short hop. Nothing about the outfits complicated lower layers gets in the way of moving, and my steps in the heavy leather boots arent exactly silent, but they dont thud against the hard floor the way I expected them to. The only sounds they make come from friction rather than impact. I do feel different now, changed in more ways than I can easily count. Taking in everything new is dizzying, like trying to see with once-blind eyes while also learning to walk. New senses tug at the corners of my awareness. I breathe, shut my eyes, and try to tune out everything else. The first thing I notice is the intangible force coursing through me. It feels almost like flowing bloodif I were perfectly aware of my bloods currentsand is as much a part of me. Maybe more. It surges up from a reservoir deep within myself, resounding within me; a torrent that will never run dry, raging and alive, pumped endlessly by my souls heart. It prickles my nerves, aching to be released, to be expressed. If I let it loose, would I be washed away in its currents? The thought makes my teeth chatter. I can feel other, much fainter points of essence with that sense, scattered all through the rooms around me. Scattered needles of emotion prick against my mind, piercing gently into me from every angle like pins into a pincushion. Other people? That feels right, but incomplete. Im not looking into anyones souls. I cant recognize them by how they feel, cant really glean anything about who they are or what theyre doing. Theres something else, though. I only start to notice it as I focus closely on one point, trying to see if anything distinguishes it from the others. My first impression is of rotting fruit, but pushing past that, I feel it for what it is a knot of pain, coiled around and through a person. I can know it and describe it without feeling it myself. This ones heart is slowly giving out. That ones breath is being stolen away. The soul a few rooms down can no longer eat on their own power. Cores of inner corruption are all around me, the only way I have to tell one person from another. Their stench grows stronger the more attention I pay to them, and I pull my focus back to my room as it starts to overwhelm me. Vyuji is still standing right there, smiling that weirdly serene smile. ...Are you just going to stay here? I ask. Stupid, I realize after a dazed moment. Of course shes still here. My sense of time is completely shot, but I probably havent been a Keeper for more than a minute. For as long as you need me to. At the moment, the only thing I have to do is guide you through these first steps. I know that theyre disorienting, for most of you. Do you need anything from me right now? I cant decide where to start, so I settle on an all-purpose question. Okay, I... sure. Tell me something I need to know. Something I might not be thinking of right away. Good choice. All the instincts you need come with the Promise, but you do have to know the questions to see that you have the answers to them. She nods and raises one arm, a single petal opening as if she were counting on fingers. First. No Keeper experiences things in exactly the same way, so I cant teach you much about how your perception works or how best to use it, but I can tell you one thing: that unseen sense is the strongest tool you have to find and to track Harbingers. The miasma that forms around their victims and places of power is uniquely foul. Youll understand as soon as youve felt it. It doesnt last, but if you hurry, you may still be able to pursue the one you met earlier. Which I might. Ah, but would it be a terrible idea to run right into that? She and my dream both said Id know everything I need to, but that isnt the same as having actual experience. I have no idea if theres Keeper basic training, if I need to practice and get a feel for myself before I can do anything serious and not expect to die in an instant. That depends on you. Ill teach you as much as I am able, but I am not a Keeper. I can only tell you what all of you can do and what those abilities are for. The Church could find you a more suitable mentor, if you want one. No. Not unless I absolutely have to. Im not in this for fame. The public idol thing isnt for me. I dont have time for it and I wouldnt want it even if I did. I dont want whatever support the Church or the Fianatas or whoever have to offer enough to put up with idiots barging in here and knocking on my door to ask for interviews. As you like. Plenty of my children feel similarly. If you wish to keep your privacy, I wont mention you to anyone else without your leave. Thanks. If I want to go talk to someone, Ill find them myself. Anything else? Another petal opens. Yes. Second, whatever form your magic takes, you have an implement forged of it, empowered by it, a weapon fit to close the Wounds in the world. Call yours. You know how. And I do. I raise a hand, palm open, and will it into being, waiting to catch whatever appears. No blade falls into my grip. Instead, a ring of bright green specks forms in orbit around me. They grow from tiny lights into tall, flat rectangles, and then the glow dims, each becoming a tarot-sized card. The exact pictures and scenes arent ones I recognize honestly, theyre so abstract that its hard to tell what theyre meant to be at all but the basic art style is familiar, all stark black lines and sparse splashes of color with no human figures anywhere. Their back design is strange, though: two complicated white sigils spiraling and winding together on a dark background. It looks almost like expert calligraphy, but in a script Ive never seen from a language Ive never heard of. Vyuji, I say, my voice as measured and even as I can keep it, please tell me how Im supposed to fight monsters with cards. I dont know, but you do, she answers. Its your magic. Your wishes gave it form, not mine. I okay. You called them implements before you called them weapons. Is it wrong to think of these as something I should just throw or hit things with? Most likely. If your will would be best expressed through a simpler tool, a sword to strike or a shield to guard, thats what you would have. Thats something. It cant be that theyre just useless, can it? They dont look at all sharp or dangerous, but that means very little with magic. Silver King Irida, the current star of the local Keeper idol scene, fights with a squad of warriors she summons out of nothing and moves with an actual shogi board. How much weirder can weaponized tarot be? Well, what can I actually do with them? I can change, quicken, or slow the cards orbit with a thought, as easily as I can twitch my finger. With a little more effort, I take control of a single card from the ring and fly it around. I dont need to touch it or throw it, nor steer it with sweeping gestures and wiggly fingers the way stories depict using magic sometimes. Once I have a handle on how it works, I pull another out from the ring, then another, and another, doing my best to move them all at once until the sheer unfamiliar stimulation of it all makes me faintly dizzy. I let them slip from my control and flutter to the floor as I sit on the bed, idly petting Pearl until my head stops spinning. A few seconds in, the fallen cards float up to rejoin the ring on their own. I dont think I believe you about these, I grumble, trying and failing not to read mockery or suppressed laughter into Vyujis expression. It all seems cool, sure, but not helpful. Theyre still just cards. With no new inner knowledge riding to my rescue, I think about what else I could try. I could play with these some more, see if controlling them feels less overwhelming once Ive done it for a bit, but it doesnt matter how well I can handle them when I still have no idea what they''re supposed to do. On a whim, I pull my right glove off and run a card across the tip of my finger. I flinch back with a hiss when a light sting nips me. Then things turn strange. Its nothing more than a small paper cut, but a globlet of blood pools over the card all the same, trickling from the mouth of the tiny wound and staining it. The card drinks in the droplet like thirsty soil in the rain, and the mostly black and white image tinges itself a new color; not red, but the emerald color of my magic, slowly seeping into and replacing the white background. Its abstract art shifts as well, resolving into the familiar thin bones and stray feathers of Death. And as I watch this happen, I start to feel that card with the same new sense that feels the inner pain and corruption of the people around me. Suddenly, Im sure that its carrying something very bad, and I cant say what that thing is or what it means. Very carefully, I return it to the orbit. Hey, Vyuji I hesitate, then force the question out before I can decide I dont want the answer. I probably shouldve asked sooner, but how do I tell what this actually does? Every Keeper has a sort of sphere of influence, a form their magic takes and a range of things it can do. As for how they know what it is and how much of a say they get in shaping it, I dont know much more than that. The Messenger tilts her head, studying me with what looks like genuine curiosity. Interesting. Try turning your awareness inward. Study your soul and it will tell you what you need to know. Um, sure. I think I can do that. Where feeling the power flowing through me is as simple as willing my body to move, inspecting my own soul in detail is more than a little disorienting, like trying to project my vision out of my eyes and watch myself move around from an outside observers viewpoint. After a moment of confused perspective-shifting, I do start to make some sense of it beneath the sickly-sweet odor of my own disease, somewhere deep inside the infinite well my magic surges up from, theres something much more than the scents of corruption all around me. Rather than a single sense-impression, its an image and a set of abstract thoughts and a poem in words-that-are-not-words, all at the same time, every element dizzyingly tangled up with every other. Ill wind. Cruel and capricious fate. Corrupted blood. Afflicted arcana. Green veins inside a shadowy outline of my body, twisting and snaking out beyond its borders with tiny mouths like leeches. Theres more to it than that, layers I cant quite grasp yet, but its easier to see the whole picture at a distance than it is to inspect every little detail at once, and what that picture seems to be telling me is... ...Vyuji, if I designed all this somehow, if the Keeper makes the magic, then why is mine built around the last possible thing Id choose? Curses, afflictions, ill-fate. Sickness, to cut to the heart of it. Tell me, what else should it have been? she asks. She already knows what Im talking about she must have her own magic senses to study me with. She probably knew what Id see before I even asked how to find out. You made the Promise to survive your disease, so your souls power reflects that desire. All that it is comes from within you. I didnt choose it or bestow it upon you from on high. I only opened the door. She sighs, the second real sound Ive heard her make. Some of my children begin with conflicted relationships with their magic. Youll have to trust me when I say, speaking from quite a lot of experience, that every Keeper gets what they need. Unfortunately, our needs and wants arent always in perfect alignment, are they? Youll understand someday why you are the way you are. You always do. That doesnt help at all. Unless That doesnt mean I can just fix myself and be done with it, does it? Vyuji is silent for a moment. Her face falls. Finally, she shakes her head slowly. Think about it: can you use your magic to erase the origin of your magic? Can a snake eat itself whole? I dont know if its impossible, but I doubt it. Im sorry, Liadain. Obviously. Why do I bother? Alright. Fine. Nothing for it, I guess. If it works and it can get me what I need, Ill get used to it. And if I dont, nothing she says is going to change that. Speaking of, is there anything else I need to know right this moment? If not, I want to go kill that Harbinger. Maybe thatll make me feel better. Vyuji instantly lights up at that. By all means. The rest can only come with time, experience, exploration although, one more thing. Teaching Keepers through anything other than experience is difficult in part because things are different in Harbingers Wounds. Different in ways difficult to predict or explain. Right shes mentioned Wounds a few times now. Where Harbingers put down roots, they do something to the world around them. They open a doorway to somewhere else, or drag their victims into their minds, or start carving a pocket of existence into something more suited to their needs. To take the fight to them, a Keeper needs to enter that place. I dont understand the details beyond that. I dont know if anyone does. Different how? I ask. A Wound is a space whose shape and rules are not fully decided. Unstable. Mutable. Responsive first to the wishes of its creator, but also to the will and magic of intruding Keepers. What that looks like depends very much on the Keeper. Put simply, the Harbinger will twist the world around you into a weapon, but you will be able to twist it back. To act on the fabric of reality in ways that you could not here, make the Wound itself into a new vector for yourself. Yes, that seems like a productive way for you to think of it, Vyuji says. ...Okay. Wonderful. All Ive ever wanted to do is share the Liadain Plague with the world. Her eager smile becomes a smirk. If it helps, dont think of it as sharing or spreading. Youll be taking your burdens and shifting them to monsters that will destroy many human lives if you dont. Better them than you, no? Thank you for that insight. I hate you. I do what I can. And Ill always love you, however you feel. Now that youve said that, Im going to hold you to it, and Im going to make it as hard as possible. I wont rest until you spend every moment away from me dreading to learn what sort of horrible, horrible mess Im making that day. Vyuji blinks the first time Ive seen her do that then just lowers her arm and shrugs agreeably. Promises are sacred. We never say anything we dont plan to uphold. All that said, if anything else you need or need to know occurs to you, call for me. It doesnt matter when, or for what. So long as you are within my reach, Ill be there for you, as I am for all of my children. Great. That thing about watching me sleep still stands. If thats all, then bye. Good hunting, Liadain. Again, she disappears in an instant. I hop off the bed with a groan, facing the window. Before I can look out at the city or think about my next step, I see something in my faint daytime reflection: two unnaturally bright green eyes staring back at me. Um, is that permanent? I ask, then remember Im talking to myself. Okay, how do you put your magic away when youre done with it? As soon as I form the intent to do so, the costume vanishes in a flash of shadow and pale light, replacing itself with the clothes Id been wearing before. The power within me fades, but doesnt completely disappear, and my sense of the unseen falls to a less intense level. In the mirror over my dresser, my eyes are the same slate-grey theyve always been. Okay. Whew. Strange eyes are the sort of thing Emergence will make permanent soon enough the very smallest sort of thing but Ill worry about those awkward questions when I get there. For now, my first hunt should be more than enough trouble to keep me busy. I say goodbye to Pearl, make her a little blanket nest, and head back toward Mr. Enfields room. ~~~ The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. I feel the room before I see it, even dulled as my new senses are right now. A distant, ambient unease, the way ancient humans might have felt when they looked out into the night and wondered what was looking back at them. The door is still just a door when I get there, but thats less comforting than it had been last night. The Harbingers impression is clearer, now, if far from perfectly so. Its not a stench like I felt around the knots of corruption inside the other patients, but whatever it is Vyuji was right. I already know that I could never mistake this for anything else. Nobody else is in the hall. I can faintly sense a few people in their rooms or around the corners, but right now Im alone. I hold my breath, open the door, and step halfway through when nothing horrible comes pouring out. At first glance, nothing is lurking inside, either, but a different sort of greeting awaits me. The dread that fills the room has an almost physical weight, a pressure like walking against strong wind. I scan what I can see from the entrance, using the half-open door as a shield. Nothing unusual. Slowly, I crack it open a little wider and peek around the corner. Still nothing. Finally, I slip through, the door clicking shut behind me. However being here makes me feel, I cant find any sign that the Harbinger is still around. Other than the lingering aura, there''s no evidence that it was ever here at all. The room is just a room, and its ominous air has no source that I can find, no spot where its stronger than another. I check under the bed, throw the closet doors open, even start peeking into the drawers, searching for any bizarre patches of color or sudden spikes in the tense ambiance. No such luck, for a certain definition of luck. Nothing is even suspiciously misplaced. Mr. Enfields things are still here. His family hasnt come to take them yet, and for now, the room is probably just how he left it. Framed photos, printed reviews of his restaurant, a pair of binoculars on the nightstand. The desk has been moved to the wall across from the bed. On it sits a small TV and, a bit oddly, some sort of video game console. Looking around for clues like a normal detective seems to be a dead end. Maybe his body would tell me more, if Id seen it. On his way out, Dr. Hines looked disturbed in a way that went beyond yet another death in a place for the dying, and Vyuji did say Harbingers trails are strongest around their victims and nests. Shed thought this one was newborn, whatever that means for a Harbinger, so it either came into being somewhere nearby and left shortly after or was just passing through when I found it. It probably has no special connection to this room, but it would to someone it had killed. Is going and checking on him even an option? He might still be in the hospital basement, but they obviously keep the morgue locked. I cant just walk in and have a look, even if I want to. Unless Keepers have a lot of room to jump into investigations and inspect crime scenes, if they have any reason to think magic and monsters might be involved. Id have to out myself to play that card, though, or at least let the city know theres a new kid active in or around this hospital. The wilting field of flowers outside my window jumps to mind. I really dont want to start studying corpses, if I can help it. Putting that away for now, what else do I have? The Harbinger isnt here anymore, so where did it go? If it went somewhere else in the hospital, I doubt Id be the only one who ran into it. It wouldve found someone else and the place would be on emergency lockdown by now. Unless its disguising its attacks as natural deaths believable enough to fool an audience of doctors and coroners, which sounds insane even as I think it. But is it really? Victims often lose their minds in ways that are impossible to miss, but some do just die. To pull that off, it would have to kill very quietly and understand what we were looking out for. Granted, Harbingers usually arent mindless rampaging monsters. They can be viciously clever, but they arent smart in the same way as a smart human right? School safety lectures said a lot about what they arent and dont do, but nothing about what they actually are, and the more I think about it, the less confident I feel in ruling that idea out. Who knows whats possible or not with Harbingers? Still, it seems at least more likely that it''s left the building. Mr. Enfields windows overlook the northern half of the Hills, New Claris westmost district. Other than the hospital and the nearby university, most of it is a loose spread of houses. The ground at the citys edges slopes up into the tree-covered hills that line most of our northwestern borders, and our side hasnt been completely developed over. Several dark green veins still creep through the bright cityscape. They keep them from growing in any further, but most arent even kept up like proper parks. People wanted to keep at least a bit of untrimmed wilderness thats safe to wander in. I crack a window open as far as it will go, about six inches out. Cold air wafts over me, and the unnatural pressure grows a little stronger. Im sure enough, now. Somewhere in the city beneath me, the Harbinger is searching for a new haunt. There are no tracks to follow, no foul-smelling trail running straight down the side of the building, but I feel like if I go outside and find its general direction, I can follow it to its new nest by its scent. Outside. Right. Im still not supposed to leave the hospital grounds, but I cant really follow that rule anymore, can I? Sorry, Dr. Hines. Sorry, whoever gets stuck giving me the stern lecture about doing stupid things Against Medical Advice. Come to think of it, do I still have to worry about that? The lethargy that always weighed me down hadn''t gone anywhere even when I transformed. That cold, stinging numbness still creeps all through my joints, and Im still faintly feverish. It would be quite the cosmic prank, making the Promise just to be put down by someones flu the first time I went out. In the end, Keepers are still more or less human kids. Some can pull off impossible athletic feats that make them seem otherwise, but only if they have the right magic for it. Mine... is very much not the right magic. Ill never be lifting cars or jumping between rooftops, I don''t think, but I close the window and observe the hallway outside with my soul-sense. Once the coast seems to be clear, I head back to my room and pull out the little red tab on my patient sign that says Please Do Not Disturb! I want my privacy while I try to actually use this power for the first time. If I cant fix myself, maybe I can at least keep from catching anything new. Cautiously, I reach for the power running through me, now more a steady stream than an endless surge. I dont know exactly how much I can do without opening the floodgates, but if the heart of my magic is controlling sickness, what I want right now shouldnt be too complicated. Itll be good to figure out how far I can go in this state, in any case. Trying to control the flow is unlike anything Ive ever done before, but some new part of me does know how to do it, if not well. Its like my soul is a many-colored sea where my thoughts and feelings toss about, abstract and unformed. It mirrors my frame of mind, so with some effort I can direct its currents, stir the sentiments I want to the surface, then call them forth and paint over the world in their colors. The entire act feels vaguely unreal, like having a dream while Im wide awake. I dont need to say any special nonsense words, dont need to do anything at all that would distract from what really matters. I just silently seethe at the thought of being trapped in this cage, hiding from the outside so that the wrong breath cant kill me, and let that idea echo and churn in my heart. When it feels like theres no more room for my bitterness, I push it outward, and my power follows. It seeps up from its inner source and settles into a thin, hazy mist wrapped around me, still carrying the cold resentment I used to create it. Thats not to say that the emotion has gone anywhere. Its strong as ever, just like blowing off steam by shouting and hitting things only keeps you angry for longer. But as it dwindles, the magic stays, and I know that Ive succeeded. This fog will swallow any ordinary infections before they can reach me, and Im fairly sure I can hold it there as long as I want. I just have to remember to do it, keep it up with a tiny mental effort. How many things was I banned from doing after my first transplant? Going anywhere public and crowded, ever. Petting animals. Walking in the woods. Eating raw fish and raw honey, or picking apples and eating them on the spot. All things that are suddenly open to me again. For the first time in years, in this one tiny way, Ive won. ...I still need to get out of the hospital, though. Probably shouldnt overthink it. Much as I want to avoid any suspicious attention I can, nurses arent patrolling the seventh floor for escapees. Nobody is actually locked in here. Given my age, theyre expected to find me and drag me back if I run off, but Ive never done anything like this before. They shouldnt be on high alert. Best to act like Im not up to anything unusual. Back in my room, the walking cane I have for bad days sits on the wall by my bed. I dont like to use it it feels like admitting that I belong here and I always will but its better than sitting in bed all day or tripping over my feet and breaking something, and if Im going off to risk my life hunting a monster, Id really rather have it on hand. I layer on a warm cardigan that does nothing for the chill mist surrounding me, wave to Noirin as I pass the art room, and take a seat in the lounge near the elevator hallway rather than my usual corner. The first time a visiting family calls the elevator, I quietly join them. Theres a box of white face masks for visitors on the front desk, since plenty of us need to be careful about catching anything, and I stuff one into my pocket on the way out. I shouldnt need it anymore, but if anyone notices me missing later, Ill tell them I just went to go sit in the hospital garden. Theyll hassle me less if I can at least say I took the precautions. ~~~ Its a short jaunt from the first floor to the northern exit. That direction is my best lead Mr. Enfields window faced north, and the Harbinger left in a way that didnt send it rushing through the entire hospital. It might be wrong to think of it moving through space in some way I can follow, but thats all Ive got. Apparently, its trail does follow some kind of path. Before long, I catch the miasmas scent again. Not noticeably stronger than it had been upstairs, but its definitely there, pushing against me from somewhere to the north. So I leave the grounds for the first time in nearly a month, following wherever this trail leads. Ive barely even stepped off the seventh floor since I checked in, and walking under the open sky might feel strange on its own if this last day hadnt been so much stranger. Its a clear, dry spring day, still cold enough that the air feels slightly sharp as I breathe. Its nice, though. Just chilly enough to be comfortable under a couple light layers has always been my favorite sort of weather. Now that I can safely leave my room, I have a while to enjoy it before summer ruins everything if my magic keeps pollen away, spring may even become pretty nice! That thought is enough to distract me from what Im out here to do, for about a minute. Therell be plenty of time to appreciate the weather after. Despite the chilly air, the sun is bright and strong, and Im glad for the greenery that covers the city. Massive and modern as it is, New Claris is split almost evenly between construction and carefully-tended plants, and the trees leaning over the sidewalks form a thick enough canopy that I can mostly hide underneath it. The stretches of forest still snaking over the western borders mean that sometimes the road takes sudden long, winding turns, circling around the trees. The Harbingers path seems to cut straight through the forest, though at no point does it become a physical trail. Theres no path of broken branches and trampled foliage leading the way. But Im not here to play in the woods. I cant forget that, not with the unnatural pressure mounting as I walk. I almost want to do it anyway just to spite my sickness, but that can wait. I follow the looping sidewalks rather than trace the Harbingers steps exactly, and the sensation strengthens so long as I move in its general direction. So does the fatigue, the dull ache in my legs, though I dont think Ive gone that far at all. It isnt my worst health day, but thats a very low standard to beat. Eventually, the wooded road opens into a neighborhood of upscale houses. The way from the hospital has been mostly quiet, but this place is alive, cheerfully going about its business with no mind paid to the horrible ambiance only I can feel. Not nearly as hectic as the central districts, but cars and bikes come and go, and I pass a few people on foot as I make my way further in. One slows his steps, maybe trying to decide if he recognizes me or what Im doing here, but in the end he just keeps walking. As the source draws closer, the impressions behind it become more clear. It isnt actually pressure, I realize now. Its a distinct feeling of intrusion, like standing in a crowd full of people who are all pointedly ignoring me, backs turned, refusing to so much as admit that I exist. Where the shroud of power Id wrapped around myself was my bitterness given magical weight, the Harbingers scent makes me feel like Ive fallen into another world, one where I dont belong and am not welcome. Finally, the stench leads me to the hills at the edge of the neighborhood. Im standing in front of some sort of earth house, built into the side of a large hill such that all I can see of it is a bright white oval facade with a glass door and several wide windows. Its tall enough that there are two second-floor windows just over the main entrance. And the Harbinger is somewhere inside. Im certain of that. I just hope no one is home. I look back at the street. No one else is around, so I transform in that same show of pale light and dancing darkness I saw from the outside in my dream. It comes a little easier this time, and while I still dont feel good, there is a certain lightness that comes with the power, lifting the weight of pain and exhaustion so that I can keep moving in spite of it. With another simple thought, I call my cards into being, noting that one is still tinged green, and start toward the house. The front door is unlocked when I try it, so ...Oh. Oh no. As soon as the door slides open, I hear voices somewhere near, and the monsters presence spikes wildly. It looks dark inside, despite the wide windows all along the front walls. I swallow, my throat dry. Through the gloom in the front hall, I can faintly see hardwood floors beneath smooth white ceramic walls. The voices are coming from just ahead, where the hall opens into a wide, brightly-lit living room. The Harbingers colors are nowhere in sight, but I can see two people from behind, a man and a woman seated in front of a fireplace. They dont seem to notice me. I dont know what I expected, weeping or pained moans or mad laughter, but theyre having a slow, quiet conversation, too quiet for me to make out from here. I duck around a corner, heart pounding wildly. What do I do here? The Harbinger is inside. Its weight still bears down on me. Since these people havent fled screaming, I have every reason to think theyve suffered its curse, which makes them either bystanders in terrible danger, victims dying right this moment, or enemies who will fight to protect it. I went into this knowing that it would be a trial by fire, my first time in anything like a battle and first time using most of my power. I can hurt the Harbinger as much as I want, but do I have any way to handle a regular person that wont kill them or worse? Thats only the worst-case scenario. I can still do this. I have to. I want to live and this things heart holds the only medicine that can save me. Ill find a way. Liadain. As I think on my approach, a face jumps into view from nowhere, cold and still and white as a marble statue. I clamp a hand over my mouth, smothering a shocked yelp, before I see it in full its Vyujis face looking up at me, framed by her hair-tendrils and oversized hood. Oh, its just you, I sigh. Was that entrance really necessary? Im afraid so. Apologies, she says. Her mental voice comes through in a hushed stage-whisper, and her flat expression does nothing to sell her remorse. Theres one more thing I have to say before you go any further. When you left, I told you I would come whenever you called, so long as you were within my reach. This is as far as my reach goes. The Wounds mouth is very near, and I cant follow you through it. Once you cross into a Harbingers world, youll be lost to me until you emerge. Past that point, youre on your own. Then youll be there for me whenever I need you, except when Im in the worst possible place? Typical, I whisper back. It would be very, very bad if any Harbingers curse touched a Messenger. Bad for us, for you, for the world. Theres nothing I can do about that, but you deserved to know before it came up. That makes sense, sure, but it doesnt make my situation any better. Any actually helpful final words? I shouldnt stay for long, and I cant tell what it will be like from outside. Just A noise from further inside interrupts us: the soft, wet sounds of something crawling through a swamp, just like I heard outside Mr. Enfields door last night. Vyuji grimaces and shakes her head. Just be careful, she says, and vanishes. Well, that doesnt change much, in the end. I expected to do this alone, actively turned down help and mentorship. If I want this to work, Ill just have to make it work. So into the monsters den I go. I dont charge in, announce myself, and proclaim the day saved I just walk into the living room before I can lose the resolve to do it. Ill figure out what comes next once I know how bad it is. Inside, the conversation has paused for a moment. In its place is another sound, a faint cracking or crunching. As that noise stops, the woman leans back and sighs. Disgusting, she says, her voice weak and muffled. It really is, the man agrees in a hoarse mutter. Unbearable. Exactly what we needed. My footsteps are surprisingly light, but not so light that he cant hear them. As I approach, the man looks over his shoulder at me. Hes dark-haired, perhaps in his thirties, but he looks like he hasnt eaten in weeks, as close to death as anyone on the seventh floor. His features are drawn, his eyes red, and his mouth is rimmed with grey dirt, dried and dusty. Both of them reek to my souls senses, the rotten-fruit stench that seems to represent diseased people mingling with the Harbingers overpowering aura. Ah, I didnt realize we had a visitor! The man greets me with more energy than he can handle in his state, doubling over coughing as soon as he pushes the words out. Each wheeze expels a tiny puff of dust. A Keeper, too? What an honor. Theres nothing for you to worry about here, though. I What happened to you? I ask weakly. Oh, dont you worry about that. Were just fine. Well be better than ever soon. What doesnt kill you makes you stronger, right? He tries to grin, the expression thin and weak beneath those dull eyes, and Im struck by the sense that hes looking through rather than at me. What has it done to them? What are they doing now? I clench my teeth and circle around the couch. Theres something in the mans lap. A lump of clay, slightly wet. Several large chunks of it have been carved off by what look like teeth marks. On a coffee table in front of them is a massive shapeless pile of the same clay. It moves as if alive, squirming aimlessly about and giggling to itself, laughing like a child at play. There are no mouths, no features, nothing at all that could be making the sound. We arent being rude, are we, miss? the woman rasps. Shes in the same awful state, struggling to speak between bites of her own mound of clay. Wed have offered you some, but She looks me up and down, and in those hollow eyes is not a normal persons pity for the tragic little dying girl, the expression Ive seen on a hundred different people. Almost the opposite. Shes smiling, but Im somehow sure that its envy on her face. Well, I dont think you need anything it can offer. Youre already almost perfect! So why dont She gags on something, making a sound like shes gotten water in her windpipe. The choking fit hasnt quite faded when she starts talking again. Why dont you just run along? Are they saying Im too sick for a Harbinger to eat? How much of it is in them? Can it express itself through its victims or is this all just insane babble? It doesnt really matter. Fists clenched, I start to search the rest of the room. Have to kill the thing before I can do anything for these two. There it is. On the floor before the fireplace is a wide, dark hole in the world. Hot air seeps out from it like breath, and floating in the blackness are bright sigils very much like the ones on the back of my cards. The floor around it swims with the Harbingers colors and textures, and more of that living clay is slowly pulling itself out from the chaos and crawling toward the greater mass on the table. This is a Wound, then. A tear in the world, a place where a monster has clashed with reality to produce something uniquely horrible, where even my own power will take on strange new shapes I wont know how to use until I try. And I know what I have to do here what Ill have to keep doing, if I want to live. Before the victims say anything else, before I can talk myself out of it, I take a running start and leap into the hole. Death Inverted 1-5 My vision twists in on itself, giving way to the sight of nothing at all. Im hurtling downward through an endless, lightless black void falling, but with no air rushing past me. My nerves prickle with the sense of being watched from afar, or just barely spotting movement in the corner of my eye, but theres nothing to see. No sights beyond myself, no sounds or smells or temperature, only the vague sense of down. In their place, the Harbingers miasma surrounds me, thick as water. Its currents rage against my body as if trying to force me back outside, but still I fall. All I can do is brace for impact and hope Im not crushed like a falling star smashing into the earth. Suddenly, a dim, rust-red light cuts through the haze. I notice a shape sculpted in the darkness. A glowing rectangular sign. It''s emblazoned with nine white letters which spell out a word I can''t quite make out, but which I feel is all too familiar to me. I think it''s trying to say "EMERGENCY," but each character looks distorted, crooked, or just plain wrong, as if carelessly drawn from the memories of a mind more concerned with the sign''s appearance than its actual function. Just as soon as I think that, I sense a surge of hostility from all around me, prickling in my very bones. It''s telling me that if I insist on staying, then I must prove that I belong, or be made to belong. In the distance, I hear the faint, faraway howl of an ambulance siren. With each passing second, it grows louder, closer. Emerging from the darkness beneath me, I see the sterile, simply-patterned tiles of a hospital floor stretching out endlessly in every direction. As the sound of the ambulance siren intensifies in my ears with each passing second, the surface rushes towards me, filling my vision. The moment I think to curl my legs into myself, the crash rattles up my body. A dull, heavy pain lashes my soles and shoots up my legs. My knees buckle and I spill forward, slamming against a slope on my right arm. I tumble down the incline, the contrast of the stark white floor stretching out into the pitch black abyss swirling wildly in my vision. All of a sudden, the ground rights itself beneath me. My body rolls to a halt, my back flat against the chill surface, and my cane clatters to the ground just out of reach. Even my cards fall and flutter through the air, forming a scattered circle around me. I rush to push myself upright, but my right arm screams out in pain. My eyes clench shut and hot tears spill down my cheeks. I suck in air through my teeth and force my legs to raise me. Once I''ve resolved myself to stand, the dull ache in my joints doesn''t seem as bad, easing as I wipe my tears on my sleeve. My right arm is tender with a nasty purple bruise and closing my fingers stings, but I can ignore it. I have practice ignoring the parts of me that hurt. Slowly, I wobble to my feet and retrieve my cane. My cards pick themselves up, gathering back into a steady orbit around me. I pan my gaze over the stillness of the Wound, the white plane vanishing into endless blackness. Then, in a rush of motion so sudden it makes me flinch, the floor folds upward like the faces of a cardboard box assembling itself, walling me in. When the rearrangement ends, Im standing in a sterile white hallway lined with doors they had been on the ground to start with, I realize, before it bent upward and those patches of floor became the side walls. Theres a thin window in the middle of each, but I can only see fog through them. Each is marked with a different illegible word in glowing white text, which brightens as I stumble upright, and the soft ping of an elevator opening rings through the hall. Just as the space settles, something like thick mud starts to leak from its corners and crevices. It crawls with living hues of grey and red, staining the clean white surfaces the colors of dried blood. Patches of it tear themselves open, forming dozens of messy black holes roughly circular fanged maws. Last night, I glimpsed this world at its edges, watched a horror that shouldnt exist storm into my life. Id seen its creators horrid handiwork just a moment ago. I thought those things might steel me for the full picture. They didnt. Nothing could have prepared me to see the world completely replaced by this. The scene of the Wound creating itself before my eyes stifles my breath. Ahead, the hallway stretches on and on, ending after perhaps 40 feet in gaping black emptiness. A whole stretch of the world just isnt finished yet, like Ive stepped into someone elses dream while their mind is still building it. I have no idea how much of this is under construction, for lack of a better term, what would happen if I stepped into the nothingness, or how much direct control the Harbinger has over shaping this place. Is this a dream its having or a stage it planned and constructed? The hollow darkness draws farther and farther away, the hall creating itself even as I stare into its depths. Do I really know anything about what Ive gotten into? What is a Harbinger? What do they look like? What exactly can they do, and what can I do to them that will matter? For some reason, I think back to the safety lessons everyone sits through in primary school. The lectures and the cutesy videos accompanying them didnt answer any of those questions. Bits of their useless advice chirp in my head: Harbingers feed on pain and sadness, so if you or someone you know is having a hard time, try to talk it out and find a way to make things better! If you see something scary you cant explain, run away and call for a Keeper! Only Keepers can protect the world from monsters! It was all a lot of weirdly cheery mottos like that, stressing the importance of Good Mental Hygiene. When I got older, I started thinking about what they hadnt said. If youre cornered by a Harbinger and no cute little spirit shows up to offer you the Promise, what do you do? They must have left it out because theres only one answer to that question: pray for rescue. All the rest was probably just a way to make kids feel like theres something they can actually do to protect themselves. Still, those videos, Vyujis words, and what Ive just seen myself are the only information I have. There are never any photos or videos of battles with Harbingers, and by now the many reasons for that are obvious to me. I know that every Harbinger is different, that only Keepers can hurt them, and not much else. At least a few of those answers are waiting further down. Ill need them if I plan to do this and keep doing it. I shudder at that thought, but no, I cant distract myself like this now. Before I can plan my next step, a patch of muck on the floor squirms and bubbles to life, and something rises from the mire. It looks for a moment like a formless spout of living slime, featureless save for the holes where wall-mouths rose with it, but then the substance starts to slough away like thin, swampy mud, mouths and all. The shape that remains when the sludge is mostly gone is vaguely human, but much too tall and spindly, shrouded in layers of ragged grey cloth. Torn as it is, the cloth still almost completely conceals its wearer the holes in the fabric never quite align enough to expose the creature beneath. Near the bottom, shredded rags give way to a tangle of black insect legs, and several more are wrapped around a huge white tome the thing keeps clutched to its chest. A hood obscures most of its head, but as it leans down to regard me, a thin, flat arrowhead of an eyeless face emerges, split in half by a maw lined on the outside with black fangs that twitch like limbs. And behind those fangs, are a too-long, too-wide grinning row of shiny white human teeth set into swollen red gums. The thing that can only be the Harbinger speaks, and though its maw opens wider, the sound comes from everywhere at once. Its voice is the painful whining noise of a flatlined heart monitor, but that awful droning is definitely forming words. I dont recognize them and certainly couldnt repeat them, but somehow I know that they are words in a language, and that language means something to my magical senses. Its speech has a strange stilted meter, almost like its trying to perform a poem. I can just barely make out the core of what it expresses: Taking in everything its screaming voice tells me at once is overwhelming, and no part of it can be disentangled from any other. Its simultaneously a name and a proclamation that makes no sense and maybe more, layers I feel but cant understand. Its a lot like when I tried to read my own soul, if every part of it were something twisted and hostile and alien. Then the piercing song stops abruptly, taking its message with it. Something crashes into the wall behind me. I whirl around with a yelp. At the finished end of the hall, a door has slammed itself open, exposing a switchback staircase leading up. A path further into this mad world? No, that doesnt feel right. Up is the way I just came from, so by the dream-logic magic seems to use, this is probably a passage out of the Wound. As if in emphasis, a high-pitched chorus of whining nonsense rises from the mouths on the walls. I still dont understand the language theyre speaking, but the message is clear: You must be lost, they say, echoing the victims outside. We don''t take your kind. Go on, get out of here before I change my mind. For its part, the Harbinger Yurfaln, that was its name simply waits and watches. Its body bends in strange places when it moves, and it constantly tilts its entire upper half back and forth. Like an animal trying to get a better look at some strange new thing. Maybe its a mistake to read any kind of real-world logic into what Harbingers do, but something about that Predatory animals are hardly the biggest danger in the wilderness, but Ive read that if you ever run into one, the best thing to do is hold your ground and act fearless. Dont pick a fight, but dont back down or run away. Present yourself as a fellow hunter to be politely avoided rather than an easy meal. Im not a beast on the prowl, but the Harbinger is, and its acting very much like it doesnt want to hunt me after I jumped right into its lair. If it doesnt want to fight, if it sees me as a threat, maybe its not prepared for this. Maybe, if I dare to hope a little, were both scared of whatever comes next. Either way, I know what Im here to do. To my surprise, I even feel like I know how to do it. Vyuji told me I could warp the world inside a Wound, fight the Harbinger for control of its own stage. When she said so, I had no idea how Id do something like that, but now that Im here, its just something I know I can do. An instinct coming up for the first time. Its not that the inner flow of my magic is stronger here, so whats changed? Doesnt matter. No time to stand here and wonder. What I do know is that my power wants to be used. The sea in my soul is a churning storm of fear and disgust. It wants to spill out beyond me, to spread, to consume this place as fuel for itself like a wildfire. No, like a virus, I realize with a shiver that only makes it more eager. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Fine. Do it. Infect this nightmare. Rot it from the inside out. That thought is all it takes to send my magic surging to life. Cards rise from my orbit and begin arranging themselves in front of me. It doesnt feel like Im directing them magic simply translates my intent into action. Hurting and ruining something with a power like mine must be its simplest possible use, and I barely need to think about how once Ive resolved to do it. As Vyuji promised, some part of me already knows. Within seconds, the cards form an elaborate asymmetrical pattern that looks nothing like any real spread Ive ever seen. Its shaped roughly like the branches of a tree, but upside-down, joining into a trunk at the top. The unfamiliar abstract scenes on the cards have all been dyed in new colors, Yurfalns muddy grey-brown shades no, all but one. At the end of one branch is the poison-green card I pricked my finger on earlier, now bright with cold emerald light. Death inverted. Wisps of hungry shadow reach out from my card, crawling over the nearest one on the branch. As they do, the yellowed ceiling lights flicker wildly, and pained cries cut through the shrill voices screaming out from inside the walls. Scattered across Yurfalns carpet of corruption, mouths on the wall begin coughing up emerald fog twined with threads of inky blackness. The growing clouds of it are eerily bright, casting the hall in the sickly glow of my power, and sparkle in a way that makes me think more of icy mist than toxic gas. Theres no mistaking what it feels like, though if I imagine this world as a sea like the one in my own soul, a polluted, swampy expanse teeming with alien vermin, my magic is a bitter numbness spreading through the water. It begins as a film of frost on the swamps surface, but the cold pushes steadily further down until it touches the things crawling beneath. It seeps into them, and while it feels at first like Im touching dozens of greasy, revolting creatures myself, they quickly freeze over and sink, carrying my power into Yurfalns depths with them. Spreading it. Vectors for me, just like Vyuji said. Maybe twenty seconds into this process, the tiny mouths start melting off the floor and walls into icy green clouds, like they werent exhaling my mist but throwing up insides they never had until theres nothing left of them. It makes me want to puke myself, watching my power creep into this living nightmare in a way that makes them both so much worse, but I cant look away. Not only would it not even help, since I sense the magic working as much as I see it, but the monster standing right in front of me could strike back at any second. I still dont know what Ill do when it does I just hope the same instincts that guided me through this awful invasion will have more to offer. Yurfaln doesnt lash out at me or my magic, though. It just looks around at the walls, chittering and whistling to itself as it studies the spreading blight. The mist gathers into a slowly sinking bank of fog, filling more and more of the thin hall, and the Harbinger makes no effort to resist it. Once the fog has blanketed the floor around it, green tendrils start to grasp at its shredded robes, squirming through the holes in the fabric, but still Yurfaln does nothing I can see or feel to push back against me. Until a shudder wracks Yurfalns body. One of its lower legs snaps off with a sound far too much like cracking bones, dissolving into mist as it falls. Its voice stutters, then rises into a wordless howling siren, a wail of some unnameable emotion. It hunches down, bends and stretches itself into a shape more centipede than human, and launches into a writhing, twitching blur of motion. I throw my free hand up stupid, useless reflex, as if thatd stop anything but its still not coming for me. Instead, it its slithering up the walls, darting between infected mouths. By the gnawing, slurping sounds it makes without ever interrupting its howl and the rough patches torn out of the muddy carpet in its passing, its eating them. Bile rises in the back of my throat. I choke it down. What? Why? Am I not hurting it? Its lost two more legs now does it not care? I dont know. Do I want to know, to understand why this thing does anything it does? No, but Ive got to Yurfalns upper body bends back, twisting to face me upside-down. Some of its fangs shimmer green, slowly dissolving into death-mist, as it chirrups something in its language. It sounds almost excited. The words arent as clear as before, but the same part of me feels them. Yes, okay, come! Share! it seems to be saying. Then it turns away and scuttles down the hall, crawling over and around the halls in a spiral pattern, but rather than moving away it just seems to stretch on and on and on. Heavy curtains like theater drapes made of hospital privacy screens fall over the hallway ahead from nowhere, and the whole world starts to shift around me at a terrifying pace. It sends me careening down the hall without actually moving, and with each layer of curtains that rushes by, another spiral, another endless coil of Yurfaln creeps over the walls. Just past the point where nothing else remains, the final curtain slides open and flings me into a new world. Blinding light stings my eyes. Cold air seeps into my skin. The ground ripples just enough to be disorienting. My eyes take a moment to adjust, and when they do its not ground at all. My tarot spread still floats beside me, but the world has completely changed. Im on a beach, standing on the oceans surface just off the shore. The water beneath my feet is completely solid, like glass, save for the slight rippling of tiny waves over its surface. Snowflakes dance through the air in a faint breeze its a bright winter day, but with no visible sun, and the light is tinged a fluorescent yellow that makes all the fresh falling snow look dirty. Yurfaln is nowhere in sight, but Im not alone. Two human-sized figures stand where the sea meets the shore, dressed in the same all-concealing ragged shrouds the Harbinger wears. Theyre clearly struggling to move, even to stand. They breathe so heavily that each exhalation sounds like a groan of pain, and they shiver in the cold with each wave of frigid water that laps over their legs. Nevertheless, theyre having what sounds like a happy conversation, held entirely in insectoid chirps. All around us, the oceans surface is littered with strands of dark, stringy seaweed. They drift in with the tide in clumps, gathering into a great wet mass on the dunes of the beach that smells of rotten eggs. Slowly, tiny maws like the ones that grew on Yurfalns corruption emerge from the pile, but they arent the only thing patches of it also sprout shiny black feathers. And as they do, the things on the beach lean down, scoop up heaps of fanged, feathered seaweed with trembling hands, and raise them to their mouths. I tear my gaze away, but that does nothing for the sounds. The eager, desperate gnashing. I dont bother trying to cover my ears, not to spare my injured hand but because Im already sure it wouldnt help. I just wrench my eyes shut until the noise fades, replaced by another one. Short, quiet wails, much softer than Yurfalns voice, like bird calls voiced by sirens. When I peek back at the shore, the shrouded things wave at me, as if theyd been trying to get my attention. They turn around and stagger away, chittering cheerfully all the while. A path at the far end of the beach trails up a steep hill, and the figures climb it together, leaning against each other through their halting steps until they fade from sight. This place its not at all like the unfinished hospital-hall world I first stepped into, but what is it? What was the plan in taking me here? Yurfalns presence feels thicker now, but I dont see or sense the Harbinger itself anywhere. The beach itself is featureless, save for the massive pile of seaweed covering its shore, and the ocean looks like it stretches out forever, flat and clear save for the dark ribbons drifting by. I step over those when they come near me whatever they are, I want nothing to do with them. Once Im satisfied that nothing in my immediate surroundings is coming to kill me, I look over my spread again. The colors on the cards are still shifting green and black veins have spread over most of the inverted trees branches. Yurfalns clay-and-gore shades bend around my colors, oozing over them like an amoeba trying to absorb its prey. A few tendrils of poison-green have been cut off from their origin point, so they now writhe alone in the mud, but they arent erased or absorbed. It looks almost like theyre being carried upward, dragged slowly toward the trunk of the diagram. What does that mean? What does any of it mean, and why does this feel less like fighting a monster than sharing a horrible dream with one? Keepers hunt and kill Harbingers, thats all I really knew about this going in. I came here to kill Yurfaln, Ive already taken a swing at it, and still it hasnt shown the least interest in fighting back. I barely understand any of what its doing, to say nothing of why. But Im still here to kill it, and its waiting somewhere further inside. Theres only one way to go. So I head for the shore, stopping when the water ceases to hold me up and my boots touch wet sand. Even at its thinnest point, the seaweed is piled too wide to simply hop over. I find a stretch relatively free of strange growths and jab it with my cane. Nothing happens, so I step back, hold my breath, and do my best to leap through it with a running start. My best isnt very good I touch down in the middle of the mass with a sickening damp squelch and plod clumsily through the rest, more afraid of what might happen if I rush and stumble face-first into it than what itll do if I take too long. I only stop to kick the sludge off my boots once Im well onto the dry sand, but its strangely clingy no, its clinging, moving, holding tight to me, crawling slowly upward as a single mass. My mouth goes dry as it climbs to the top of my boots. Shapeless strands reach for my legs. Cold, slimy moisture seeps through my shoes and into my thick stockings. get it off get it off get it OFF My whole body shudders at its first touch, and magic seethes to the surface, rushing to my defense. With no clear thought, no conscious act of will, just raw disgust given form by some strange new instinct, power flows out into the barrier I cast before I left home, turning it from a thin layer of cold hostility into a cloak of noxious spite where only I can survive. The grasping stalks of seaweed dont waste away to nothing or disintegrate like the infected mouths did before, but they do lose their strength, wilting and withering and falling away into dried husks at my feet. Still squirming as I stumble away, hissing something in a hoarse voice that sounds uncannily like whyyyyyyyy? I turn and run up the hill, as fast as my feeble legs can carry me. The end of the path opens into a narrow rocky valley, where the ground quickly levels out. At the far end is it looks like it may have been an old stone temple once, before it was left to molder for centuries. Bright moss mingles with the twisting shades of Yurfalns corruption all along the walls, and wherever the surface isnt overgrown, its defaced with swirling sigils that somehow recall the ones on the back of my tarot cards. Theyre nothing like the scribbled, illegible signs that marked the Wounds entrance these are symbols in another language entirely, one nothing like Clarish or any other language Im aware of. A set of three half-crumbled stone arches serve as an entryway, and beyond that is only darkness. The weak laughter of dying children echoes out through the valley. A small group of shrouded figures is gathered near the ruins. Two I recognize by their happy chittering and constant shivering as the ones from the beach, and they turn to me and wave again as I approach, but theyre seated very near to a third. The new one is standing in front of a large canvas on a display stand painting a picture, absorbed entirely in its work. The painting is unfinished and simple, but to my surprise, not so crude that I cant tell what it is. Its a ragged thing in a hospital bed, hooked up through its shroud to an uncountable forest of instruments and tubes filled with strange colors. A circle of the creatures is gathered around it, clapping and cheering. As I come closer, the painter murmurs something to itself, wipes its brush roughly clean on its robes, and then stabs it into one of the shivering creatures, straight through its ragged cloak. It groans or sighs as the artist pulls the brush loose, tearing away what looks like a wet lump of many-colored clay from its body, then carries right on calmly talking to its partner. The painter drops the clay onto a board attached to the front of its canvas stand and begins working it, separating it into colors. Brown. Grey. Many shades of red. And black, glittering with specks of green. I dont know what that means, but I hate it. I hate all of this. The laughter in the temple grows louder. The three shrouded creatures pause as one to listen. The painter quickly returns to its work, but the freshly injured one turns to me and raises its hood, exposing the lower half of its face. It has a human head with human skin, but no features except a mouth between a set of insect mandibles. It smiles, and the expression is not the gaping grin of a monster. Its a smile I recognize too well from the seventh floor, the soft, sad kind patients force for their families to tell them Ill be okay. It doesnt hurt too much. I choke down another wave of nausea. For a long moment, all I can do is stare and wonder if smashing this painting would help in some way. I dont think it would. With its trembling free hand, the smiling thing points to the archways and nods, once. Then it lowers its head, almost bowing to me, and lets its hood hang over its head again. The moment I look through the arches, Yurfalns voice blares out from somewhere in the darkness. Share. Holy! Teach me, give me, be me! it says. Im going to kill you, I rasp back. Even as the words pass my lips, they feel pathetic. Far too petty and tiny to match whats happening in this place, whatever that even is. But theyre all I have. As I step past them and cross into the temple, the paired creatures clap and weakly whistle goodbye. Death Inverted 1-6 Its too dark to see inside, and the eerie green glow shifting over my tarot spread isnt enough to illuminate anything. The air here is somehow too humid and too thin at the same time. It clings to me as I move, its damp warmth a sudden shift from the cold outside. My head swims and my lungs burn the way they sometimes do on bad health days, no matter how much swampy air I suck down. My eyes never seem to adjust to the gloom, and navigating by magic can only do so much. My soul has a sense of which way my power is flowing as the Wound gathers it up, but its not like I can actually see with it, and I dont feel anything solid enough to be Yurfaln itself. Hey! If you want me, get out here! Im not- My voice quivers, instantly putting the lie to my poorly-faked confidence, and a dry cough tears through my throat. not done with you, I croak. Fluorescent yellow light from no clear source floods the ruins. The dim glow flickers like a dying lightbulb, but its at least enough to see by. The temples entrance hall is a round chamber held up by pillars just as caked in grime and corruption as the walls outside. Above is a high dome ceiling almost completely scrawled over with spiraling glyphs, though the white stone underneath does peek through in a few places. At the far end of the room, a dirty curtain hangs over a hall leading further inside. It swings open on its own I brace myself, expecting the world to twist around me again, but the lurch never comes. Instead, Yurfalns distant voice echoes through the temple: Welcome welcome! Come. Join! Do I have any other choice? Playing along with its plans feels wrong, but theres only one way forward. I can change this world too, yes, but Ive already struck at the Harbinger in the only way I can think of. As far as I can tell, it didnt care at all. It liked it. No, thats not quite right. I have no idea why Yurfaln would eat itself or make such a show of working my infection into its Wound, but it must be some sort of countermove. It didnt just stand there and shrug my magic off I definitely hurt it on some level. Bits of it were wasting away when I last saw it. Its too much to hope that its still falling apart and I only need to catch it, but there has to be something I can do if I figure out what its doing with my power and why. Which I can only do by seeing more of it. No matter what that ends up looking like. So in I go. Past the curtain, the temple narrows into a long, dingy hall that slopes steadily down. Its barely lit, as if by a single bulb floating somewhere far behind me, and I spend the descent reaching out with my soul for any signs of movement an ambush, Yurfalns presence, anything. It never comes. Theres only distant wisps of my magic flowing inward and a sound that slowly fills the air, growing louder as I walk. Not medical equipment or insect noises, but a steady murmuring like whispered giggles. The weak laughter of dying children. The air gets simultaneously heavier and thinner as I come closer to the sounds source, weakening my own breath. It never feels bad enough that the Wound is trying to strangle me, but it weighs me down all the same. Thats fine. My body failing me is nothing new. Finally, a new, brighter source of unsteady yellow light comes into view. The end of the passage, and yes, this feels like the central trunk of my tarot spread, the point Yurfaln is gathering my magic toward. The Harbingers slimy aura is thick here, and while I cant tell if its nested somewhere in the miasma, waiting to catch me right at the bottom, Im sure this place is important to the Wound in some way. A deeper part of Yurfaln than those outside. If the answers Im looking for are anywhere, theyre here. I gather my feeble strength and step into the light. Whats waiting there steals the last of my breath. The tunnel opens into a dank sickroom the size of a school auditorium. Withering bodies in ragged cloaks are packed into too-tight rows of rickety cots. The walls are coated in dirt and dust and Yurfalns mud, except where the dying are absorbed in scratching it away by hand. They work in very specific patterns, drawing those strange glyphs with the white stone beneath the grime. Some of the same figures are standing, limping through the rows even as bits of them fall out of their robes and melt into the corruption coating the surfaces. The wanderers study the writing on the wall with great interest, occasionally stopping to copy bits of it into smaller versions of Yurfalns great white tome. A space at the center has been sectioned off, its beds rearranged to form a rough wall around a small pool. The water in it is a vibrant swampy green, the single spot of color in the filthy grey room, and gives off fumes that look and feel exactly like my magic. Two of the creatures are swimming in it, fully clothed, and many more sit gathered around the water, laughing and chittering in voices fainter but somehow easier to hear than all the rest. All of them are falling apart, just like the rest, but rather than mud and filth theyre disintegrating into green mist and black feathers that litter the ground. As one, the creatures turn to watch me enter. Some call out in greeting, some wave, and some are too weak to do more than look. I back away, still breathless, but bump into a wet, muddy wall after only a step. The passage behind me is gone. Well. This is what I came for, isnt it? If I wanted to run, Ive had chances. What difference does it make if theyre gone now? I take my first hesitant steps out into the room, pausing to look around every few feet. But much as I expect the ragged things to swarm me like hungry zombies, they never do. If this is a trap, its a stranger one than that. Right before I reach the cot barricade around the central pool, the sickening pressure of the Wound spikes, battering my soul as the foul air chokes my body. Just ahead, a spout of mud bubbles up from the floor, and when it sloughs away, the Harbinger is standing across from the water. Its hood is down, and its mouth grins wider than ever. Its lost legs and fangs have mostly grown back in, but they now have black feathers and tiny hollow shafts sticking out of them at random, uneven points, and they constantly writhe as if fighting it three fangs have bent back and dug into its head. When I sense it this closely, its aura shares the rotten-fruit stench of seventh floor patients, but there are two distinct feelings wound together inside it: a burning ache spreading outward from its core and the cold, gnawing pain of my power winds through it, all tangling together into a single awful sensation. The dying creatures fall silent as Yurfaln emerges, and its voice blares through the chamber. This time it speaks slowly, the way you would to a toddler who doesnt quite understand words. The phrases are more complicated, harder to translate in that ethereal way, but they go something like: We feel so much. Burn so bright. Shine so much light! See, see! Then it gestures with its head to one ragged thing seated alone at the edge of the circle. Its hunched over a white book, writing on its pages at a frantic pace with an old-fashioned quill pen made from one of those black feathers. The cloth over one side of its body is pulled back to expose a human arm, which is steadily turning bright green as it rots, but its melting into liquid rather than dissolving into mist. A glass bottle at its side gathers the liquid up, and it uses that bottle as an inkwell for its pen. The writer looks up at the Harbinger and beams proudly. The mandibles around its human mouth quirk up, like its trying to smile with them too. Yurfaln dips one of its legs into the bottle, opens its own book, and begins copying what its written, chirping excitedly all the while. Once again, I find myself holding back vomit with all my strength. This is none of it makes No. No, theres one way to make sense of all this. The Harbinger draws power from sickness. Sickness is where it began. It ate a man who was wasting away, then wandered off to curse other people with slow, miserable deaths. Pain like mine is probably its favorite food, and I went and served it the biggest meal I could. Thats why it would let me do this no, do this to itself and then welcome me into its world and celebrate. Its all I can do to remind myself that its still hurting. Im certain it is, and Ive got some kind of hook in it, but can I do anything with that? If I push myself further, would it collapse into nothing or feast on my suffering until it burst? I have no idea if thats how it works. More importantly, Id probably die before it did. This place is poisonous, and my barrier isnt enough to keep it from seeping into me. Not while I still need to breathe. Yurfaln slams its book shut and returns to watching me with its eyeless smile. It stays like that for a long, long moment. Then it scoops a clump of feathers into its mouth, gnashing eagerly, and starts toward the far end of the room. It moves much slower than it did before, with its whole body twitching wildly and throwing off its skittering steps, but eventually it vanishes through a curtain-covered door. Leaving me with no choice but to chase it, stand here and waste away, or try and make my own way out and I dont see any way of blasting open a new path with my magic. I look over my tarot spread once more. The upside-down trees trunk is made up of two cards. On the lower one, Yurfalns muddy greys and reds are gathered around a bright pulsing circle of my emerald green. The card above it is all Yurfalns shades, pulsing wildly, like a clay heart beating much too fast. Theres something more left of the Harbinger and its world, something deeper still. It could still be dying. This could still work. And its the only chance I have. Ragged creatures shuffle aside, clearing a path for me to follow their creator into its heart. On the other side of the curtain is only darkness, which swiftly expands and swallows the world. ~~~ What remains is a formless non-space like the void I fell through to enter the Wound, except Im standing on solid ground instead of falling forever. Images float slowly past me, stone mosaics backlit by flickering yellow lights. Theyre jagged, ugly things, sharp rocks all packed together rather than smooth, artistic designs, but they do form legible pictures. The first shows a crowd of colorless human-shaped outlines rendered faintly yellow by the light, shambling around in the dark. The next panels narrow in on a single man, always brightly colored and lit against the bleak background. Hes alone in a crowd of featureless, colorless people, then in a bed, thin and haggard but glowing brighter than before. Finally, hes moved into a place as warm and vivid as him, a garden room filled with other bright people, their light shining out into the world and entirely replacing the dreary backdrop of the last pictures. The stones are smoother on the last mosaic. It shows the man seated in the garden-world in a giant plush chair, its gold trim as ornate as a kings throne. In front of him, a creature shrouded in rags bows down like a student sitting at the feet of a great teacher. Is this supposed to be Yurfaln and Mr. Enfield? Did the Harbinger kill and eat the man and then build a shrine for him? The last scene fades with that thought, and bright lights blink on, replacing the void with a new, smaller chamber. Bizarrely, the center of the Wound is much cleaner than the sickroom. Its white stone walls are mostly pristine, except in the corner where Yurfaln stands. There, black feathers litter the ground, and several of its legs have sloughed to the floor around it, along with little chunks of clay where they once attached to its body. Theyre dissolving into green mist, but slowly, like theyll disintegrate over hours rather than minutes. If I am killing it, I dont think its fast enough. Look, look! it chirps, gesturing with all the legs on one side of its body. On the far wall is a sacrificial altar straight from a horror story a raised stone slab, tilted down toward the floor, decorated all over with twisting glyphs. A scalpel is balanced on the top edge of the slab. A round gutter set into the floor circles it, and viewed from the side, theres a channel that flows straight into the wall behind the altar. The wall itself features another mosaic. It begins as a drab cityscape, but the image is alive a mixture of Yurfalns colors and mine spread through it like dye mingling in a glass of water, and where those twisting shades pass, things change. By the time it reaches the mosaics borders, the city is an extension of the Wound. Its surfaces crawl with living clay and its streets are filled with deathly ill people, all smiling serenely as they expire in the streets. Yurfaln speaks again, in the same slow, cheerful voice it used outside. Yours! I made it. For you! Die together? it asks. Together? What? Thats before, I thought it was eating the pain of dying of an illness and didnt care if it hurt going down. If Im understanding it at all and maybe Im not, but thats all I have to go on right now its not just that it doesnt care if it hurts or if it dies, but dying is actually the point. I remember Mr. Enfields last words to me, all that about things working out for the best and death spurring you on to make the most of your last days. Those are obviously lies people tell themselves to feel a bit better when theres nothing else they can do, but I have no reason to think Harbingers understand human self-deception. Maybe Yurfaln pulled those feelings from his dying thoughts, took them completely seriously, and decided it liked the idea. I open my mouth, but whatever words I wanted to say a moment ago have fled me. What could I possibly say to something that thinks like that, if it would even understand me? FOR YOU, Yurfaln repeats. Its voice has been shrill and painful since I first heard it, but the impatience, the anger its tinged with now, thats new. It draws itself to its full height and crawls closer, towering over me between unsteady steps. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Vyuji said she could only teach me so much, and she talked like I was ready for this, but I shouldve made her tell me every possible thing she knew about the enemy. And experimented more, figured out everything I could do and thought about how best to use it. Instead I ran off to die rather than risk the Harbingers trail going cold. No, no, its not over yet. Im not going to die like this. Im not going to die. Inflaming the wisps of my power inside Yurfaln wouldnt kill it fast enough to save me, but thats not the only thing I can do. Magic isnt just a weapon that you swing harder and hope for the best, and all this isnt just a meal or a source of strength to Yurfaln. It is Yurfaln. It celebrates our misery, loves it enough to make its world a temple to slow, painful death. Truth Is Written In Scars. Thats what it named itself. Sickness is its identity. And as much as I hate it, sickness belongs to me. Okay. Okay, calm down, I half-whisper. Die together, fine. That sounds wonderful. Lets do it. I sidestep toward the altar, afraid to take my eyes off Yurfaln. B-but this isnt quite right. Its not what you want. Can can I make it a little better first? Yurfaln just tilts its head, shifting its posture slightly. I dont know how Im translating its words, but the understanding doesnt seem to work both ways. Better. Like this. More of this. I push out slightly with my will, feeding a little more power into my barrier. A little more of the same pain and fear and bitterness I used to infect the Wound. I should be able to warp this place in other ways, too. Honestly, what Im planning is a simpler way, just one that doesnt come quite as naturally. The Harbinger is still for a moment, save for the wild twitching of its diseased limbs. Then it trills wordless agreement. Theres a lightening of the ever-present pall of its corruption surrounding my soul its grip on the world loosens slightly, making space for me to add my own touch to the dreamscape. Maybe I couldve done it anyway, but I really dont want to push my limits. Not yet. I close my eyes and push a bit harder, trying to infuse more than raw emotion into my magic. Ideas, memories, fears more complex than the raw, primal kind. One image in particular. Cold mist drifts through the room on a faint breeze. Once it passes, I look back at the wall and inspect my work. The altars been replaced by it takes a moment to register what its supposed to be, and I imagined it. Its a set of two matching altars, now, one raised slightly higher off the ground than the other. But theyre partially tilted like examination tables, and instead of cuffs or a place to fasten a bound victims limbs, each has a single cushioned armrest, one on the left and one on the right. Between them is something like an oversized dialysis machine, but the body of the machine is set into the floor, carved from a single slab of white stone. Its monitoring instruments have no numbers, just sigils like the ones written on the temple walls and little smiley faces. The main assembly of tubes that would normally be in the center is replicated on each side of the device, and instead of a filter to run the blood through, the lines simply wind together in the middle into a big tangled maze of clear plastic. Each side has six lines ending in too-long, too-thick needles, more than any imaginable procedure could ever need. Its not a medical machine, its a mad science nightmare contraption designed to steal all the blood from two people at once and then do something inexplicable but certainly deadly with it. Why does it look so awful? I didnt make it like that, did I? It must just be the clay Im working with I made this, but I made it of Yurfalns Wound. Its still part of this world. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Anyway, I dont care what it looks like. Its more or less what I wanted, itll do what I needed to do, and Yurfaln will probably like it more this way. The statement to it should be clear if you want to share my pain, my blood, my cursed, broken blood thats doing its very best to eat me alive, you can have it. Yurfaln looks the machine over, crawls in a few looping circles around and between the new sacrificial setup. I hold my breath until it giggles, cheers, and scuttles over to the taller table. Its legs grab at the tubes on its side or its original, undamaged legs do, while the twitchy feathered ones flail and fight them but eventually, it takes all six needles and sinks them through the holes in its shroud, letting out a sharp wail as each punctures something beneath the cloth. It sits on the table, sets its book down beside it, and opens it to a fresh page. I approach the device in a few more small steps. I lean my cane against the altar and pick out a single needle-tipped tube. Yurfaln whistles and chirps meaninglessly as I roll back the sleeve over my injured right arm. My teeth clench so hard it hurts, which I know wont help. I know itll do the opposite, a lifetime of injections and infusions and drawn blood has seen to that, but I cant help myself. Just a little pain. Just a little more pain. Whats that to save my life? Ive never done this myself before. I position the needle over one of the veins in the center of my arm, look away, and do my best to slip it in. Its cold bite is much sharper than usual, and I let out a whimper of pain, but cant let myself stop to really feel it. No time. My souls image of Yurfaln sharpens were connected like this, wed have to be for whatever it was planning to work, and I sense it on some new level. It tried to make my disease, my magic, into part of itself. My power is wound all through its essence, but its still mine. And it answers when I reach for it, seize it, and pull with all my might. Its tangled up with Yurfalns strain of corruption, so its easier to rip them both free from its body together. The Harbinger makes a confused whining sound. It twists its body into a coil, tightening its entire being around its stolen suffering, and a strange sense of phantom pressure grows in the air as I pull against it. Through that pressure, through the sharp pain in my arm and the dizzying ache of breathing in this place and the numbing weight of my own failing body, I keep pulling until I feel my power tearing loose shreds of Yurfalns soul and dragging them along with it. Finally, colors start to flow out through Yurfalns tubes. The assembly fills up with an insane, ever-shifting muddy soup of ink-blacks and reds and greys and shimmering greens that never truly meld together. Yurfalns whine rises to a panicked howl as the chaotic mix of our magic floats there, waiting for its new purpose. For this to work, I have to give it one. Magic wants to express itself. It wants to be used. I cant just wish it away, which leaves two places it can go. This surprised the Harbinger, but if I give it a chance, it could still find a way to fight back. I look at the rusty scraps of filth mixed through the green of my miasma and shiver. Yurfaln may have stolen the other disease, but by now its steeped in its essence, repulsive to my senses on a level that goes far beyond the sickly-sweet stenches of death I felt earlier. It feels like looking down on a plate of food and seeing something still living, still perfectly awake, glaring up at me with eyes full of intelligent malice. Something that knows whats coming, but needs me to understand in its last moments that it hates me and wants me to suffer. Tensing my entire body, I will the mass back into myself. The corruption, mine and Yurfalns both, rushes through the machine and sinks into my veins. As one, my nerves explode. My legs buckle. I collapse to my knees, screaming and screaming and screaming until Im sure Im clawing out my own throat. Yurfalns earsplitting wails drown out my own, and the tearing muscles in my neck are the only way I know that Im still making sound. Sharp, gnawing agony rushes through me, and the stolen affliction burns in my chest. I feel like Im drowning on dry land, like my body has forgotten what to do with air. But through my tears, I can see Yurfaln shriveling, shrinking underneath its robes. Dozens of little legs stretch out from beneath the cloth as it stands and staggers forward, grasping for me, but its body gives out in mid-motion, crashing to a heap on the ground. Its hood falls away as it looks up at me with its eyeless face, twitching and shivering and grimacing in impossible pain with both of its mouths, and its clay flesh rapidly starts to dry and crack. It doesnt fall away and spread filth through the room, it doesnt dissolve into green mist, it simply crumbles to dust. Yurfaln lowers its head. Its voice gives out, fading to a faint, quivering cry. Its remaining legs rise once more, then plunge as one into its chest. With only a low, dry croak of pain, it rips something out of itself a pulsing orb of blackness, with thin lines of rust-red light running through it like veins. The Harbingers heart. The trophy Im here for. My first step toward saving myself. And its holding it up with the last of its strength. Offering it to me? Wilt. Wilt and fill this world wilt. Drink it all. Become true. Together, it rasps with its final breath. Pleading, not for mercy but for I pull the needle loose from my arm and snatch the heart, and the last of Yurfalns body disintegrates into scraps of shredded cloth and a cloud of dead grey dust. Its core is warm and slick to the touch, sending a revolted shudder through me, but I cling to it all the same, somehow afraid that it might vanish like a dream in the harsh morning sun if I let go. I squeeze the heart to my chest and reach out with my power to swallow it, biting my tongue to shove the awful feeling of the act down, but after the first nauseating sip, something starts to change. That air of malice Ive felt since I first started tracking the Harbinger slowly fades. Absorbing the essence beneath it doesnt translate to any physical sense, the way reading magic often seems to this is a deeper feeling, more abstract, something new and wonderful. Like the heady haze of finishing a book good enough that you forgot everything else while you read it, didnt even realize you were reading, but free from the part where you have to snap out of it and find yourself back in your hospital bed. Its just how the world is now. While I drink its creator dry, the Wound collapses around me, ruined walls and many-armed effigies and sandy beaches all crumbling into the void, everything twisting and shrinking until the dark light in my hands is the only thing left in sight. That light expands to fill my vision as it seeps into me, a dark field spotted with distant stars painting over the Wounds. Formless ideas and images flash through the dark. Now I understand. Soon, everything Yurfaln was will be mine, and I know the truth of it in some soul-deep sense. I dont know where it came from or how it came into being, but beginning from the moment it invaded our world and stole its first life, I understand what it was trying to do. It saw us on the seventh floor, suffering, slowly dying, snatching any bits of life and meaning we could from our unlivable situations, and it decided that was so wonderful it would share the experience with everyone it could. In its world, to be destroyed by your own misery was to be enlightened. But its highest ideal was only ever a dying mans comforting delusion. Ive carried more weight than Yurfaln for a longer life, even added its pain to my own, and at the end of all this Im more sure of that than ever. Thats how I broke it and its world. Its dream. Did it understand that? How did it feel, spending its last moments being rejected by someone like me? Was it hoping Id carry on some legacy for it? It doesnt matter. Its gone, and all I want to take from its failure is the strength to survive. ~~~ When the world comes back into view, theres no sense of moving from one place to another. Its like the Wound was only ever a stage set placed in front of the living room. Im still shaking all over, but there are no other sounds, no movement that I can make out through my blurred vision. Dimly, I see that Im in front of the fireplace, right where the hole in the ground once was. Now theres only a plush white rug, spotted with dirt where my hands are clawing into it. I lean back into a seated position and curl into myself, crying tears of relief as pain starts to give way to crushing fatigue. Eventually, I start to move again. I turn myself around, fumble for my cane with my one good hand, and stand on shaky legs. Yurfalns two victims lay unconscious in their seats, alive and breathing, but tossing fitfully like theyre trying to force themselves awake from within a nightmare. They probably are. The only thing I can do for them now is call in the specialists. Whats the procedure for things like this? If theres a special number for Keepers to report magical hazards, no ones told me yet. 112 will do, hopefully. I limp through the house, dimly surprised that Im not bleeding all over the place, until I find a cordless phone on a little side table. Hello? I just killed a Harbinger. Two of its victims are still alive. My voice comes out dry and scratchy, and using it is a little like coughing up sand. It should be safe here and they look stable, but theyre going to need Sanctuary help. The line is quiet for a second. Understood. Where are you? Well, that was easy. Im glad the police know how this goes, because I definitely dont. I have no idea where we are, though. I navigated by Yurfalns scent on the way here. In the Hills. Ummm I limp outside as fast as my battered body can carry me. Its easy enough to find a street sign and the little number by the door. 12 Cope Street. Okay. I have some officers on the way now, and well send for someone from Bright Horizon. That may take a little longer. You said the victims werent in critical condition? No. I dont think so. Something else occurs to me, though. On his way out last night, Dr. Hines hadnt looked at all well, and he was missing this morning. He may have just been shaken, but he was very close to Yurfalns origin point. A Harbingers curse can begin as a subtle seed of dormant corruption, then burst into something horrible once it takes root. Ah, theres someone else I think you should check on, too. Wait. What am I going to say about how I know him? Im already dreading the thought of the news running wild with a Mystery Keeper Incident. I have to do something for him, and I cant very well go check on him myself, but anything I give out could narrow the suspects down. I think the name was Ralph Hines? That sounds right. I dont know where he lives or what he might be doing, just that he had some contact with it. I cringe. Theyll definitely swallow that. Never in my life heard of the man, a Harbinger just name-dropped him, thats it! Actually, why am I even panicking about this? 112 calls have to be confidential. Right? One moment, please. Theres another pause, several seconds longer than the first. There are two men with that name in our records. Is there anything else you can tell me about him? Sorry. Try whichever one lives closest to this address first. It didnt cover much ground before I caught it. He is local. I think. I hope I didnt just make that up. Alright. Well do that. Thank you. Ill be going, then. I hang up before they can object, leaving the phone on a patio table. Waiting around to give a statement would bring all kinds of attention I dont want. On that note, was this entire thing noisy? Was I still screaming when I dropped back into the world? I dont think so. I hope I dont have an audience now. Theres no one right there on the street, at least, but I cant see through the windows across the way. Taking whatever extra privacy I can get, I rifle through a concealed pocket on my Keeper dress of course it has pockets, what good would any fancy outfit be if it didnt? Just like I instinctively knew they were there, I know these pockets will connect to the ones on my actual clothes. Sure enough, the mask Id taken earlier is inside. Once I put it on, I hobble away from the burrow-house and down the street. At the first road that ends in undeveloped woods, I duck into the trees and fall down in the dirt, leaning back on an old trunk. Hey, Vyuji, Im safe now. Please get over here. A few seconds pass before the Messenger pops into being, seated on her knees across from me. She looks over in the houses direction, then nods. Congratulations, Liadain. Im glad to see you as well as can be expected after your first hunt. How are you feeling, now that its over? I mean terrible, but eating the thing helped, I think? I dont feel like I could die at any moment anymore. Even if the only reason I got off this easy was because Harbingers are too mad to play for keeps. It I dont know how this works, why they are what they are or how much they control their power, but it was just broken on some basic level. If I didnt get to it first, its own magic would have eaten it alive sooner or later. Interesting. You shouldnt rely on it happening again, though. I wouldnt want you learning the wrong lessons so soon. Ugh. Of course not. Thanks, for the warning, I guess. So, umm Im not immortal yet, am I? How do I know how far along this whole nightmare got me? I ask. Thats for you to find out. How do you feel? Not your injuries, not that body, you. The heart of you. What has changed inside you? I turn my sight inward. The Harbingers mass is still there, but the feeling of it as something separate from me is slowly fading. All that remains is a faint change in the way my soul expresses itself to my senses, a new or slightly altered note to the confusing impression. Some trace of the power Yurfaln drew from its own decay. I can turn my wounds into fuel, now, use them to make my magic stronger the closer to deaths door, the better. Which is okay, that feels horrible, and I dont want to rely on it if I can at all help it, but if what I just went through is a typical Harbinger experience, it might be incredibly useful. My first thought was that enough horrible bodily harm to matter would just kill a girl like me, but things dont seem to be so simple with Harbingers. I couldve been on the brink of death at any point in there. Okay, I sigh. I found it and what I found seems good, but is that everything? Is there normally more to it, some harder-to-find thing below the surface? Possible, but not terribly common. Dont expect an instant revolution your growth is just beginning, Vyuji says. Ive got a few months to live. Maybe a year, I hiss. How much of this am I possibly supposed to do? Do I have to kill a Harbinger what, every week? Every day? Ah. She sits there, still as ever, for several very long seconds. I see your concern but you dont, not necessarily. There are considerations. As Ive said, Emergence is a process, not a single distant threshold to be crossed. There will be more and greater changes than this, and those will offer you ways to extend your life until you are satisfied. Until then, you only need to hunt enough to stay a few steps ahead of death. To continue, when we met last night, I said that this Harbinger was most likely a newborn. Youve seen more of it than I have. Would you agree? I think on Yurfalns last moments, and the thoughts it wanted to share with me before that. Mr. Enfield seemed to be its first contact with humans. If it was older than a day or two, it spent its time before last night doing nothing worth noting. If they start killing as soon as they turn up? Yes. They usually do, she says. I dont like where this is going. Vyuji looks away from me and gestures widely out at the city. Harbingers grow as they feed. In becoming more than they are, they have more to leave behind when they fall, and so their remnants grow with them. You can do this again and again, or you can find more dangerous quarries. Thats your choice to make, but I do expect one would reach your goal quicker than the other. That newborn that defective runt of a newborn, if I took her at her word had been an unholy terror. It took everything I had and then some to barely survive it, and Im no healthier or closer to immortality than I was this morning. Vyuji, about how many Keepers actually last long enough to get what they want? Its dangerous work. Some do. Some dont. Im happy to tell you that my children have better odds than most. Well thank the fucking Goddess for you. Indeed. She smiles faintly. Theres not a trace of irony in her voice. All I can do is push back the urge to cry. Ive used up my tears for a while. Great. Leave me alone, then. As you like. Vyuji inclines her head and vanishes. Home, safety, life, all of them suddenly feel very far away. Im so tired. Can I even make it back to the hospital like this? My right arm is still useless, and theres an unpleasant numbness in my limbs, an early sign of my sickness flaring up. I still feel echoes of Yurfalns disease, leaving me constantly dizzy and breathless. Just on the edge of my awareness, I can faintly feel points of life, normal people going about their days. Sensing them isnt new, but something is different. In the hospital, healthy souls didnt feel like much of anything. Now they share a scent of their own. Maybe I just didnt notice it before, or the slow deaths all around me drowned it out. Its nothing like those stenches. It doesnt tell me anything about them except that theyre well, but it is soothing, a balmy wind on my wounds. Like fresh rain. I draw a little closer to the neighborhood and the gentle sensation, finding a tree I can hide behind and peek around. My first sense of it wasnt quite complete. Its more like water in a desert. An oasis through the eyes of someone whos never seen water in their life. As long as I sit here and fill my world with this sensation, things dont seem so bad. Ill stay like this for just a little longer, just a little taste Taste? What? Some part of me instinctively reaches out and inhales? Three thin plumes of shimmering green fog, the color of new leaves, spiral out through the walls of the houses across the road and sink into me. A warm, gentle current rolls through my body, softening my many aches and allowing clean air back into my lungs. Im still a bit tired, the pain in my arm and the cold, stinging numbness remain, but in an instant I feel much better. Only after I stretch experimentally, feeling the wear in my muscles fade even as I move, do I realize what Ive just done. My stomach churns as I jolt myself away from the warm auras. After a moment to calm my sharp, shallow breaths, I turn my awareness back toward the souls Ive drawn from. It was like Id covered my eyes at the scene of some awful accident, then slowly cracked open a peephole between two fingers when I couldnt help but look. What I see is not nearly as bad as I expected. Their souls are a little less clean, like theyve taken on a faintly sour note, but they havent caught anything horrible from me. My magic tells me that to them, the effect is a vague, sourceless malaise, close to the feeling of having slept very poorly. None of them are terribly hurt, but did they feel my touch as something cold and invasive? Could a normal person have seen the wisp of essence I stole from them leaving their body? That wouldve given them quite a scare, Im sure, but its the worst case I can imagine. I wait for a minute. Nobody starts screaming or rushing outside. Just what have I done, in the balance? Those three people are probably going to have a few bad days. In exchange, I put down a monster that was nesting a few blocks away from them. Neither they nor any of their friends are going to waste away in their homes, celebrating their own miserable deaths all the while. Thanks to the health I took from them, I can keep hunting as soon as I rest up. New Claris will be better and safer for my work. Maybe that isnt exactly why Im doing it, but what difference does that make? Ignoring the faint guilty twinges in my chest, I can probably still live with myself. Sorry, everyone. Im certain youd rather it be me than Yurfaln. I close my eyes and scan my body as the breaths of stolen life settle. By the time the last has done its work, the sharp pain in my arm is nearly gone. All that remains is a stiff sprain in my right wrist. Thats fine. Im not going to trouble someone else just for my off hand. Hesitantly, I dismiss my transformation, hoping this strength will hold without my magic propping me up. I dont exactly feel great, but it still might be my best health day since before the second transplant. So I step out from my hiding spot and head back toward the hospital. I might have appreciated the sudden lightness in my steps, but its too tied up with the memory of where my new vigor came from, the moment when I was terrified I had killed someone. My magical senses are still jumping at shadows, and I have to stop myself from tensing whenever some new presence appears. All of them are humans bearing no horrible corruption, and I can easily just look at them and see an ordinary person doing ordinary things, but that isnt enough to completely calm the sense of unease or unreality lingering in my heart. Things are quiet all through the walk back, and I do my feeble best to give my racing mind a rest. The air is still pleasantly crisp in the sidewalk trees shade, and there are no Harbinger traces I can feel. Some mad part of me almost wants to find another target, knowing how far I still have to go, but theres no chance Id survive doing that again today. For now, I just really need a nap. As the hospital comes into view, I take a moment to quiet my soul-sense as completely as I can. I dont want a tower full of other sick people weighing on me. Lia! What happened? Are you hurt? Almost as soon as I step out of the elevator on the seventh floor, an aide rushes over to me, her face creased with concern that doesnt seem at all called for. Its still midday I havent even been gone for that long. Im fine? I just went for a walk in the garden. I know, I know, medical advice and all that, but Im not hurt. I wore the mask and everything. What made you think theres a problem? Um. Maybe that last bit was a little too defensive. I see, its just your hair What about it? It was mostly behaving this morning. Oh. Her frown deepens. Seriously, what is it? I push past her and into the nearest bathroom, inspecting myself in the mirror. Just to the left of my bangs, a thin tress has bleached itself a completely colorless white. Death Inverted 1-7 The floors charge nurse insists on all the poking and testing and measurements she can think of. They obviously wont find anything, but I cant really tell them that. I tried to think of any decent explanation I could use as an excuse, but every lie that popped into my head sounded shoddy. Oh, it''s nothing to worry about, I just went out to get my hair streaked in public where I could die, thank you for noticing! Even if they were dumb enough to buy that, they''d probably end up locking me in sick little girl jail and throwing away the key. At the very least they''d keep a much closer eye on me, which is exactly what I don''t want. Oh, I did my hair and I just couldn''t wait to show it off to the world! If only the Promise had granted me the power to summon hair care products from thin air so I could prove it. maybe I could pretend to look for whatever things you use to do this to yourself and act like they''re missing? Maybe someone stole it while I was out, hmm? No, thats ridiculous, and if they somehow took it seriously it would cause a lot of trouble for everyone else on the seventh floor. And youre certain thats all? she asks for the third time. Im not sure what you want from me. Everything else is normal as it gets. Im feeling fine. Well, relatively. It doesnt look like Im dying any faster, does it? No, nothing seems to have changed, she admits, staring down at the clipboard shes furiously scribbling on. Its a real puzzle. Which it doesnt look like were going to solve, at least not until whatever tests youre sending off right now come back. Dr. Hines might have better ideas? I try. That might be, but hes still out today. They havent heard anything more, then. The nurse frowns, the small wrinkles on her face deepening, and looks up at me over her clipboard. This always feels like such a strange question, but is there any chance something, ah, unusual could have happened? Im not sure what you mean? Well, you know... things do come up, sometimes. Have you felt anything you couldnt explain lately, seen anything She waves a hand, like shes reaching out for a word she cant quite find. Mystical? She doesnt sound used to dealing with magic issues, maybe shes never done it at all, but I already know perfectly well what shes talking about. Theres one explanation for something like this that everyone knows. Its incredibly unlikely to happen to any given kid who wasnt a Keeper yesterday, but, well, this time it really is the answer. Liadain? Shes still looking at me, visibly worried. Huh? I must have gotten lost in my thoughts, and thats the best I can come up with. I mean, I spend all my time here, and nothing weird happened in the garden. Since youve already said this doesnt make any medical sense, can we agree that weve gotten as far as we can for now with normal, sensible things? Im really tired. The nurse looks up at me for a moment, narrows her eyes, then sighs and sets the clipboard down. Okay. Go get some rest and well see how things are looking in the morning. Hopefully the doctor will be back then, too. Hopefully. Right now its one more thing to worry about, and I have no other way to check on him. Maybe when the news catches wind of the incident, but Im still a bit afraid to see what they make of me. One thing at a time. Thats a pretty distant worry, as they go, and Ive shoved it away by the time I make it back to my room. Hi, Pearl. I hope youve been having a better time than me. Pearl smiles up at me in quiet greeting, cozy as I left her in her nest. I force myself to change no reason to punish this dress for the day Ive had then climb straight into my bed and quickly pass out. ~~~ Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep Its just before sunset when my alarm goes off. It still doesnt feel like enough, but I should do my best not to destroy my sleep schedule. I grab my personal deck from the nightstand, roll out of bed, and stagger over to my side-table chair. Im about to pull a second card for the day when I have a better idea. Maybe. Vyuji, had this already happened when we last talked? I groan into my empty room. Theres a bit of a delay before she appears this time, but after maybe ten seconds, there she is. Suddenly, shes perched on the windowsill, her face placid as ever. Yes. I didnt see it happen, but your first Emergence almost certainly came when you claimed the Harbinger. You knew it was coming, didnt you? This is your first real progress toward your goal, however small a step it was. You should be celebrating. That doesnt mean I wanted to learn about it from the next random person to look at me! Apologies. Ill remember that in the future. In the future. Right. Ill just go ahead and ask. At the height of her power, Saint Kuri was apparently a human-shaped construct of wood and vines and foliage, with only her soul left over from her days as a flesh-and-blood person. As I understand it, the marks of Emergence arent something Keepers choose or design in any conscious way, and there doesnt seem to be a hard limit to how strange things can get if you last long enough, but they do reflect your power and personality in some way. I dont like what that implies for my future at all. ...Should I be worried about, I dont know, turning into a horrible plague-beast? I somehow cant imagine this ends anywhere good. It would be best for you to expand your imagination, then. There is no sharp distinction between you and your magic. It doesnt have a plan its following or goals separate from your own it acts as your heart of hearts believes it should. Find ways to make it serve you and suit your desires. Share with it the best of yourself, and it will repay you in kind. Likewise, if you hate it and spurn it as a curse, that is what it may well become. Vyuji says all this with no inflection in her strange voice, unmoving, unblinking. More and more of what I hear about magic makes me think Im horribly, horribly unfit to handle it. Okay. That follows, I think. Its part of me, it responds to the way I treat it sort of like exercising or ignoring any other part of me, only if my arms could decide I wasnt treating them right and go do their own thing? Is that about right? Perhaps they can. She makes an actual sound for the third time since I met her, a little noise I can just barely make out as a tittering laugh. Um, excuse me? They definitely cant. Vyujis brow wrinkles, making her look almost puzzled. Its the face a person might make if a stranger walked right up to them on the street and announced that water was dry. No, nevermind, youre probably right, she finally says. Theres just an old question you brought to my mind. Right, well wait, do you feel that? I turn my chair to look out the window. Something in the distance is prickling at my senses. Feel what? She tilts her head very slightly, her usual stillness returning. I turn my awareness outward, reaching as far as I can into the city around us. Theres someone on the streets below, moving toward the hospital. This is nothing like Yurfalns repulsive aura, though. It has a weight that clearly separates it from regular human souls, but no alien malice, just intense focus. A coiled spring ready to jump to life at a moments notice. Not a Harbinger, then? She said Id recognize those instantly, and I believe her after Yurfaln. A Messenger wouldnt make any sense suddenly, I realize Vyuji gives off no impressions at all, but thats not important right now so is this what Keepers feel like? Underneath us. Outside. Another Keeper, I think, unless theres some other category I dont know about. Hm. Theyre not one of mine, then. Thats all youve got? Apologies. Id know more if they were. What would they be doing here? I press my face to the window and look down at the streets, but I cant see much. No bright flashes of magic, no fancy costume I can make out from this distance. Vyujis gaze shifts slightly, following my movement more than turning toward the window. She just shrugs. I couldnt say. My best guess when your work was done earlier, did you get help for the Harbingers victims? Well, yes I dont think I gave them anything thatd point here, though. Even if I did, what should it matter? The Harbinger is dead, and as far as they know it started out oh. Um, do you know how the Soul Sanctuary works? I know enough. Why? She tilts her head, eyes wide. Ive seen her do that a few times now. Always to the left, always moving the exact same way and settling at precisely the same angle. Its a bit unsettling, like she has some dictionary of expressions she pulls from whenever it seems appropriate rather than actually expressing anything. Well, while theyre taking care of people, do they have I dont know, some way to track magic, figure out when My voice trails off as I realize something very stupid. oh. Someone probably just asked him what he was doing when it got to him, didnt they? I did everything right, took all the steps I could think of to keep myself out of this, but it didnt end up mattering. Quite honestly, it sounds like you have a better handle on the situation than I do. Ive got no idea who he might be. When I look back at her, Vyujis lips have quirked very slightly upward. My doctor was close to the scene of all this and missing today, so I asked them to check on him too. He really was in trouble, then, but not too far gone to talk about it. Small mercies. Anyway, I should probably go check on this before someone storms in here. If nothing too messy happens, Ill check back in with you later about... all this, okay? I gesture vaguely at the white strands of my hair, still visible in the corner of my eye. Whenever you wish. And without so much as a nod, shes gone. ~~~ Out in the halls, I find myself a new mask. Ive already recast my cold protective haze this time its just to hide my face, for all the good itll do. Ah, Liadain? Where are you going? The nurse at the front desk rushes over to me. Sorry, I think I forgot something outside. Ill just be a minute. I hope. I dont have a good excuse in mind if Im wrong. Now wait a minute, you really shouldnt be moving around so much. Everyones already worried about you! Just tell me what you lost and someone can go get it for Liadain? Liadain! She stops short of grabbing me or standing in my way, but shes still scolding me when the elevator door closes. I dont like it, but if I plan to keep running off, Ill probably have to tell at least the doctors something soon. Maybe they already know. Its not like theres another likely explanation for what just happened to me. One thing at a time, though. What am I doing here? I dont want a stranger digging around in the closest thing Ive got to a home, where they might sense my magic and find out right away about the little dying Keeper. I dont want them sticking around and hunting nearby, when Im already not sure how hard itll be to find more monsters. If I can help it, Id rather they not think I came from around the hospital at all, but that might be tough. Theres no time to arrange anything complicated, and this mask is a bit of a giveaway oh well. Sunlight still filters through the glass window-walls downstairs, but at this hour it doesnt do much more than cast long shadows across the floor, and the softly-lit hallways are mostly empty as I make my way to a side exit. Out on the streets, things are still bright and bustling with people making their ways home. That pleasant chill from earlier has turned bitter and sharp, but I dont mind its sting. Ive been cut off from the ordinary world for so long that it all somehow feels new and thrilling. At least for now, Im seeing it through the eyes of a kid looking out at her first snowstorm in awe rather than the adult who has to shovel the driveway. Well see if that mood holds when this is over. The other Keeper is coming closer, still headed straight for the hospital. Id rather not stomp right up to them on the road and have an audience, so first Ill try to get their attention the way they got mine. The tile sidewalks are wide enough that even at their busiest, they almost never feel crammed, and I dont need to awkwardly weave around passersby as I hurry down the street. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. A block away from the hospital, I duck into a tiny city park between two tall buildings. After a moment to catch my breath, and to make sure no one else is here watching me, I turn my focus inward, reaching for the heart of my magic. Its touch is cold and bitter as ever, like the protective haze Im cloaked in has seeped into my bones. Wisps of pale green light shimmer into view as I will my power back into the world, sucking in the sunlight around me and plunging the park into a brief unnatural night. Bright threads dance around me, shaping themselves into my regalia, but still I push more of it outward. Whatever my soul is like to other people, I want them to sense it as strongly as possible. It feels a bit like trying to form a smoke signal with nothing but my breath on a winter day, but then a Keeper with the right magic could probably make that work. Sure enough, as the sudden darkness around me lifts, the presence stops moving. Almost a minute passes before they start again, faster now, coming almost to the hospital. I release a breath I didnt realize Id been holding when they turn and head straight toward me. This plan hadnt been much more than a fair guess. All thats left to do is peer out at the sidewalk, wait, and hope this doesnt end up being a disaster. There they are. At the end of the street, a few hushed people are hastily stepping aside to make way for wait, theres two of them? I hadnt sensed the second at all, no matter how close they came. Before I feel anything clearer, they come dashing down the road. A girl in heavily-engraved golden armor leads the way. Blonde hair in a single long braid trails behind her, and shes holding a long spear tipped with gold or brass and a shield that looks much too big for her at the ready. Following her is a much taller girl in red, a sleek dress with sleeves detached at the shoulder and a skirt lined with long, sharp triangle-pattern folds of black cloth. She wears a tiny blue coral formation in her dark hair like a flower, with matching bracelets on either arm. The second one looks unarmed, but both are tense, ready to fight at any moment. Why? Does my magic feel that awful or are they worried about something else? Hesitant, I step off the park pavilion and into their path. The two come to a sudden stop a few feet away, and the armored one takes a battle stance, her gaze quickly sweeping around us before settling on me. Where is it? she barks. I wince at the noise. At least it probably isnt me, but What are you talking about? What? Whatever you were flaring for! the tall girl says. Her voice is lower, but still tinged with nervous energy. For a few very long seconds, Im not sure what to say to that. ...No, its not like that, there isnt anything happening. I just wanted to talk. The armored girl casts a sideways glance at her companion. The girl in red just stares down at me, confused, not quite scowling. Then why on earth did you ah, wait! Im sure I dont recognize you, so... In an instant she lights up, her entire attitude reversing. Youre new too, arent you? Has nobody told you this? That trick is the standard Keeper way to say hey, please help me! Dont worry about it, now you know, its just that you were really loud, I guess is the word Id use! It actually hurt a little! I was worried we were running into something really horrible. Oh. Any of us can probably do what I just did. New Claris is full of Keepers, and if one of them runs into something they cant handle, this really would work well as an instant signal fire. Sorry, I didnt mean Its fine, were over it! Right?" she replies, looking expectantly to the shorter armored girl. "Oh, uh, yeah I don''t see why not," the other girl concurs, loosening her stance and the tenseness in her shoulders as she lowers her shield. "See? There it goes, right under the bridge! Whoosh! the taller girl says, charging on ahead, and steps forward to offer a handshake. Those coral bracelets arent actually attached to anything, theyre too loose to fit around her arms they just float there, moving with her. The glow in her eyes matches her outfit exactly, and something about her is oddly familiar. I dont think Ive seen either of them in any of the Keeper news, not that I ever followed it too closely, but Im not sure what else it could be. Screaming Hymn Shona, at your service! Youre, ah Ill Wind, is it? Cool! Whats your name? What? I hiss. Why would where did you even get that? I recognize those words, but they were just a feeling I had about my power when I studied it. I didnt share them with anyone. I didnt even say them. The only way I can see that coming out is if, what, Vyuji somehow read my mind and told a bunch of strangers who arent even her kids? Um Shona says, blinking rapidly. Right, youre new. They, uh, they come with the magic. Theyre a sort of signature, part of what you feel when you sense a Keeper. Try it, you can see mine the same way. No, I mean, I believe you, its just urgh. Thats really terrible. Whats worse is that even as I argue the point in my head, the title somehow feels true. Its not wrong. I recognize it like my own face in the mirror and I hate it. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I like it! Its very distinctive, you know? Got a vibe were mostly missing in this city. Plus my strong, silent friend here hasnt even found her name yet. What do you mean she hasnt found it? How is that possible if any Keeper can just look at another and decide what theyre apparently supposed to be called? Bleh. I hate magic. I hate myself. The other girl sighs, twirling her spear above her head as she returns it to a sheath on her back. Hey, when did I become silent? she huffs. My NAME is Mide. I just havent gotten into this whole thing with the goofy titles. They are not goofy! Theyre the coolest! Shona shouts back. Think whatever you like about them. If I had one, Im sure itd be as goofy as this ridiculous armor, Mide says, looking down at herself with a grimace. What? Nooo! Your armors great! Shona insists. How many Keepers do you think look like that? Its so you, its awesome! Its a gaudy mess. No mind paid to the weapons Im using with it or what fighting Harbingers is actually like. All form, no function, and the form isnt even that good! Mide groans. I mean, it is awfully shiny for my tastes, but I always thought Keeper regalia basically came from the Keepers themselves. Can you really be saddled with an outfit you hate the way I was with magic I hate? Shona hrmphs and crosses her arms. Well you can always just take your sour grapes home if thats how you want to be! You know I cant. Mide returns the gesture, her shield dissolving into gold light in the process. I dont want to imagine the sort of trouble youd dive into alone. This doesnt seem like any of the worst-case scenarios I imagined, but whatever it is, its rapidly getting away from me. Um I try. Yeah, I know, youre out here because you didnt wanna have to hear about all my amazing adventures secondhand! Lucky youre a Keeper too, so you dont have to act like this is all some dumb idea I dragged you into! Were actual heroes chosen by the Goddess and from the way you talk sometimes youd think this was just a repeat of the shogi thing! Shona yells. Shona, bringing up the shogi thing will never be a good way to make your point. Never ever. Maybe just dont, Mide says flatly. Shona shudders and groans like shes just remembered something horribly embarrassing. ...Look. No one can possibly remember what all those little symbols on the pieces mean. Wasnt my fault, she grumbles a moment later. I did, somehow! Shogi people do! Irida obviously does, and if you were that set on impressing her, learning how to play the game before the tournament probably wouldve been a good start! UMM, I repeat, and stomp on the sidewalk for emphasis. Im not going to start shouting at them. These two are already way too noisy. Huh? Shona whirls to face me, a bit startled. Right, right, sorry. We do have a third now. Does she think this is a group? Is she already planning some adventure to drag me away on? Rather than ask, I point toward the pavilion. Lets head over here, alright? Its quiet, we can sit. More importantly, we still have a crowd staring at the three Keepers in the street. Shona looks back at Mide, who shrugs, and the two follow me into the tiny park. Oh, oh, whod you make your Promise with? Ennes ours, Shona chirps as they find a seat. I settle in an empty bench across from them. Eh? Vyuji, why? Shona scratches the back of her head. No reason, I just thought it would be fun to collect friends from all She freezes in mid-thought. Wait, for real? Yes? Thats a bizarre question. Id never seen Vyuji before last night, just heard her name in passing once or twice, but a Messenger is a Messenger, right? They all do exactly the same thing. Why would I make that up? Well, its just that theres not many of you, yknow? Youre the only local one Ive heard of since... well, since Iona, and that was a pretty long time ago! Even the Cycles dont mention the Moon Gardener as much as her siblings, so, uh... so people maaay go a little crazy filling in the blanks here and there. Er, sorry, I dont mean to speak too ill of your Messenger! Thats all just talk that goes around. Im sure its different if you know her personally! I shrug. Not really. Shes unbearable. Speak as ill as you like, I dont mind. U-uh, Shona mutters, eyes suddenly wide. Oh. Did I say something? Before I can figure it out, Mide steps in. Hey, didnt you have something you actually wanted to talk to us about? Oh, right right right, I may have gone off on a few different garden paths there. Sorry! Shona says, bouncing back in an instant. Finally. Thank you, Mide. Your partner is impossible. Were you here about the Harbinger incident in the Hills today? Mide nods. We are, actually. I guess youre the one who placed the call? Yes. I figured they might send someone to check on its trail, but Ive already done that. Its gone. Completely gone. And What next? How do the rest of them split the prizes? Are there rules of conduct for these things? Whatever. If this isnt my territory, I dont know what is. And I live around here. I want to take care of it myself. Please tell whoever asked you to check that Ill call for help if I need it. Huh? Mide says. Shona, on the other hand, just points two finger guns at me and grins. Ooh, cool! I always thought our Keeper scene didnt feel quite complete without one of you incognito loner types! Is she mocking me? I actually have no idea. Mide turns to stare at her, apparently shocked as I am that someone would just say something that embarrassing. She then looks to me with a knit brow, and it''s hard to tell whether she''s trying to evaluate me herself or sharing with me her bafflement out of sympathy, so I give her a dubious shrug in return. Shona herself is glancing between us with a gawking smile, still keeping her finger guns trained on me. Eventually, Mide turns back to Shona as though questioning her soundness of mind, then back to me once more, and finally again back to Shona, who meets her gaze, their expressions unwavering until they both burst into a shared fit of high-pitched laughter at the exact same time. ...Whatever the joke, I guess I missed it. It mustve been a really good one too, given how long they go on giggling between themselves. Ah, Im yeah, Im sorry, when I put it like that it probably sounds really stupid, huh? Shona says as she starts to catch her breath, wiping tears from her eyes on her sleeve. Just, you know, too many Keeper stories in my diet growing up, I guess! Too many to shake now that Im doing the actual damn thing! "...Anyway, I understand what youre saying, Mide finally goes on, but doesnt it feel kind of weird to divide things up quite that strictly? People need us to protect them, so if someones in trouble, isnt the most important thing that whoevers in the best position to help does it? Schools usually have their own Keepers watching over them, right? Everyone leaves them to it. The Silver King seems to have the Peaks entirely covered most of the time. Then theres the airship Keepers off in their own little world... although I guess thats mostly just a question of who can fly. All Im saying is that I can take care of my own yard. I dont think thats weird, no. I guess thats true, she says, not looking at all convinced. How did this girl end up as a Keeper? I shouldnt need to say what Im thinking, not when there was obviously something she made the Promise for. Shona jumps back in before I can say anything else. Sure, sure, I get it. I dont think theres any kind of, like, formal arrangement where they sit and map these things out, but Ill pass that along. Thank you. I wont go telling the world all about the new girl, either. I get the sense thatd be bad for this whole image of yours. And favor for a favor, heres something Id like you to think about. Her smile widens. You fought your first Harbinger all by yourself. I bet it was pretty tough, right? Oh no. No no no no no. I see where youre going and I dont think We could have a name and everything! Itd be so cool! She hops to her feet and kneels in front of my bench, staring straight at me. I draw back a little, very pointedly saying nothing. Behind her, Mide just shakes her head and watches. Shona waits a beat, then keeps right on going. There arent any proper teams active in New Claris! The two of us are the closest thing, so wed be the first! The first! Think about that! Im already thinking about it, and Ive already decided its an awful idea. Im terrible with strangers, I dont know these girls, and actual Keeper teams are complicated even in the best circumstances. Keepers tend to be... intense, in one way or another, and active ones all have something they want to change badly enough to go out and repeatedly risk their lives for. Who gets to keep the monsters you hunt as a group? Is it even possible to split a Harbinger down the middle and half-absorb it? I dont see how I couldve torn off a chunk of Yurfaln and shared it with someone else even if Id wanted to. Which I really, really didnt. Eventually, Shona sighs, breaking eye contact. Well, it makes sense for one of you types to be kinda shy, huh? Im not sure how long she was waiting on me shes so noisy that I must have pulled into myself a little. Listen, just give it some thought, okay? Hey, and you know, we can try it out before we make it a whole big thing if thats better. The next time one of us finds something, we can fight it together, see how it goes. If you want, that is. How can we reach you? Come by around here and do what I just did to get your attention, if you really need to. Thats a little messy. What if someone else thinks its a false alarm? Im sure you wont give me your contact info, but here, why dont I just shit, I dont have anything to write with, do you? No you dont, who carries actual paper around? She rattles off a phone number, then repeats it. Just remember it, I guess. You can use it or not. And really think about it! Therell be a prize for whoever comes up with the best name! Ill do that, I lie. Anyway, Ive said all I wanted to say, if youre done. Sure, yeah, well get out of your hair, Shona shrugs. Stay safe, uh, new girl wait, I never did get your actual name! She sure didnt. Id been kind of hoping she forgot. Oh, Im Eyna, I say. My late grandmas name. I dont think I have the brainpower on hand to make up some complicated fake identity, but Ill still take the steps I can. Right, right right right! Well then, Eyna, well be seeing you soon! I hope! Goodnight, Mide adds. She mouths sorry as Shona starts back toward the road, then stands and follows her away. As soon as they round the corner, I lean over and sprawl out on my bench with a groan. Its terribly uncomfortable, but Im too tired to do anything else. Ive forgotten how I ever used to handle people. All of this probably took long enough that theyve noticed back on the seventh floor, but theyll just have to live with my silence for another night. Maybe Ill figure it out in the morning. Other Horizons 2-1 Sunlight is just starting to flood through the gauzy curtains when I wake up choking for air. Hot, sharp pangs burn through my chest. My head spins as I try to sit up. Im breathing the wrong way, I know I am, but its a losing struggle to correct myself all the same. Even then, nothing changes. All I can do for relief is squeeze Pearl until the pangs start, very slowly, to fade. They never quite disappear. This has never happened to me before. Was I dreaming of drowning? No. No, this is still the thing I took from Yurfaln. Its stolen pain is somehow separate from its heart, the core of its soul Ive already claimed and digested? Suddenly, Im certain theres no point in using my call button. Medicine cant help me. I may not even be actually feeling this. Not with my bodys senses, anyway. What can I do, then? I took the Harbingers essence with magic. I should be able to get rid of it the same way. Im not sure how yet, but Vyuji keeps saying I already know how to use my power. Time to feel about in the dark for knowledge I dont know I have, however that works, and hope something turns up. I take my first hesitant steps out of bed and quickly stumble, catching myself on the nightstand. I feel like Im trying to walk on clouds, the first sign of a horrible health day. Of course my body would choose right now to fall apart. Once Ive fumbled for the cane at my bedside and found my footing with it, I crack the door open and pull out one of the tabs on my patient sign, the little blue one that says Quiet, Please! Do Not Disturb! Nurses tend to ignore that sign when they think its important enough, which is to say any time at all their schedule says they should, but its too early for morning checkups and I cant think of any other reasons to bother me. Here we go, then. My room goes dark as I reach inside and transform. Emerald shadows swallow the world, only letting light back through the windows when they gather themselves up and take their solid form around me. My cards shimmer into view with another thought. I raise my free hand and direct one to float out of its orbit, bringing it to rest just above my open palm. These cards are ritual tools first, the way my magic expresses itself to the world, but also vessels I can fill with pain and power. Ive done it by accident with my pain from my sickness, but they shouldnt demand that specifically. Yurfalns disease wouldnt let me vent it off into nowhere when I stole it. It probably still wouldnt without causing some horrible backlash on its way out, but Drawing the Harbingers lingering pain to the surface is easy, since it was already almost there. Magic is keeping me standing, but the feeling itself hasnt gone anywhere. Letting it loom over everything else in my mind, I take in a shallow, wheezing gulp of air and hold it, hold it, just a little longer until like clearing gunk from the back of my throat, I push. Out it comes, but what Im exhaling isnt air at all. A thick plume of ugly mud-and-rust colors leaves me with a tiny hissing scream. The cloud twitches and thrashes randomly, like a sack with something alive inside trying to kick its way out but whatever those colors remind me of, Yurfaln is dead. This is mine now. A moment later, the card above my hand sucks it in, immediately repainting itself in the Harbingers shades. It worked. Exactly like I thought it should. Yurfalns essence is gone from me, but its also still there. Quarantined. When I unsummon my cards, itll wait harmlessly in some corner of my soul until I decide to take it back out. I sit back on the bed and just breathe, making sure I can now. It takes a good few minutes, but eventually my head does stop swimming. Could I do that again? I have plenty of pain to spare. I pluck a fresh card out of my ring, pull back the billowy sleeve over my right arm, and gingerly touch a corner to my skin. It draws blood with the slightest, briefest contact, and I flinch at the strangely sharp pricking sensation, but then its over. Like before, the card drinks up a few drops of blood and paints itself green, leaving behind only a tiny wound like a papercut thats already nearly closed. I dont feel any different, though. My legs are just as wobbly and useless as before. Apparently my own disease is part of my power, something I can call on and inflict on others, but it doesnt actually go anywhere or get used up. Theres that thing Vyuji said about using your magic to erase the source of your magic, I guess. Maybe there are other things I can do with these cards, other reasons Id want to infect them with myself, but I cant think of them right now. Its not like I need to charge them ahead of time the curse Ive carried my entire life will be there in an instant whenever I call for it. Oh well. At least Im back to my normal level of terrible. I end the transformation in a burst of disintegrating shadows and crow feathers, pick my actual tarot deck up off the nightstand, and pull my card of the day. The Moon insight, imagination, the world of dreams and fears. On its own, a reminder to take stock of your emotions and how they might be affecting you, or to trust your intuition and instinctive hunches for answers youre seeking. The way Vyuji implied this should work, my understanding of my own magic definitely feels lacking. All the instincts she said Id have might be there, if I really look for them, but theyre coming in scattered bits and pieces, showing up at the last possible moments when Im pushing myself to test them. Or, more dangerously, when I was in a Wound desperately looking for a way out. Am I doing something wrong? If I am, I dont know what to change. ~~~ The next few days were a tense sort of quiet. The story broke that afternoon. We already knew it was coming by the time reports started. Well, of course I did, but the charge nurse announced that morning (in very broad terms) that yes, there was recently a Harbinger in the hospital, it took a patient from our floor, and its dead now believed to be completely dead, though we should speak up if we felt anything strange or just needed someone to talk to. Someone probably called Dr. Hines workplace to say where hed gone, and they didnt want the older patients stumbling on the news at random. That only did so much to help. Once theyd heard, people were suddenly quicker to jump at shadows. When the night nurses dimmed the lights in the main room, they left them a little bit brighter than they did before. This was too close a call for most people to brush off and be happy theyre safe. Fear for your life is nothing new here, but when Harbingers are involved, there are worse things than death. Even I cant deny that, not when Ive met one and seen its plans for the world. Im not worried about Harbingers in quite the same way, but I had enough of my own problems to keep me just a bit on edge. Id already burned through the health I took by next morning. Im used to living like this, I have to be, but when the numbing cold crept back through me, remembering that the pain was nearly gone yesterday somehow made it all the worse. If I need to do that again, Ill have to see if I can bank wellness somehow, ration it out to keep things bearable for a bit longer. As expected, no one was happy with me running off twice in one day, especially since the best explanation I had was Im tired, cant talk about this right now. They gave me my space that night, but from then on I could feel more eyes on me than usual whenever I left my room. Not a constant shadowing, just enough to know that they were paying attention and they wouldnt stand for another weird outing. I really would have to tell at least one doctor what I was doing, then. It was that or literally fight the next aide who tried to stop me from leaving, which itd make the point, sure, but was a terrible idea in all sorts of ways. Dr. Hines was my first choice, but I wasnt sure when hed be back and I could only delay for so long. There were some ideas I wanted to test and things I wanted to study before my next outing, though, so wed see how things look when I was done. Until then, I tried to keep to my daily routine, more or less. Acting completely different all of a sudden would feel like a signal that something weird was going on, and I didnt need any more of those. ~~~ My tarot corner hasnt had many visitors lately. Maybe people are a little nervous thinking about what the future holds when theyve just come so close to the worst-case scenario. For my part, I spend most of my time on my cnidarian drive, doing whatever Keeper research I can do on the Coral Sea. Honestly, none of it feels more useful than just asking Vyuji basic questions or experimenting with magic myself. Im sure there is good information on the Sea, its just scattered across more pages than anyone could ever go through, and Ive never become an expert at sorting through them. Maybe itll go better if I come up with some specific concept or field I want to know every possible thing about. All around, things on the seventh floor feel slow. Lethargic. The others are still doing their best to stay busy, but the conversations are softer and the crowd quietly watching the news on the communal TV is bigger. Ive mostly avoided the reports myself, other than a quick search to make sure that I wasnt somehow named in them. As long as they cant trace whatever theyre imagining back to me, I dont really care. We have more visitors than usual, though, some staying around to keep residents company for pretty long stretches. Noirin has one today her grandson Oscar, a weedy kid around my age with messy brown hair and thin-rimmed glasses. Hes visited a few times since Ive been here, always by himself. Theyre circling the main room together, watering the plants on the windowsills, and stop to greet me when they reach my table. Oscar speaks first. Morning, Lia. S been a minute, howre you holding up? My name is Liadain, I correct. Only Dad and the volunteer helpers who think of me as That Cute Little Dying Girl call me Lia. And, ah, no worse than usual. Thats true if you stretch it a bit. Right, sorry. Oscars eyes flick to the side. I wonder if Noirin told him in advance not to say anything stupid about my hair. Hey, do you still do those the fortune-telling, with the cards? he asks, filling the quiet just before it can turn too awkward. Grandma mentioned it and I was wondering about something. Not for you. They only ever predict horror and misery for normal people and Id hate to accidentally curse someone. Noirin shoots me a skeptical glance at that, one eyebrow raised, but carries on tending to a row of mint plants. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Uh, yup, whatever you say. Playing Champions is safe though, right? he asks. I hope so, since otherwise I already poisoned you last time. Sorry. Come by when youre done if you want to play, Ill go find my stuff. Champions of the Goddess, the Church-sponsored Keeper card game, was a big thing when I was in school. I imagine it still is, but my old cards were gathering dust until Oscar mentioned playing a couple weeks ago. Its been nice taking them out again. One of my rare strengths is that Im kind of good at this game. I already have my cards splayed out on the table when Oscar returns a few minutes later. Youre still playing this deck? I regret asking already, he says with a dramatic groan. Just... think about how happy you could make some freak on the Sea if you sold it off. But then Id have to actually talk to those people! Yuck! Dont lump me in with them. I like how she plays, thats all. My prized deck stars Tara Mullane, the Flowers Fangs. After the media panic surrounding her really took off last year, they stopped printing her cards and tournament-banned them. Bringing her up at all is still considered rather icky, and I think the main reason I get away with playing her is because no one wants to refuse a dying girl her small joys in life. These cards are collectibles now, worth a lot of money to the right sort of insane groupies, but what would I even do with money? What, this no-fun-allowed control pile? Thats actually worse! Id be happy to lose every time if I could just play any of my damn cards on the way down! Oscar fumes. Listen, Oscar, thats just the way this game works. Theres only so much fun you can squeeze out of one match. When we start, were sharing it equally, and then you win by taking away all the other sides fun. Hate the game, not me. Sounds like a pretty terrible way to have fun with your friends when you put it like that. I guess so. Do you still want to play? Yeah. Yeah, I do, he sighs. For all his whining, I do lose in the end. I drag it out as long as possible, but Oscar plays the Silver King and her cards are all way too good. When youre that popular, you get to be overpowered. I wonder for a second what my cards would be like. Then I remember how much Id hate being famous and brush the thought away. Enjoy it while you can. Ill crack this puzzle yet, no matter how rigged. Another round? Mmm, with the way you play I might be trapped here forever, but sure. One more, then I should probably huh. Hey, Grandma. At some point, Noirin took a seat to our side. She waves once as we look up from our cards. Oh, youre here! Im not sure how I didnt notice her. Sure, I was trying pretty hard to win, but she does seem to have the lightest feet of anyone Ive ever known. You dont play this stupid game, do you? Not at all, Noirin laughs. Ive got no idea whats happening. I just like watching peoples faces while they play games. They tell quite the stories. Thats... really kind of embarrassing? My cheeks burn a little, and Oscar seems to feel the same way. He freezes for a second, then looks down and gathers his cards, completely flattening out his expression as we start the next game. Well now youve stopped making them! You kids arent any fun. ~~~ Its been four days when Dr. Hines comes back, which is good news for a couple of reasons. They must have found him before it got really bad, since thats no time at all as far as treating Harbinger victims goes. More selfishly, any longer and I mightve had to pick someone else to talk to. Ive gone over the results of your screenings from Monday. All negative, it looks like your vitals have been stable ever since, and Im afraid Im not sure where to go from there. Were alone in the seventh floor exam room. True to the general aesthetic, it looks much more like a simple walk-in doctors office than part of a hospital. If anything like this were going to happen, it shouldve happened during the last transplant conditioning regimen. There are some autoimmune disorders that can cause premature whitening, but yours isnt one of them. Even if it were, well, hair thats already grown doesnt just dye itself... ah, but you mustve heard that a few times by now. I sure have. But if nothing has actually changed healthwise, Ill manage. The doctor smiles, very slightly, and scribbles something on a notepad. Im not sure what I was expecting, but he looks about the same as always. Maybe his face is a little thinner, but he doesnt seem too haggard. The balance of grey and black in his hair hasnt changed at all. Well, you seem to be in good enough spirits. Well keep an eye on your condition, but if its not upsetting you too much, we may just have to write this one off as a mystery. Maybe I should be a little more worried about going grey at thirteen, but... making my magic work for me. Im doing my best not to get mad. I dont like being angry. Anger is a pointless emotion that only ever makes things harder. Alright. Im fine with that. I do have another question, though. Whats that? he asks. Please tell me exactly how medical confidentiality works. Ive been in and out of this hospital enough that I basically know the rules, but if Im going to spill this particular secret, I want to be certain there are no weird exceptions that might cause problems for me. Ive already missed one obvious hole in my plans to keep a low profile, not that I couldve done much differently there. ...Pardon? When are you allowed to tell people things about your patients without asking them? Do you ever have to? Dr. Hines looks a bit confused, but he does outline the common exceptions. If other doctors urgently need to know something to treat a patient. If something about a secret is dangerous to the patient or someone else, like if they have a very contagious disease. If youre talking about treating a minor with their parents. That last one sounds bad. What if they dont want their family to know? Ah, well, if a patient is old enough to understand medical decisions, we try to respect their wishes. As long as that doesnt run against their best interests. His voice lowers. Liadain, is something the matter? Way too vague for my liking, but fine. Thats the best Im going to get, I cant really use a specific example without giving myself away, and whether or not its strictly allowed to tell him, I can make a strong case for leaving Dad out of this. Keepers are supposed to get all sorts of special exceptions anyway. I guess I just have to force it out before I lose my nerve. Sort of. So, I already I know what happened. I made the Promise on Monday. This is the first sign of my Emergence. Dr. Hines opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out. I see, he finally croaks. Are you sure that I flare a bit of my magic, just enough for it to dim the lights and recolor my eyes, and the doctor draws back suddenly. Wide eyes stare straight at me, frozen in place. Um, sorry. I just didnt want this to be about whether Im delusional. I let the aura fade. No, no, I... suppose some things just need to be seen. I was more worried about whether you came too close to it. From his face, mentioning the Harbinger maybe thinking of it at all is a painful act of will. Remembering my first meeting with Yurfaln, I cant blame him. Wait, he whispers. On Monday. Were you? I nod. He already knows enough that its the obvious answer. He slowly sighs out the gathering tension. In that case, I expect I may owe you quite a lot. What do you say to that? I probably wouldnt have brought it up. Saving a life was still a strange feeling and I didnt want to come off as somehow holding it over him. In the end I just raise a hand, palm out, and shake my head. Theres a long silence in the air. So, why tell me this? he finally asks. Right. I needed help with a few things. First, I still live here. From now on Ill probably be going out a lot. Doing Keeper things. The nurses dont like me running off, and I guess from their perspective Ive just lost my mind and started doing dangerous things for no reason. Please tell them I dont know what you tell them. Just make a floor memo saying not to bother me when I go on weird long walks. I dont want to cause any scenes. Yes, I think I see the issue. Ill take care of it, but, well... as far as keeping it hidden from everyone here, consider your circumstances. There are really two things that couldve caused this: either something medically impossible happened out of the blue to a severely ill patient, but weve all decided to ignore it and trust that it had nothing to do with our very recent Harbinger incident, or youre a Keeper changing the way everyone knows Keepers do. I cant stop people from drawing conclusions, so you may want to think about how to tell them on your own terms. ...Eventually, he adds quietly. My face must be speaking for me. Um, eventually. Thanks. I hate it, but hes probably right. I can keep a low public profile, but my living situation just isnt the best for me to do this beneath anyones notice. This second one is a stretch, I cant imagine the overlap of Keepers and terminal illness is a big field of study, but do you have any idea how that works, what all this might mean for me healthwise? Or know someone who might? Keeper medical issues are a specialty area, Im afraid. Most of the experts are Church scholars. He shakes his head apologetically. They may have someone we could call in or refer you to, though. Would you like me to look into that? Please do. It couldnt hurt. We talk for a bit about the details of that search. Id rather he check with me before he actually tells some potential specialist anything, but I might know a Keeper is probably necessary. Im allowed to sign a medical release myself because Keepers in New Claris are automatically emancipated as soon as they make the Promise, which is the first Ive heard of that. Its kind of nice to know, not that Dad actually wants any say in my life. If thats all well, thank you again, Liadain. And, ah, congratulations? Try to stay safe. Whatever else has changed, your health is still fragile. I know. Ill do my best. ~~~ I give Dr. Hines a while to get the message out, however he decided to word it, and then its time to go. The sun is getting a bit low in the sky, but hasnt started to set. It probably wont for a few more hours. Today, the nurse at the front desk only watches with confused concern as I leave. Hunting strategies are complicated, thats the sum of what Ive learned from reading about them. I really just stumbled across my first Harbinger, and Im still not sure I have a good plan for when find a horrible scent and chase it doesnt work out. New Claris has a lot of Keepers if the stuff on the Sea about other cities is true, its apparently downright crowded for our actual size but it doesnt seem like Ill have much competition if I stake a claim around the hospital. The university just south of here might also be up for grabs. Past that isnt so clear. The urban centers are naturally pretty covered, the farmlands outside have specific kids looking after them on shifts, and theres not much point in thinking about the Peaks. The Silver King somehow manages to do all of the magical celebrity stuff and keep an eye on the entire district at the same time, only breaking long enough to sleep probably. I think Keepers still need to sleep. The Stardust Seraph lives somewhere to the south, but you see him all over the place, so pushing a bit farther that way might work. Apparently he runs around and jumps in to help with every problem he can, then refuses any share of the prize in exchange for selfies with other Keepers to post on the Sea, which is a ridiculous fable if Ive ever heard one. Anyway, no point in getting too complicated until I see what I can find. I transform in the same secluded parklet as last time and head off into the city, stretching my senses out as far as I can. But nothings turning up today. I make it across the university campus and back, taking a different long, looping route on the return trip, and all I encounter are people staring at me as I pass. Magic or no, its a lot more walking than Im used to. Im already kind of tired. Whats the next move that doesnt step on any toes? Unfortunately, theres only one I can think of. With a heavy, heavy heart, I turn off my phones caller ID and type in a number I managed to remember after all. Hello? Shona? Yes, its me. Yes, Im actually calling. Do you two have your eyes on anything? Other Horizons 2-2 Well! Its very very interesting that you should happen to call right this moment, becaaaaaause Shona says, then trails off into silence. ...as luck would have it, Ive recently A longer pause. Yes! Yes in fact I do! Theres a threat we were just on our way to investigate! Its a little out of the way, but if you want to make this our first team venture, we can meet you at the scene whenever youre ready! That is very not what I said. We can see how it goes, your words. Did you just now start searching for a problem to throw us at? Eyna, theres a monster out there RIGHT NOW that could strike again at any moment! The people need our protection and theres not a second to waste on questions that wont help them! ...Right. Thats a yes, then. I only asked because I wanted to know how she found one so quickly, so Im not sure what the act is about. Anyway, Im ready now. Whats going on? Oh, right this second? She sounds a bit surprised. Like I said. Yep, yep, of course. Okay, so, did you hear anything about last week, the couple on a picnic in Kuri Park? They had those identical breakdowns at the exact same time. Some kind of corruption on them, but no one was sure exactly what happened or what did it. I mustve missed that. Last week I wasnt a Keeper, and I hadnt thought to dig through old news for suspicious incidents that might already be over. Well, it was a thing, and it happened again about two hours ago. This time it was a group of three kids from our school, all found in just the same state as the first two. I think we can safely say now that its a Harbingers work, and its escalating. Five victims. Yurfaln had reached four, maybe closer to three and a half considering how well Dr. Hines managed. What does that say about the size of this monster? Whatll be left if we split it three ways? Is that even a thing we can do? Its probably pointless to think of it that way. Theres no reason to expect that a Harbingers growth will follow some sensible schedule. I wont know anything about this new nightmare until I can sense it myself. Sounds like it, yes. Where was this? If it just happened, we might still be able to catch its trail, I say. Uh, looks like the Shoals. They were hanging out on the coast. Right around She lists off an address across the street from the scene. Alright. Unless you have a better place to start in mind, Ill meet you there soon. Im not sure exactly where it is, but getting there might be a bit of trouble. The sea is to the east, on the opposite side of the city from the hospital. Nope, thats just fine with me, well be there in a blink! And remember, the prize is still up for grabs! Wait. Before you go, about that, I say. Have you already got an idea? Save it, itll be cooler if No. About the prize. The actual prize. If this works, if we take something down together, what are we doing with the Harbingers heart? Ooooooohhhhh. Oh. Okay, so, hm, youre, hmhmhmhmhm hows this? Weve been giving all of ours to Mide, so this time around, Ill sit out completely. We split it fifty-fifty, you and her. Is that actually possible? I ask. Vyujis never brought it up, and I didnt think Id need to know. Course! Weve never done it before, but Enne says you can, so Im sure we can figure it out! All good with you? ...Sure. That works. Itll have to do for now. Great! See you soon! Theres a little beep as she hangs up. Idly, I hope neither of those girls can fly or teleport or something. As for me and my useless legs, I see a few ways of doing this. I didnt bring my cane just to wander around my territory, since that side of my health has felt fairly stable with my stolen strength propping it up. Maybe I should go get it, but Im managing well enough today, and I especially dont want to use it if Im about to meet up with two other Keepers. Theyd notice. Theyd ask the sorts of prying questions other kids have always asked me. Ill manage. Anyway, if I walk, trusting my magic to hold me up for just under two miles, checking my phone, I might be okay. I could also take a bus to the closest stop and hope theres somewhere private enough to transform again in that part of the city. Do I have any money? Right, doesnt matter, the buses are free. Its been a while since I needed to get anywhere. Or There are people all around me. People in buildings, people bustling through the city, people on the sidewalk stepping aside and staring at me as I pass. So many points of life in easy reach that my soul-sense starts to blur them all together into one hazy mass. They feel like cool mist on a burning summer day, and any tiny pangs of ill-health among them are lost in the background like the smell of tea in a room full of coffee. I could probably spread the drain out, take the tiniest possible slivers of strength from a hundred people, then run wherever I need to go with no trouble. No, I cant really justify that. Not yet. I dont know what Im heading into. We may not find the Harbinger at all in the first place we look. Plus I still dont know what taking health feels like for the people I take from, or how it looks to normal people. It could be an unexplained outbreak of mild sickness or it could be a very ugly public spectacle. Ill just have to take a little longer. And try not to think too hard about the last time, about what it was like to be doing well. I dismiss my magic in a quiet corner, and as my mystic senses dim, it gets a little easier to shove those thoughts to the back of my mind. ~~~ The trip takes a little more than half an hour, most of it spent waiting for a bus at the nearest stop, then another short jaunt to the address Shona gave me. The directions werent much more complicated than find a direction and go east until you hit the water. I havent been to this part of the city in years, but the Shoals have the exact same wide, bright streets and spacious sidewalks lined with greenery as most of New Claris. During the rebuilding, they did their best to make sure that you can always see more sky than structure when you look up well, maybe not in the Peaks, nothing to be done about that and the paths occasionally wind and twist into each other, but only enough to keep the city from being a perfect grid of identical roads. They didnt want it too orderly. Honestly, its a nice walk in a nice place, even with all the people. As long as I ignore where Im heading. Theres no actual landmark to look for when I reach the place, but sure enough, a small part of the neat line where the city gives way to the shore is surrounded by blue wooden barricades. They wall off the scenes of Harbinger attacks as a matter of course, at least until Keepers have a chance to declare the area clean. Two men in police uniforms are keeping an eye on the wall at a healthy distance, and then Past the barriers, the rocky ground slopes downward, and a few thin stretches of land jut out into the water. Its still light out, but the blue of the sky has just started to deepen, casting a shadow over the sea. Two slightly darkened figures are already on the outcrops, inspecting the scene of the attack: a tall girl in red and a gold-armored knight. Maybe they were nearby, but since Im pretty sure Shona found out about this a few seconds before I did, its more likely that one of them has some cool way to zip around with magic after all. Good for them, I guess. I step out, round a corner, and transform again. Before I got on the bus, I took off my mask out of Keeper mode, when no one had any special reason to pay attention to me, I figured it would be a more memorable feature than my actual face and interestingly, I dont need to put it back on. Its just there, appearing from the solid shadows with the rest of my attire. Once I started thinking of it as part of the outfit, I guess it became one. If its that simple, Ill have to think if theres anything else I want to change but later. Right now, I should go see how those two are doing before I change my mind about this horrible idea. One of the policemen shoots me an expressionless glance as I cross between the barricades, then goes back to talking with his partner. POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS is more of a polite warning for Keepers. But as I reach the coast, the eerie sense of being watched by someone else something else creeps over me. Inhuman eyes bore into my back, into my everything, like Im in a dark place surrounded on all sides by observers I can sense, but not see. Its a very different feeling from the last time, but I immediately know it for the stench of a Harbingers presence. Oh, Eyna, there you are! Shona shouts from out on the water, pulling me back to reality. Shes literally on the water standing on the oceans surface, shifting slightly with the waves. Just as I spot her, she kicks into the sea and glides across it like shes skating on a frozen lake. Mide just waves from the far end of an outcrop, and by the time shes started making her way back to the shore, Shona is climbing the rocky slope in leaping strides, almost jumping from one smooth stone to the next. Hope it wasnt too annoying getting here. Weve been looking around for a bit now. Id have offered to pick you up, but, uh, my thing takes some getting used to, Shona says as she climbs. Eh. I wouldve turned you down anyway. Have to keep up with my you know. Image? My incognito loner thing. I almost said that outright, but it sounded ridiculous in my head. It still sounds a bit ridiculous. At the top of the slope, Shona tenses and makes one last long jump back onto solid ground, landing a bit too close for comfort. Thats the spirit! Cant you just feel our Keeper scene getting cooler for every minute people have no idea who you are? Uh. Sorry, right, still sounds pretty stupid. Is this some ironic joke? Am I being bullied? I still have no idea how to tell. But more importantly How can you be so cheery in a place like this? How dyou mean? Shona frowns, looking more puzzled than anything else. Oh. I guess something pretty scary did happen here, huh? I mean, I hope theyll all be okay, but thats why they have us, right? Just gotta make sure it doesnt keep happening. Getting all serious wont catch the monster any faster. No, whatever, not that, its just its a bad place. You feel it too, right? Its not really painful, I can tune it mostly-out and focus on other things when I need to, but it feels impossible to be at ease here. Shona cups a hand around her ear and slowly turns in a half-circle. As she does, Mide ambles up the slope, casting a puzzled look between us. After a few seconds of intense focus, Shona shakes her head. Um, it is a bit creepy, sure. I did notice earlier, I could tell a Harbinger was here, but thats all. You didnt pick up anything more, did you, Mide? Have I ever? Mide asks tonelessly. Right, Shona sighs. Well, we figured the trail had gone cold by the time we got here. Were we wrong? Reluctantly, I close my eyes and turn my full attention to the miasma. Compared to last time, theres very little weight to it it doesnt react, doesnt push back the way Yurfalns presence did. Its thinner, somehow less directed, but all the same the impression it carries is much clearer than the last Harbingers raw hostility. Watched isnt the right word for the way it feels, on second thought. Watched is a stranger staring at you through your window, and this is something much more. Inspected, thats closer. Studied by unblinking eyes that stare right into my soul and judge me unworthy of existing. Maybe. It still feels awful, but its weird, space-wise? Not a real solid trail, just fog all over the place. If I had to guess it went that way, but not sure if I could actually follow it. Probably not. On instinct, I point somewhere to the northwest. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. The two glance back at each other skeptically. I guess were stuck there, then, Mide says. Did you still want to look around in the water? I dont think theres much to see. It definitely didnt go there, I say. But do we have anything else to work with? Of course it didnt. Claiasya protects the sea. I, uh, hrmmh. Shona growls out a faintly frustrated noise. Maybe we could just head that way and see what we see? Most of the city is that way from here, Mide says, frowning. Other than that, theres maybe Her expression deepens into a pained grimace. The kids it attacked. I dont know how theyre doing, I dont want to make it any harder for them, but maybe we dont need to. Maybe its traces are still there. That might be better, yes, I say. Not that I really know, but Yurfalns aura had been all tangled up with its victims. If Id needed to, I think I could have tracked it from that couple. Whatever step two is, could we get away from here while we sort it out? Oh. Uh, sure. Is it really that bad? Shona asks. Can you really not tell? Nope, not a bit more than usual. Interesting! Youre probably just more keyed into this sort of thing than either of us. Everyones senses work differently, right? Like, they say the Stardust Seraph can sniff out a Harbinger from miles away! Of course he can. That must be pretty nice. I guess even among us, some kids get all the luck. Mide rolls her eyes. It sure seems that way, doesnt it? Take it with a great big pile of salt. No actual living person could ever be as great as this one thinks Roland or Irida are. I mean, sure, there youd THINK they couldnt, but youd be super wrong! Shona insists. Youre just Before she can say anything else, retreading what must be some well-worn argument, Shona glances back at me and clamps her mouth shut, a little visibly embarrassed. Mide grins, stifling a giggle. The greatest, biggest pile of salt ever. Shes got it really bad for those two, specially ANYWAY! Shona yelps. Eyna, go get some air and well catch up with you in a second! Just gonna tell those guys we think its safe here, yep! Shona indicates the two policemen with her head, then spins around and runs toward them. Wait, I call after her. Yeah? She twirls on one leg in mid-step, coming to a perfect stop facing me. Tell them not to take the walls down. The Harbinger isnt here, but Im not certain its safe yet. If the aura werent so still, Id worry that its source was here with us right now, or spying on us at a distance through its lingering presence. It doesnt feel like thats happening, but its possible and Ive only done this once before. I dont want to let it hurt someone else based on a week-old Keepers best guess. Oh. Sure, will do. Shona shrugs and takes off running again. I start down the shores sidewalk, wandering nowhere in particular until the Harbingers atmosphere is distant enough to ignore. Mide walks just behind me, leaving Shona to handle the reporting alone. Are you sure youre alright? she asks. I know it never feels good being in a place like this, but Probably. You heard her, I guess I just have, um, a sensitive nose for horror. She still looks concerned, but she nods. Were quiet until Shona comes rushing back, not the least bit winded for having sprinted both ways. Good news! Shona shouts. Immediately after she frowns and crosses her arms, reconsidering something. Well, ah, thats to say... I think its good news as far as finding the monster. I asked if they knew what was going on with those kids, the victims, and they do! Someone from Bright Horizon just picked them up. We should be fine to check on them as long as this isnt a lockdown situation, which, mm, I didnt think it was? How bout you, Eyna? Just to be sure, I stretch my senses back out toward the scene of the attack. As soon as I feel the Harbingers gaze on me, I pull away. Nothing follows or clings to me, as far as I can tell. ...No, me neither. How far to the Sanctuary? Just a little ways south from here, Shona says. Theres a harsh buzzing in the air as her body starts to spark with tiny jolts of red light. Well only be a second if Mide clears her throat pointedly. Oh, come on, Im sure she can figure it out! Its not crowded here at all, itll be easy! Remember how long it took me to get used to that? How long it took you? Do you want to break both her legs before we even find the Harbinger? ......if we all take a niiice brisk walk through the woods, Shona sighs. Her sparks slow and shrink, then fade, taking the low ambient noise with them. I make a note to stay far away from whatever method of zipping around with magic she has. ~~~ Nearly all of New Claris is full of plants, with rows of trees and mini-parks and tiny gardens all threaded through bright modern structures like green veins. The southmost district, the Weald, could apparently never decide if it wanted to be a city or a park, so they did their best to let it be both. Sparse streets wind through carefully tended woodlands, running alongside and occasionally tangling up with paved walking trails. Sometimes the roads stretch up into overpasses above the paths, sometimes the walkways rise into little bridges over the streets. Actual buildings are uncommon, scattered far enough through the woods that they can all feel like solitary homes in the wilderness. Theres a zoo somewhere down here, a lot of Church holdings and schools, some rich peoples houses, the Fianata estate. Bright Horizon Soul Sanctuary, where most Clarish survivors of Harbinger incidents spend at least some time, sits right on the citys southern border. So, Shona says after a long stretch of silence, how about that prize? I mean, not that Im in any way saying we have to make this a big official thing, but imagine if that was at all what we were doing. Just. You know. If. Where would I even start? I ask. Its not like we have some obvious theme to work with. I dont know what you two are about at all. The most I can say about this group is that theres three of us. You couldve looked us up. We havent been at this for long either, but we do have a bit of a profile! she says. Thats true, I admit. But I didnt. Meh, I guess thats for the best. Now I can fill you in myself, see if that gets any inspiration going. Plus I get to keep the priiize! Suddenly, Shona runs ahead of us wait, no, that isnt right. Shes skating, gliding along the path just like she did on the seas surface earlier. At a distant corner where the trail curves sharply, she comes to a halt with a quick series of showy figure-skater twirls. Those red sparks start up again, forming a storm of light around her that crackles and builds until its almost too bright to look straight at. When it fades, shes holding it looks like a violin, but not quite. Around the thin neck, theres just a single length of coral the same shade of blue as her bracelets, wound into an S shape that forms the rough hollow outline of a violin. She takes a playing position, reaches up with a long bow in her other hand, and draws it across the strings, producing a horrible buzzing wail that sets me shivering all over and makes my spine feel like teeth chattering in the cold. Those were the first notes of the Screaming Hymn! I make music, and that makes magic spreads it all over the place like static in the air. It builds up and up and up. I wont let it get quite that far out here, buuuut She looks up and raises her bow to the sky then freezes, biting her lip, and takes a few sidesteps into the center of the path where theres no foliage overhead. Yeah, there we go! The buzzing in my bones fades. A jagged bolt of red lightning arcs through her and up into the sky, immediately followed by a deafening explosion. Reflexively, I yelp and cover my ears through my hood. Someone else screams in the distance. Uh, sorry, sorry, nothing to worry about! Just Keepers over here doing Keeper stuff! Shona yells back at them. Yeah, guess I shouldve said something, but yknow showmanship! Anyway, there you go! I spin up a big awesome storm, point it where I want it to go, and blast monsters with it! Does it do anything else? I ask once my ears stop ringing. I wouldnt have pressed the question if shed told me this a week ago. It lines up perfectly with the way kids shows about Keepers present fighting with magic, all colorful laser battles against scary-but-not-too-scary monsters. Shona sounds like shed be right at home in a colorful laser battle. Thats not at all how my first actual Harbinger encounter went, though things in Yurfalns Wound were a lot more abstract and complicated than those shows implied. At the time, I figured that was because they were dumb kids shows, not instructions for future Keepers, but maybe my magic is just weird and wants to be used in weird ways. Well, sure. I can charge it into other things too. Change how they work, make them faster, stronger. Usually her, Shona finishes. She points to Mide with the bow, then throws it over her shoulder and hurls the instrument straight into the trees. Both dissolve into showers of tiny sparks, vanishing before they land. Mide, wanna cover your side of things? Well As we catch up to Shona and start down the path again, Mide raises her left arm. In a flash of light, that giant shield appears in her grip, followed shortly by her spear. I can do this, and Im pretty good with these. Our Promise came with a sense for how to use them, and how to fight in a group and protect people. Sounds nice. Mine didnt. I nod and wait a beat for her to go on. Im done. Thats all, she sighs after a moment. All Ive found, anyway, and I think youre just supposed to know what you can do, right? Wait, really? Sure, these girls seem pretty earnest, but I cant help but wonder if theyre holding something back. Not that I can judge too harshly if they are. I mean, yeah, but what you can do does change sometimes, yknow? Shona says. Magic grows with you. Sometimes new stuff about it emerges as you Emerge. Well find the rest sooner or later. Sometimes, Mide echoes, obviously unconvinced. We walk a while longer in silence, which would be fine if these two would stop glancing uncomfortably between me and each other. What about you, new girl? Mide finally asks. Oh. Um. Of course theyre not going to let me get away with that. I probably shouldve thought ahead of time about some way to describe what I do other than ''Im the dying Keeper who does sickness magic''. I, hm. Its weird. I control ill-fate, maybe? Curses, corruption. I can take those things and inflame them or move them around. I dont really have a flashy demonstration, but here. I raise a hand, palm up, and summon the card holding Yurfalns remnants, its muddy colors still writhing and churning. Mide flinches, and Shona makes a face like Im offering her a pile of roadkill. I take the hint and put the card away. Sorry. Thats what it is. I made it out of my first Harbingers... leftovers. I know its disgusting, but the idea is that at some point itll be disgusting for some other horrible creature. What I just said isnt all of my magic, of course, but its close enough that its not fake. I cant think of a way to start on the life-draining aspect that doesnt make me sound like a monster. That is, Shona says, very slowly, maybe the most Vyuji thing Ive ever heard of. Um, sure. Im not going to press her on what that means. How did you find this Harbinger so quickly, anyway? I ask, hastily changing the subject. Wha? Shona looks confused for a second, but then she shakes it off and grins a bit wider than usual. Yeah, fine, you caught me. I did do that, huh? Theres easier ways to keep watch than actually wandering around looking for monsters. The police answer calls a lot more than they walk past a crime right as its happening, you know? The Silver Kings scouts make the hard way easy, but, well, we cant all be as cool as her! If you dont have any tricks like that, youre probably better off just taking tips on Flow. People ask their favorite Keepers to go check out weird things all the time! On what? I ask. Ha ha. Yeah, I get it, you do strike me as one of those too cool for that useless nightmare reef types, but at least for this one thing it really does help! Listen, I literally have no idea what youre talking about. Some Coral Sea thing? Shona stops in mid-stride and spins around, leaning down to level with my eyes and stare right at me. Its a long way down. Oh, she says after several long, uncomfortable seconds. Shit, wow, you, uh, you really... How? What? Is it really that weird? Sure, I vaguely know that there are parts of the Sea where people post real stuff about their real lives, and in context, thats probably what she means. Ive never once touched it. What life did I have to share? Always seemed like more trouble than its worth? Besides, Ill never be anyones favorite anything. ...you might be surprised if you just Shona mumbles, quieter than Ive ever heard her. She sounds like she still cant believe shes actually having this conversation. Come to think of it, I do know for a fact that Tara was some peoples favorite Keeper. Thats different, though. I wouldnt want her fans even if I could have them. Why draw that line? I dont want any fans. Er, to be fair, no methods perfect, Mide cuts in. We have our misses, and some of them are just worried about nothing. Ask her about the bathroom ghost if you want a laugh sometime. Im sure I dont know what youre talking abooout! Shona chirps, suddenly cheerful as ever. I dont think Ill press her on that, either. ~~~ The walk goes on, although I have to stop and catch my breath a couple times to keep up with these two. Here and there, Shona brings up some idle chatter, but it doesnt go anywhere and quietly fizzles out. Here we are, Mide eventually says, pointing ahead. The path opens into a wide circular courtyard, and beyond that, Bright Horizon comes into view. The Soul Sanctuary is a smoothly curved circle of spotless ceramic white, with not the least bit of visible wear or dirt. Its strangest feature is that its got none of the clear crystal walls common to buildings here, especially to Church holdings. In fact, I dont see any windows at all, no openings anywhere except the wide front doors. Its location this far out in the woods probably offers its residents some much-needed peace and privacy. Just as important, though, it means anything that leaks out will be further away from new victims. Sure enough, Shona says. Lets see what there is to see, yeah? Im, uh, Im not too sure whats next if this doesnt work out! She laughs, a bit nervously. So in we go. Other Horizons 2-3 Theres a pressure in the air inside the Soul Sanctuary. It''s nothing harsh or really heavy, just strange. Its a faint phantom sensation of something like being underwater, if water only weighed a tiny bit more than air, and comes with the same muffled sound of blood flowing through my head. Shona marches right on ahead, paying it no mind at all. Mide follows after a brief glance back at me. It takes a little longer to get used to the atmosphere enough to join them. Looking around the reception room only strengthens that feeling. The space is almost entirely colored in pale shades of blue the white of the front desk is tinged faintly blue, and beyond that are speckled blue-grey floor tiles, a waiting room lined with plush blue chairs, walls decorated here and there with stained-glass windows backlit by soft blue light. The door at the end of the waiting room isnt barred or gated or anything, not physically, but its bright like window glare to my new senses. I have a faint hunch that I might not want to touch it. ...Yeah, if theres any way you can swing it, just a minute to check up on them might really help us a lot! By the time Ive found my bearings, Shona has already approached the front desk and started pressing the older woman staffing it on the latest victims. I cant hear her side of the conversation, but through the thick glasses that nearly obscure her eyes, she looks perfectly used to this. Groups of Keepers storming in and asking weird questions must just be a days work here. Eventually, they both go quiet, leaving the clacking of the receptionists keyboard as the only sound. While she does something on her cnidarian drive, Shona fidgets in place, rhythmically bouncing in tiny little hops on one single leg, then the other. Mide is off to the side looking at the windows, and at the moment, the lobby is eerily vacant except for us. Thank you so much! Yep yep, well do our best, you take care too!" Shona gives the receptionist an appreciative two-finger salute before twirling around to face us. "Okay, everyone, Ive got good news! Over here! she calls out into the little room at her usual volume. I mean, uh, its not good that any of this happened, but good news as far as us finding the you know what, you know what I mean. The kids, ah it sounds like theyre not corrupted in any way thatd make it bad to be around them, at least. Theyll have someone out to see us about them in just a bit. Do we want to be around them? Mide asks. Theyve got to be having a hard time, and its not like we can help. Um, probably not. Like we were saying, I dont think we have to actually bother them. Just, yknow, get close enough to see whats going on. If Eyna can get the things scent, thats all we need no pressure, though, Shona says. She shrugs apologetically, then strolls over to the big blue chairs and flops into one. Oh wow, these seats are like the softest thing in the UNIVERSE! Its wild! You gotta try them! Brushing aside the question of how shes staying so upbeat in a place like this, on our way to hunt a screaming beast of nightmare, the chairs are in fact pretty comfy. So, I say, a minute into the wait. Shona stops snuggling into her fluffy cushion and looks my way. Mide was already watching me with narrow eyes over tight lips, and her expression doesnt change now. Have you two done this much before? How does it go? Exactly how bad will it be in there? Well, uh, strictly speaking, this may not quiiite be a field where weve got a ton of... Shona says, trailing off into nothing mid-sentence. Its our first time too. Weve never really needed to deal with victims at all. Actually, youve probably come closer than we have, Mide finishes. Shona looks over at her and frowns for a moment, then quickly shrugs it off. Have I? Well, the report. You called in for that family. How were they doing? Mide asks. Um, I was mostly focused on the Harbinger? But it was pretty bad. Not as bad as it could be, obviously. Im not sure what to compare it to oh, dont they still have that runaway from Commixture in here somewhere? Not that bad, I say. Uneasy silence hangs in the air as the two stare at me speechlessly. ...For what its worth, I add after a beat. Urgh... I dont know if we quite needed to go there, but, uh, yeah, guess you answered your own question! Theres probably not a lot of sunshine and puppies waiting for us inside! Shona laughs nervously. Mide, meanwhile, maintains a completely flat, stiff expression. Right. Stupid question, I mumble. Why did I go there? There has to be some less extreme point on the scale I couldve thought of. Maybe I only deal in worst-case scenarios. Well, anyway, I started a conversation. I have now officially done my part to make friends and work together. If this doesnt work out, its no longer on my shoulders. Good job, Liadain. A few more minutes pass, mostly silent but filled here and there by Shona humming little songs. Honestly, this whole cheery front shes very insistently maintaining is a little creepy. It feels like nothing but flat-out denial of what it is were doing could keep someone that peppy in a place like this. But then, what do I know about being happy? Shona Tiernan? The doctor says you''re clear to see those patients. Eventually, the waiting room door slides open, making an oddly sharp noise like a sword being drawn. A tired-looking man in blue nursing scrubs steps out with three clipboards stacked in one arm and nods in polite greeting. His gaze hovers on me for a little longer than the others, and even when it moves away, hes watching me from the corner of his eye. Trying to figure out if Im anyone he knows? Before that, it looks like none of you have visited before, so if you could all just read these over and sign on the line at the end ...Whats all this? I ask. Is Keeper paperwork really a thing? Ground rules. Once youve agreed to follow them, the protections here will accept you as a guest. Accept us? Are you saying this medical release form is the key to some sort of magic lock? It is, he confirms flatly. Mide immediately turns to the last page, signs, and hands her clipboard back. Ooh, is this an Arbiter thing? Shona asks. Or does the Sanctuary have kids from abroad who handle this stuff? She runs her hand over the paper, flips through the pages fast enough that she couldnt have picked up more than a few words from each one, and signs at the end. The nurse shrugs. Cant comment on the details. And its not like I can really go bug him about it... oh well, Shona sighs. She sets her copy on the arm of her chair, leaving him to pick it back up. For my part, Im a little hesitant to put my name to a magically binding agreement without knowing what Im agreeing to, so I take my time looking through it. Its made up of huge blocks of small print, with some words I dont know and others I dont understand in context. Before long, my vision is blurring and my head is spinning, but I do manage to pick out a few key phrases: INGRESS CONTRACT BRIGHT HORIZON SOUL SANCTUARY (VISITATION VERSION) This contract establishes a binding agreement between the active defenses of Bright Horizon Soul Sanctuary and an approved visitor, hereafter the Sanctuary and the Guest ...the Guest agrees to avoid all physical, social, or mystical interaction with patients, except where expressly permitted by a staff member with at least Layer 3 security privileges ...inform the nearest Sanctuary staff member of any suspected breach or contamination... ...allows the Guest to invoke the Sanctuarys protection and cross Sanctuary thresholds unimpeded, with the following exceptions ...willful violation of these conditions by the Guest shall be penalized by immediate exclusion... ...unless voided by free and voluntary agreement between the Guest and a Keeper with at least Layer 7 security privileges, all of the above clauses shall remain in effect for as long as there are lights in the night sky. Not that Im an expert, but that last bit doesnt seem to fit with the rest of the lawyer-speak at all. Why wouldnt you just say forever? Because Keepers are weird, I guess. In any case, I dont see anything about giving away my soul or my right to breathe. Shona wouldve used my fake name if she named me at all while she was checking in, but it seems like a bad idea to sign a mystic contract as my dead grandmother. Instead, I make a complicated twirly line like the ones my doctors sign prescriptions with, but a little messier. If someone were to squint real hard and know exactly what they were looking for, they could read the little squiggle as L. Shiel. Probably. Im sure it just cares about the symbolism of signing or something like that. The moment I consider that might be an odd, dangerous assumption to make and start asking myself why I think that, I realize I can sense that intention behind the contract. The feelings invested in the words on these pages are, for the most part, those of total practicality, pristine and thorough but they''re not completely impersonal, either. Not exactly. There''s a sense of solemn concern underlying it all, and beyond that, there''s not the slightest hint of malice. I can tell there isn''t a single thing in this document that could be considered deception, let alone an outright lie. As surely as I could sense the magic warding the door at the end of the waiting room, I just know. Here you go. Um, sorry that took a minute. Signing it doesnt feel very magical, in any case. Theres no sudden change in the atmosphere or feeling of anything new coming over me, but Shona and especially Mide are looking at me a little impatiently by the time Im done. The nurse doesnt seem surprised or bothered as he picks my clipboard up and looks it over I guess I cant be the only one who actually wants to read this thing. Its no trouble. Looks like everything is in order, so if youll follow me ~~~ As soon as were all through, the door slides shut behind us with the same sharp noise. Were in it looks like a glass tunnel, a half-circle with windows for walls and only soft, featureless blue all around on the other side. That feeling of weightless water pressure is stronger here, and its getting stronger still as we head through the tunnel, but Ive adjusted to it by now. A little more of the same sensation doesnt change much. Here and there, sigils write themselves on the glass in silver light. Theyre hard to read against the blue background, but look very much like the ones in Yurfalns Wound. For a moment it feels strange to see that same script here, but it tracks with what Ive read. These sorts of symbols seem to work themselves unconsciously into most large-scale or long-lasting magic, acting almost like an artists signature. If they actually mean anything, no one has told me what, although I havent done any sort of deep research on the subject. At the end of the tunnel is a little square room, empty save for a two-panel mirror set directly into the far wall in a way that makes it look like the doors of an elevator. Rather than a button panel to the side, though, theres only a smooth ceramic plate. The nurse traces an elaborate pattern onto the plate with one finger, then puts his palm to it and pushes. Nothing seems to have changed, but he looks back over his shoulder and nods. Follow my lead. Just so you know going in, the first time can be, uh, a bit of a trip. And without another word of explanation, he turns back and walks straight through the mirror. It doesnt ripple like water, doesnt move at all, but just for a second, our reflections are replaced by a swirling kaleidoscope of countless slightly different scenes in the glass, windows into different places all reflecting endlessly off each other like a vast, shifting hall of mirrors. Before I can look any closer, the images vanish, leaving just the three of us. Whoa, Shona breathes. Pretty cool, huh? I just nod. Of course Ive always known that the world is full of wonders and miracles, but knowing something at a distance and diving right into it are completely different. This is my life now, and neither the expiration date looming over me or the horrors Ill need to hunt over and over for a chance at living are enough to completely strip the simple awe from it. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. I just hope zapping around with magic doesnt make me as sick as most travel does. Well, someone has to go first, Mide says, and nominates herself, strolling straight through the wall. Again, it explodes into a display of overlapping images. Hey, hold on! This isnt like the other things, you dont need to- Shona reaches out a bit too late to stop her, then rushes through before the image has settled. Well, then. I take a deep breath, hold it, and step into the panel. I was somehow expecting a sudden lurch or feeling of being launched from a cannon, but it never comes just the opposite. Going through is kind of like passing through a curtain over a doorway, but as soon as I cross into the mirror, it feels like Ive frozen in mid-stride. On the other side Im standing in that same kaleidoscopic burst of sights, but less stable, like on top of everything else Im seeing it through crossed eyes. Looking at anything ahead makes me dizzy, but closing my eyes somehow feels like a bad idea. Suddenly, the world rearranges itself. The images settle, replacing all the shifting scenes with a single window, and that window expands to fill my vision until it overlaps with the room, forming a passage for me to step through the wall into. I start moving again, just like Id never stopped, and take my first steps into another small room. The trip was a little disorienting, and that sense of water pressure is even stronger on this side, but physically the transition was just walking through an open door with a strange pause in the middle. Just ahead, Shona is in the middle of yelling something at Mide. ...not going to war, were in a hospital! Like, kind of a weird hospital, but still! Well, it didnt matter one bit and were all here now, right? Mide says calmly. By her posture, she seems pretty used to these kinds of arguments. The nurse, standing at a healthy distance from the two, clears his throat as I come through. Yes, well, whenever you three are ready, we can Right right right. Sorry! Shona interrupts. Yeah, lets go ahead and do that thing! Looking around, were in a thin hall that forks two ways just ahead. Theres a triage desk set between the two diverging hallways, the kind completely walled off by heavy glass windows, and another nurse is seated at a cnidarian drive on the other side. She looks up from the monitor, nods at our guide, and quickly types something in. To the left, a wide windowless door slides open with a faint buzz. There are no visible handles or locks on it, and it looks thick and heavy enough to be in a bank vault instead of a hospital. So, our nurse says. Most of this ought to be common-sense, but I have to make sure you all know anyway. The ward were heading into is a low-security admissions unit. Patients inside are confirmed non-infectious, awaiting a more complete diagnosis and placement. There shouldnt be anyone else in the halls right now, but if any patients are being transported, step aside and keep to yourself until theyre gone. Stay close to me, dont touch anything without asking, and do NOT use magic on anyone or anything inside. Um, Ill have to inspect these patients with magic to do what were here to do. Is that alright? I ask. I dont know if this is how it works for everyone, but the way my soul feels things is more like having a new sense that blurs together with the old ones in confusing ways than actively casting something. You can shift your attention to focus on one sense over another, but rules or no rules, I dont think I could decide not to feel a Harbingers traces any more than I could decide not to smell fish in a fish market. Should be. Youre not using magic on them. Youll need to ask the doctor to be sure, though. Rooms are usually insulated against that sort of thing. Otherwise, just look, dont touch. If an emergency serious enough that you might need to defend yourselves comes up, well say so. Shona and Mide turn to look at each other at the exact same time, frowning. Is, um, is that common enough we should be worried? Mide asks. Theres a pause just long enough to be telling before he answers Probably not in this ward. Cool! Itll be fine! Shona says. Mostly to herself, from the sound of it. Well, here we go. The vault door closes itself as soon as were all through. ~~~ Something is wrong with the overhead lights on the other side. Mide and I pause to look up at almost the same time, but the other two dont seem to care. It looks like theres an invisible layer of water between us and the lights, scattering the bulbs into tiny shifting spotlights actually, this is almost how my room looked when Vyuji was protecting it last week, only without the dark blue tint her barrier cast over everything. The way here splits in three, with slightly curved halls on either side and a straight corridor ahead. Its long enough that I can just barely see the far wall, and lined on both sides with more curving passages. Our guide heads five halls down the central path, then makes a left. Here, the walls on either side regularly open into indented side areas. Theyre all set up the same way, with a single window covering most of the wall, a small desk placed for someone to sit and look through the window, and a featureless door just like the one we took to get in here on one side. Bizarrely, the atmosphere makes me imagine them as exhibits in an aquarium, but theyre all the same display: a little room with a sink counter and some cups, a soft chair, and a portable hospital bed. A bed with thick restraining belts hanging on its frame. Most of the rooms are empty, and from its layout it feels like the ward has more of these rooms than they could ever need. Quite a lot more. Sure, you can never be too prepared, but I dont know how much of New Claris would be left after something awful enough to fill this place to capacity. Maybe it isnt just for our city? There have to be Soul Sanctuaries everywhere. They could be connected somehow, linked up by the same sort of magic they use to get around inside. We do pass some people, though. Shona strolls right along, keeping her gaze fixed on the back of the nurses head, and Mide lowers her eyes when we pass the first occupied room. I cant help but look. Most of the people inside just seem quiet, in the worst way. More vacant than tired, staring off at nothing. One is looking right at the window with bloodshot eyes, though none seem to actually watch us go by. Three patients are strapped tightly to their beds, and two of those have mouthguards poking out between their lips. Then there are the others. The tear stains under one weeping mans eyes are dark as ink. A woman scratches idly at a patch of skin that really shouldnt be that shade of grey. A girls face is somehow cracked all along one side of her head, like dry ground or broken porcelain, and, and theres a tiny hole in it that looks black and hollow My vision blurs. I stumble over, choking back the urge to gag. Uh, hey, Eyna? You okay back there? Shona asks. She pointedly doesnt turn around. Why? Why is this any different from what Ive already seen? I dont know. I just know it shouldnt be. None of it should happen and that doesnt make it the slightest bit less real. Oh, yes, thatll... sorry, the nurse says. Idve warned you if I realized we were passing her. Lets just go, I croak. Is he used to this? What else does he see here? No. Dangerous. Not going to wonder right now. Ill just force myself to stare at the floor the rest of the way. Mide had it right. After another minutes walk, the nurse stops and gestures ahead. ...Alright, its these three patients. Dont worry, theyre all safe to look at. Dr. Crain? The Keepers are here for you. Im a little hesitant anyway, but he isnt wrong. A boy and two girls in blue and green plaid school uniforms, each in a separate room. Two are sleeping or unconscious in their beds. One girl sits scrunched up on her chair, covering her eyes with her hands. A man at the desk in front of her, sharp-featured and young for a doctor, looks us over with the same quiet ease everyone here seems to share around Keepers. We arent bothering them like this, are we? Mide asks. The doctor shakes his head slightly. One-way glass. How can I help you three? Just some quick little stuff and well be out of your hair, Shona says. Trying to catch a monster before it can do this again, and Ah. You need to sense them? Dr. Crain nods and returns to his paperwork. Shona looks a little surprised. Oh, yep, thats exactly it! Could we? All of them are clear for it. I can take the wards down for a moment whenever youre ready, he says. Do you know anything about it? Have they said anything since they came in? I ask. None of them are speaking, no, but they did find something she was writing on the scene. Have a look if you want. Its not any kind of mental hazard, but here, just see for yourself. He pulls a little black notebook out, sets it on the desk already open to a page in the middle, and returns to his paperwork. The books pages are damp in one corner. Where the ink hasnt bled away, one sheet is covered in jagged, frenzied handwriting. It looks like a sleep journal kept by someone whose dreams are full of incredible stories, but their memories of them dissolve within a few seconds of waking, so all that remains by the time theyre frantically writing things out are a few jumbled scraps of scenes. I pick it up, squinting to read the scratches, and the other two crowd over my shoulders to read along. At first glance it seems illegible, but there are a few clear blocks of writing scattered across the page: a long long long time ago, someone fell through the sky and built a castle floating in the clouds this castle has no doors and no windows no light shines inside it none not ever not a single star or lamp or candle if you or i were stuck in a place like that, where nothing comes in and nothing goes out, wed starve or suffocate or lose ourselves and never find us again but the children who live in the castle are happy there! those children spend lots of happy days crawling around in the dark they need no light, for there is nothing their eyes can see they touch each other with hands that have never felt anything theyve fo Past that point, the paper is damp, and the ink has smudged away into a big wet puddle. Shona is first to break our silence. Uh, okay, what the fuck am I reading? No idea, I say. But... But? Mide presses. Oh. I mustve left that hanging for longer than I realized. I was turning the writing around and around in my head, trying to scrape it for any actual meaning. Nothing yet, I finally say. But maybe try to keep it in mind. If you write this off as nonsense, you might miss something important later. Mide looks over the page again. After a moment she side-eyes me, her forehead scrunched up in confusion. Are you sure? she asks flatly. You might, thats all I said. Its helped me before. Yep yep, Ill do that, Shona says. She clearly doesnt believe me either. Im serious! Just try, okay? I snap back. However bizarre this poetry(?) feels right now, Yurfalns victims gave me clues I could use. I didnt understand exactly what they meant until I saw the whole picture, but that doesnt mean they were useless noise. On the other hand, I think Yurfaln wanted me to understand it, by the end. This thing may not be so easy to read. What could I pull from this, then? Its hard to say. At this point, Im not even sure who the speaker is meant to be. Did this girl write out her own scattered thoughts about something she experienced or did the Harbinger somehow put the words in her mouth, so to speak? Either way, what are the big ideas to keep in mind? Falling from one place to another. A place where nothing should be able to live, but someone or something does anyway. Darkness. Senses failing. Hallucinations, maybe? Anyway. Doctor? I think were ready. I set the book back on his desk. Of course." Without looking up from his papers, Dr. Crain touches a finger to the desk and starts tracing an elaborate pattern on its surface. At a closer look, theres a ceramic panel like the one the nurse used earlier set into it. After a moment, he puts his palm to it, and Immediately, that sense of being observed is all over me, overpowering the Sanctuarys water-pressure ambience. Its stronger here. The source itself is probably much farther away, but these kids are closer to it in some mystical sense than the place where it happened to attack them. The miasma still isnt active, not the way an actual soul is, but the feelings it carries are clearer. Its just as foul as Yurfalns, in a completely different way. Dizzying, like spinning and spinning until you puke, or the sick feeling you get when you try to read in a car. I thats enough. Please turn it back on. A moment later, the fog is gone without a trace. I lean against the wall and suck in a few deep breaths. Did you find anything we can work with? Mide asks. Im not sure yet. Cant feel anything through these walls. But if its still out there, if we come anywhere near it, I think Ill know. ~~~ As we make our way out of the Weald, then through the upscale neighborhoods just above it, the balance of trees and construction slowly tilts back in the citys favor. The sun is well into setting, and a few faint stars are blinking into view in the now wide-open sky. Now that Im leading the search by default, I decide to take us on a long path roughly heading toward the hospital or, well, close enough. Im not leading them back to my doorstep. Im exhausted, having probably walked more tonight than I have since I checked into the seventh floor, but weve already come this far, and the other two are lively as ever. Ill figure out a next step if I dont catch the Harbingers trail on the way. But I do. Wait. I pause. Theres something not here, but close. A block out from the central district, eyes start prickling, very faintly, on the back of my neck. I know it well enough now to focus on it from a distance, and I stretch my senses out, trying to feel its movements. Thats definitely it. At the end of the trail, I touch the Harbinger, feeling its living essence for the first time and it looks back. Touches back. A hundred invisible gazes bore into every part of my body as it traces my perception to its source, and then somewhere in the distance, it bursts into a sudden blur of motion. Not toward us, but not running away... up? Yes. Climbing somewhere. Pushing down the sudden stabbing pain behind my eyes, I raise my head, doing my best to follow its path. At the top of one of the citys great glass towers, where a huge observation deck juts out, a Wound tears itself into being. Other Horizons 2-4 Through blurred vision, I watch the darkening sky just above the tower start to crack. Glowing fractures arc through it in a shifting rainbow of colors like flashes of prismatic lightning. Out and out they spike, each new fissure opening with a high-pitched knife-on-a-bottle sound, until I try to close my senses off. Too late. I cant see whatever happened on the deck, but as it begins, the Harbingers miasma crawls in through my eyes and stabs shards of glass into my soul. I collapse. Radio noise blares in my head. Noise forms words, words form sigils that swim behind my eyes like a light Ive stared at for too long. Some part of me tries to translate them into thoughts and finds only nonsense sharp as knives. A scream tears from my throat. ...happening? Hey! Eyna, hey, are you alright? Are you alright? Come on, look at me! Through the alien thoughts creeping in from outside, Im dimly aware of Shona shaking my shoulder, and then of my own body, crumpled on the sidewalk. I unsteadily pick myself up and point to the observation deck where the sky smashed open. The cracks are still there, but whatever I saw as the Harbinger broke through is either gone or not visible from here. There. That tower. We should go, I croak. Shonas face hardens. She stands, roughly pulling me to my feet by one arm, then cups her mouth and belts into the city: HEY! HARBINGER ATTACK AT SKYS END TOWER! CLEAR OUT! All along the streets, passersby turn to look where Im pointing, then bolt in opposite directions as fast as their legs can carry them. A few with small children hastily scoop them up and carry them away. Cars turn at the first opportunity and disappear down other roads. Before long, the way ahead is eerily empty. Shit, okay. Im sorry about this, but every second counts, Shona says, and whistles a few notes that sound louder and shriller than anything a person could actually whistle. Crimson sparks dance over her body, then leap as one into her hand. Eh, what are oww! Before I can protest, she grabs my shoulder, sending an electric bite snapping through me. My feet shift smoothly across the pavement as I flinch and pull out of her grip, but when I right my posture to steady myself, I... keep moving backwards, slipping right along the sidewalk. I yip in surprise and grab hold of Shona''s outreached hand, the closest anchor I can find. What did you do?! Dont worry, thisll be easy! Shona says, smiling a big stupid grin as she shakes my hand up and down with glee. You ever gone skating before? What? No! When I still lived in our house, Dad occasionally waxed the hardwood floors. After he finished, Id put on my wool socks and glide around the living room until I fell over or crashed into a table. At that point it stopped being fun, but long enough would pass before the next waxing for it to seem like a good idea again. So the cycle repeated and repeated until I left home. Thats the closest Ive ever come to this, and the effect is much stronger here. I dont think I would ever stop moving if Shona werent still clinging to me. ...Itll be easy, she repeats. Who does she think shes convincing? Its not me. H-how do I stop? Crash into something? Nah, all I did was take friction away from your feet. Anything else works fine as a brake! Shona summons her violin bow in a burst of tiny fireworks, then wedges it into the corner where street meets sidewalk, holding us in place. Like this! Just use your weapon to oh. Right. Hm, she says, grimacing. Ive got her, Mide says. Take my hand and hold on, Eyna. Ill try to make this gentler than she would. ~~~ Apparently, thats still not very gentle. We race down the sidewalks at the pace of speeding cars, past the few people who havent already cleared away at Shonas announcement. Rather, Shona and Mide do. I just hold on and do my best not to think about what happens if I lose my grip, go flying off into the city at full impossible speed, and smash into something like a human car wreck. My best clearly isnt very much. The whole process is terrifying, but turns are the worst part. Whenever we need to change course, Mide slams her spear to the ground, where it grinds against the surface and leaves a thin fissure in the pavement. Once weve slowed down at least a little, she glides forward, spinning in a quarter-circle around it, then digs the tip a little deeper into the ground and, using it like a ski pole, shifts her facing and pushes off in the new direction. Yanking me along with her, always with a sharp tug of my arm before Im following behind her again. Are you doing alright back there? Mide asks after one of those turns. She doesnt raise her voice, but I hear her just fine. Id have expected wind rushing in my ears, the way it does in a car with the window open. Its quiet, I mutter. Ah. Yeah, I think thats her messing around with air resistance without knowing what it is, Mide says. Its MAGIC is what it is! Duh! Shona shouts, looking back over her shoulder without slowing down at all. For her part, Shona doesnt bother using a brake she just adjusts the effect on the fly, slowing and speeding up however she needs to without any clear action. From the way she handles herself, she might as well be figure skating, except figure skaters usually cant decide whether physics applies to them between one instant and the next. And the Harbinger? Mide asks. Still watching, I think. Feels awful. Its invisible eyes have never left me for more than a few moments, and its distant shriek still echoes through my soul. Good thing were here, then! Any second now! Shona laughs. Even I can hear the nervousness in her voice. Im still lightheaded when we reach the tower, and I cant tell whether its more the Harbingers lingering gaze or being hauled along the slippery streets like luggage. As the entryway comes into view, Mide grabs a lamppost and braces herself on it with one foot, then spins me around to one side and holds tight until I jolt to a halt. A second later, the ground starts to feel stable again. Ahead of us, Shona comes to an instant clean stop. Stand aside, everyone! she calls to the crowd in front. The Screaming Hymn is here to silence evils dirge! I blink twice. Do people really do that? I wont do it. They cant make me. Shes, ah, still workshopping that one, Mide whispers. She shakes her head, smiling very slightly. People are already filing out through the main entrance when we arrive. To my surprise, filing is actually what most of them are doing, even before Shona announces our arrival. Standard emergency response advice for these situations calls for leaving buildings in an orderly fashion, of course, but I always wondered if anyone faced with a Harbinger actually kept it together enough to do that. Since meeting one, I expected more than ever that they wouldnt. But then, most of these people probably werent on the main deck when the Wound opened. Theyd just have heard the alert or the screams and ran for it. As the crowd parts down the middle for us, I pause and inspect their souls. Despite the circumstances, everyone here feels the gentle, faintly soothing way healthy people seem to, and theres no stench of corruption anywhere among them. I could borrow their strength, if I want. Just a little taste, just enough to keep myself from passing out in a fight for my life Hey, are you alright? Come on! Shona yells, waiting just inside the front door. No. No. The Harbinger isnt moving right now, but theyre still too close to be safe, and I still dont know what my magic actually does to normal people. I cant risk making this any worse. I dont feel ready to fight anything, but... theres a Wound in the middle of the city. I cant just leave it alone. Ill have to manage. Somehow. Inside the tower is all sleek white surfaces and smooth rounded curves, save for the two big indoor garden plots on opposite walls. Its nearly as empty as the streets, clear save for a few stragglers still filtering out through the emergency exits. Only the weight of the Harbingers presence warns of whats happening here. It intensifies as we board the transparent elevator to the top, until by the time it opens again Im sure I can actually see those tiny invisible eyes, like something behind me reflected in the glass. We ride in tense silence, with only nervous glances passing between us. As the elevator starts to slow, I can just make out human voices coming from above. Mide raises her shield in a defensive stance and prepares to lead the way out. She charges out as soon as the doors open, and Shona is quick to follow. Both falter when the muffled sounds become a constant din of pain and terror. The top floor is a wide open glass box. Two revolving doors lead onto the observation deck, and there are stairs up to a second indoor level in one corner. The room is filled with the rasping of people who must have screamed until they couldnt anymore, but theyre still trying with everything they have, pausing only to gasp for air. Other voices are mumbling to themselves theyre speaking phrases, forming sentences, but I cant pull any clear words out from the noise. My instincts say to shut them out, like Ive caught a fleeting glimpse of some horrific picture for just long enough to know that I never want to see it again. But I cant, any more than I can turn away from the scene around us. People are scattered all around the area, collapsed on the ground or curled into themselves. All of them are covering their faces in some way theyve buried their heads in cushioned chairs, folded their arms and laid between them on the ground, or just clamped their hands over their eyes. A girls fingernails are scraping into the skin of her forehead between hoarse cries. All are squirming and shivering in time with their pained noises, save for one man out on the deck. Hes I hope hes unconscious, but cant be sure from here. I scan the room, counting six of them in total, and swallow heavily. That makes at least eleven our enemy has touched, maybe more hiding somewhere I cant see. Or already inside the Wound. I dont know what that means for it or us, only that I no longer have any idea what to expect. Keepers? Are you Keepers? I... Oh, thank the Goddess, please, please, I A hushed voice calls out as the elevator closes, quivering and breaking mid-sentence. Eh?! I yelp. Mide whirls to face the sounds source, placing herself between it and Shona but its just a person, a head peeking out from behind a column. A woman, her eyes bleary and swollen with tears. Shes not acting like the others, and I dont smell any corruption on her... what is she still doing here? Thats right. Its gonna be okay now, Shona says, very slowly. She sounds like a different person without that constant exhilarated energy in her voice. The way outs all clear. You can take the elevator. Go! No!" she cries out. "I cant, my son, hes She points out through the glass walls. A little boy is sitting at the far end of the deck, hugging his knees to himself. I cant, cant just leave him here! Okay okay, Mide says. Well get him back for you. Just wait there and stay quiet, okay? Yes! Thank you, thank Shhh, Mide hisses. At that, the woman clamps her mouth shut and ducks back behind the pillar. Mide starts toward the deck without another word, not even a look our way, and Shona quickly joins her. Were doing this, then. As for me, my thoughts are just swimming with questions. Thing after thing that could go wrong here pops into my mind, and Im coming up blank on solutions. Can any of us even lift a kid and run off with him? He looks a lot younger than us, but hes not tiny, maybe seven or eight. What do we do if he doesnt want help, if he lashes out at us? If the Harbinger doesnt want to let him go? So. Heres what we do, Shona says. She stares straight out at the deck as she talks. Keeping her eyes off the victims. Meanwhile, Mides gaze constantly darts around the room, searching for any sudden movements or new threats. If I charge Mide up a bit, she can carry him away no problem! Right in, right out, then we get back to the main event. Thats one question answered, but not one of the hard ones. What about it? Shona still doesnt turn around, but she does break her stride. Well just have to be quick about this. Its not doing anything more right now, yeah? Above the deck, the sky outside is torn open to form a portal. I cant tell what the Wound itself looks like. Its not that the sight of it is too awful to bear my line of sight just twists around it, passing directly from one edge of the tear to the other whenever I glance its way. No matter where I look, I only see strange-colored auroras dancing around the Wound in the corner of my eye. Its a Harbinger. We have no idea what its doing or not, I say. Shona takes a playing stance, and her violin forms itself in her grip. For a few happy seconds, the snapping of her sparks rises over the awful noise in the air. I know that, she sighs, but all we can do is be careful til it makes a move. Unless youre feeling anything else? When I try to inspect the Wound, my awareness slides over it in the same way my eyes do. Nothing else in the miasma feels active or alive. If I had to guess, the gates creator is somewhere inside, but my best guess isnt good enough. Maybe it can bend perception around itself, too, and in that case it could be anywhere doing anything. I really shouldnt get lost in worrying about every possible trick it might have, but I dont think I can stop myself. Nothing yet, no, I say. Then we should get to it before that changes, Shona says. Well handle getting in and getting the kid out. You just watch and keep your spooky-senses trained on the Wound, kay? A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Mide glances back over her shoulder. The two exchange a quick nod before she raises her shield, braces her spear, and leads the way out. I call my cards into being and wordlessly follow Shona through the revolving door. Outside, the Wound casts a wide shadow. The jagged hole in the sky is surrounded on all sides by shifting, fluttering lines. The auroras dancing around it block the suns rays as if they were solid objects, like long flags or cloth streamers. The sky deck itself is positioned for panoramic views of the city to the right and the sea to the left even from here, theres no visible trace of land on the eastern horizon. The platform is a wide triangle, fenced in on all sides by glass barriers more than twice my height, and set into the center of its floor is a giant circular window. It would look like the deck was built with a big hole in the floor, if it werent for the unearthly colors reflected in the glass. Actually can I see the portal itself this way? I think I can. My eyes dont bend around it, and at the windows center theres a blur of colorful little dots like static snow on a broken TV. The kid were looking for is huddled in the far corner, almost directly on the other side of the Wound from us. Counting him and the unconscious man, there are three victims out here. Im immediately glad for the walls, since the last one is a frizzy-haired girl in a plaid school uniform trying in vain to climb over the glass. I wonder why were stopping to rescue one and only one of them, not even the one who looks to be in the worst state, but the others have made their plan and the Harbinger wont wait forever. It might not wait at all. It isnt any quieter outside, though the noise is very different. There are still a few people crying out hoarsely or muttering to themselves, but theyre mostly muffled by the sounds of the Wound itself. Electrical noise blares out through the portal, a crackling undercurrent interrupted at random intervals by high-pitched howls, sequences of beeps just regular enough to sound like something is tapping out a secret message, and... words? Yes, at least a few spoken words. Buried deep in the rest of the noise, but not Clarish words, not any words a human tongue could form. The distorted voice of a demon behind radio speakers. I feel them more than I hear them, and they feel confused. Mide stares out at the scene for a long moment. Here we go, she finally says, looking back at us. Ready? She holds her fighting stance all the while, tension in every muscle. Shed be the picture of heroic resolve if she werent chewing, very slowly, on her lower lip. Ready, Shona answers, grinning madly. Go ahead, I say. Um, nothing from the spooky-senses yet. With that, Shona raises her bow and adds her own electric noise to the mix. Its the sort of music I hate, a distorted, frantic melody, angry in a way that transcends the sound itself. Her song pushes the emotions behind it directly into my mind, like Harbingers speech but much easier to read. One note sings above all others. Rage. Barely-suppressed, boiling rage, now free to let loose upon something monstrous. Bolts of power arc out from Shonas violin and into Mide. Magic gathers around her, casting its light over her, but the way the glow plays on her golden armor is strange. Rather than forming a solid aura and radiating out from her like a lantern, it looks like it comes from a spotlight that only shines on her. Then, with Shonas song still ringing out, Mide takes a deep breath, bends her knees, and dashes off with sudden impossible speed. The lights invisible source follows her movements as she runs along the platforms outer edges where the Wound doesnt quite reach. Its not just that shes fast shes moving more than her actual motion should allow, simultaneously running and sliding along the floor. After a sharp turn at the left corner, Mide takes a last quick look up at the Wound, then dismisses her weapons and bolts toward the boy in the far corner. His face is still buried in his knees, and he doesnt react at all until she comes to a clean stop, wraps her arms around him, and scoops him up with ease. He thrashes wildly as she squeezes him close, bursting into a fit of desperate shrieking so loud it would be almost unbearable... if it werent just one more voice added to the competing clamors of harsh music and pained groans and electrical distortions. His few clear words are worse than the sound itself: No, wait, its all too... stop it! STOP! I DONT WANNA SEE ANYMORE! Mide traces the same path backwards, not at all slowed down by her new burden. He flails and pushes against her all the while, but her grip barely budges. In the end, shes there and back in a little over ten seconds. Nothing I can detect changes around the portal. These girls clearly have this more figured out than me not that thats saying much. I have no idea what I can do here that would matter. The Harbinger probably wont lash out outside its Wound, but if it did, what would I do about it? Cover the deck in death-mist that might just kill all the victims? Mide pushes back through the revolving door. As it starts to move, I catch the boys gaze over her shoulder. Or I would have, if he still had eyes. Instead Im staring into two unblinking circles of colorful static exactly like the reflection beneath the Wounds maw. Time seems to freeze, slamming to a halt rather than slowing to a crawl. Something inhuman glares back at me through those windows. The world shatters. In an instant, everything in sight cracks. Theres no sense of impact, no sign that any of it is actually broken instead, Im seeing things through lenses covered in fractures, lines that move around with my vision wherever I look. Light pours through the crevices, filling the air until its all that I can see. Shutting my eyes doesnt dim it at all. I bury my face in my arm, eyes still burning. What? Fuck, wait a Shonas voice starts to call out, then is silenced. The harsh glare leaking through my sleeve slowly shifts in hue, then dims. Only when the backs of my eyelids turn black again do I peek out at my surroundings its dark here, too dark to see anything clearly, but I already know that Ive left the world. ~~~ I dont fall into the Wound this time. It doesnt feel like Ive moved at all, and the Harbinger makes no attempt to push me out. Its pitch-dark here. The only light anywhere comes from the one card glowing sickly green with my magic, and thats not nearly enough to see by. Electrical hisses and whines blanket the world so completely that the sounds seep into my body, and their buzzing sets me shivering down to my bones. Hey Shona? Mide? Hey! Where are you? No one answers, not even an echo. I cant sense them either. Once again, Im alone. Whats the very first thing I remember? I think its the time I first heard thunder and thought the world was ending, but what? Where did that thought even come from? Not from me. It took a moment to recognize, but Words-that-are-not-words buzz in my skull. Light floods the world. Im outside, suddenly staring up into a wide open expanse that is absolutely not the sky. What is it? It looks more like television static than anything else, monochrome dots and thin many-colored waves all bouncing off each other, but thats not quite right. This is too patterned. I dont know what the pattern is, just that there are too many beginnings of images or shapes for it to be random nonsense. Sometimes the dots and lines start to come together into something more. Sometimes parts of the field go black, forming dark outlines like shadow-puppets. Theyre only ever faint hints of a complete picture every time I start to think Ive found something clear, its immediately scattered into nothing by jagged waves of interference. Muscles all around my body shiver and twitch for an instant. Those words jab at something ugly and nameless in my heart, but wait. How long have I been here? What is here? Why am I still trying to see through these patterns before I know where I am or where the Harbinger is or if theres even really anything to see? I wrench my gaze from the Wounds sky, ignoring the part of me that cant bear to leave a frustrating puzzle unsolved. Im on a crumbling balcony which drops off just ahead. Two steps forward wouldve sent me plunging into the water far, far below. Beyond that, a murky grey ocean stretches out until it meets the distant horizon. The line where it touches the static field spikes wildly with visual distortions, like the sky is attacking the sea. Theres a sudden sense of vertigo as I turn around. The Wound has moved me again. Now Im on a long dock which twists as dark waves lap up its sides. At the end is... a bizarre parody of a massive castle. Thats the clearest way I can comprehend it. Collapsing walls surround a mountain of stairs and long ramps and additional fortified walls curving around each other. Patches of open wall expose rooms inside the great creaking monument like cave hollows. Several inexplicable extensions, gnarled towers and strangely-shaped blocky structures jut out from the mass. The entire thing is made from grey rubble, rocks and dust and broken pillars packed together. It looks like it was built by taking a citys worth of ugly pre-war concrete buildings, breaking them into chunks, and squishing them back into a new shape, which its somehow holding against all odds. Three towers near the top end in lighthouse lantern rooms, but with bright blurs of static replacing actual lamps. They cover the whole world in pale blue light, lending everything the tint of a dark room lit only by a screen. Mide? Shona? Anyone? I try again. Nothing. No signs of the Harbinger either, but... what could be taking them so long? I take a few hesitant steps ahead. I still dont know what this place is or how to handle it, but whatevers keeping the others, I know the Harbinger is paying attention to me. Standing here and letting it throw me around however it likes seems bad. Ill figure something out if I see more of it. Where the dock meets the massive patch of garbage which passes for an island in this place, a staircase opens onto a messy courtyard, filled with tall piles of junk and the hollowed-out wrecks of small, box-shaped buildings. A steep path winds through the ruins toward the castle. Here and there, bright cloth curtains hang over walls or entryways. The noise in the air gets louder as I approach the castle. Its not the only noise, though. Around a corner, something in the wreckage pricks at my ears. A voice. I cant hear it clearly over the interference, but behind a curtain draped over the entrance to one of the more intact buildings, theres definitely a human voice speaking human language. Not one I recognize... maybe there really are victims inside the Wound? I quickly scan my surroundings one more time. When neither my eyes nor my sense for magic find any signs of the Harbinger, I tighten my grip on my card, creep up to the doorway, and push through the veil. Its hard to see inside, but faint light filters in through the cracked roof. I pull back the curtain to brighten the room, exposing nothing at all. Just a dusty speaker spouting hushed words, like a recording of the victims outside. Useless. Not even an ambush, just more of the madness that fills this Wound. Groaning, I go back ...outside? No. Im inside again not plunged back into complete blackness, but the space is only dimly lit with pale electronic screen-light, like a TV in a dark room. The sudden shift leaves me feeling dizzy and disconnected from myself... in fact, Im only dimly aware of my own body. I know its there, but it feels less like me and more like a puppet I can move and vaguely sense the position of. Five snowy TV screens arranged in a single long line fill my vision no matter where I try to look. After a moment, they resolve into pictures clear enough to see. Theyre fuzzy security-camera images of me from all angles, standing in a round room lined with dark, twisting passages. I try to move, and while I still dont feel anything, the me on the screens takes an unbalanced step forward. Some of the images move slower or faster than others, and they all blur and tear in slightly different places with my motion. The noise in the air narrows and focuses itself to a single point in my ears, inside my skull. Its not like when Vyuji talks to me without sound her speech comes with a clear sense of her presence, and this feels like the Harbinger is trying to tangle its words up with my own mental voice. But even at this distance from myself and my own head, with this bizarre out-of-body filter thrown over my perception, theres no way I could mistake these for intrusive thoughts. The phrases themselves feel more complex than Yurfalns childish speech, and while some part of me can still translate the intent behind them, what they seem to be saying doesnt make any sense. The ambient sounds rise to a painful level, becoming less like white noise and more like the whining of a dentists drill. Jagged fragments of an ugly dream overwhelm my senses. Its a nightmare of drowning in an endless murky sea. My body thrashes uselessly, kicking against nothing as if it can somehow run to the surface, but of course I only sink and sink as the sea floods into me. Fear for my life gives way to dazed emptiness, and as it does, I somehow start to breathe through the cold weight in my lungs. Soon I cant imagine ever having inhaled anything but dirty water, and I look away in horror whenever I spot distant sunbeams from above or bright lights in the gloom. No. No. No. Not real. None of it is real, especially not these broken emotions. Its all just a monster pushing its delusions onto me. I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood and cling to the sharp, painful pressure as an anchor. Im still here. Im still real. I am. Holding those thoughts close, I start to shake the torrent of madness off. Not that returning to the sight of myself through camera screens feels much better. On the monitors, an angry flickering distortion scratches itself into being. Curling, flashing white lines like old film grain spread outwards in a spiral, tracing round and round like a child''s scribble until they blot out the scene entirely, then quickly reverse like a whirlpool of raggy threads swirling down a drain. It all folds back into the same point and when the scene is clear again, a living nightmare looms over me. The Harbinger is a tangled spiral of cloth veils in a garish twister of colors, all spinning and spinning around each other like theyre blowing about in a tornado. Space distorts in the wake of the veils as they whirl, sometimes trailing colored afterimages and sometimes making the air waver like a heat haze, creating a sickening visual blur that leaves it unclear if theres a central mass to its body at all. Long, thin limbs stretch out from the funnel in every direction, each bending around it at many, many different joints, all ending in clawed hands. Above those, on a neck thats just another one of its spindly limbs, is an orb of hazy white glass shaped roughly like a head. Its only facial features are three bulging eyes, each filled with different abstract kaleidoscope patterns, and a long, jagged beak. Two thin strips of fabric spiral off into the rough outlines of horns from its head. For the first time, I pull some scrap of understanding from its nonsense noise: I still cant sense my body trembling or my heart pounding, even as I will myself to back away from the thing with halting, unsteady steps. Only my magic reacts. Raw terror surges through my souls wellspring and spills over me, washing away anything else I might call to the surface. But maybe thats enough. Theres one thing I know I can do. Ive done it once before now. If I can just I can. All it takes is the slightest mental push to send my magic to work. Just like last time, my cards rise from their orbit and arrange themselves into a bizarre spread I cant see the exact shape from this perspective, and Im not sure it would make sense if I could. Icy emerald mist seeps into the Wound, not emerging from me or the cards, but seeping through cracks in the walls. My magic casts just enough eerie light to illuminate the room which isnt a room, but a tunnel whose surfaces are all made from tightly-packed wreckage, like an anthill dug into a massive pile of junk. Scrap metal, shattered furniture, radios jutting from the pile sputtering gibberish, broken TV screens mirroring the static sky outside, appliances I dont recognize and cant imagine a function for, all of it somehow piled into a stable structure. As my fog spreads, things change green shadows crawl over the screens, smothering their pale glow, and the radio voices choke and die, leaving only faint whispers of labored breathing. The Harbinger Irakkia swivels in a full circle, surveying the tunnel, then twirls itself into a thin shape and leaps up, leaving behind a trail of visual static as it burrows and wriggles straight into the ceiling. As soon as its gone, the grainy screens vanish and drop me back into my own skin. Motion sickness and blood-racing panic slam into me all at once, forcing me to fall to my knees and breathe deeply until my head stops whirling. To me, the death-mist gathering in the chamber only feels like a numbing chill in the air - familiar and almost pleasant when my body is already running hot. This was only my first strike, though. A way of feeling the Wound out. Itd be a mistake to think Im winning just because Irakkia didnt throw itself straight into my corruption like Yurfaln that just means its not actively trying to kill itself. Its a bigger monster thats been around for longer. Itll warp its world back and find another way to come after me. I just hope those girls get here soon. Other Horizons 2-5 Irakkias presence fades into the background noise of the Wound, even as its voice lingers in my skull. Where is it going? With the way this place works, can I even trust that it even is going? What could it be doing? None of that matters if I dont know what Im doing. Plan. I need a plan. Yurfalns world had an inner sanctum, a section of its heart that showed me everything I needed to know to kill it, but that doesnt mean this one will. Even if it does, I might not understand it or have a good way to exploit it my magic was practically custom-made to counter Yurfaln. We were born from the same place, after all. What do I know so far? Does any of it connect to that poem? A space that doesnt make sense. How my senses bend and fail around the Harbingers visual glitches. That question about my first memory it pushed into my head, a vision of drowning in the abyss until I can only see in the dark and breathe water, the world isnt the world something about contradictions? Light and sight feel important to it, but I dont know what to do with that. Im not sure if Im better off in here or outside under that awful sky. Actually, I still dont have a good idea of where I am. In Yurfalns world, my tarot diagram seemed to form an abstract map, so I look there first. This time, the cards have formed a spiral of messy, overlapping branches, and their faces are marked with sigils written in crawling static rather than pictures all except one, the skeletal crow of Death dyed in my colors. I cant tell if its meant to be inverted, and I cant make enough sense of this spread to use it as a guide. As for the world itself, this section is a maze of narrow tunnels and chambers in seemingly random shapes and sizes. Each room has a few fuzzy TV screens set randomly into the walls to serve as lamps, at least where the shadows cast by my magic havent swallowed their light like clouds over the moon. I could try and plot a course through it, but I dont think I need to. Time should be on my side I have backup coming, whatevers taking them so long; Irakkia doesnt. For now Ill just stand my ground and spread my own corruption, make my own place of power within the Harbingers- Again Irakkias voice slams into me. My legs buckle. I lean against a wall before I collapse entirely. A jagged pipe spearing from its uneven surface, its end hewed to a point, scrapes my arm. I suck in air between my teeth at the pain, but the constant shhhh of static takes on a soft, almost calming note. Nothing changes about the sound itself, but it feels more like listening to a rushing river than grating electrical noise. Theres something inside the noise, though. Something beyond words or sounds, another flood of dreams that might drown my senses and wash me away if I let it. Invasive thoughts race through my mind, too many of them to catch and pin down any single one. Its all sensations and confusing ideas rather than words or pictures the crushing weight of the deep sea. Watching the sky and wondering why it looks the way it does. Fleeing the angry sun. Doubting everything and everyone, most of all my own senses. Somewhere among the madness, theres a faint sense of wonder at something completely new. Maybe its what it might feel like to fly? But its hard to fly when your body works so hard to weigh you down, and beneath it all, Im still right here. Safe in my own skin, my favorite place to be. My vision is swimming and my limbs arent cooperating, so I think it might be falling apart right this moment. Amazing. Youd never let me forget who I am for a second, would you, skin? After my first bone marrow transplant, one aggressively cheerful nurse told me that my body wasnt my enemy, it was an important tool that did its best to serve me, and while I recovered I should try to think of things it was doing well to be grateful for. I managed one entry on that list before I gave up: My skin does a good job of keeping my organs inside where they belong. Thank you, skin. Thank you again for keeping me trapped here. A crack of thunder rises over the rushing noise. Immediately, the Harbingers voice answers with a keen wail, cutting through my scattered thoughts like an alarm on a groggy morning. Irakkias soul-wracking noise falls back to its normal level, and there it remains. Are the others here? Did it go to size up the new intruders? Just as I stagger to my feet, harsh, distorted, yet utterly melodically deliberate electric violin music starts to play. It doesnt stop, warring with the ambient static for control of my ears. Theres another blast of thunder the low rumbling kind, this time. Shonas voice follows, magnified into its own explosion of sound: HEY! EYNA, HEY, WERE IN! WHERE ARE YOU? Im My voice comes out as a tired croak rather than a shout. Theres no way theyll hear me. Instead I reach inside and flare a bit of my magic, the way I did when we first met. My skin prickles at the brief bitter cold, and deep green shadows dance through the tunnels. On the nearest screens, black feathers fall as if from a shredded pillow, then pour out through the glass and flutter to the ground. I hope they get the message, because theyll probably need to come to me. Even if I knew the way out of here, Im not sure how far Id make it. I wish Id brought my cane, even knowing that just carrying it around would basically tell those girls my whole life story. I figure itll probably be easier for them to find me outside, if nothing else. Ignoring the sting of the gash on my arm, I push on through the maze, spreading my corruption as I move until Ive found the rough direction that seems to be out on my spiral tarot diagram. Soon enough, light leaks in through a fork at the end of one distant passage. Nothing is moving in the Harbingers ambient aura that I can sense, but all the same I take my time approaching, inching up to the corner and peeking around it with one eye. At the end of that bright tunnel, theres the Wounds static sky. Out I go, keeping my eyes on the ground. I emerge onto a wide platform that slopes unevenly in one direction and then bends around as it declines, forming a spiral ramp around one of the castles twisting spires. Im quite high up, overlooking the colorless sea, and theres a junk-pile barricade lining the far edges. Theres a hole in the barricade at one point, where a long, steep wall the first smooth surface Ive seen here stretches out and curves up at the bottom, forming a giant slide into the water. Electronic noise and heavy music are still fighting to bury each other, occasionally interrupted by peals of thunder. Beyond the barricade, all I see is dark water. Irakkia must have dumped me in a far corner of the Wound before it left. How is it doing that? Can it just pick me up and drop me wherever it likes? Reshape the world on a whim? No, that cant be, can it? There has to be some rule. Why else wouldnt it just crush me with the walls, or at least seal off the maze if its saving me for later? HEEEY, EYNAAA, WHERED YOU GO? IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, DO THAT AGAAAIN! ACTUALLY, JUST KEEP DOING IT! Shonas voice yells out again from somewhere on the other side of the Wound. Theres a strange electronic distortion to her voice, like its playing through a giant loudspeaker with a bit of crackling feedback. More thunder quickly follows, a rapid series of bursts like cannon fire. So I do. Flaring is simple to maintain, and its not like I can run out of magic. I just open the floodgate in my mind and let a little more power overflow into the world. GOTCHA! COMING, HOLD ON! Music and thunder quicken their pace in time with each other. Theres still a Harbinger between us, so Ill do what I can to make that trip easier. Bracing myself on the rough wall, I start to circle the tower step by unsteady step, taking the path that slopes downward. Down should be closer to them, right? Sure enough, a few levels below, a tiny bridge connects to I suppose I could call it the central castle, though that would be giving it enormously too much credit. Rather, its a place toward the middle of the mountain of rubble where more thin towers of trash than I can easily count twist together into a single mass, then branch out again at the top, forming something like a giant garbage tree with boughs wide and thick enough to walk through. The bridge itself is just a length of debris inexplicably held together, with no railings, ropes, or visible support of any kind. When I get there, I search the spiritual miasma all around me once more for any signs of Irakkia. I barely trust my legs to carry me over this thing, so itd be an ideal time to murder me. Yet catastrophe never strikes the Harbinger is still somewhere far away, close to the source of the thunder. Nothing I can do for Shona and Mide yet. I just kneel and crawl across the bridge''s thin span, clinging to its sides whenever it teeters under my weight. One flurry of activity from the Harbinger startles me, but its still nowhere nearby. On the other side of the chasm is a long, thin wall set into the mountain like a treacherous road, winding through blocky structures and unbalanced towers. I loop around it, plodding through the winding, uneven paths and climbing over heaps of junk randomly piled in my way, alone save for thunder and irregular bursts of grating music, until the islands front half comes back into view. Its changed since I was on the lower half of the island, though I still see the dock Irakkia first dropped me on in the distance. Theres a storm covering a small part of the static sky, a whirl of dark thunderclouds spinning around each other impossibly fast. Jagged crimson flashes of lightning arc through the air, and while some strike off into the distance at random, many more strike the ground in a pattern that looks like theyre chasing a moving target. I guess my magic really is just weird. How am I meant to keep up with that? Seen from this height, the courtyards layout looks like an anthill thats been cut down the middle to expose the chambers inside, a massive pile of rubble where nine or ten oddly-shaped rooms have been roughly cleared out. Theyre all full of little ruined buildings and connected by thin, twisty valleys or tunnels, some of which fork and loop into mazes. Several huge solid slabs of junk have risen from the heap since I last saw it, making the walls many, many times taller. Two of them are placed to completely wall off two different valleys connecting the chambers. Static snow in random shifting patches crawls along their surfaces. The wall closest to me is long, but not nearly as tall as the others, like its not quite finished. And Irakkia rises from behind that wall, perching on the edge with its dozen limbs spread out like those of a spider making a threat display. Three hands cling to the wall while the whirling veils in the center dart about wildly, leaving behind long-lived afterimages. The rest lash at something on the other side, bending all over and striking from many angles. I realize what must be happening just before I see it. Mides shield comes into view first, tilting to deflect another strike even as she hoists herself over the ledge with one hand. Like Id seen before, invisible stage lights cast by Shonas magic highlight her every movement and keep her armor gleaming amidst the gloom. Red sparks flit all along her body, and more burst out from the shield wherever Irakkias claws bounce off it. The instant her feet hit the ground, she summons her spear and hurls it at the Harbinger, which bends so far back to avoid it that it nearly flattens itself into the wall. Before it rises, she pulls a short sword from thin air and charges, holding most of her body behind her shield as she moves. That doesnt keep her from pressing the attack shes light on her feet, and fast, handling her weapon as easily as I twitch my fingers. On a good health day. Its not enough. Irakkia twists its way through her slicing flurry, alternately warping its shape with impossible flexibility or breaking space itself such that Mides blade never quite catches it. In one strike, I watch the sword sink straight into its center, only to come clean out on the other side bent at a strange angle, like a beam of light through a prism. When the Harbinger darts away unharmed, the sword returns to its normal shape. This continues across more clashes than I can count so quickly, and the two appear to be stalemated. But Irakkias movement is pushing it back along the wall. Maybe ten seconds into the fight, Shona peeks over the top of the ledge, then climbs up and scrambles to her feet, standing at a comfortable distance from the Harbinger. Mide is blocking the only clear path between her and the monster. Shona summons her violin, and begins to play. Arcs of red light flicker through the air around her. As Shonas music starts up again, the Harbinger breaks away from Mide and scuttles backward to the walls far edge. At the other end of the wall, right behind Shona, something else is going on. The world is warping. A hole starts to tear itself open, bright and flickering like film grain, just like the way Irakkia first emerged inside. An ambush? Can I warn them? No, flaring doesnt tell them anything, so The tear shivers, then folds back inward and disappears. Its just... gone. Nothing came of it. Irakkias head snaps around, making two rapid circles before it comes to a stop, facing me. Not just facing those eyes are glaring directly up at me. Suddenly, my sight zooms in on it. I tear my eyes away, and I know Im not paralyzed when I feel my head moving, but what Im seeing doesnt actually change. No matter where I turn, my gaze is still arrested by the Harbinger''s own. Clashing patches of sky-static crawl over my eyes, expanding until theres nothing left but a dizzying visual maze before a pair of jagged red bolts cuts through the center, splitting the scene like a crack in a mirror. A crimson flash fills my view, followed instantly by sharp thunder, and when it fades Im looking down at the Wound again. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Back on the wall, Irakkia lies in a crumpled, tangled mess, twitching in time with the red sparks jumping along its body. Bits of debris in a ring around it have been scorched black. From the look of it, Shonas struck our first real blow. Shes still absorbed in her performance, and as the song gets louder and angrier, the clouds above roll forward to gather over her. The lightning twines together through them, forming a thin circle like a giant halo made from the strands in a plasma lamp. Mide simply stands guard over the Harbinger, preparing to strike at the first sign of movement. The crackling halo above is already sparking almost excitedly. It probably doesnt matter if Mide ever lands a hit she only needs to protect Shona long enough for the Screaming Hymn to work her magic. These girls really do know what theyre doing, then. What do they need me for? But before the storm can strike again, Irakkia drowns out Shonas music with a wordless scream. Its voice is a radio shoved into my ear. A plume of static that makes me nauseous to look at bursts out from its body like a smoke bomb. When it fades, so has Irakkia. I freeze, searching the Wound for it, but its gone from my soul-sight too. Shona yells something I cant make out and unsummons her violin. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the storm above her fades from view. The two exchange a few more words I cant hear before Mide turns and points me out. THERE YOU AAARE! GRRREAT! SIT TIGHT, JUST A BIT LONGERRR! Shona shouts from across the distance, that same distortion carrying behind her voice, which, from how I feel her aura in the air, I guess is some sort of use of her power. She waves to me, then crouches, turns, and hops off the wall, clinging to the ledge for a moment before she starts to shimmy down. Her hands and feet simply cling to the flat surface until she moves them, and Mide follows the same way. Theres one question answered I was wondering how they got up there at all, unless the other side was completely different. They quickly touch down in the junkyard, dart through another chamber, and climb up its sides to skip into the next one, ignoring Irakkias elaborate maze completely. The Harbinger must have been trying to cut them off when it raised those new walls. The others have just started to scale the castle-mountain when the Wounds pale glow blinks on and off wildly, then goes dark. I yelp and gather death-mist into a cloak around myself, expecting the worst, but still no Harbinger. Why is this happening? Whats it doing now? The world isnt completely darkened, though something behind me casts its own flickering light. FUCK! OKAY! SAME PLAN! Shona yells. This time it''s just her regular voice with no added distortion. I guess she really is just that loud. I slowly turn back toward the castle, paying more attention to the Harbingers miasma than my bodys senses. My gaze settles on a single gnarled tower and climbs upward until it reaches a swirling orb of blindingly bright static crowning its peak. One of the lighthouse lanterns. I slam my eyes shut just as I spot it. When the ghostly lights swimming like sunspots in my retinas fade from view, everything goes dark. It remains dark when I try to look out again. Water pressure crashes down on me. Wait no it doesnt. Its a phantom sensation, another echo pushed onto me from somewhere else, it has to be, but the weight feels no less real for it. Above, something in the lantern room at the top of the spire is chanting, droning the same string of alien words over and over. I cant translate them, but I see them so clearly that they swallow my sight. A vision of a clear blue sky bending and folding itself into a kaleidoscope of many-colored stars like none Ive ever seen in our nights. Irakkia adds its voice to the choir, but theres something different about it. Its still a voice poorly constructed from untuned radios, speaking a language I can only maybe-translate through some magical instinct, so it feels stupid to try and read too much into its tone. Even so, it sounds like its choking on its words as it speaks. Like its sobbing. The starry night in my eyes tears itself open, exposing an endless field of nothing. Not darkness, not a white void, nothing, like my field of view shrunk until there was nothing left and now all I can see is what the space behind my head doesnt look like. The ground beneath me sharply tilts. Its sudden shift throws me off my feet, knocking me over with an impact like a club to my ribs. It feels for a moment like my clumsy drop into Yurfalns world, but I barely have time to register the dull, heavy ache spreading through my side before I start tumbling down the slope. Within seconds, Ive lost any idea of up or down or anything. I dont even feel like Im falling or moving at all, just spinning and spinning forever. Pain shakes me free from that impossible not-vision, but all I see is the trash-heap ground. It surrounds me on all sides, replacing even the sky. The surface seems to be repeating itself, but with every spin it shifts slightly, like the picture in a flip book. All I feel is the spinning of my head and the dizzy sickness in my gut and most of all the tiny scraps of broken metal that start to peek out from the junk between rotations, digging into me from all sides. Its the jagged gash on my arm over and over and over again. Im being ground up in a blender, and Im certain Ill be ripped apart scrape by shallow scrape ...until it suddenly stops, and I crash into the spiky surface one last time. A blast of red light briefly fills the dark. Theres a high-pitched hiss in Irakkias voice before I feel it drawing away in my soul-sense. My magic hasnt gone anywhere, but my failing strength feels almost entirely lost, leaking out through the tiny biting gashes all over my body. Its all I can do to crawl away from the rough ground. Hey! Hey, are you alright? Shonas voice asks. Through still-spinning vision, I can just see her in front of me, offering her hand. In answer, I just turn my head and retch. Bile burns in my mouth. Uh, yeah. Sorry, she mutters. We came fast as we could when we heard Heard what? Me, I guess. My throat hurts as much as everything else. I just sit there as my head slowly, slowly stops spinning. When I think I can see again, I look back over my shoulder. The slope I was falling from runs sharply down from my former perch above, but at the end, its stopped being a slope at all spiraled around itself and formed a not-quite-complete circle, which Irakkia was somehow rolling in place like a pipe, and me inside along with it, apparently? Beyond that, were on a wide, roughly-even stretch of ground. It slants uphill in one direction, where it connects to the winding wall that serves as a mountain road, but tall junk-heap hills surround us on every other side. A few thin bits of wire follow me around in the corner of my eye, until I notice that theyre tangled up with my hair and pluck them out. The sting of a few strands being torn away with them barely registers. Okay, I think were clear for now, Mide adds. She winces when she sees me, quickly looking away to keep watch on the Wound. It ran off when we got here. Whats next? Weve got everyone now, right? Shona says, looking down at me uncertainly. I take Shonas hand and let her pull me upright. She nods, satisfied, even as I prop myself up on the relatively smooth side of the little looping tunnel I''d been knocked around in. Ive never wanted my cane more. Its painful to move, even to breathe. Ill have to make sure Im breathing normally anyway there are complications you can prevent that way. At least I already know how to live while everything hurts. So lets go kill it! It doesnt seem to like fighting us all at once, she continues. ...I may still have to handle the planning. I hope I can do that, because its all I might be up to its hard enough to keep my head working, and I still dont know what anything Irakkias saying means. But when I think about it, there is something strange about the way its acting. If it just wanted to split us up and eat us one at a time, it shouldve hunted me down while I was stumbling through the maze. Maybe it wanted to figure out what I could do before it struck, but it had plenty of time to probe. It had me at its mercy again a moment ago, but it left me spinning long enough for help to arrive. Why? Is killing us really its goal? As far as I know, its actually rare for a Harbinger to just devour people whole or suck out their souls and leave an empty husk behind. They destroy their victims creatively, with their own uniquely horrid curses. What if thats the important part of what they do? How a Harbinger hurts people might matter more than how many it hurts or even how much theyre hurt. Yurfaln had its wasting sickness, Irakkia has the sky, the lighthouses, whatever those dream-scraps it vomits onto our souls are meant to do. Messing with our heads. Maybe it doesnt want to kill us as much as it wants us so lost in our own thoughts, or its, that we cant imagine ever having been anywhere else. I havent exactly cracked its puzzle and found its weakness, but Im... getting used to its approach. I can handle it, at least mentally. I hope they can too. But none of this tells us how to win, just how to survive. Has it showed you anything? Said anything to you? I ask. Theyve been through the Wound too. Maybe they have more of the pieces. Said? What are you talking about? Its a Harbinger! Mide yells over the background noise. Not in words, exactly, in nevermind. Thats a no. Is it strange to hear words from Harbingers? Not important right now. Okay, I, before it dropped me here I think theres something going on with those towers up top, the lighthouses. Theyre part of it, or it uses them for something. Maybe we could do something if we got there, but... Oh yeah? Shona asks. Sure, lets find out! Cover me! She grins and puts her bow to her violin, playing the first notes of a new melody. Its equally painful, but even with my limited knowledge of music, I can tell that its not unskilled random noise shes playing well, just in some death metal style Id never willingly listen to. Mide stands right by her side, shield at the ready. Shonas magic gathers in her storm clouds as she plays, spreading out through Irakkias miasma like a flare in the fog. Her music rises in speed and intensity in time with her gathering strength. To my soul-sense, her power feels like an unsettling tremor, a series of tiny shocks that runs through my brain and briefly short-circuit my thoughts. Soon Im so steeped in it that its hard to sense anything else. But I see the Screaming Hymns soul clearly, and I see now that it isnt just anger in her music. Thats definitely still there, but theres a strangely bright note running through it. Shona is it feels like shes not just venting her rage on the Harbinger, shes pouring her soul into her art, and shes glad for the chance to do it. Its both things at the same time, impossible to untangle one from the other. The electric weight in the air lifts, and I cover my ears, hoping to dim the coming noise. Mide does not. Finally, in the exact instant Shona plays the last notes of her song, four bolts of lightning lash out from the sky, wind together into a great spiral drill, and crash into the closest lighthouse. The thunder is louder than ever, snubbing my feeble try at blocking it out, and this time its joined by an avalanche of broken stone and falling trash. The tower topples, smashed at its base in a flash of impossible force. The ground beneath us rumbles violently as the lighthouses upper half falls over onto the mountains side. Its wreckage knocks several pieces of castle loose before it all goes crashing into the sea. And the brilliant static lantern falls with it. The Wound bends and tears around the point where the orb meets the sea, flickering like jagged interference on a TV screen. The distortion spikes toward the mountain, covering a wide stretch of it in a wave of blurring haze. The lantern doesnt sink, but dissolves, spreading out over the waters surface until theres nothing left of it. When its gone, the interference dies down, but doesnt quite vanish. Scattered around the now-darkened side of the castle, chunks of debris and even a few still-standing buildings are slowly being replaced by patches of grainy visual noise, which scatter in a nonexistent breeze once theyve swallowed the material entirely. Bits of static start to blanket the dark side of the mountain like snow. We stare out at the destruction in stunned silence, until Shona breaks into a fit of delighted belly laughter. Wow, I just, I good call, Eyna! she forces out between bursts of helpless cackling. Who knew it was gonna be so fucking EASY? How bout that! Hey! Harbinger! Whatve you got to say about that? Anything? The sets just getting started, so COME ON OUT! JOIN THE SHOW! With that, she raises her bow and begins another loud, heavy song. I think she might be having fun. Its terrifying. Mide may even agree, by her shaky smile and lowered gaze. Yes, were winning, but when I first felt the flow of my magic, I remember wondering if I could get lost in it, wash myself away in the flood. I didnt know just what that would mean. Maybe I do now. But only a few seconds into the performance, a new sound howls through the Wound, the endless unsteady wail of a broken storm siren pitching constantly higher and lower. Just ahead, a bright thin shape like a white shadow comes into view, darting along the dark ground in a wide zigzag pattern for barely a second before Irakkia springs out of it, tightly wound around itself. Three of its limbs strike out at Shona as it uncoils. Mide is just quick enough to push her out of the way, cutting the song short. Claws meant for Shona lash right into Mides chestplate with enough force to bowl her over, launching her flat onto her back. It swiftly goes for the kill, but when its glass beak meets Mide''s hastily-raised shield, it leaves her and throws itself at Shona, whos now wielding her electrified bow as a desperate defensive weapon. The brawl quickly becomes too fast and chaotic for me to follow. I cant actually fight, not the way these girls can. My legs are still barely holding me up. What do I do here? I still feel the seeds Ive planted in the Wound, but theyre distant, buried somewhere inside the mountain-castle no, actually, when I look at my spread theyve somehow moved even farther away, to the far end of one arm of the spiral. I could start again, but my magic is so slow next to anything happening here, and I dont even know if other Keepers are immune just because I dont want to infect them. Without some way to make my curse really hurt, to corrupt Irakkia or turn its world against itself, Im My breath flees my lungs in a hiss. Blood seeps down my back, hot and wet and sticky. Something sharp pierces my chest, stopping just short of skewering me. Theres a strange delay before a sudden burning heat screams out from it. The burning gives way to raw, cold agony, and then I stop feeling anything at all, leaving just a vague awareness of muffled sounds and motion. A blurred golden figure that must be Mide rushes into view, standing over me. ...All my dumb ideas and theories and it turns out killing us will still do in a pinch. What a stupid thought to die on. How am I even still thinking? Still conscious? No, no, of course I am. I cant Im not going to die. I wont. Whatevers happened to the useless shell that carries me around didnt happen to me. The real me is still here. My soul is strong where my body is weak stronger, even, flush with Yurfalns stolen power, and I will never die. Shimmering green wisps of my mist snake out from my broken body, latch their lamprey grips onto Mides essence, and start to drink. Other Horizons 2-6 Life surges into me through pale green tendrils. Nothing could be less like my regular infusions. A dozen showers of warm rain fall through my body in all directions, pooling into my wounds until I can hardly feel them at all. Still it flows, filling me with vigor Ive only ever dreamed of having. The well I draw from is clear and deep, deep enough that even now... Whats I stop, stop it, stopstopstop! A gasping voice breaks my focus. The well the person, Mide cries out through clenched teeth, crumpled to her knees in front of me. Shaky arms struggle to hold her off the ground. Otherwise, shes unmoving, staring down at nothing in silent, wide-eyed terror. What am I thinking? What am I doing? How much have I taken from her? Its harder to pull myself away this time. This was a desperate spasm, a hand thrown up to grab the edge of a cliff just before I fell to my death. The magic, born from my terror in the face of certain death, doesnt want to let go. Something protests in the back of my mind, and its whisper sends an echo of dread shuddering through me. Not enough. Not enough. There will never be enough. No, no, not something. Theres only one voice in my mind. Its just my own voice thinking my own thoughts, and theres no one and nothing else to blame. This is my power and no matter how wonderful it feels to revel in it, to wipe away my every trouble, to sate the hungry wounds gaping across my body, this has to stop. This has to stop now, before before... no, before my mind can go there, I tense my entire body so hard I begin to shake and force my magic to release its grip. The mist slinks back and draws into me, carrying one last gulp of warm essence as I inhale it. Wha Did, did you what just...? Mide stammers out in dazed fragments. Is she stable? ...If not, can I even do anything about it? Cold pressure in my gut reminds me of my own situation. One thing at a time. I clench my teeth, dig one foot into the ground, and take a slow step forward, pushing away from the thin spike in my back. My nerves burst into flames all over again, far worse than when I was actually stabbed but its only a brief flare. As I dislodge the spike, wellness surges into the wound, smothering the pain in gentle warmth. Soon all I feel there is a crawling, almost ticklish sensation that must be flesh slowly mending itself. Im glad I cant see it. Mides sudden pallor and unsteady shivering dont go away, but they dont get worse, either. Her aura feels much more polluted than the last ones I took from beneath the ozone smell of Shonas charged power is a distinct, sickly sweet scent like rotten fruit, if an odor not nearly as strong as the seventh floor''s. Theres no time to inspect her soul closely, but at a glance her pain feels roughly how I feel on a bad day. Not the worst days. I take and release a long, heavy breath. Shes not dead, and as for what she is no time for that. My magic definitely wont work in reverse. I already know that theres no point in even trying. I cant just unmake this mess. All I can do is finish this before it gets worse. Irakkia isnt waiting for us. Listen, I, all I can do right now is go help Shona. You just stay safe, okay? Out of the way, close enough that we dont split up. I lean down to help her up, wrapping one arm around her and bracing her on my shoulder as she stands. The moment she finds her footing, she shoves me away with whatever strength she has left still enough to send me stumbling back a few steps. Shock and fear and anger mingle on her face. ...Fair, I mutter. Im going. Remember to keep breathing, steadily as you can. Itll help. Mide opens her mouth, but I cant hear whatever she mumbles over the ambient noise. Then she just nods weakly and steps aside, leaning on her shield at a healthy distance from the wall that stabbed me. Shes slow and shaky, but still looks more mobile than me on my worse days. Itll be bad if the Harbinger goes after her, but it has other priorities. Elsewhere, the hunt is still on, and Shona has become its sole target. The nearest standing lighthouse is still bright enough to see by, and at the distant end of this roughly clear space, about as far away as the cars that pass by my seventh floor window, she and Irakkia dart over the trash-pile hills at dizzying speed if the chamber werent so wide, they might be looping around me too quickly to track. Still wielding her bow like a sword, Shona rockets away from the pursuing Harbinger. A stream of red sparks crackles through the air behind her, and lightning strikes from the still-growing storm above mark her passage, crashing down on the spot exactly where she was an instant ago. Twice I watch her dodge out of the Harbingers way by dropping over the side of a hill, gliding along on one hand and one foot like shes skating on almost-vertical ice, then pulling herself back up over the ridge in a swift lunge, all without slowing down. Irakkia is never far behind, almost throwing itself at her with every movement. Some of her jolts delay it for a moment, but more often than not it simply contorts itself out of the way and keeps moving. Sometimes it skitters like a spider, sometimes it bends itself into an upright wheel shape, with its limbs serving as spokes as it cycles forward, and sometimes it simply winds itself up and launches itself through the air in the span of an instant. Its voice spews a constant warbling torrent of unreadable nonsense sounds all the while. I already know I cant join that chase. The hills look too tall, steep, and tightly-packed to climb without magical help, and Im not suddenly superhuman much better than usual, but thats only saying so much. Instead I head for the far end of the upward-slanting ground between the hills, where a thin mountain-path wall leads back toward the castle, planning to cut them off as they circle around. My body feels lighter and stronger than Ive ever dared to imagine. My legs have stopped shaking, and I can run, really run, easy as anything. Air itself is kinder to me. Its no struggle at all to breathe, and Im not so much as winded by the time I reach my destination. Not yet, anyway. Never enough, that hungry echo inside me repeats. But it doesnt have to be. Just enough to manage right this moment. Whats my plan here? I still have no idea how to break Irakkia. Until then, if Im going to do anything useful, Ill have to bring the fight to me. Soon, Shona rounds the near corner and heads toward me, bringing the Harbinger with her. Down here! I yell, and pull the glove off my right hand. Shona throws herself off the wall, again without slowing down a bit. She skates along the rough slanted ground, leading Irakkia out in a wide arc away from the castle trail, then makes a sudden sharp turn toward me. Six thin bolts of lightning strike behind her. The Harbinger darts away as they strike, then snaps back like a rubber band the instant the light fades and continues its charge. Its still fast approaching when she reaches me, but her short-lived fence held it back for just long enough that it isnt immediately upon us. Stay close and hold your breath, I say. I prick my ring finger on a card in my spread, picking the one that feels right on raw instinct. Ribbons of noxious green essence twirl out from the diagram and form a circle around us. In the instant before they take their final shape, I push outward with my mind as hard as I can. A bank of cold emerald fog riddled through with inky black veins floods into the Wound, leaving a thin column of clean air in the center, and then the blackness in the cloud slithers down into the trash-pile floor like roots searching for water. The white noise in the air dims, the way snowy nights seem to swallow all the sound in the world, as my mist begins to spread and seep from the ground. Irakkia screeches and slams three of its front limbs into the ground, skidding along with a horrible metal-on-metal grinding sound until it comes to a halt, stopping just short of charging through the mist. Its neck stretches left, then right. When it sees that the cloud goes all the way around, its glass head settles, fixing its glare on us. I angle my gaze away, breaking eye contact. Just in case. Okay, I sigh. I wasnt certain this would work. Dont move. Mide! Wheres Mide? Shona hollers into my ear. Mide is where I left her, still propped up on her shield and watching us closely. I cant read her expression from here, but I point her out. ...Over there. Hurt. Stable. Shell be safe for now, its clearly you it wants. Speaking of, that thing with the lighthouse. This should buy us some time, so quick... can you do it again? Shona frowns, glances over at Mide, then... Oh, can I! she says. Got anything to say about it, big buddy? she growls at the Harbinger. Her attitude instantly shifts from concern for her partner to what I can only imagine as bloodlust as she bares her teeth, summons her violin, and begins to play. The Harbinger wails in protest. It balances on one long limb and stretches up, studying the cloud from above. While its standing in place, I gather up a plume of fog from the surrounding cloud with my will and shove it at the Harbinger, who scurries out of the way with a harsh whistle. Worth a try. It skitters back and forth around us, searching for any gaps or thin spots, and its voice rises to a panicked siren shriek as it fails to find one, like its trying to drown the song out. Its not working. Im sure itll find a way through eventually, but Shonas power is already rising to a familiar peak. My teeth chatter. Tiny shocks prickle across and through my skin, feeling like theyre dancing over my bones. Then Irakkia circles back around, placing itself between us and Mide, and spreads itself out like a giant knotted-up kite, still spinning sideways on its limbs in midair, shredding space like a blender. What is it doing? Before I can tell, the ground beneath our feet vanishes, plunging us into a dark, narrow hole. Shona''s music screeches to a halt. A murmured "AhC" is the only thing I manage to push out of my lungs. I slam down hard on my side and start tumbling. The hole winds constantly back and forth, sending me skidding down one rough wall and slamming into another, then another, reaching for grips, footholds, anything as I fall. They dont exist. The surfaces are jagged enough to bite wherever I touch them and no more. But before the Wound can drop me into another endless loop, I crash onto solid ground. This chamber is dark, but lit just enough by a single gigantic screen embedded in the scrapheap walls that I can see my vision spinning. I wouldve thought a winding tunnel would be safer and less painful than a straight drop down, and I wouldve been wrong. Red light shines from above. Shona slides around the shafts last turn and into the room, touching down easily on her feet. She looks like she made it through that shockingly well, with only a few visible scrapes. Until I spot her left hand, scratched to a pulp and covered in blood. You okay? she asks, and offers me her good hand. No. But lets go. I take it and let her pull me up. Its awful how familiar the sensation of sharp bits of trash raking over me is becoming, but through my new vigor and the rush of fighting for my life, Im distantly aware of the scrapes more than I feel them. I sure feel that. Yknow, this... Shona growls, and flings her arms out in a wide circle, gesturing to the Wound. Blood trickles down from her injured hand. This LITERAL MOUNTAIN OF BURNING GARBAGE WORLD has been ruining everything since we got here! Its honestly pissing me off way more than the monster! It is awful... its all just in the way, though. Walls its throwing up. Were stuck here, and we still need to kill the thing. And how do we get there? Think its gonna hold still anytime soon? Ill tell you how, we burn the whole place down first! See how it likes us when its out of hidey-holes and caves to dump us into! In emphasis, she raises her bow and looses an explosive burst of lightning into the ceiling tunnel. Thunder crashes through the tiny hollow like a blow to my head. Its echo rattles around and around in my ears, which I rush to cover as tiny chunks of concrete and clouds of dust fall over me. A warning wouldve helped. Listening with my soul, I still hear Irakkias cries, but all the actual physical sounds are replaced by the shrill phantom buzz of thunder smashing through my ears... so I feel the rumbling of the walls above us starting to cave in rather than hear it. Shona grimaces, then shrugs it off and says something I cant hear. I cup my ear and shake my head, at which point she drops her bow, grabs my arm roughly with her good hand, and charges down the nearest apparent passage carved into the side of the shaft. Even with my new strength, Im slowing her down. Another jolt of static bites into me, and we go gliding through the tunnels at terrifying speed. And the Harbinger follows, screeching its distant siren wail all the while I sense it without seeing it, because I can hardly see anything but Shona and an impossible blur of motion around us. Tiny red sparks spill from Shona''s back as she darts forward, creating a shower of faint flickering lights to augment the occasional wall-screen. Their unsteady glow isnt nearly enough to see by, but that doesnt stop Shona hurtling through the dark. Neither do the sharp bends in the path seem to slow her down at all. She completely ignores the idea of momentum as she moves, turning at her full speed the instant she shifts her facing but she does narrowly avoid slamming me into the wall around one tight corner. I cant possibly measure how far we travel through that cramped maze, but eventually dim, distant light shining through one fork leads us yes, outside. Sort of. It takes a bit to be sure, since were surrounded by walls on all sides, but when I look straight up its definitely the dark sky rather than a cavern ceiling. As soon as were clear of the tunnels, Shona brings us to an instant stop. I expect to crash into her, and it feels strange when it doesnt happen. She immediately whirls around, steps to my side, and resummons her bow, loosing a crimson blast into the tunnel we just came from. At least this time I manage to cover my ears. It even helps a little, and the debris it blows loose fall somewhere in the tunnels, distant enough to get lost in the background noise. My ears are starting to work again, using a bit of my stolen life to repair themselves faster. Looking around, were in a wide, deep inground pit, about as deep as a small skyscraper is tall. Its shape is a loose, uneven spiral, with parts of the walls barely curving at all and others jutting out far enough to form thin ledges even a few like incomplete, detached pieces of a spiral ramp, all made of trash pounded roughly flat. A lighthouses pale rays beam into the pit at an angle, only directly shining on the upper third of the walls. And peeking out from one of those platforms, Irakkia glares down at us. I tap Shona and silently point it out. My ears have recovered enough to hear the words when she yells up at it: Hey, how the fuck did you get out here? She brandishes her bow, aiming for its perch. Careful with that! Blow this place up and itll cave in on us, I hiss. Maybe we dont die, but at best were stuck back in the maze? When I tilt my head to indicate the passage we came from, its completely gone. Probably we die. Shona scowls and folds her arms, dropping the bow with a dramatic groan. Fine, fine! Lets get outta here and THEN blow everything up. Alright. How? Like this, she says, and claps my shoulder again. Theres a now-familiar snap of static, but something is different about this one. Buzzing heat runs through me and settles in my limbs, lingering there as an uncomfortable pins-and-needles feeling. Then she sprints straight at the nearest wall and hops onto it, clinging there in a position like shes climbing a ladder. Just do what I do. Itll be easy. She looks back over her shoulder and motions with one hand for me to join her. Ever gone mountain climbing before? Huh? Why would she even ask? Im too floored by the question to answer. Just kidding! Me neither! Whew, if I only couldve seen your whole face just now! Shona cackles. She turns and starts to scamper up the wall, giggling and mumbling a cheery little song to herself as she climbs. The tone behind her words is strained. ...Nothing for it. I take a deep breath, latch myself to the wall, and follow her path as closely and quickly as I can. Theres a slight tug of resistance whenever I pull a hand or foot loose, and a brief static sting every time I reattach myself to the surface. Its exhausting, heaving my own weight up over and over without pausing even a second for a break. My joints are on fire. I feel myself tapping my stolen strength to press on, and even then I take frequent breaks to glance around in search of Irakkia. Shona, on the other hand, darts up and up like its nothing, stopping only to look down and wait impatiently for me to catch up. Her torn-up hand barely seems to slow her down she just treats it like she might treat walking with a slight limp, timing her climb such that it spends as little time as possible supporting her weight. Things get rougher as we climb. The spiraling walls tighten, forcing us to twist and adjust ourselves with them. Irregular ridges and slanted platforms cut off any straight paths up. Finally, we come to a point where a single ledge stretches out all along the walls and covers almost the entire shaft, like were in a manhole looking up at a slightly-displaced cover. The one sliver of open space is directly across from us. Im certain this wasnt there before. When I first looked, I could definitely see straight up to the light outside. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. This doesnt stall Shona at all, though. She moves one hand at a time onto the ledges underside, then swings her legs up, tethers her feet to its surface, and goes scuttling along upside-down like its no big change. Sorry, Shona, Im not doing that. I just start to edge horizontally around the shaft, slowed down by my awkward sideways crawls over the ridges that rise from the walls like waves on a sea of wreckage. Shona makes it to the gap well before me, of course. She grabs the edge and hangs there for a moment, fidgeting, idly swinging in place over the pit below. Im a little more than halfway around when she hoists herself up, apparently tired of waiting. Irakkias warning siren blares. Visions flood my mind of the shadowy outline of a person being unwrapped entirely into a long strip of cloth, like a mummy with nothing underneath. No, not quite nothing the inside of the cloth is lined with unblinking bloodshot eyes, their irises black and spotted with tiny static stars. Shona shrieks in terror until her voice is muffled, then silenced. Every muscle in my body seizes up. I cant move. I cant breathe. When the paralysis passes, I do the only thing I can quicken my pace over the sharp spiral curves in the wall. My heart thuds wildly, but not in the rapid, rhythmic pulse of overexertion its harder rather than faster, each pulse like a tiny impact in my chest, aggravated by the constant bites of electricity in my limbs. That inner pressure only gets stronger when I reach the platforms edge, where a dense fence of thin, outward-facing spikes now lines the ridge on all sides. I peek through a gap in the concrete, Irakkia has unfurled into a shape like an octopus wrapping itself around its prey. Its glass head swivels to stare at me, but beyond that, it doesnt move. Not worried about me or just more interested in her? Beneath its noise, Shonas voice is still faintly audible from here, whimpering wordlessly. As I climb further up and over the spikes, I hunt for ideas, cutting all the ones I find off as useless in the same instant they come to me. I''m not betting again on the hope that it might rather not kill us, so I cant approach in any way that doesnt leave Irakkia plenty of time to finish its helpless prey off. Cant fight it head-on, cant use my fog without risk of infecting Shona... Just as I clear the spikes and drop down onto the ledge, still not knowing what to do, theres a sound of its the high grinding whine of a trash compactor at work, but my body reacts to it with a pained shiver like I get when someone bites their silverware as they eat. Tearing my eyes from the Harbinger, I glance to one side. I''m now flanked by a huge rectangular pillar of garbage jutting out from the wall behind me. Silver film-grain dots and lines dance all over its surface. Its not moving, but I still hear that sound. My stomach drops. I dash toward the Harbinger, the only way I can go. Immediately, a terrible car-crash roar fills the air and shakes the entire ridge, knocking me to my knees. I look over my shoulder, where an identical pillar has extended from the wall on my other side and smashed into the first one. I just narrowly avoided getting smeared between them. Irakkia surges forward, launching itself at me in a violent storm of colors. I pull at my magic on a panicked reflex, but its upon me in the same moment. Knife-clawed hands, four or five or six of them, rush to unwrap me like a present. Bright, sharp pain rakes over my skin, numbed only slightly by the chill of death-mist pouring out through my wounds. I feel my sickness taking root in the Harbinger, but it pushes on anyway, tearing at me with a hateful howl. Distantly shocked that Im still aware at all, I wrench my eyes shut and reach through the fog with my power, searching for the Harbingers strength, heart, health, I cant tell, does it have health, can I A wave of burning-hot air rushes over me. Thunder cracks through Irakkias screeching. I crane my head up which feels like an effort, like all my energy is leaking out through the long, shallow gashes all over my body and crack one eye open. The Harbinger is sparking with red light, convulsing like its having a seizure. Then it coils into itself, the motion a little slower and messier than earlier, and bounds up through the shaft, touching down on a much higher ledge. A fragment of my power moves with it, slowly eating away at it. At the center of the ledge stands Shona, playing her violin trying to, anyway. The music is rougher and harsher than ever, and I dont think its just because of her injured hand. She doesnt look much more hurt than she was, but her wide, wild eyes are severely bloodshot. And keep your stupid fucking little claws out of my head, Shona snarls. Cmon. Lets end this already! She smashes her violin against the ground, letting it disappear after it splits in half with an awful twang, and sprints to the wall, continuing her climb. I dont join her just yet. I need a moment to bury my pain in stolen health. Warmth floods through me, knitting my wounds shut. Even my dress mends itself, filling tears in the cloth with pale green light that leaves it good as new. But as my magic works, I realize that again, something doesnt make sense here: why not just make a circle? Or form a dome around me and flatten it into the floor with me still inside? Irakkia was going for the kill, and theres nothing I couldve done to escape if it just surrounded me with walls and crushed me in the center. Twisting a maze around me. Bending the ground beneath us. Stabbing me in the back. Ive never actually seen the Wound change... no, that isnt quite right. I saw it start to do something while it fought the others on the wall outside, creating some disturbance to strike at them from behind, only for it to fizzle into nothing. It looked a lot like the distortions around the pillars that nearly smashed me. I glance back at those pillars. The point where they crashed together is a little off-center. One stopped moving, but the other carried right on. Broken perspectives, seeing but not seeing, seeing things that arent there. Because I watched it happen, it didnt happen. It cant change the world where we can see it! I yell. Watch the walls! Watch our blind spots! I tense up, waiting a beat for the Wound to crush me or skewer me and prove me wrong. It never comes. In fact, when I look up at Shona, I immediately spot a flickering silver patch on the wall, which vanishes. Kay! Shona says simply, and keeps climbing, pausing to sweep her gaze around the pit every few feet. I stay put and watch her. Bits of twisting space constantly bloom just out of sight and disappear the instant I focus on them. Irakkias shrill voice yowls and seethes from above. Before long, Shona clears the top of the pit and waves to me. She summons her violin and starts to play again, creating a halo of lightning circling just around her, but keeps looking down at me. I take the hint and start my own ascent, following her route as closely as I can remember it. Climbing takes most of my strength and attention, but I do catch several more distortions in the corners of my eyes. As I enter the last stretch, where the lighthouses rays shine on the walls, two claps of thunder ravage my ears. Shona shouts something I cant hear over the ringing. At last, I clamber out of the pit and back onto solid ground, winded and gasping for breath even through my boosted vitality. Were outside again, in another wide junkyard strewn with trash. From the look of it, were somehow higher on the mountain than we were when Irakkia first dropped us into the tunnels. At one end, a barred gatehouse leads somewhere into the central castle. Whoof, Shona huffs. Well, I think were all good! HEY, MIDE! I KNOW YOURE THERE! COME ON OUT, WERE GONNA KILL THIS FUCKING THING! She twirls a hand and dismisses her thin lightning barrier, then leans down to help me up. Slowly, Mide peeks around a wall in the corner. That was fast these two can probably sense each other well enough that shes been on her way for a while. She doesnt look better, but she doesnt look worse either, and crosses the chamber at an ordinary, slightly hurried pace, panting and putting her hands to her knees when she reaches us. You two where did you go? What happened? she asks, her voice still weak and raspy. Eh, nevermind that, were all just fine now! Shona says with a slight uncertain delay, like shes mostly trying to convince herself. All set to take out the monster, too. Weve just gotta eh, Eyna, tell her what you told me. Im gonna start ripping this thing apart! She waves a hand dismissively, recreates her violin, and sets to playing a new song. More than angry, this one sounds violent. Like it could actually walk up to me and thrash me to a pulp. Right, yes. Irathe Harbingerhas some problem with sight. Er, with being seen. It can twist its Wound all sorts of ways, but it cant do anything within our line of sight, I say. ...Okay. Mide nods slightly. She has a hard time meeting my eyes. I guess I cant blame her. Anyway, I dont push it. I just turn and stand with my back to Shona, then gesture left, pointing Mide to a spot where she forms the third corner of a triangle. So if we stay like this yeah, close together, backs to each other, it shouldnt be able to do anything to us. Its hurt, it wont win if it just charges in. Shona, the lighthouses. Are you still okay to take them out? Pshh, please, way ahead of you! That first one was just the opening act! Its gonna get so much better! she answers. Here we go, then. The air takes on a dry, prickling weight as Shona plays. The whole world rumbles, and the clouds above gather and swirl into a hurricane of fury. Irakkia frantically whirs and wails in the distance. Tiny holes in the world rip themselves into being all around the courtyard, and close in the same instant, so many of them coming so quickly that it looks at times like Im watching a grainy old film of the world rather than seeing it with my eyes. Tiny bright dots and squiggly silver lines fill my vision. Many most of them are in plain sight, placed where theres no way we could miss them Irakkia is just throwing out everything it can to see what sticks, now, and none of it does. Maybe ten seconds into the song, the Harbinger crawls out from inside the castle and perches on the gatehouse, staring straight at us. My head swims as its mind crashes into mine once more. Theres no vision this time, no message, just a raw torrent of its madness. Its absolute refusal to trust its own senses. But Ive already walked these paths with it, and its focus is now split between three of us, punishing its overreach with failure on all fronts. I quickly glance back at the others. Mide looks a little shaken, but Shona all it did was give her more rage to work with. No, not again, fuck off fuck off fuck OFF! Shona screams, and unleashes her own storm of power. I plug my ears as six lightning strikes spear down from above, forking and forking into the outline of a giant tree, then converge as one on the second lighthouse. This time, the explosions dont just topple the tower, but blast out and tear away huge chunks of the castle all around it. Falling wreckage crushes more structures until barely anything is left, even before the lantern plunges beneath the sea and it all disintegrates into a carpet of bright dust. Irakkia cries out once more, but not in pain or battle-rage. Its tone is lower, less forceful. Again, I cant help but read emotion into its voice, and it sounds exhausted. The constant screeches of electrical interference fade. Even the ever-present static shhhhh is quieter. ...Did we win? Mide asks. Then the static screen in the sky turns back on, but only a small part of it only in a small circle above the last lighthouse, with the rest remaining completely dark and slowly becoming engulfed by Shona''s rumbling clouds. Without looking away from us, Irakkia skitters backwards, climbing onto what remains of the castle and rushing toward the lighthouse. The static above resolves into an actual image, what looks like a bright blue patch of the actual sky. Is it running away? Can it do that? I cant stop it, and if this was all for nothing NO YOU DONT, Shona declares. She doesnt shout it. The words just carry themselves over all the music and noise, out into the entire Wound. Almost immediately, another forest of lightning lashes out into the Wound from the roiling clouds that have begun to dominate the sky, straight into the last slice of the castle. The destruction that follows is an avalanche. An earthquake breaks out beneath our feet as the entire world breaks. Mide and I yelp in shock, and I look around for any stable bit of wall to hold onto, finding none before the junkyard goes sliding down the mountain like a sled. Shona just kneels, tethers her hands and feet to the ground, and laughs and laughs and laughs all the way down. I follow her lead and crouch, doing my best to press myself into the platform, and somehow it works enough that Im not launched into the sea. Finally, our crumbling platform slides into the water with an enormous splash. Somehow, it floats, an island of trash drifting out to sea. Another piece of falling wreckage crashes into the water just after us, stirring up a wave that drenches us all. Seemingly at random, pieces of rubble all around us start to disintegrate into plumes of static, all of it fading away like dust on the wind. Further up, Irakkia leaps between twisting spires, doing anything it can to gain height. Then, as it goes to jump from one tower to the next, its destination collapses into nothing, and the Harbinger falls, joining the ruins of its castle in their landslide. Still it runs, jumping and scrambling up the avalanche until a foothold just beneath it abruptly bursts into a cloud of static snow, and it gets swept away in the collapse, plummeting down the slope. Its limbs lash out for anything to pull itself up by, finding nothing. When Irakkia touches the waters surface, another burst of distortion rips through the world, faster and stronger than the interference that had burst from the sinking lanterns. Everything in sight rips itself apart and then reassembles itself in an instant, like someone grabbed the film in a movie theater and started shredding it by hand, only to have the act itself rewound back to the beginning and then repeated over and over. When I can see clearly again, Irakkia is thrashing in the sea like a drowning animal. Its veils have soaked through, dulling their wild colors, and its storm of dizzying motion has faltered the cloth is floating limply on the water, bulging in places like shapeless things are trying to surface underneath them. Why would it fill its Wound with water if it couldnt swim? Really? Thats it? THATS the way youre gonna die? Shona laughs. Hey, suit yourself! She starts to play again, and her music is frenzied, now. Its stopped being even a painfully loud song and blurred into wild, shapeless noise, like making an art form of screaming. The sky is completely overcast and shimmering with the flashes of Shona''s storm. In time with the song, lightning strikes the water again and again, lashing into the Harbinger and everything else until the sea is boiling and Irakkia is no longer splashing and grasping for land, just twitching in random useless spasms. At last, all at once, Irakkias entire body breaks into a shower of tiny bright particles. Only its core remains, an orb of shifting patterns like a black and white kaleidoscope floating above the water. It looks at first like its approaching Shona, but what its actually doing is bending the world, steadily shrinking the distance between her and it until she raises a hand and pushes into the air, releasing a few red sparks with a buzzing jolt. Then it just hovers there, still. Soon, all that remains of the Wound are the crimson typhoon above and a few scattered pieces of wreckage floating like islands. Dots of static fall like snow in a blizzard, resting on the seas surface as they touch down. The sea itself is beginning to dry up, replaced by nothing but a gradually shrinking emptiness as the nightmare collapses on itself. Good show, good show! Real exciting first outing here! Shona chirps. Well, Eyna, deals a deal! Wanna do the honors, girls? She steps away and gives us firm celebratory pats on the back. I shudder as her touch leaves a damp, slightly sticky spot between my shoulders. Okay, so how do we do this? I ask. Mide glances at me from the corner of her eye, then shrugs weakly. If their Messenger didnt explain that part, I guess we just do it at the same time? I reach out for the heart with my will. Mide does the same. As it was with Yurfaln, the lingering eyes-on-my-back pressure of Irakkias miasma steadily burns away, and we reach beneath it as one, grasping for for... Something is wrong. When I absorbed Yurfaln, there was a strange but satisfying moment of understanding. I felt its last feelings, heard its last words. I knew it, as much as I could know a Harbinger. As Irakkias Wound breaks down, I feel that same flash of insight starting to take shape ...and then were back on the observation deck, and its all gone, slipping from my grasp in an instant. It feels like jolting awake in the middle of an interesting dream, realizing Ill never know how it ends and I probably wont remember it at all in a minute. We tore the Harbinger into messy, uneven chunks, like sharing a book by shredding all its pages into unreadable scraps and dividing those up, and while I think I claimed the bigger share, Im certain much of it is just gone. Mide seems to shake off the confusion of it all faster than me. When I come to my senses, shes taken Shonas hand and put her other palm to the ground. Shona shivers and clenches her teeth as bolts of red light arc through Mide and into the deck. What are they doing? Something to do with that way Shona seemed to get high on her power? The portal above the deck has vanished, but its still the scene of a disaster. Irakkias victims dont look or sound any better for its death, save that the frizzy-haired girl by the wall has passed out. Weve done what we can. Maybe more, if that kid comes out any better for our trouble. Whew, that was kind of a lot, Shona eventually breathes. Thanks. You alright? Mide nods. We should call for the Sanctuary, she says in a weak, strained voice. ~~~ So we leave the victims to the people who might be able to help them. I let Shona do the talking with the first responders while they clean and bandage her hand. I dont know what happened to the boy, and I have more pressing things to worry about. Its solidly twilight, now, the blues of the sky giving way to a blur of soft, diffuse colors. When its all over, I start to head toward the hospital, not sure what else to do or say, and the others follow. Shona tries a few times to start up cheery team spirit conversations about how great we were, which all fizzle and die. A few blocks from the tower, Mide breaks the uneasy quiet. Eyna, what did you do to me in there? I freeze. I Do? What? What are you talking about? Shona asks. I dont know. What am I talking about, Eyna? Mide says, glaring straight at me. Her voice has regained some of its strength. In the Wound, she, she got hurt. Bad. I went to protect her and she drained me somehow, I dont know what or what for. It felt awful. It felt like, like a Like a Harbingers bite, she doesnt say. Dread and guilt settle into a suffocating weight in my chest. Shona turns to me, pale and wide-eyed. Is that true? Thats you didnt say anything like What was I going to say? What magic words could I use to make what I do anything but monstrous? Sorry, my mistake! Next time Ill load up on normal peoples health in advance! That you were going to, what, stab your team for power? Mide finishes. Do you think I like it? Do you think you think I designed my magic this way? I just wanted more than anything to eat people? Words tear out faster than I can really think them. Youre a Keeper too, you know thats not how Im not look, I just took enough that I wouldnt die! Its disgusting and I hate it but its all Ive got and I have to do this and I just dont want to die, okay? Yeah, were Keepers, and Keepers dont do shit like that! What do you mean you have to? What is it you need so badly, anyway? Mide asks. My throat locks up. I take an unsteady step back, then another. Mide, you cant just ask that! Shona snaps. I blink I cant imagine why shed stand up for me on anything. Mide stares at her open-mouthed. She probably feels the same way. I should go, I say. I dont think thisll work. Hey, hold on! Whatever happened, we can sort it out! Just, just wait a second, okay? We cant understand if you dont say anything! Shona says. Shes still following me, still acting like were friends, just having a little fight before we make up the next morning. Just leave me alone! I flare. Shona flinches away from the deepening shadows around me, then lowers her gaze, nods, and turns to rejoin Mide. Its almost worse than if they both hated me. Once Im sure theyre gone, I brush the tears from my eyes and find a dark corner to dismiss my magic in. Im done with teamwork. This group was awful. No, Im sure those two do just fine together. Im the only problem. Duet 2-7 Im heading out! Bye! Shona shouted through her house. Dont slam the Shona was out the door before Mom could speak the last word. As she left, she turned around, pulled the front door all the way open, then smashed it back into its frame with every bit of strength she had, smiling as it made a satisfying crash. One of those small protests she could usually get away with, and her savior already waited just outside. Mide stood by the fence, waving. Mom wouldnt scream at her where someone else could see and, Goddess forbid, think less of the family. Shona ran down the driveway to join her, never looking back. One of those nights? Mide asked. Shed bundled up heavily, pulled up her coats fur-lined hood and wrapped half her face in a white wool scarf. Meh, no more than any other. Theres just some points you gotta make whenever you can, yknow? Shona said, and nestled into her own scarf. Neither of them were winter people, but it was nice wearing enough layers that no one recognized her on the street. ...Maybe? Ill take your word for it, Mide said, and off they went. It was a sunny but colorless end-of-November day, the kind where the only feature of the season was cold, wet air the leaves had all fallen and been cleared away, but the first snow hadnt quite made it there. Dreary as it was out, the small crowd around them still lent it some life. Whatever the weather, the sidewalks in New Claris were always busy. Walking is good for you and for the planet, that was the constant refrain. Shona often spent the walk to school picking people out and making up the stories of their lives in her mind. For all they shared, Mide had never gotten the appeal of the game, so she usually did it silently. Most importantly, she kept an eye out for yep, there went Lizard Boy! Her favorite! Lizard Boy was a quiet kid toward the younger end of middle-school age. He wore a uniform in one of the blue-and-green plaid styles shared between most Clarish schools and walked a big white and black-speckled lizard the size of a very short, long dog on a harness. At least two or three times a week, theyd spot and pass by him on this route the lizards pace wasnt particularly quick, especially today. Could lizards be out in the cold? Apparently this one could. Do you think hes actually going to school like that? Mide whispered. How? I have so many questions. Whats there to question? Obviously he just rolled on in with his buddy one day, both their heads held high, and they never let anybody tell them they were doing something weird. Theyd never asked Lizard Boy what was going on with him, and Shona never planned to. Her version was probably cooler than the truth. The streets grew busier the further they went. Slowly, classmates familiar faces joined the crowd, and shortly after they were in the courtyard of Saint Riawals School, looking up at the huge central building. It was made up of six long segments stacked on top of each other in rows, all built into a tall hill and arranged like a giant staircase so that past the end of one roof you could see the next floors windows. At one end, a curved ramp sloped down from atop the first floor roof, which you could take up onto the green roofing and its well-kept grass. Shona had been late to class on her first day at this school, when she decided it was more important to see what it was like up there. Totally worth it it was built so that you could eventually climb the entire building from that ramp, and the view from up top was pretty cool. Not in this weather, though. Today, they just made their way inside, stuffed their winter wear into lockers, and got ready for just another day. ~~~ Good morniiing, Shona! Wha?! Shona yelped. A few minutes into world history, a bright, high-pitched voice called out to her, sounding like it had been spoken right into her ear. Hi! Shona, hi! Here I am! She peeked under her desk, then whirled her head around the room to find its source. A few kids glanced over at her, frowning. Helloooo? Can you hear me in there? If you hear me, look out the window! Floating on the other side of the glass was a small pink animal. It was a big fluffy ball of fur, slightly longer than it was tall, and beneath its big soulful black eyes was a shiny little black nose. One short, fuzzy flipper-paw like a baby seals was raised in an attempt at a wave. Shona realized several things very quickly. First, the animal was floating in the air beside a third-floor window. Second, rather than coming from outside the window, the voice was somehow sounding out from inside her head. Third, no one else was paying it any mind. They were all just looking at her like well, like she was freaking out in the middle of class. Finally, if the art and the plushies were to be believed, it looked exactly like Enne the Heart of the Sea. Messengers only showed themselves to Keepers and kids who might be Keepers. Shona! Hi, Shona! the critter repeated. Is this not a good time? If you like, I can come back a little Before it could finish the sentence, she jumped up from her seat and dashed out of the classroom. Mrs. Dillon stared at her open-mouthed as she fled, and among a few surprised shouts was Mides voice: Hey, are you? None of them stopped her. Sorry, Mide. Shed explain later. Oh, nope, there you go! It looks a bit crowded in there, so Ill be waiting right outside! Shona raced through the halls, ignoring the stares of the few kids she passed by. At the stairs, she slid down the handrail rather than waste an extra instant walking, nearly stumbling and crashing to the ground as she landed. Then she kept running to the front hall, barely slowing down for a second, shoved the doors open, and only stopped when she saw the little pink cloud perched on a courtyard bench, still waving excitedly. Wow. That was quick! Im really happy to meet you too! My names Youre... youre Enne, right? Still catching her breath, she took a seat next to him. The plushies hadnt exaggerated his fluffy round shape at all. If anything, he was a little poofier in person. Yep! Thats me! He drew up to his full height, which barely changed anything, and thumped his chest twice with one tiny flipper. ...If you already know me, it takes a bit of the fun surprise out of the next part, though. Thats too bad. I like surprises. He sounded exactly like a kid whod peeked at his birthday presents, mourning the lost magic of unwrapping them. Um if it makes you feel better, seeing you at all already gave me quite a shock, Shona said. Enne tilted his head to one side, or would have if hed really had a head. In practice, the gesture was more like a slight twist of the whole front half of his body. A good shock? Probably? I mean, uh, whatever youre here for, its the most interesting day Ive had in a long time! Yay! As long as youre having fun, I am too! The animal, the actual fucki umm, bleeding Messenger of Claiasya, clapped his flippers together, then raised one in a little cheer. Anyway, just to make sure were on the same page, Im here to make the Promise with you and free the magic sleeping in your soul! Shona stared right through him, unblinking, stunned silent. Like, of course, thats what they do, thats the only thing he could be calling her for, she knew that, but theres knowing it and actually knowing it for real. Hearing it right from his not-mouth. ...If thats something you wanna do, of course! he added a second later. And Shona laughed. She laughed and laughed and laughed until it started to hurt and tears soaked her eyes and she still couldnt help herself. Through the wet blur, she watched Enne nodding back and forth in time with her laughter, as if to the unsteady beat of some terrible improvised song. He was humming to it, too. So the little guy could make noise. Wait, if? she choked out. Like, seriously, who gets this offer and goes no thanks, I dont really feel like it? Not a whole lot of people, but we have to make sure! Enne looked up at her expectantly. Of fucking course thats something I wanna do! Lets go! she yelled into the courtyard. Was anyone watching? Listening? Meh, she didnt really care. Wow! Okay then! Enne chirped. There is a biiit more to it, though. Cant agree before you know all the stuff youre agreeing to, right? Shona wasnt stupid, and she knew Keepers about as well as you could from the outside. It wasnt a big fun party of a life. Saving the world was hard and scary and dangerous. It sure wouldnt be a real-life reprise of Magical Guardian Camellia. And thank the Goddess for that. Never again. None of it ever again, thats what he was offering. Thered be new problems, but theyd be her problems. Her choices. Her life. Okay, okay, slowing down, she breathed. Tell me whatever I have to know, please man, I had no idea how ready I was until just now. Mide will She froze, suddenly feeling like shed crashed into a wall. What exactly would Mide do? Smile and wave while her best friend ran off to be a hero? Hey, is something wrong? Enne asked with another full-body tilt of his head. Enne you can tell whenever someone could be a Keeper, right? Well, obviously. How else would he have singled her out in her third floor classroom? Yep! Just like you can tell which way is up! In emphasis, he stretched to look up at the sky, bending back as far as he could until he tumbled over onto his back with a little yap. So if there was another maybe-Keeper around here, youd know it, right? What was she doing? These were questions she already knew the answer to. She was just dragging it out. Thats right! Enne confirmed, cheery as ever. He rolled over and picked himself up, not bothered at all by the way she was wasting his time. And Im the only one here? No one else in the school is, uh, pinging your magic detector? Let me see. I know I came here for you, and I dont thiiink so, but He rolled back over, turned to face the school, and sniffed the air. Nope! Its just you and, ah yep, one Keepers in there! Shes one of Fouhis kids, not mine, so I dont know her that well. Why dyou ask? Shona didnt answer. Shed already started to cry quietly. Oh. I think I get it. Is there someone in your life you dont wanna leave behind? ...Yeah, she said, clenching her fists in her lap. Her whole body shivered, or maybe she only just realized that it was shivering, suddenly remembering how cold it was. Shed left her winter wear inside in her rush to meet the Messenger. Im sorry, Shona. Thats a tough one. Is there anything I can do to help you sort it out? Um, someone can be a Keeper or they cant, right? I guess you cant pick someone else too just cause I asked? The Messenger lowered his gaze. Sorry I, yeah, I knew that. Had to try, thats all. Just please just let me think a little. If it helps you think any better, you could always pet me! Enne chirped, shaking like a wet dog to puff himself out. He nodded slowly. Actually, I just think you should pet me either way. Well, the little guy knew what he was about. Shona reached out to run a hand through his fur... and it passed through his body as if it were nothing but warm air, the motion scattering him nearly in half like a cloud. She drew her arm back with a start, but Enne seemed unharmed. He just let out a little sigh, eyes downcast, as he drifted back together. ...Right. I always forget about that. Thank you anyway! I hope I didnt spook you too much! Did it help any? Not really? Im sorry. Enne curled into himself, as much as his stout little shape could manage. Uh, thats... fine, yeah. You did your best, Shona said. But I think I need to chew on this for a bit, kay? Oh. Okay. Then Ill leave you alone for now, but you can call for me any time you wanna talk some more, alright? Shona nodded. Bye-bye for now, then. Just remember, you dont need to hold back or keep stuff to yourself. Anything you need, or you dont need anything and just want some company, call and Ill be there! He waved once more, then vanished in an instant. ~~~ After the next period change, Shona crept inside, retrieved her coat, and made her way up the outdoor ramps and stairs, spending the rest of the school day on the top roof. The grass was cold and damp and gross, but she wanted to be alone and no one else would be up there anytime soon for just that reason. This would be so much easier if she hated her whole life, but she didnt. She couldnt even wish she did, not really. It wouldnt be fair to the girl whod kept her sane for 14 years. Still life had never been what Shona wanted it to be. It probably never would. Mide knew that better than anyone else. Here was a chance not just to walk out of it, but to be a hero for doing so. To do something that really mattered and that was hers. It wasnt even like shed disappear. Keepers could have normal friends just like anyone else. Where was the problem? No, she was just trying to sweep it under the rug. Her life would change, she would change, until she might as well be living in another world. And was there no real way she could invite Mide into that world? Enne couldnt just pluck someone out of the crowd, but there had to be something that made Keepers into Keepers, and it wasnt some special destiny for random chosen ones the Cycles were clear that there was no such thing as destiny. She and Mide basically lived the same life and did the same stuff. There was just the one exception, which she had to admit was a pretty big difference, but there should still be some way to make this work, right? If there was, Shona would find it. If not, then... well, shed decide when she got there. Eventually, the last bell rang, and while people filtered out through the courtyard, Shona went back inside. She made her way through the last lingering crowds and to the fifth floor science lab, where the Research Club met. She had questions for its leader. Inside, nine students, mostly older ones, were busy rearranging the classroom. They pushed four black desks into the center of the room, forming a single large table. A reedy boy almost as tall as Shona was fiddling with the class projector. The screen across from it was covered in text, neat bullet-point lists sorted into four columns under big bold headings: CLUSTER B HARBINGERS DREAMWARD MECHANICS SOUL-BRAIN INTERACTIONS PRE-THALASSIC PHILOLOGY (low-priority, sorry Isobel) Wow. That sounded like a lot, but none of it was what she came for. That would be the girl at the teacher''s desk cnidarian drive, rapidly shrinking or removing entries on the lists and adding new ones. Most Keepers kept unpredictable schedules, and there were special education programs for them, but a few decided not to use those for whatever reason. Truths Lantern, Aisling Waite, was technically one of two Keepers who went to Shonas school, but only she showed up enough to count. The tradition was that Keepers in public schools wore whatever they wanted, as long as it wasnt the uniform. So that everyone knows who to find in a crisis was the official line, but everyone knew who they were. When she made the Promise, Aisling had just put on a simple blue beret and started wearing cycling pants under her uniform skirt, occasionally skipping the skirt altogether. It didnt make any sense. If it was some sort of statement, if she really wanted to turn down one of the perks offered to the heroes who kept the world spinning, wouldnt it be easier to just not change anything? Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Aisling looked a bit young for secondary school and impossibly young for a senior, but thats just how it went with Keepers. Shed made the Promise at 13, if Shona remembered right, and skipped at least one grade before that. A few stray curls of dirty-blonde hair stuck out from under her hat, she wore no makeup, and her sharp eyes glistened with soft, sky-blue light, but the rings under them made it look like she had never even heard of sleep. Um, Aisling? Hi. Im Shona. Sorry to interrupt, just Do you need something? Were about to get started. Her eyes didnt move from the drive''s monitor, except to glance briefly down at a notebook by the keyboard, and her typing didnt slow at all. Yeah, could you spare a minute? Theres something important I wanted to ask about. Ask away, Aisling said. Uh important and private. Sorry. Aislings expression tightened. She thumped her notebook against the table and looked to the boy at the projector, who nodded. Okay. Follow me, the teachers office here is empty. She stood to leave, and the boy took her place after a quick look at the notebook. "Oh, right. You''re that child actress girl, Aisling noted when her eyes finally met Shona''s own. Shona winced. Can we, like, not talk about that? "Fair enough. My parents never let me watch your show anyway. Whats your question?" Aisling asked as soon as the office door had finished closing behind them. Well, you do more digging into how all of this works than anyone else I know Shed read a bit of Aislings writing on her magical experiments, although her approach had always felt deeply wrong to Shona. Magic was the souls poetry, a sacred miracle that couldnt be bottled up and studied in a lab, and shouldnt a Keeper know that better than anyone else? Best not to argue that point right now, though. Aisling hopped up and sat on the desk, motioning with one hand for her to go on. So, do you have any idea how the Messengers actually pick Keepers? Like, are there any kind of patterns at all? Shona asked. Yeah, Ive been working on that one for a good long while now. If you find out, please, I sure would love to know! Aisling snorted out a bitter laugh, then looked at Shonas face and winced. Ugh listen, maybe that sounded callous and Im sorry, but to the best of our knowledge, theres no way to game that particular system. Youre only hurting yourself by spending your life worrying about whether they will or wont come for you. Maybe hurting others in the long run too, if you get bad enough. Her voice was high and flat, but not quite toneless. It sounded more like she was dictating notes on something she found a little interesting than having a conversation. Its not like that! Its... they already did come for me. I met Enne this morning and Im just trying to figure some stuff out before I decide. Ah. That''s, hah, fitting, I guess. Aisling visibly relaxed, and she started to swing her legs idly. Good on you for showing restraint, too. Genuinely. Too many of us get the offer and jump into it without a second or first thought. Shona frowned. Are you saying they shouldnt do it? Im saying its good practice to weigh your options and understand your reasons for anything you do. So. What do you want to know? Aisling asked. Right. I Shona breathed in and held it. However you sliced it, what she wanted sounded stupid or ungrateful or insane. Just gotta force it out. Enne said my best friend couldnt make the Promise and I dont want to just walk out of her life, so Im trying to figure out why me and not her. Do you know anything at all about what makes someone Keeper material? Is there any way we can change that for her? Aisling stiffened for a fraction of a second, holding one leg in midair, then kept on swinging and shook her head. I dont think there is, and I dont know why they want you or me or anyone else. Stars Beyond, Im not certain if they know. Wait, huh? Hold on. Thats what they do! They choose Keepers! How would they do anything without knowing what theyre looking for? Did you ask Enne why he wanted you? ...No, Shona admitted. Then this is the easiest way to show you what I mean. Youve already met a Messenger, so their whole thing wont be too much of a surprise, right? Shona nodded slowly. Good. Fouhi, may I borrow you for a bit? Yes this is Fouhi hello and hello and hello how may I enlighten you? A new voice spoke directly into her thoughts, this one as frantic and breathless as Enne had been bright and cheery. Something shimmered into being on the desk a long, thin lizard, covered in blue sea-glass scales that stretched and shifted as it moved. It had a head like the sort of cute snake people call puppy-faced, and its eyes were endlessly faceted gems with thin dark slits in the middle. Its gaze swept the room in a full circle, then settled on Aisling. Shona recognized the Abyssal Archivist, of course, but her first time seeing a Messenger actually blink into the world out of nothing was still a bit of a shock. This girl is a prospect. Please tell her how you and yours choose new Keepers, Aisling said. Mu, Fouhi immediately answered. After a beat, they glanced at Shona and added Hello prospect it is lovely to meet you! But she didnt understand. What did cows have to do with any of this? Wonderful. Now explain what you mean by that in terms a reasonably intelligent human teenager with no background in philosophy can understand, Aisling deadpanned. Certuitously! Human instructors have a phrase they like. They say that there are no bad questions only bad answers. Their intent is sound and many children have excellent questions they may otherwise be afraid to ask but the statement is COMPLETELY WRONG! There are COUNTLESS bad questions! Perhaps just as many as good ones! Poorly formed questions! Questions too specific to be educational or answerable! Insincere questions which are not truly questions but attempts to provoke or mislead rephrased to end with question marks! Questions that On the Messenger went. And on, and on, and on. Aisling cast a sidelong glance at Shona. She was making a face that plainly said You see what I have to put up with? Questions which are best left unanswered for the querents own sake! Finally and most critically for our purposes are questions which actually cannot produce the answers you seek! A question is a skyward flare, a torch lit to burn away the murk of ignorance unless, of course, it is THE WRONG QUESTION ENTIRELY! The lizards body lit up with a strange inner glow, which shone through its glass scales and covered the room in a hundred tiny patches of prismatic color. Shona felt a little dizzy. Fouhi, that thing with the light show doesnt actually tell anyone anything. Get to the point or Ill do it for you, Aisling sighed. Ah. Yes yes yes yes yes. You see, there are questions which miss the true nature of a problem in favor of an imagined version of that problem. To answer such a question is A USELESS DIVERSION! Even if it provided some information, it would distract from the real search, the questions that might yet lead to the true answer! Instead, your answer lies in the roots of that false question, the misconception which first led you astray! To understand that your question is not WRONG, but a dead-end misstep on the way to being right or wrong THAT is true insight! THAT is mmmMU! Do you understand now, prospect? Shona definitely didnt. She stared blankly at the Messenger, trying to think of a respectful way to say so. Thanks, Fouhi, thatll do, Aisling said. But I dont think she understands! If she missed anything, Ill handle it. Well, if youre certain Fouhi huffed, and vanished with a sharp pop. Shona wasnt sure how you huffed without making a sound, but that was definitely what just happened. Aisling looked up at the ceiling, tugged on a handful of her hair, and groaned theatrically. As you mightve noticed, that insane tangent was not very helpful. I couldve explained it in just a few words: Mu, thats M-U, is shorthand for your question cant be answered because its based on incorrect assumptions. Its the right answer to a question like when did you stop beating your wife? I only let Fouhi finish to make a point: they didnt say anything about what the answer or the right question are. Not the slightest hint. They arent like that all the time, we have plenty of conversations that more or less make sense, but theres something about this specific question that Messengers just dont seem able to process. I dont know why. All Im sure of is that when Fouhi said it was the wrong question to ask how they choose Keepers, they werent lying. They at least believe its true. Messengers dont lie! They cant! Shona snapped. Everyone knew that. How was it even a question? I sense spoken lies whether I try to or not. It costs me nothing to be certain. But my research agrees with you so far, yes, Aisling said simply. Uh, sure. Im still stuck right where I started, though. Is there anything else? Sorry, but I dont think were going to solve that riddle in this office. Maybe take it up with Enne, but I expect youll get something similar. Was that all you had? She shrugged, raising her open palms. Great... thanks anyway, Shona said. Before I go, what do you think is the answer? Or the... right question? Anything I threw out would be useless, maybe even harmful. My current best guess is just that, a guess. It could be wrong. Its probably wrong. Your ideas might start somewhere completely different, but not if theyre jumping off from mine. I havent figured it out, so my direction could just be a dead end. But Shona had no answers, no ideas about answers, and apparently no questions. She wasnt starting anywhere. Something was missing. Or she was being nudged away from it. Well, I dont know anything about all this, so where do I look? How do I learn? How did you learn? Aisling chewed on her lower lip for a few long seconds. Then she sighed and dropped her head, looking intently down at her legs. How committed to this are you? she asked. Um, pretty? If theres no way to help her, I dont really know what Ill do. About the Promise. Pretty, huh...?" she trailed off for a moment. "...Fine. I really hope this isnt a mistake, Aisling said, and raised her head to stare straight at Shona. The light in her eyes was bright enough to leave sunspots. Trying to force the Promise on people isnt help. Every reputable magical scholar considers it a dead idea. Its been tried, its never worked, and it has a death toll. Quite a high one. ...What? Shona swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Ever heard of the Lotus Bed? It was a cult based in Rima, active during the war. Not a Harbinger cult, though. They believed dreams of a better world were the heart of magic, and the most beautiful dreams could only be born from the deepest misery. So, believing all the while that they were doing the right thing and helping save humanity, they did their best to She paused. Something ugly flit across Aislings face, and through her eyes, casting a strange shadow over their light. ...to nurture their own childrens dreams for the future. You dont want to look into the details, unless Ive seriously misjudged you. Thats Im not I mean, obviously. Im not accusing you of anything. Dont be silly. I just thought you should know how it goes whenever someone thinks theyve solved the mystery and starts trying to mass-produce Keepers. ...Okay, Shona croaked. Im sorry, Aisling said, her voice suddenly softer. I just had to make sure you understood. But but my life, theres nothing that insane, nothing that even comes close, so why me? Why was I chosen? Me neither. I loved my life before Fouhi stormed in and decided it was important that I never sleep again. Aislings mouth quirked up into a bitter half-smile. I certainly didnt say those people were right about anything. If it were that simple, do you think it would still be a mystery? They talked a little longer, just about the details of Shonas situation, but the conversation effectively ended once Aisling was satisfied that she wasnt going to drag Mide into some kind of torture cult. She did sound a little gentler than she had at the start when she said goodbye and went back to her clubs work. Shonad learned a lot, met two Messengers in one day, and still had no idea what to do. She just checked her phone, left five messages from Mide on read, and made her way home. ~~~ And thats what Im dealing with. I really dont think shell agree if she cant bring her friend along, so... can we make that happen somehow? Thats what you called us for? Why ask when you already know the answer? Well, I dunno. Maybe the other ones actually meant for one of you! The girl believes her reason to reject you is more important than what we offer. The offer is the offer, so you can either persuade her otherwise or accept that it isnt meant to be. Not all prospects are. It is just that simple. You should be well aware of this already Heeey! Dont talk to me like Im some kind of idiot! I just really really like this girl and I wanna help her! Whats so wrong with that? Does anyone have any advice that ISNT all the stuff I already know? Enne, Im sorry, but that is the reality of the matter! Her tone does not change the truth of her words! Stop telling me why I cant and start telling me how I can! Anyone else? Please? Mm. There are other tethers than ours. Other bonds between souls. Methods, perhaps, to widen one fracture into another. There may, and we must stress may, be a way to grant your prospects wish. Really, Yune? Hows that? Tell me, tell me! Tell me and youll be my favorite sister forever and always! I recuse myself from this foolishness. Yune, you should not share whatever scheme youre imagining. Supposing it does somehow work, all you will do is destroy a child who does not belong in this world. Khiihihihihihi... perhaps youd best take her advice. Hers is the shadow which draws all ours in! Hers are the hands which commit all our sins! She knows aaallllll about that, our Great Destroyer does! ... Just remember that I warned you. Goodbye. Fine! Good riddance! Who needs oh, shes gone. Shes just mad cause shes too much of a big grumpy meanie to be anyones favorite! So, whats the secret? Hmm? Hmmm? Hmh. Before we share this, we must stress that you will not like it. No, you certainly will not. Oh, but an Enne may only ever be an Enne. It doesnt matter what any of us say, he WILL do it. He must yes, he must! Cant you all see? He has already made his choice! Ummm, yeah, what she said! I think. Sorry, Scelka, Im usually not too sure what it is youre saying. Then all is as it should be! I am a labyrinth made not of walls, but of thoughts! Right. Sounds neat. Anyway Yune? Ah. Very well. Very well indeed. Then this is what we would do ~~~ Shona cranes her neck upward, searching for the platform where Irakkia made its Wound. The tower closed after everything that happened with the Harbinger. It still hasnt reopened yet actually, if everything was normal, would it even be open at this hour? Well, whatever. Right now, all it means is that shell have the place all to herself. Grinning wildly, paying no mind to anyone who might be watching, she takes a stretch, looks up at the towers perfectly smooth, vertical wall, and jumps straight at it, touching both hands and feet to the glass. Theres a quick sting as her magic binds her to the surface with a touch. The static bites are a little worse than usual on her left hand, still tender and heavily bandaged, but shell manage. One hand reaches up and pulls, then the other, and she begins to climb the tower with the speed and casual ease of a lizard. Some of the brighter stars reflect in the dark glass as Shona scurries up and up and up, dancing in the corners of her eyes. Here and there, she stops, releasing one hand from the wall and swinging outward to survey the city. She looks over the many blinking lights below, feels the chilly spring wind rushing by and the inner heat pumped by her pounding heart. She listens to the voice that still shrieks in terror and twists her gut into knots in these situations, listens just long enough to note its warnings of mortal danger and then cheerfully ignore them like she ignores Moms demands to stop slamming the door. Will she ever get used to this? Will scaling the citys peaks be as ordinary as walking someday? The idea is almost disappointing, but magic is an endless frontier. There will always be some wonderful new thing waiting for her to find it. Always. After maybe a fifteen-minute climb which couldve been much faster, if she werent taking her time to savor the sights and sensations and feelings the deck comes into reach. Shona approaches it from directly underneath. It would be easier to scoot around the side of the wall and climb over it, but not as fun. She latches herself to the deck, hanging over New Claris as if on a massive jungle gym, then swings her legs up and tethers them to the surface. Her view of the city flips over and blood rushes to her head as she climbs along the ceiling. Seen from below, the glass window set into the platforms center looks like nothing at all, a section left unfinished just for people to fall through, but for her its as solid a grip as all the rest. In another moment shes at the platforms edge, then pulling herself up the tall glass barriers around it. Finally, she swings over the wall and breaks her connection to its surface, touching down gracefully on the floor. As she catches her breath, Shona leans on the barriers railing, gazing out at the city. It wouldnt feel all that special if shed just taken the elevator. Anyone could walk out here and see what shes seeing now. Still, the image tangles up in her thoughts with the insane thing she just did to get here, taking on a bit of that same heady thrill. The deck and its view even feel like a different place in the middle of the night its almost easy to imagine it as somewhere else entirely, untouched by her memories of static kaleidoscopes and the world twisting in on itself. And of the things in its eyes, the painful sights behind Nope, fuck off, were not going there, nope nope nope. She slaps her cheek and shakes those thoughts away. Anyway, there are other buildings, even a couple taller ones in the Peaks. She can climb any one she wants to well, uh, maybe not the Fianata Tower, but thats not really the point. Why else did she choose this place, if not for the memories? Music always helps sort her thoughts out, and she has lots of thoughts about the things that happened here. Shona strolls to the center of the platform, standing right on the wide glass window-hole, and takes an easy, familiar stance. Red light sparks and crackles through the air, forming her violin and bow in her grip. She looks up at the stars that joined her on her climb, the only audience shell have tonight, and plays, letting her heart provide the notes. ~~~ Im heading out! Bye! Shona shouts through her house. Dont... Shona turns to where Mom sits at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading some gossip rag. She meets her gaze and grins a phony stage grin so wide it hurts a little bit. Mom doesnt say anything. She just breaks eye contact and sighs, burying her nose in her magazine. Thats Shonas cue to stroll outside, slamming the door on her way out with what may be a bit of magically-charged strength. Shes honestly not sure how much of it she can tap without transforming. For the first time in several days, Mide is waiting by the fence. Thisll be a good day. Hey there, stranger! Glad to see you braving the light of day again! Feeling okay yet? Shona asks. Ah, ish? Mide says. Theres still some nausea, but... I dont know. Im managing and the healer didnt think it was contagious. Thats good! Thats good, Shona repeats, nodding. Maybe... Youre not seriously still thinking about how that girls doing? Look, Im not saying what she did was fine and you shouldnt be mad about it, but at least some of the whole mess is on me! She clearly wasnt good with people, theres super real reasons why teams dont happen much, and I did kiiinda steamroll her... Shona, please just forget about that creepy freak already, Mide groans. Theres groups that dont get along and theres taking a bite out of your friends. Its really, really not your fault. Not blaming myself. Just, yknow, wondering if I couldve done stuff better somehow. Thats the same thing. Is not. Well, whatever it is, stop worrying about it. Fine, fine. Ill do my best. Her best wasnt very much. She hadnt seen or heard of Ill Wind Eyna since they parted last week no one had, as far as she knew and she couldnt help but wonder about her here and there. Sometimes. Constantly. Hey, Mide? Mm? Ive never done anything like that to you, have I? For a moment, Mide just keeps walking. And walking. And walking. Finally, she smiles and shakes her head. Of course not. Sure, maybe this isnt quite where I saw my life going, but well, we chose what we chose, and we all doodled those outfits when we were little. Were living everyones dream, arent we? I wouldnt have things any other way. What we chose. Shona still wonders about that sometimes. Where We Come From 3-1 New Claris is quietest on moonless nights, beneath the stars pale light, but a city is never completely empty and still. Its never lifeless. I mean, unless its abandoned out in a wasteland with no plants or animals for miles or something. Which this one isnt yet. Anyway. Stepping onto the university campus south of the hospital is a sudden sharp change from the citys glass-and-greenery spires. The college is much older, one of those historic parts of the city that wasnt redesigned after the war, and made up mostly of great limestone buildings designed to look somewhere between old churches and small castles. Taken with the grounds between them, all gardens and groves rather than manicured grass, they look like a loose grouping of stately homes spread around a thinly-forested woodland. Being here feels like crossing into another, older world, and the distant lights barely illuminating it lend it all a sense of unreality almost like the one that comes with using magic. Its easy enough to find what Im looking for. I make my way to one of the tall buildings dotted with still-lit windows and filled with points of human life, which I can sense as faint scents of fresh rain. There, I circle around, past the front door and its porchlight that briefly lights up as I pass, and sit against the wall beneath a dark window. I take a card from my orbit, float it up a little, and narrow my focus until My sight spins and spins in vertical loops that make me feel the way I imagine roller coasters feel. Its awful. When it stops, Im looking down at myself, seeing the world from the cards perspective. Irakkia left me with one small prize, the power to see through my magic. Sort of. Only one card at a time, everything becomes a bit blurry at a distance, the image is flat the way seeing through one eye is, and it completely replaces my actual sight until I return to myself. Not my other senses, though. Last infusion day, I tried to escape the pain by fleeing into a card and staying there. No such luck. At least I can still control myself, its just pretty hard without using my eyes. And makes me a bit nauseous. Maybe this would be more useful if I hadnt scavenged it from torn scraps, but theres nothing for it now. Anyway, my goal here doesnt call for anything complicated. Starting with the window above me, I bring the card close enough to look around inside. Empty. I move to the next window up and repeat the process, skipping ones where the lights are still on, until I find a room where someone is lying in their bed. Its too dark to see clearly, but their essence feels clean. Healthy. So I reach out, touch their soul, and inhale, drawing a sip, a small, careful sip, from their strength. They toss under the covers as deep green mist spirals out from them and down into me. Watching from outside myself is a little strange, but warm rain and petrichor do fill my unoccupied senses, slowly fading as I draw the mote of life into a well deep inside myself. The tingling headache I woke up with remains I dont want to start using my stolen vigor as a simple painkiller if I can help it, so Ive been practicing using my powers with precision. Doing my best to control it directly, let it work only when I will it to. Once the first wisp is stored away, I move on, searching until I find the next sleeping student, and the next, and the next, taking the same measured taste of wellness from each of them. There arent as many in bed at this hour as Id have thought, but there are enough. I still dont know if normal people see their health leaving them. On other nights Ive watched people as I drained them, and they never act like they do, but still, best if theyre sleeping. Best for us all if they can dismiss this as a simple seasonal bug, maybe a bad dream if my touch reaches that far inside. As for the uneasy churning in my stomach, it can keep its useless opinion to itself. Theres no point in stopping to wring my hands and apologize to people who will never hear me. I didnt make my magic work like this, but as long as it does, this is the best way. Itll be worse if I only take when Im dying, when I have to drink from the closest person not knowing how much I need or how much they can afford to lose or what immediate danger Im putting them in. I easily couldve killed Mide and I wont let it come that close again. I wont. Twelve drained sleepers later, I think Ive had enough. Im not sure yet if theres a limit to how much essence I can hold, but I dont want to hit any one place too hard, and after the last few nights it feels like Ive got plenty for now. Other than these outings, things have been quiet. There are no new signs of monsters creeping around here. Only me. ~~~ Every sign we can measure is still holding steady. Or slightly improved, on some days. At this point, Ill just say thats atypical in your situation. I wont pretend I have any idea whats possible, Dr. Hines says. Those would be the days when Im flush with stolen life. Im still trying not to use it unless I need it to function, especially around the times when they take my vitals, but its hard. To control magic reliably, I need some way of understanding and imagining what Im doing, and this feels like telling my own traitorous blood how and when to flow. Im not some island hermit from one of those weird ascetic cults. My body is not so well-behaved. Unfortunately, that may mean theres only so much we can do for you. I dont want to press too hard, but have you talked to anyone else yet? he asks. I dont know how much my silence is worth, but no. I dont think itd be hard for any seventh floor regulars to put the pieces together if they got the idea. At least the nurses and Noirin must have noticed my strange new schedule, and while I didnt change in any new ways after Irakkia, my mysterious condition is advancing for all the world to see. There are two new white streaks in my hair now. About that, have you found any of those Keeper specialists? I deflect. It may take some time. The problem with world experts is, well, the world. There is one native Clarish name in the field, but even she has a lot going on in a lot of places. That said, Dr. Hines pauses and straightens up, steadying himself. I expect the Church would be much quicker to respond to a Keeper personally asking for help. No. The word comes out sharper and louder than I meant it to, enough that he grimaces at the sound. It''s a different expression from the knitted brow he''d used to answer my harsher tones before I became a Keeper. He collects himself in an instant, but I shrink back, lowering my gaze to my lap. I, sorry, just It cant be easy telling a Keeper things she doesnt want to hear. I really shouldnt make it harder. Liadain, I know how you feel, I know you dont want the attention, but please hear me out, he says. I nod once. Alright. If your, ah, new situation gives you any chance of getting better, I want you to have the best odds you can, and Ill freely admit that we are out of our depth here. The Church has people better equipped to help you than us, and you shouldnt reject them out of hand over a problem that may not even exist. There are plenty of Keepers who dont want to be public figures. If you make it clear that you value your privacy, Im certain they could make some kind of arrangements. Could they? Could they really? He doesnt know me. He doesnt know what theyd be dealing with. What theyd be covering for, if they didnt just insist that I stop using that side of my power. Im not saying we need to rush you to Guiding Light right now, but please think about it. Research it, find out what it involves. Ill help you if you want. If theres something about it you find unacceptable, then thats that. Either way, I think its worth your time to find out. ...Fine. Thank you. All I ask is that you give it a look. Dr. Hines sighs, sounding faintly relieved. Oh, right. One other thing for you. He pushes across the room on his swivel chair, rifles through the cabinet below the sink for a moment, and returns holding out a plain paper shopping bag. Hm? Whats this? Inside are three little bottles of hair care products I dont recognize, a brush that looks more like a paintbrush than a hairbrush, and a box of Hair bleaching kit? I ask. I, well. I asked my daughter what youd need to dye black hair white. She said you cant exactly do that, but you can bleach it blonde and then tone it to get a shade more like you know what, I didnt really understand all the details. Someone on the Sea can probably explain it better if you want to know. He grins and runs a hand back through his own short-clipped brown hair.. I just thought if you want to tell people youre just playing around with dying your hair, maybe itd make things easier if you have this on hand? Or maybe youd just want to speed the change along, if you think itll be easier that way. While I look over the labels, Dr. Hines frowns with sudden puzzlement. Wait. Does that work for kids like you, actually? he asks. I shake my head. Im pretty sure if you try to interfere with anything Emergence-related, it just changes itself back. Oh. Huh, he huffs. Well, thats okay. It looks nice like that anyway. You dont have to do anything with any of this, just keep it. In case it helps at all. I okay, Ill do that. Thanks, I say simply. My voice trembles a little on the last word, some feeling I cant quite place creeping into it. Im not sure how long its been since anyone thought of anything like this for me, however small. Its the very least I could do. And Ill let you know the moment I hear from anyone who might be able to help more. If thats all, then have a nice rest of your day, Liadain, the doctor says, smiling faintly. Mhm. Ill try. ~~~ As soon as were finished, I lock myself in my room, turn on my laptop drive, and get to work. If you cant slip out of something you dont want to do, best to cross it off your list as soon as possible. I still doubt Ill like what I find, but at least looking at how the Church does things isnt too big a request. They wont have some magic cure for all my problems, unless lots of what Vyujis told me was seriously mistaken, but they might have something. Worst case, they might know better ways to find Harbingers. Searching for Church Keepers'''' immediately turns up a bunch of current news surrounding specific Keepers, all their recent life events and public appearances. In short, things I dont care about. Next comes stuff about the role Keepers played in the Claiasyan Covenants history as an organization, which also doesnt help. There are also a few big discussion reefs about Keepers or magic in general, but theyre are all too broad for me right now. And beneath those is a flood of theological writings I couldnt possibly make sense of in any reasonable timeframe. Its not exactly that I dont care what whichever high priests down in Alelsia have to say about the fancy details of religion. Some of the links here seem to be to theories about interesting questions, things like why Keepers have to be children and why the Goddess needs their help our help to keep the world spinning. Granted, some are also just weird navelgazing about things like universal familiality, whatever that means. Skimming the page doesnt really explain it at all. Eventually, I give up on those listings and narrow my search to Clarish Keeper Church support, which stems the tide a bit. From there, I stumble my way to the New Claris Keepers Chancel, the branch of the local Church that deals directly with Keepers needs and interests. Their reef looks like an ad for a fancy private school, with a similar mission statement up top: The Chancel exists to help our children discover the beauty of their own souls and bloom into the best Keepers they can be, carrying Claiasyas gifts wherever they are most needed. We have served the community of New Claris nearly since the citys inception, and maintain a proud history of... Thats nice. I skim past it and start looking for the actual details. Even on this single page, theres a lot going on, but Frequently Asked Questions and Register Now! seem like good places to start. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Within half an hour, I think Ive sorted through the key points: the Church sets its official Keepers up with any mentors or professionals they need, including health specialists and magical healers. Anyone who wants can transfer into the Keeper school system, where teachers work around your schedule and tailor lessons to your precise level. I dont see specific amounts, but it says theyll pay you a stipend just for existing as a Keeper in good standing. On the other hand, while it doesnt look like theyd force me to be a celebrity or drag me onto talk shows, they connect you with other local Keepers through some kind of private platform, and expect you to be available there. For emergency communications, it says, but I dont much like the thought of sharing public spaces with others. Im not a complete unknown anymore, and what other Keepers know is pretty bad. What happens the first time Mide notices me there? Hey, theres that girl who nearly ate me alive! Theres no section where they talk about what to do if some aspect of your magic is dangerous and horrible, either. Not that Im surprised. Maybe Im not the only Keeper with something scary going on and the rest just hide theirs well, but either way the Church wouldnt bring up the idea on their sales pitch reef. Another page leads to a listing of active local Keepers, with a scrolling gallery of fancy photos displayed above. Pictures of Keepers out and about on their own, among fans, posing with each other. The first and most prominent image, setting the mood for the entire collection, is of a trio of masked Keeper boys striking a dramatic group pose, their legs spread and arms thrust at exaggerated angles. Taking top billing in the center stands the Church''s golden boy, Stardust Seraph Roland, hooded in a studded white mantle trimmed with his signature crimson color. His getup kind of reminds me of the traditional robes worn by Claiasyan clerics in pre-Covenant times, the kind you only ever see in movies, but the frock is more like a flowing coat, and beneath that there''s a slim layer of metallic plating armoring sections of his figure. The red glow behind the sharp, angular visor of his mask is in stark contrast to anything I''d consider priestly, but it fits the outfit itself perfectly well. Honestly, I would almost say he looked cool, but the ridiculous stance hes taking is practically too embarrassing to look at. What even is a seraph, anyway? Whatever. Enough of that. Following that, there''s a vivid snapshot of Silver King Irida, dressed in old military finery accented such that it practically looks regal. Its simultaneously a generals uniform and the regalia of a warrior-monarch whose throne is the battlefield. Shes seated at the forefront of her army a dozen tall shades dressed in a range of archaic soldiers uniforms, each with a different spiraling glyph on the cloth shrouds covering their faces. I spot Shona and Mide in another, a crowded group photo under a blossoming tree, and ...and is that Iona Fianata with them? It is. The patron protector of New Claris isnt even in the center of the shot, not that she stands out any less for it. Willowy and dark-haired, shes far enough toward the top of the Promise age range that she does look oldest among them, if not nearly her actual ninety-some years, and wears the signs of her Emergence as open badges of honor. Skin tinged a faint milky blue-white that somehow makes her look like a mystical ice princess rather than a frozen corpse. Eyes like cloudy glass spheres bright with frozen inner fire. And its snowing, a gentle flurry against a backdrop of spring flowers. Only shes dressed for it, with the hood of the royal blue Kinsale cloak she most often wears raised. She makes it easier to believe that maybe, if I live, I wont be a horrible plague-beast in a few years. Anyway, crossing off the celebrities who take every chance to tell their stories, how much of these kids lives are on display? Going through the list, I dont find a single sign that Tara Mullane ever existed, which is about what I expected. Outside her insane groupies and me with my Champions deck, no one much wants to remember her... although honestly, it wasnt always just the deck. For a while, Tara was my favorite Keeper I never followed the scene that closely, but everyone has had at least one favorite Keeper. She snubbed the idol nonsense, did what made her happy, kept the company she wanted to keep and no more. She was the kind of Keeper I wanted to be if I ever got the offer. That was before all the horrible things came out. If you believe the stories, and past a certain point youd have to throw out a lot of stories to keep thinking well of her, Tara started turning her magic on anyone who bothered her or caught her in a bad mood. Even on other Keepers. Then, not long after it got really bad, she vanished off the face of the planet. I dont know what happened to her. Im not sure if anyone does. Maybe something made her snap, maybe magic brought out something ugly in her, maybe shed just always been that way and had the power to act on it now. Thinking about it, I wonder if there was something more going on my magic needs me to hurt people, and I cant be the only one in history. Probably. On the other hand, the Silver King of all people will not speak a word of Tara to this day. The perfectly cool and composed star of the Clarish Keeper scene has taken cameras from interviewers who pressed questions about her and smashed them. If whatever happened between them was just a version of what I did to Mide, it may have been so much worse I cant even imagine what it looked like. Oh, but Niavh Fianata is still on the list. Her photo shows an older girl in a simple burgundy sweater, with black hair kept in a slightly long pixie cut and wide, wet, rust-red eyes that are visibly crying. Is that an Emergence thing? Why else would they take her picture like that? I dont know her as well as I do Tara, but from what I understand there was an incident a few years ago. She lost control of her power in some way, and people died. Details beyond that are hard to find, but shes kept her distance from the public ever since. Theyre still scared of her. But shes apparently still a Fianata. The Keeper family hasnt disowned her or anything, and the Church at least still seems to think of her as a person. Given how scarce information on her incident is, I can only imagine theyre actively keeping it quiet. I suppose Keepers are rare and important enough that they want to leave plenty of room for ones who make mistakes to turn around, which well, thats some kind of a good sign for me. Any other odd ones out? Yes, heres someone I dont recognize. Mary Hyland. Keeper title Carves the Night. Theres a picture of her in her distinctly understated regalia, a sleek grey suit and smooth mask of steel-grey metal that covers her entire face. Searching for her name leads back to her Chancel profile, then further to a few scattered sources where shes mentioned in passing among up-and-coming new Keepers. They dont say much about her circumstances, but there is one line about her having turned over a new leaf, with no further mention of what that means. Other than those, Mary has no personal reef or fan clubs I can find. Im about to give up when I scroll past a professional page for a random woman from Horizon also named Mary Hyland. Right beneath that, though, her name is highlighted in the preview text for a link titled Violence and death at Ashcreek Home for Children. It leads to somebodys blog, headlined Dispelling Disinformation: Your Source For Keepers Untold Stories and made up entirely of white text on a stark grey background. The page itself points to an article about a story last year where an unnamed child from this Ashcreek Home, a local orphanage, was rushed to a hospital after an apparent violent incident, and then to the obituary of Cass Redmond, an employee who died the same day. It just says that he passed away unexpectedly. Theres currently no conclusive contradictory evidence, the blogs author admits, but then notes that the first official mention of Mary Hyland as a Keeper is dated only a day later, and that a trusted source stated shed lived nearly her whole life in this orphanage. More to come as it surfaces. I dont like snooping on this girl just to find out how easy it was. I also dont like how easy it was. Whether or not theres any truth to what this person is not-so-subtly suggesting, theres clearly some part of the rumor mill that runs wild with anything they can scrounge up about less-than-pristine Keepers. In the end, Im not at all sold on this idea, but Im not ready to completely rule it out either. If theres any chance they could help me survive well, I dont need to commit to anything yet. There are other things I want to figure out. I turn the drive off, pick up my personal tarot deck, and idly shuffle it as I call into my room: Vyuji, I have some questions. I have answers. So many answers. The Messenger blinks into being on my windowsill, her favorite perch. Silver moonlight shines out from just behind her, and she somehow resists all other light, so she appears as a girl-shaped shadow with her features just barely visible, like shes standing with her back to the sun at dawn. The effect only lasts a second before the overhead lights illuminate her properly. Nice show. I guess even you cant help yourself sometimes. She normally isnt much for fanfare. Magic wants to express itself. Why shouldnt I indulge now and again? she asks. You expression usually doesnt seem like your thing. Im doing as humans do. Friends always see new sides of each other over time. Were getting to know each other better, thats all. Besides, its been a week since you last called. Excuse me if Im happy to see you. Is she, now? She does a good job of hiding it. Proving my point, she doesnt move or express anything, and her face is frozen in a barely-there ghost of a smile. I didnt call her to quibble about whether were friends, though. Right. Now that weve had our touching reunion, what can you tell me about splitting Harbingers after a group of Keepers kills one? That gets a reaction from her a single enthusiastic clap of one folded not-hand into the open flower-petals of the other, making a sharp, wet sound like a dolphin thumping the water with its tail. Oh my. Youve been keeping busy, havent you? You say that like you dont already know. Even if I did, Id prefer to hear about it from you. I do what I can to respect my childrens privacy. Fine. Those two girls from the day I made my Promise wanted to team up. I went along with it, it was awful, and at the end of it all, when we tried to divide the thing we killed in half, it was a mess. Lots of it was just gone. Is there some special technique? Did one of us do something wrong? Enne told them you could share a Harbinger just fine, but it didnt feel that way at all. Vyujis eyes narrow. Those do sound like the words he would have used, yes. Im certain he forgot to mention the complications. Hes never been one for fine details, my brother. The complications, I say. Yes. A Harbingers heart is not a simple meal to be disposed of however you please. Until its last remnants are purified, it is a living thing with a will. It can be split, but not cleanly separated into even shares, and the parts are often less than the whole. Sometimes quite a bit less. My grip on my cards trembles and slips, scattering the deck all across the floor. A curse comes bubbling up from my throat and I bite my lip, swallowing it quickly enough that only a small harsh squeak makes it out. Im not even sure what I was going to say, but it wouldnt have helped. This is only natural. Why shouldnt it work that way? Why would the world ever pass up a chance to make my life harder? Okay, I breathe. Okay. Im not doing that again, but please warn me if theres anything else I really need to know before it comes up. She smiles that curious sourceless smile of hers. Ask next time you arent certain about something. Id have told you. How has your hunting gone otherwise? Theres another thing I wanted to ask about. It hasnt. Ive been looking every night and just not catching anythings scent. I dont want to push further out and bump into other Keepers, Ive been through that, but what about outside the city? Not the farmlands, theyre covered, but the forests? Hm, Vyuji says, turning to look out the window. I dont make a habit of exploring the unclaimed lands, so I cant tell you just what youll find, but things are quite different there, and not in a pleasant way. But there are Harbingers, I press. They constantly warn kids about wandering in the wilderness, out where Keepers cant protect them. There are Harbingers everywhere, but not the same Harbingers. They are adapted for different conditions. Most often for endless open conflict with one another. Id expect them to be more dangerous in some ways, but less complicated in others. Right. In cities, the monsters have to deal with Keepers. Were a united-ish enemy wholl swarm them if they get too brazen, so unless theyre living disasters too big to care, successful ones hide. They ambush. They find confusing sideways methods of interacting with the world. If they dont need to do that, of course theyll work completely different ways. But honestly, simple sounds good after Irakkia. So just to confirm, this isnt a completely awful idea thatll get me killed in a blink? Its not safe. Theyre Harbingers. But I wouldnt dismiss it out of hand, no. Sometimes other Keepers brave the risk to use the outskirts as a training ground, although they dont often go alone. Ah, although She flattens her expression and turns, staring straight at me. Do stay clear of the shores closest to Commixture. Youre not ready. Vyuji, I hope you dont think Im an actual idiot. Out where they tell kids not to play and back, thats all Im planning, and its already pushing my luck healthwise. If I did, Id have said nothing. Some unwise children might take that as a challenge. She cracks another small smile. But you wont. You arent concerned with proving yourself. You know what matters to you and youll seek it in the most practical, effective way available. Thats one of my favorite things about you. Thank you, I think? Ill try this out, soon, then. As for asking you about stuff, youve said you cant follow me into Wounds. Does that include whatevers out there? If I need help, will you answer? I dont know. The line between our world and the others is not always so clear. Apologies. ...Alright. Thanks anyway. And with that vote of confidence from my dear friend, I start planning to leave New Claris for the first time. Where We Come From 3-2 A dirt path winds through the field west of the hospital, where the spring flowers are well into withering and dying. The sickly-sweet smell of wilt is much milder than the way my senses interpret ill people, but right now, it feels like its everywhere. Maybe its not the best omen for this adventure, but omens arent real. Theyre flowers that happen to cover the quickest path to and from the forest, thats all. They cant hurt me. For all the good that does. I dont need omens to know the unclaimed lands are teeming with things that can very much hurt me. But thats my life now, isnt it? Weighing a world of nightmares against something that will kill me if I stop throwing myself at them. Its the kind of bright, breezy day most people would call nice, which means that the sun, that asshole, is glaring down at me as I walk and there are other people here. For obvious reasons, no trail leads directly through the field and into the forest, so Im stuck making my way past them. Off to one side, a couple is taking pictures of dead plants, even picking a few and tucking them between the pages of a book. Bizarre, but whatever makes them happy, and it keeps them too busy to watch where Im going. At the far end of the field, I trample through the thinnest row of greenery I can find, using my cane as a hiking pole. Beneath the first trees, a layer of underbrush crowds the ground as far in as I can see. Of course this wouldnt be like the well-kept urban woodlands dotting New Claris, but I didnt know what would be different or how quickly itd get in my way. Its tall, but looks thin enough to push through with only some trouble... until the forest starts grasping for me as I pass, with plants that look like bare thorny branches clinging to my sleeves and pricking at my arms like hands rising from the earth to drag me under. I cant tolerate it for long. After a glance back to confirm that nobody is watching, I call my magic into being. Sourceless emerald light dances through a sudden darkness, which seems to fall and lift in the very same instant. It occurs to me that the comfortable jeans I was wearing mightve been more suited for stomping through the brush than my Keeper outfit, but thats fine. Im done stomping. Stirring up the cold bitterness in my soul, I create a thin curl of killing mist and let it sink to the ground. Where it touches, shrubs and twiggy growths start to wither as if from age. As they bend and shrivel, flashes of green light leak out from inside the plants remains and quickly fade. Like theyd only ever been shells housing wisps of corruption that are now eating their way free. Soon, Ive created a trail, a grey scar lined with decaying plant-remnants. A shudder wracks my body, but I swallow my disgust and push the mist forward with my mind, slowly stretching my path further into the forest. If I need to run away, my scar should lead the way out. Every so often, I look back to make sure its still there. I have no idea what comes next. The unprotected lands beyond our cities form a gaping hole in my knowledge, exactly like the one that was only recently filled by my first encounters with Harbingers. Both are dangerous mysteries normal people put out of mind and hope theyll never have to worry about. This one is easier to avoid maybe airship travel between cities is a little scary, but mostly you just dont do the exact stupid thing Im doing right now so theres even less said about it. Should I watch for the trees to gnarl into strange shapes? For the canopy to thicken until it blocks out the sun and Im stumbling through a lightless cave of greenery? For the world to abruptly end, replaced with some horror show I cant yet imagine? Or if Harbingers are just roaming openly through the woods, maybe nothing will change at all before they strike? Vyuji implied they might not bother with Wounds out here, where they had nothing to hide. Something rustles in the bushes. I startle and ready a card, training my magical senses on the disturbance, where a hedgehog peeks through the leaves at me. It grunts out a sound like a loud, angry sniffle as it meets my eyes, then scurries away. Whatevers waiting further in, its left room for that little guy. Do Harbingers care about animals? Im not sure. I think I remember a PSA saying to "pick up your children and pets" when you need to flee quickly, but that seems to me like something you would do anyway. Several more minutes pass, and the forest remains just a forest. And then, something shifts in the atmosphere. In the sounds of the woods, I think at first, but that isnt right. Its a sudden quiet, yes, but only in my magical senses. If I hadnt noticed it was missing, I might never have recognized it at all. Theres normally a faint undertone beneath anything I sense, like hearing your own blood flow when you cover your ears. And now its gone. Was it gone in the Wounds? I think it was, but I really dont know. The moment I found myself in Yurfaln''s and Irakkia''s worlds, I was entirely focused on fighting for my life. If any of this spiritual background noise was there, I wasnt listening for it. Just as I realize this, the light changes. Its still bright out, but the colors are all wrong. Without any dimming or lengthening of shadows, everything takes on the tint of early dawn light. When I look up, about a third of the sky has torn. The sun ripples wildly as if in heat haze until the distortion spreads over it. Day is a layer of wallpaper ripped away to expose a bright yellow-orange sky, complete with a loose flap of blue dangling off the hole like scraped skin. The tear in the sky looks closer than it could possibly be, more like a low cloud cover than the distant stars of true night. A low, rumbling sound rips through the trees. The distant call of some great beast, but one whose voice is a wildfire, formed from roaring flames and hot gale winds and trees tumbling to the ground as they burn. In answer, a peal of hysterical laughter rises over the roar. The voice is silvery, low but distinctly feminine, and trailed by echoes that buzz like the beating of tiny wings. It almost sounds like a person or at least its cadence has the trappings of what a person might sound like. I freeze, then glance, very slowly, over my shoulder. The scar that marked my straight path into the forest is gone, leaving only a grey circle right where Im standing, and in both corners of my eyes, the trees behind me are quickly not becoming something else, but twisting. Their bright new leaves slowly disintegrate, not crumbling into powder but burning away in invisible fires that leave no sign they were ever there, only bare winter branches. Gaping holes sprout over their trunks, so many that it looks like there shouldnt be any tree left at all beneath them, and each flickers with red-orange inner light like candlelit windows. What begins as a gradual change, trees warping into this new form one by one, swiftly picks up its pace until the forest has become an expanse of hollowed lantern-trees as far as I can see. The underbrush vanishes, replaced with a layer of ash that blankets the ground like snow. The sky is now fully dyed in a blurry mix of oranges, the colors of sunrise over a desert, but the sun is nowhere in sight, replaced by many dancing points of blazing white fire. All the while, the distant noises continue. I cant tell what the humanlike voice is saying, but it answers every explosion and crack of breaking wood with rhythmic bursts of Harbinger-speech. Shouting back at it, like trying to frighten an avalanche away. I cant see anything but sourceless light in the hollows, nor sense any active magic from them. Theres only the faintest ambient traces of a Harbinger, which only tells me that they probably wont kill me. What are they? Is this a Wound? Have I moved or did part of the world itself just bend itself around me and snap its jaws shut? How? My mind swims with questions I have no way to answer. All I know is that somewhere far away, in a direction my senses can only interpret as further, deeper, a presence looms. Hateful. Menacing. Claiming its territory. Which I suppose is why Im here. This may not be a good plan, but its the only one I have. My breath catches at a flash of motion in the branches above me. Something small and bright darts between the branches, followed by many, many more somethings. I shudder and gather a plume of death-mist around my feet, but still they skitter down from the trees and burrow up from the ground, surrounding me. Creatures in all shapes and colors, like insects made from flowers and leaves, with the balance of plant and animal a little different between each of them. Ive never been good with bugs, and their soul-sparks all reek of a Harbingers touch, but I have to admit, theres something eerily beautiful about them. Like orchid mantises, lovely if you dont think about all the butterflies theyve gutted. But these ones arent gutting anything. They arent even advancing. They gather into a half-circle, countless little eyes staring up at me, and there they stay. I hold my ground, searching with my soul for anything that might be using them as a distraction, but dont lash out just yet. Still keeping a healthy distance, they arrange themselves into a complex sigil, like a piece of expertly embellished calligraphy with each line written by insects of a single color. Its the same script as those that appear in Wounds, but it still means nothing to me. When Yurfaln or Irakkia were screaming into my head, I could pull some meaning from their souls, the magic carrying their nonsense words. I cant read this in the same way. There are tiny wisps of power spread through them, like diffuse, sourceless light that sets some of the insects shimmering much brighter than others as it shifts and catches them, but the symbol is too far removed from the Harbinger itself to really contain its intent. I dont understand, I say, not sure what to expect. These dont feel like minions of whatever twisted the forest, so who am I talking to? Why is it talking and why should I listen to what can only be a Harbinger? The swarm is still for several more seconds before it skitters into a new formation. This time, they separate by colors into three circles: one blue and green, one orange and yellow, one red and black. I didnt think flowers could be the lusterless ink-black shade of that last groups darkest members. Then the yellow group and the red group charge into each other full-force like soldiers going to war, and they arent acting. All along the lines where the hordes meet, bugs tear each other apart with barbed vine tails and scything petal-claws. The blue insects also join the battle, but they do so slowly and carefully. They stay back, keeping their borders with the others small, and defend their territory rather than rushing to their deaths. A few from this last group step out and look up at me expectantly. Okay, youre saying theres two of you here, and the other one is doing something? Attacking you? I address the watchful flower-bugs. Stupid. Harbingers wont understand Clarish or Thalassic any more than I understand their language. Probably less. They gesture to the frenzied mobs. I watch them slaughter each other from the corner of my eye, keeping the grisly scene out of sight as much as possible. One green flower-thing that buzzes like a cicada as it moves steps forward and draws a diagonal line in the ash, slanted so it crosses between me and the third group and ends as close to the battle as the bug dares to go. It could equally be marking its territory like a child in a sandbox or suggesting a way to go. Before I left, Vyuji said Harbingers out here were usually warring with each other. Ive apparently stumbled into one of those wars, so is it offering a truce? Leading the way to an enemy, saying we should leave each other alone and not exactly team up, but hit it in our own ways at the same time? Vyuji? I try. I dont know how to respond to this, but she might. She could at least warn me if Im better off ignoring anything a Harbinger says and trusting my own blind guesswork. No response. Of course. In that case, all I can do is work from what I know and what I can sort-of-reasonably assume. This Harbinger is smart and stable enough to identify me as an unpredictable new force in its environment, have the idea to aim me at its rival, and communicate in a way I think I understand. That makes it more dangerous than the other, not less I have no reason to believe its another Yurfaln, reaching out because it thinks Ill be its partner. Anything it shares with me is at best a move that serves its goals in some way and at worst a lie set to bait a deathtrap. Still, as long as I remember that itll stab me in the back if it gets the chance and Ill do the same to it, it seems better than nothing. Better than storming in and fighting both at once. How do I actually agree, though? I cant project thoughts without words the way Irakkia did. After a moments thought, I point to the line in the ash, trace my finger along it toward the warring groups, then raise a hand and release a tiny wisp of fog in the same general direction. The battle comes to an instant stop. Completely abandoning the fights to the death they were locked in moments ago, they buzz excitedly amongst themselves, then shift into a new formation, no longer separated by color: a full ring of them gathers around a single great mass, and the ones in the center begin to dance, frenzied and aggressive in their movements but mostly without violence. Between steps, some of the dancers display their petals and wings like birds showing off their plumage. Others bow low to them and skitter away from the dance, joining the circle, and within a minute, only two remain. The circled insects wave their limbs in little cheers as the apparent winners draw close to one another, press their heads together, then set off in opposite directions and begin to rip the still-cheering spectators apart. Bile rises in my throat, but I cant bring myself to look away. Not while the Harbinger-aura around the insects is growing much stronger and the world is twisting in a new way. All around the shredded corpses, blue-green grass sprouts up through the ashes, swallowing the grey carpet impossibly quickly. A row of plants grows in seconds, forming a fence between me and the insects graveyard, and each sprouts a slightly different slender-fanged maw or cluster of sticky dew-tipped tendrils or cavernous bulb-mouth. Beyond that carnivorous wall, greenery stretches further and further out into the deep woods until its transformed about half of the forest I can see into another region entirely. This new Harbinger-forest looks like a stylized painting of a forest at night, the kind where deep darkness is represented by tinting the light in shades of blue and purple, and its absolutely crawling with life. Insects swarm through the trees. Plants sprout from nothing in seconds, then lean down and lay rows of tiny pearlescent eggs from their blossoms. The grass itself is expanding its blades constantly bend down, dig into the earth, and sprout again a few inches away, so the grounds texture is more like a woven basket than a wild meadow and show no signs of ever stopping. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Slowly, grass threads itself over the sharp line where the ashen hollow-tree woods instantly transition into the insects forest, creeping into its territory. Early dawn and unearthly night clash as the grass grows, carrying the violet darklight of its realm of origin with it. The sky is divided the same way, a jagged border split between burning sunrise and twilight spotted with countless tiny green stars that dance through the sky like fireflies, constantly crashing into each other, growing larger and brighter and more vibrant, then bursting into clusters of new stars. Only when this new world has taken full shape does its creator emerge. Announcing the Harbingers coming, a heavy floral smell floods the air like incense, complete with thick, choking smoke. Hands reach through the grass and push upward, like a corpse rising from its grave, and at first, thats exactly what the emerging figure looks like. A ghoul, withered and clammy, humanlike but unnaturally tall and slender in its proportions, with a long fall of perfectly kept blue-black hair draped over its her? face. Plates of chitin shimmer into being around her body and create a form-fitting exoskeleton styled like ceremonial armor, beetle-black but reflective in a way that sends shifting plumes of iridescent oil-slick colors dancing along it as the light changes. Blades of blue grass stretch and knit themselves into clothlike coverings around her limbs, the organic weave climbing up her shoulders before spilling down the rest of her body. A pair of moth wings unfurl from her lower back, shining in a prismatic array of blue and green gem-tones, then stretch down and wrap around her legs, forming the hindwings into a long skirt and the forewings into coattails held just above the ground. Soon her corpse-skin is entirely covered by this garb, and again, I cant deny that its beautiful in its own unsettling way. A mask of the same black material covers her face when she rises to meet my gaze, leaving only holes for two bright green compound eyes, like the eyes of a dragonfly set into human sockets. Finally, two long, thin black sabers appear in each of her hands, both slightly curved, spiny as the leg of a mantis on one side, and decorated at the hilt with a trail of dusk-colored tassels. She bows with a twirling flourish, and her motion is impossibly fluid in a way that reminds me of Vyuji, but what shes doing couldnt be more different: where my Messenger is mechanically efficient and precise, this Harbinger moves like everything she does is a step in an elaborate dance shes planned out in full long ago, all carefully calculated to express some great secret meaning I cant fathom. Only a tiny shard of her message reaches me, carried in a trilling voice between steps of her performance: The distant crackling voice roars as if in protest, which Vianzia ignores. She beckons me over to her side of the forest. After another look at the fanged flytraps between us, which have parted only slightly in the middle, I raise my free hand and mime pushing a person away. Vianzia tilts her head and giggles softly, but doesnt press the issue. She gestures again in the direction that apparently leads to the other Harbinger, then sets off. I follow, keeping a close watch on her side of the forest with both my eyes and my soul. But behind us, one more thing pricks at my mind, something thats not her and not the other monster. It isnt very strong or harsh, but its like nothing Ive ever smelled. Wet skin? Yeast dough? Musty air? None of those are right theyre all just ideas it vaguely calls to mind. The real scent isnt a combination of anything I know, its something else entirely. I look back, searching for its source. Still partially submerged in the ground is a green worm the size of an eel, but splitting at one end into a tangled cluster of wire-thin branches, like a simple diagram of neurons in a kids medical book. Its strands rummage through a pile of insect bits and torn petals, gathering parts up into a toothless mouth. What is that? I ask, and point it out. The moment Vianzia spots the thing, she spits out a string of words that sounds like a poem composed entirely of curses, heavy with utter disgust, then plunges one blade straight into the ground. From the dense foliage of Vianzias side of the forest, four black vines with thin barbed ends slither out like serpents, quickly encircling the worm. Then they rear up, lash out, spear into it in unison, and start to spin in opposing directions, twisting and shredding until all thats left of it is a scattering of still-twitching remains, like it was put through a blender. Which still isnt enough for her. A new small group of plant-bugs rushes down from among Vianzias trees to carry the things scraps away, leaving no trace of it. All of this takes maybe three seconds. Vianzia hums to herself, sounding satisfied. She says something to me in a murmuring melody of incomprehensible trills, then returns to strolling through the forest like nothing ever interrupted us. I stare in mute shock for a moment longer before I follow her. Three of them. There are at least three of them. This forest is a warzone and Im marching into the middle of it. The path we take follows the unnatural border between Vianzias forest and the other ones ashen realm. She chatters musically to herself all the way, and never looks back to see what Im doing. Probably because the parade of insects trailing behind us are keeping watch for her. Its hard to say how far we travel like that. Does distance mean anything when the local monsters are constantly rearranging reality? I havent had any idea where I am or which way the city is since my trail vanished, and all I have to mark our progress is the feeling of growing closer to the burning voice. Everything has been narrowed down to either toward or away from the two Harbingers. If I need to escape, the best I can do is focus on them and run in the opposite direction. Like lighthouse navigation, if lighthouses ate people. Eventually, Vianzia hisses something and raises an arm in a stop signal. I take cover behind a gnarled tree and reach out with my magic, gathering all the information I can. The wildfire presence is just ahead, but its not alone. Its all tangled up with something else. The third aura is hard enough to sense clearly that I cant tell if its the same as that scavenging worm. Its somehow scattered, with no heart or central point to inspect. All I can gather from it is a vague sense of inner weight that reminds me, inexplicably, of realizing that I couldve drained Mide to death. Past this point, I need to see to know what Im dealing with. Slowly, squeezing the twisted tree with both hands, I peek out from my hiding spot. Beyond the treeline is a field reduced completely to cinders and dust, and there, beneath a burning desert-dawn sky, is a house-sized nightmare of blackened wood and twisted roots. Its shape recalls a giant reptile, like a dinosaur or a dragon out of a storybook, armored in craggy bark plates. Light leaks through the crags at shifting points all over its body. It has nothing like a head or face, only a flattish stretch of wood at its front end. There, a single rotten-looking hollow glows with firelight brighter and harsher than those in its twisted trees. Branches rise from its back like quills, and thick roots stretch out from it in all directions. Those roots are growing and burning at the same time, flaming at the tips while they slither outward, and its constant cries send hot wind blasting through the air and ash storms swirling up from the ground. Ourien doesnt appear to take any notice of me. Its focus is entirely elsewhere, and it only takes a moment to see why: all through the clearing, things are stirring beneath the ash. Formless red-and-black ooze bubbles up from the ground like oil, wailing and gurgling. Every patch is trying to shape itself into something as it emerges, but they never make it far, because Ouriens roots stab into them and set them on fire almost as quickly as they appear. And there are things crawling through the holes in its body. Thin red wisps with tiny faces upon which three black splotches form the uneven shapes of two eyes and a mouth. They arent extensions of Ourien. They definitely arent Vianzia. The third one is... infesting it. My stomach lurches. Three groups. Vianzia told me exactly what was happening. I hadnt known what to make of those two swarms of insects locked in a mad battle to the death, only that it was something to do with Harbinger territories and battlegrounds. Is that her plan? Use my arrival to break a deadlock and pick them both off? No, itd be dangerous to let myself believe her goals are aligned or even compatible with mine. Thinking over our next steps, I glance back at her slice of the forest. The point where Vianzias teeming jungle meets the clearing is lined with insect-plants unlike the others, sharing none of their eerie beauty. Clusters of huge bone-colored thorns that jut out in all directions from no visible central stem, they resemble sea urchins with wide, thick spines more than anything else. Each is maybe a foot shorter than me. As the burning roots draw closer, some lift themselves up and reposition to meet them, moving on six tiny legs that emerge from just beneath the center of their spines. Vianzia spins to meet my gaze with perfect timing, like she knew without seeing exactly when I looked at her. I break eye contact and return to the clearing, where Ourien slaughters an endless tide of ooze-creatures. Teamwork ended horribly for me when I could talk to my allies and none of them wanted to eat me. This is worse in so many ways I dont know where to start. We cant plan, cant communicate in any real way, so whats the first step? Whoever takes it exposes herself for an immediate backstab. Her trap cant be something as simple as go get them, Ill cover you, since theres no way Id jump right in and she certainly wont either, so what can I do? The Harbinger breaks my concentration with a few trilled words, then answers my unspoken question. Her spiky bush-things rise and scuttle a few feet into the clearing, advancing in near-perfect unison, then replant themselves. Blue grass that suddenly looks very sharp, gleaming at its edges like tiny knives, weaves itself forward in their wake. Vianzia throws her arms wide and starts to spin, taking what couldve been the simple motion of making herself dizzy for fun and performing it with grace enough to turn the act into a spontaneous bladed ballet. As she twirls, perfumed smoke overpowers my senses, crowding out the other auras. Shes flaring, I realize, just like I do. Vianzia doesnt go to battle with a monsters hunting call, with hunger or bloodlust. The emotions her power carries, the heart of her... When I was much younger, before I was too constantly sick to go to school, I once stumbled onto two boys killing a grasshopper. Rather, one slowly killed it while the other goaded him on in that horrible way boys do, bragging about his collection of pet bugs whose legs he ripped off to keep them from escaping. I ran straight off that playground at the sight, ran until I couldnt anymore. I didnt want to be around a dying thing, but more than that, those boys terrified me. If theyd do something like that just because they could, what was stopping them from tearing my limbs off and carrying me around in a box? It took a week to convince me that other children werent going to murder me for fun. Vianzia projects the easy malice of a child torturing an insect just to see what will happen, not knowing or caring what shes doing to another living thing. Being so close to her makes me feel like that grasshopper. Or maybe, in this context, like the boy being pushed to kill it. But her display does draw Ouriens attention. It howls, pushing back against the vicious pressure of her soul with its own scorching rage. Roots twist to grow in her direction, and it stomps toward her forest in long, slow strides that shake the earth with each step. The air itself starts to burn tongues of flame burst into being from nothing, alternately falling and fading or drifting on the wind like leaves. I wipe my face on one sleeve, knowing the clinging sweat will be back seconds later. Vianzia ends her dance to buzzing cheers from an audience of insects. She comes to a stop facing me, chirps something, and skips away to meet Ouriens advance. Her creations are quick to follow in a chittering storm of wings and blossoms. As one, the spiky bush-things explode, bursting into a thicket of brambles like razor wire, but made of vines and thorny bone spurs, and clearly still alive, actively twining together and digging into the ground. What is she planning? It cant be that shes just not concerned about anything I might do to betray her, can it? Well whatever her angle is, shell be ready for a fight. I really am better off attacking the ones that havent been watching me. Ourien is already tied down with two other enemies, so here we go. Slowly, I gather my magic in my heart. With a little time to prepare, I can flood the whole clearing with death. Hopefully, all three of them will A voice shrieks right into my ear. A mass of black-and-red falls from no clear source and fills my vision, like a waterfall behind my eyes. Patterns of red in the darkness form outlines faintly like the crude faces crawling through Ouriens body. Impossible to tell where it is in space, if it even is anywhere. My heart hammers painfully and I taste terror in the back of my throat, bitter and salty. Its too much, too fast, I dont trust myself to shape magic the right way, so I do the one thing I can and unleash a raw burst of death-mist. The thing draws away from my fog in a sudden lurching movement. To my eyes, it looks like it jumps out from inside my head, but it wasnt quite quick enough. Tiny seeds of my power lodge inside it, waiting to grow into disease and death. Seen from a distance, its a living ooze like the ones leaking up through the clearing. Much larger, but still flowing and shapeless, at first. Its red parts slide along its surface, gather into clumps, and mold themselves into round wax masks, all depicting anguished faces made of three distorted holes just like the ones crawling through Ourien. It lets out a thousand shrill, tiny cries, screams of soul-deep agony that combine into a dissonant melody. In a chorus sung by the screams of rabbits as they die of fright, it speaks: Then, without tensing or rearing back or showing any sign of preparing to move, it throws itself at me. I step to the side and dash to take cover behind a tree, but it falls short it wouldnt have reached me anyway. It just dives into the fog like its trying to smother a fire with its body, and there it stays. Almost like thats what it was aiming to do. What it said before, was that its name? If it was, the idea behind it doesnt fit. Its not like any of the others, those twisted declarations about the way things are. Is there any way its actually talking? How would it, why did I... why am I crying? Esonei squirms and squeals in obvious pain. Its masks start to melt. This feels more like killing an ugly little animal just because it disgusted me than battling a horror. Its pathetic. So pitiful its painful. Wordless impressions crawl through my thoughts of the poor thing. Shredding. Burning. Sins heavy enough to crush a soul. So many lives and all of them end with Its splintered jaws snapping shut around cindered remains. It knows not what It does It must know It must be made to feel to UNDERSTAND I grab my head, clenching locks of my hair between my fingers, and scream. Just to focus on something concrete while I block out all the thoughts that aren''t mine. ...Where did that stop being me? Nightmares jamming themselves into my thoughts is becoming a familiar feeling, a thing I can recognize from experience. I hate it, hate all of this, hate what Im doing to myself, mutilated in Its image to show It the horror in what It has done stop it. Stop it. Get OUT. I pull back my right sleeve, grab a card, and draw its sharp edge sideways over my arm. Bloodletting for my soul, the simplest, easiest way my power seems to work. Through the biting pain I do my best to gather this corruption and force it out of myself, but its not so concrete a thing as my sickness or Yurfalns remains. It isnt a disease, its only an infection in some abstract way, and worst of all it isnt a single thing its already as scattered as its source, tangled and wound through me in ways I cant make sense of. Even as I try to purge it, spectral red faces flit in and out of the corners of my eyes. Their circular mouths are locked open in silent screams. Vianzia laughs as if at some cruel private joke. Where We Come From 3-3 Esoneis cluster of faces melts into the ground, and its ghostly voice grows louder. I reach out and draw my infection out from the quivering heap of its body, the way I ripped it out of Yurfaln, but its already too far gone. Its dying just as quickly, screaming and weeping as shreds of its essence slough away with my magic. Soon its completely disintegrated, leaving only its echoes. Over and over its voice demands something from me, but I dont understand what. The burning carnage in the clearing ahead leaves me faint and sick to my stomach and I cant stop crying and I cant tell where my feelings end and the new invasive thing inside me begins. Vianzia knew this would happen. She had to know. These are her rivals, her insane balance of power Ive stormed in and upset. I was a shield she used to get one enemys attention while she threw herself at the other. What did she want to avoid so badly? What are you doing, Esonei? Through the madness pouring from its spectral mouths, I try to sort through my thoughts. Everything about the battle ahead makes me sick in a squeamish way I dont think it did before, even if its hard to remember or imagine what that was like. Trying to join the fray is worse. I turn to Vianzias forest, gather myself, and resolve to no, I cant even think it clearly before a new wailing face fills my vision and pain and disgust overwhelm me. Its no different with Ourien if anything that hurts more, and I throw the idea away like Id accidentally picked up something too hot to touch. My own mind has become a screaming maze of barbed-wire barricades. Do I run? Accept that this was for nothing? Hope I eventually end up back in the world, hope I find something I can do about the tattered ghost lodged in my soul? No, not yet. Not letting her win just yet. Wisps of my own magic still flow through me, cold and corrosive. Half-formed remnants of the horrible gnawing thing Id tried to do when I had the stomach to hurt anything. Before Esonei put itself in the way. It threw itself at me and kept me away from Ourien. Maybe that need to be hurt is just its nature, the single instinct it lives by, but that doesnt feel right. It lives, at least in part, inside the other Harbinger. From what its doing to me, it wants to prevent the kind of mad violence Harbingers devote themselves to? No, thatd be too easy, too clean, and its infestation isnt stopping Ourien from destroying whatever it wants. Punish is probably a better world. It shares its pain with anything that hurts it, nevermind whether that makes them act any differently. Thinking of it that way, it was probably protecting its main host, making sure nothing else cuts its torment short. With no real way to send Esonei a message, I think my next idea very loudly to myself. You have your own plans for Ourien? Fine. Ill leave it completely alone. Theres a Harbinger killing it right now. Ill help you stop her if you just Knives of dread and revulsion lance through my soul in answer. Okay. The hard way it is, then. I reach for that unshaped magic and stir up more of it, gathering it like I would to to use it normally. My mind skates around the things Ive done with it. Rather than repeat any of those things, I dam the flow as it rises. I let it build and build inside and I keep it there, clinging to a torrent of dreadful power. Normally, Im protected from my own magic I cant be more infected but this time, Im actively trying to turn parts of it on myself. My body wont take this well, of course. I know whats coming before I feel it. Soon, too-familiar pain pulses through one side of my head like something is drumming on it. I lean into my cane, clenching it with both hands as my limbs start to shake but other than what Im doing to myself, nothing happens. No intrusive ideas or sudden blaring shrieks fill my world. A little more pain heaped on my lifes pile, thats all. Esonei spends its existence tearing itself apart. It cant object if I do the same. All thats left is to wait and see if it can still live inside me like this. Until then, what can I actually do? Its hard to keep standing through my own inner decay, but leaning heavily on a hollow tree as I gasp in deep, heaving breaths through clenched teeth, I do. Back where the jungle meets the ash field, Vianzias plants have invaded Ouriens space. Urchin-bushes scuttle forward and gather in tight circles around its trunk-legs. They reach up with vines from the center of their leaves and slither into the tangled roots of its body, then burrow back into the ground. Ourien burns and smashes them away as quickly as it can some are already reduced to crushed or charred piles of leaves. Its inner light has intensified to a point where it looks like its burning alive from the inside out. As it moves, it sheds bits of its bark that immediately catch fire on the ground. Esonei has nothing to punish me for, but it sobs and babbles meaninglessly at the sight all the same, tangling its pain up with my nausea. Twisted little faces still swim through my vision. Vianzia herself watches Ourien throw itself against her forces from a safe distance. In a dark grove swarming with her children, she laughs and dances while insects fill the air with a million different chirps and buzzes, like the noises bugs make on summer nights but louder and harsher and clashing in painfully grating ways rather than merging into the background hum of nature. It all leaves me with the unshakable sense that Im about to be dissected for fun. As the urchin-bushes continue their advance, she raises one saber and points it straight at Ourien. At her signal, a parade of smaller insects dances out from the forest and advance into the ash-field, each carrying a single little black seed in its mandibles. Most are crushed beneath Ouriens sweeping root-tendrils or burned to nothing, but a few crawl onto its back. Those survivors drop the seeds into the crevices between roots, where they swiftly grow and unfurl into fanged flytrap mouths. Vianzia giggles and cheers at the sight, then begins to stir her sword through the air like a conductors baton. As one, the carnivorous blossoms start to sing a cold, gentle lullaby, perfectly performed but utterly without feeling. Until Ourien roars over the melody and burns and crushes them all to nothing, frantically and without the slightest regard for how much it hurts itself. Her malice is much more careful and deliberate than it feels, I see now shes not doing anything to harm Ourien directly, only provoking it and giving it ways to hurt itself. Avoiding Esoneis attention even while its busy worming into me. Shes been plotting this long enough to study her enemies, see that they have some bizarre relationship, and breed little monsters just for them. Ourien might be bigger, but shes the most dangerous of them by far. Her plan is going perfectly and I have no idea what to do about it. There may be nothing I can do. Im already struggling to poison myself just enough and keep track of which thoughts are mine. Everything hurts. Every thought still reminds me of maimed grasshoppers starving to death. The pounding in my nerves makes flushing Esonei out feel like trying to crush a bug in my hair by smashing my skull. I cant just push through it all and win anyway, even if I had the stomach to hurt her. If theres any way to turn this around, it starts with Esonei. If youll let me help you, let me think my own way, we might With no sound and no sudden rumbling of the earth, the ground collapses in chunks at the far end of the clearing. A round bus-sized sinkhole opens beneath it No, thats not right. A sinkhole would make an earthy burrow with walls of soil, but where the ashen ground collapses, theres nothing. It looks like it would look if the planet was just a thin shell wrapped around a bottomless void. Until hair-thin white roots that shine like snow on a bright day start to climb out of the blackness, crawling up as if over the surface of a wall that doesnt exist. A new presence spills into the world with them, smelling of something unnameable. Four Harbingers. Im surrounded by four Harbingers. That worm Vianzia killed was a tiny part of something else, and that something must have sensed all the blood in the air. Esoneis constant mutters take on an especially nervous tinge. Ourien lets out a ground-shaking growl. Its inner fire rises until it looks less like a reptile burning with inner light and more like a firestorm with legs, and at the same time, the lighted hollows in the gnarled lantern-trees start to burn from the inside, spitting dozens of little bonfires out through their holes. I push myself away from my suddenly-blazing tree and try to prop myself up with my cane, but thats too much for my traitor limbs to manage. Instead I fall flat on my stomach, where the layer of ash that blunts the impact also gets in my eyes and sets me coughing painfully when I breathe. The sudden heat is sickeningly heavy all on its own. It takes a flood of stolen essence to pick myself up and a constant flow to stay conscious after that. And as the fire rises and begins to engulf the woods in a burning canopy, things crawl up from the blackness seething in that hole to nothing. Split-headed worms like the last one. Creatures that are just flat circles of ropey tentacles around spiny central mouths, like nightmare starfish. Shapeless oozing things that look like they shouldnt have any way to move, but there they go crawling along anyway, coating themselves in ash as they roll. No two of them are quite the same, and while their colors and textures make me think of glowing mold, many come in shades Ive never seen or imagined before, colors I dont think I have words for. Two groups march off in different directions, each carrying a bulbous off-white orb that quivers as it moves. Eggs made of flesh. Rather than join the battle themselves, the rest of them just spread out through the clearing and search for bits and scraps of the warring Harbingers. A tide of them invades with no regard for their own lives, no mind paid to anything but their single goal. Globs of Esonei scream in protest as worm-things scoop them up and carry them toward the sinkhole. Ourien is especially quick to burn those ones, glob and all, but before long the things are pouring out through the hole faster than it can kill them. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. It feels like my heart has shriveled up in my chest and my veins have tightened all across my body and I want to just lay down and cry. This is too much. This is all way too much. Maybe I could fight one of them, given time to figure them out, but I cant do this. I really, really shouldnt have come here. Vianzia makes a toneless buzzing hmmm noise as the newest disaster unfolds, then skips away from her border with Ourien. Straight toward me, stopping just where her side of the forest ends. She tilts her head, looks me over, then shrugs and chirrups something cheerful-sounding. The spiny bone-bushes continue to hold their line, but most of the swarm swivels to join her. The dark trees fill with tiny little eyes that hum and cheer amongst themselves. Theyre all staring down at me. She draws closer, humming and whirling and flourishing her blades as she walks, and her flower-things quickly move to follow her into the burning forest. I try to swallow, but it catches in my throat. I still cant fight her like this. Shell slaughter me as easily as torturing a grasshopper to death. Unless. By now, my power has eaten into Esoneis splinters. Its noises have faded into whispered croaks and a dull nausea that barely registers in my current state. Red almost-faces sense my intent and gather in the corners of my eyes, but theyre just faint airy wisps now. Just a frightened audience, not completely gone but not strong enough to stop me. So I reach for the toxic magic Ive infused myself with, tighten my grip on it, and let even more of it flow freely into me. I pour everything I have in this moment into the act, drawing from the storm in my soul of pain and terror and above all my raw, simple wish to live. Emotions basic enough for anything with a mind to understand. Its not just that theres more of it, I realize now the magic Ive gathered and turned on my own broken body has been concentrating, seething through me, festering into something vastly more horrible than I couldve made by simply calling up every bit of noxious strength I could hold and releasing it all at once. Some of it is Yurfalns stolen essence, too, rewarding me for my self-injury by pushing my power to nightmarish new heights. I let the magic seethe and grow until Im certain the slightest bit more would burst loose on its own will, popping me like a balloon with it. Only then do I stop the flow, breathe in heavily, and scream the air back out with all the strength I have left: STAY AWAY FROM ME OR WE ALL DIE! Vianzias reaction is unreadable through her mask, but she freezes, and her swarm pauses with her in unnatural unison. The clamor of insects voices dies out in an instant. Im leaving! You can do whatever you want to A harsh cough rips through my throat, but if that weakens the threat, Vianzia doesnt show it. to each other, but Im finished! If any of you try to eat me, if you get in my way at all, Ill make sure I take every one of you with me! In emphasis, I loosen my grip on the power coursing through me, stopping just shy of setting it free, and push out with my will as hard as I can. When we met, Shona said the way I flared was especially loud and painful. Im counting on that. Maybe they dont understand my words, but I can still communicate the way poisonous animals do with their colors. This is just a sliver of what youre in for if you push me, I want to tell them. I let my warning hang in the air for what feels like a very long time. Stillness falls over the forest. The only movement comes from the scavengers, which continue their work without a seconds pause. Not my problem. Power burns inside me, but even in this raging heat it burns the way sudden bitter cold burns, like touching freezing metal to my skin. All I can do is hold it and suffer and wait. Finally, first to break the silence, Vianzia laughs. It isnt the scornful, mocking laughter from before, the sounds shes made while taunting Ourien or enjoying others misery. It sounds like shes cackling uncontrollably at a joke that caught her by surprise. She stabs her swords into the ground, dances like a child so overcome with delight that she cant contain it, and laughs and laughs and laughs. Once shes gotten it all out, she yells something into the clearing. Ourien roars back in raw animal rage, and Esonei wails along with it as if to add something to a statement. Its voice comes from outside, wherever its being is centered. The Esonei inside me just rasps out weak dying gurgles that almost make me think of it as a wounded little animal again. Almost. Burning roots snake along the ground, moving to surround the urchin insects. Vianzia speaks again in a softer tone deliberately shushed, like shes trying not to wake someone up. Its somehow no harder to hear, not that it makes any more sense. The roots stop in place. After another still pause, Ourien grunts, turns, and charges howling toward the sinkhole. The bone shrubs back out of its territory. Vianzia raises an arm and twirl-points into her jungle. There, flowering plants and even a few trees uproot themselves and relocate, creating a straight line of clear space away from the battleground. We havent exactly arranged an orderly truce. While Ourien seems to have devoted itself to crushing scavengers, the trees dont stop burning, and Esoneis corroded presence doesnt leave me. Im not sure if it could, but itll be gone soon. This is the best Ill get. Without turning my back to Vianzia, I inch past her and onto her path. Insects scuttle away from me, gathering into crowded lines like theyre watching a parade from either side. The Harbinger herself does nothing but chuckle and wave goodbye. So I turn, constantly looking back over my shoulder, and start to limp out of the forest. If my hunch is right, any direction away from the Harbingers territories should lead back to reality. Ill worry about the exact way out once theyre gone. But there is one last problem, gnawing at me from the inside. Magic wants to be used. It doesnt want to be an idle threat, no matter how effective that threat was. Maybe I could swallow all this pain back down if I really tried, but it could easily object. Take its frustration out on me. So once the Harbingers presences are far enough behind me, and the trees ahead start to look like the same forest I first stepped into, I turn and release every last shred of my pooled corruption into Vianzias twilight jungle. A silent hurricane of plague-wind rips through the trees. The gale tears leaves and branches and insects alike along with it, carrying them for just a moment just the fraction of a second it takes for the magic to infect them and wither them to nothing, at which point they disintegrate into shimmering emerald wisps of fog and join the storm. Death winds through the forest, eating its way toward the realms creator. My way of thanking her for her hospitality. On some level I think its better if all of the monsters walk away from this mess licking their wounds, too weak to eat their rivals and grow into something even worse. Mostly, though, I just want to hurt her back. I can only hope, though. Im not waiting around to see how she responds. Free from the deathly weight of my own magic, I tap my stolen strength, push a much smaller breath of decay forward to clear the underbrush, and run away as fast as I can. Nothing seems to follow. ~~~ Sure enough, barely a minute after Vianzia leaves my souls sight-range, the treeline breaks, and Im back in the wilting flower field. I even left in the right direction, assuming that directions had any meaning in those Woundlike spheres of horror. I try to stop moving, but it mustve been too sudden my upper body jolts forward, and only my cane narrowly keeps me from tumbling onto my face again. When I sit down a second later its only a half-step removed from collapsing. Im sweating and coughing and feeling disgusting enough that I wonder if Im still somehow poisoned no, all gone. Esonei too. I guess this escape was the farthest and longest and fastest Ive ever moved all at once. Moved on my own, anyway. Remembering Shonas method still makes me dizzy. I wipe the ashes off my face with one sleeve, dismiss my magic, and sit beneath a shady tree until the soreness in my legs fades. Which takes a while. Its late afternoon by now. My phone says this insane outing took a little under an hour, and I spend another half hour doing nothing but breathing with my eyes closed before I feel ready to do anything else. Goodbye, flowers. Goodbye, Vianzia. I hope we never see each other again. That Harbinger when I met her, when we managed to talk to each other on some level, there was a very short while where I wondered if we might have some sort of understanding. I knew the idea was too dangerous to consider, reminded myself constantly that I couldnt trust her with anything. But if Id really been paying attention, I couldve noticed what she was doing. Her opening moves were designed to look like she was throwing herself into battle ahead of me, but only put her insects in any serious danger. She just waited in her woods to see who came out on the bottom. Did I actually hold her at a distance or only say I would, blinded by the hope that something might work out with someone else for once? Maybe Im grasping for someone else who knows what its like, living with power that forces you to hurt people to survive. But the only other examples I have are gleefully murderous soul-eating nightmares. As with so many other things, I dont like what that says about my future. Vyuji? I dont spot anyone among the flowers at a glance, but I also dont care who sees me talking to myself right now. Liadain. Im glad to see you intact, her voice says after a short delay. She appears seated next to me, curled up with her arms around her legs. How did it go? Urgh. Ill tell you later if you really need to know. I just had a question about something else. You does it ever happen that something about a Keeper is wrong or dangerous or harmful to people? Well, have you ever heard any stories like that? On the Sea, or the news? No, but they wouldnt oh. It took a lot of searching to find anything about the man Mary Hyland may or may not have killed. A suspicious lot of searching, given how interested people are in Keepers and anything unusual going on with them. Point taken. I think. Vyuji gives me a sidelong smile, then quickly looks back out at the dying flowers. I am your Messenger, Liadain. Yours. My duty is to you and children like you, and in that role I guide and advise and do not judge. Such things are uncommon, but not so uncommon that the idea surprises me. To my mind, we each do what we must, and so long as a Keepers magic doesnt endanger the world itself, any troubling aspects of it are exactly as much a problem as that Keeper feels they are. Does that answer your question? By now, Im sure she somehow knows what Im talking about. So whatever I am, its not so bad that the people in charge would declare me a monster. That doesnt help the way it feels, but maybe its the best I can get without going to the Church and asking them to put me in touch with their secret awful vampire Keepers. Not in quite the way I was thinking. Its something, though. Thank you. Im glad I could help. If that was all, rest well. I nod, wave her off, and shes gone. Time to make my way home and hope this hasnt taken too huge a toll on me. ~~~ That was my plan, anyway. But not far from the hospital, I catch the scent of something new, a sense so faint its barely there at all. If I werent still so on edge, I doubt Id have noticed it. Its too distant or too small to have any clear feeling to it, but the crawling unease it carries is unmistakable. Theres a Harbinger somewhere very close by. A lone one this time. I take stock of my lingering aches. Im tired, I dont want to do anything more, but at least for now my condition seems stable. Fine. Lets see what youre doing over there. Maybe today wont be a complete waste. Where We Come From 3-4 The faint stench grows only slightly stronger as I follow it, but eventually, its trail does end. Its on the outer edge of the Fields, the central urban district, centered in a single mid-sized craftsman house. I sense five mostly-healthy people inside, which that kind of crowd could be very bad. None of them feel corrupted yet, though. Im not sure what that says about the Harbingers activities or the risk of coming after it with bystanders around. All I can do is try and act faster than it. With that in mind, I creep along the edge of the yard, approaching the house from the side, then press against the wall and transform. No reaction I can sense from the presence, so I summon a card and transfer my sight into it. When my vision is done blurring and spinning, I float it by the front windows. The lights are on, and by now its dark enough to see inside easily. A redheaded girl around my age is playing with her phone in one room, so theres at least one sign that Im not walking back into Yurfalns pit of nightmares. Ill take it. That said, Id rather not bring my cane to introduce myself to a house full of strangers. I consider leaving it under the porch or around the garage corner, but, well itll be worse if I need it and dont have it. Hopefully they have bigger things to worry about. I banish my card, shake off a bit of lingering dizziness, then round the corner and ring the doorbell. It takes a while for anyone to answer. Two or three voices call out to each other, but I cant tell what theyre saying. I bang my cane on the front door for emphasis. After maybe a minute, it creaks open, and a woman in a big knitted sweater peers down at me. She takes a moment to recognize what shes looking at, and then she just waits, dumbfounded. Theres a Harbinger somewhere in your house. Im here to kill it, I say. The woman opens and closes her mouth several times, barely blinking, then frowns and crosses her arms. Really? Wheres your, your badge? she asks. Theres, sometimes kids will dress up in those clothes to sneak in and rob your house! Ive heard about that! And its seriously your first thought here? Thats ridiculous. To be fair, if a kid were going to dress up as a Keeper to steal someones stuff they might dress a lot like me, but maliciously impersonating a Keeper is instantly-ruin-your-life illegal. Maybe its happened a couple times in history, people do some stupid things, but there is absolutely not an epidemic of burglars in frilly outfits. Could she be covering for the Harbinger? Maybe shes touched in some way I cant see? Well, I dont have the patience to be reassuring. Here, I say, and flare enough that she flinches and hides her eyes. Darkness streams through the front hall behind her, smothering its overhead lights, and another voice squeals in surprise from inside. Do you need any more proof? I, no. C-come in. Shes visibly paled when she opens the door and steps aside. Get your family and take them outside. Stay by the road. Ill tell you when Im done. She freezes, then nods and calls into the house: Kids? Garvan? Come here, please come here! The girl in the front living room is already staring at me, quietly terrified, and she doesnt need much prompting to yelp again, kick her shoes on, and skitter out the door. I guess I did that to myself with this entrance. A younger girl, with hair the same shade of red as her sisters tied into a tiny side ponytail, bounds down the stairs seconds later. She stops short of the bottom, leans nearly her whole body over the railing, and stares right at me, grinning. Whoa! Hi, Miss Keeper! Are you here to magic Brendan so he stops being so weird? Dont pester her, Ada, the woman sputters, trying and failing to sound stern. She just needs to check on something. Get your coat and wait outside with Rosa. Why would I need a coat? Its super warm out, youre all crazy! She does a headfirst tumble over the railing that looks incredibly dangerous, but somehow touches down on her feet, then charges past me and out the door barefoot. Okay, that was odd, but so far none of them look like theyre sharing a house with a monster. Next a tall, thin man in thick glasses peeks out from the end of the hallway. The woman whispers something to him. All I hear is the loudly hissed Harbinger as his eyes widen. Oh. Yes. I, I see. Thank you for checking up on us. Brendan? Brendan, come on down! Brendan takes quite a bit longer to appear at the top of the staircase. What the little girl said about him just sounded like siblings annoying each other, so I wasnt expecting him to be weird in any real way, and he doesnt surprise me. His dark hair is a little mussy and he looks startled to see me, but theres no Harbinger-stench on him. I wave, then step out of view. This little lady is a Keeper! How about that? Shes stopping by to see how were doing, thats all. Lets get out of her way while she makes sure everythings good, okay? the man says. He does a better job sounding normal, I guess. Maybe I''ve been on the seventh floor too long, but even the way he spoke was a bit strained. Kay, Brendan eventually says, and the three leave together, closing the door behind them. And now its just us. Where, and how, are you hiding? Next to all the other Harbingers Ive met, this one is shockingly quiet. After Vianzia, that leaves me wondering: whats its game? Wheres the trap? I reach out with my soul, which still feels only the faintest hints of something eerie, and start searching the house. At a glance, there are no signs of anything suspicious. Everything is fairly well-kept. Even the basement is clean and brightly lit, with no haunted corners for monsters to hide in. The worst thing I can say is that it doesnt look very personalized? Looking around doesnt say much about the people who live here. The furniture and decorations are all sort of generically pleasant. No signs that anyone really likes a particular color or animal, no supplies for a hobby someones into, no nooks covered in family photos like some houses have. But plenty of people dont hang pictures everywhere, even people without any complicated family circumstances. Im not sure if any of this means anything. They could just be a bit boring. Thats less true upstairs. Unfortunately. One of the girls rooms looks less like a place where someone lives and more like a tiny shop that deals exclusively in Stardust Seraph merchandise. One side is nearly wallpapered with posters depicting a nauseatingly handsome blonde pretty boy flaunting a cocky grin. The teeth peeking through his lips are so bright they sting my eyes. Her backpack is dotted with little pins, and while a couple show some kind of bright red glyphic logo, most are just more pictures of his grinning face. Figures in and out of costume stand posed on the desk. Between those is a collage of news-clipping photos and weirdly personal headlines about Roland Ysembards life and preferences, and under those, a combination-locked journal. Not important. I dont want to know what sort of bleak and terrible confessions are in there and I dont think the squirmy feeling in my stomach has anything to do with Harbingers. Moving on. Compared to the stalkers shrine, even compared to the non-fangirls rather normal room, the one room that looks like a young boys is a bit emptier. Not bare or lifeless, he just doesnt have as much stuff as the others. I dont really know what boys rooms are supposed to look like, so maybe thats normal? Still, what his sister said before I shouldnt ignore anything someone says when a Harbingers involved, even if they dont know they have a problem. There should be something weird enough to attract a monster about or around at least one of these people. Thats how its supposed to work, at least, but Im assuming one of them is feeding it the way Yurfaln fed on Mr. Enfield. Maybe Im wrong and a Harbinger from somewhere else randomly chose to nest in this house, or some other thing I havent thought of is happening. The rules arent at all clear. Only one other unhelpful thing catches my attention: in an upstairs bathroom, theres shampoo the Seraph apparently endorses. Of course there is. That smug little idol boys golden hair is longer and shinier and better-kept than mine and its not particularly close. At least hes not on the bottle. I dont know what Id do if he was on the bottle. And yes, when I pull my hood down to check, theres a third twisting white streak in my hair. ~~~ Before too long Ive searched the entire house, then searched it again just in case. Even the attic, where I needed to go find a stool to reach the pull-down stairs. The miasma is a tiny bit weaker up there and down in the basement. Otherwise it feels the same everywhere, with no clear source and no signs that its gone somewhere else. It never stops feeling uncomfortable in a way thats hard to pinpoint, but as far as I can tell theres nothing else here. What does that mean? Is it hiding its Wound somehow? Or hiding somewhere else? I look out at the family. None of them felt corrupted at a glance, but I could be mistaken, or it couldve slipped out with them. I study their souls again, closely as I can without drawing from them. In between cartwheels over the grass, the little girl shivers as if in a cold breeze at my unseen touch, but thats just me. Theres still nothing inside any of them. So what is actually happening here? I open the door and wave the adults in. After a brief delay and a few words to the kids, they join me at the round kitchen table. Is it over? the man asks. Not yet. Something happening in your home is well just say summoning a Harbinger. Its complicated. I dont understand it myself and I dont know if anyone does, but better if they dont hear that from the girl in charge of handling the problem. Wait, wait, so what are we doing back inside? he whisper-hisses, like he wants to raise his voice but hes afraid to wake someone up. I have some questions. Its hiding from me, and knowing exactly where it came from will help me track it down or flush it out, so please tell me whats going on. What do you mean going on? We dont know anything about this. About magic, the woman says. The magic problems start with someone here feeling something that drew a Harbinger to them. Thats what I need to know about. They feed on pain, so whatever it is wont be good to talk about. Im sorry. ...Oh. Her hands, folded in front of her on the table, start to tighten until her fingers are losing their color. After a silent beat, the man steps back in for her. Listen, miss... what did you say your name was? I didnt. Call me Eyna. Okay. Eyna. Im Garvan Wade, and this is my this is Matilda. Anyway, is there a monster roaming around here or not? If there is, I really dont see how sitting around telling our life stories is going to catch it. I just told you how. Oh. Right. And youre really sure thats necessary? he asks. If I had a better idea, I wouldnt be asking. I dont want to dig up your issues any more than you do, I say. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Alright. Alright, he sighs. So whats, I dont know, what sorts of problems should we be thinking about? Then were not going to dance around this forever. Good. You seem surprised about all this, so I guess none of you have been through anything obviously bizarre or unnatural. Is that right? I ask. Nothing comes to mind, Garvan says, and glances over to Matilda. What? She does a little startled jump in her seat, like she wasnt expecting to be back in the conversation. Oh, no, I dont think so. The girls havent mentioned anything like that. Then the next place to look is any serious personal issues thatve come up recently. Anyone whos suddenly acting strangely? Any moods or experiences you cant explain? The two share an uncomfortable silent glance. Well, youve Tilly, do you want to? Garvan asks. Its alright. I can tell her, Matilda says softly, and returns her gaze to her folded hands. For a while now, maybe the last two weeks, maybe a little longer, I havent been sleeping well at all. No, sorry, that really doesnt cover it. Ive had these nightmares dreams I dont remember, only that there are these these people-things, with no features, like outlines, or shadows. Just following. Watching me. Everywhere. Shes trembling, now, and the nails of one hand dig into the knuckles of the other. It never feels like rest when I wake up. And then now I think Im seeing them while Im up, too. Just early in the morning and late at night, but I dont know. I inspect her soul again, closer this time. Shes not sick or infested with anything, but there is something worn about her. Its like the way people I drain feel, but less so, and without any clear traces of magic pointing to something like that. Did you not tell anyone about this? I ask. It wasnt too long after Garvan and Brendan moved in, she says. It was all a lot to take in. I figured it was just, just stress, and theres well, some family history with this sort of thing. Am I wrong? Have I done something wrong? She looks back up at me, pleading with her eyes, which I can now tell are just a little bit heavy, a little bit sunken. Moved in? Oh. I think I see. It''s a stepfamily. But shes right that doesnt sound like it should be enough to attract a Harbinger. I dont think its you, unless theres something much more than youre saying, I say, putting just a little extra emphasis on the idea. W-what do you mean? Im not, theres nothing Im hiding! Im trying to help! Tears begin to well up in her eyes. I just dont want anyone to get hurt! She covers her mouth in a bid to hold herself back from weeping. Garvan glares at me. Was that part too much? I dont know, Ive never done this before. People are hard and clearly none of us are at our best right now. Oh. Ah, that didnt sound right, did it? I just meant to ask if that was all, I say. Strange dreams, seeing things, but no intrusive thoughts? No feelings you dont recognize? No. No, thats really all, she says, only slightly calming down. Okay. Thanks. Im sorry I have to go here, but is anyone else having a harder time with this? How are the kids handling it? Um, she hiccups, and shakes her head. Garvan freezes, clenching his teeth. If something is wrong, I really need to know before it gets worse, I tell him. Right, he sighs. Tilly, do you want to go check on the kids? Matilda meets his eyes uncertainly for a moment, then nods and goes back outside without another word. I tilt my head, waiting for Garvan to say whatever he wanted to say in private. It takes him a while to gather himself. Its nothing to do with Matilda. I just didnt want to drag her back through all this, he finally says. My son my older son died last year. Just an accident, thats what they kept saying. Nobodys fault. He tenses up, scratching along his stubble and turning his gaze away from mine. Where his eyes look now, he seems to be staring off at something far, far away. Brendan hasnt taken it well. It still hasnt really set in for him. I dont think he wants it to. I dont blame him. He lays his palms flat on the table, spreading out his large, callused fingers. His downcast eyes observe them as they tremor ever so slightly. Im sorry. Thats all I can think to say. Spending my life surrounded by death has only ever made me worse with loss. Garvan shakes his head. Im saying all this because if any of us is hurting, really hurting the way youre worried about, its him. He still says every time I bring it up that Nial is just fine. He sees him all the time. Talks to him. My eyes widen as I lean in closer. Why didnt you say so sooner? Thats exactly the way Im worried about, yes. Sorry, he mutters numbly. Its been going on for a lot longer than weve been here or Tillys sleeping problems. The counselor said he was just having a hard time with grief, and we shouldnt be too tough on him if it wasnt hurting anyone, so I didnt think... you dont think I do. I just dont know what it means or how it works yet. I need to talk to your son. Itll be safest if I do it alone. Garvan seems to steady himself, and speaks with a little more force: Miss, if my boys in trouble, I cant just leave him and wait. What can I do to help? Hell need you when this is over. Until then, you can stay where it wont get you too, I say. He seems like a good dad. That wont protect him from a Harbinger. He blanches at that, then nods slightly. ...Okay. ~~~ Brendan comes back in alone a minute later, and takes another minute to look me over cautiously from the hallway. He looks somewhere between the girls in age, he keeps his hands in the sleeves of his slightly-oversized windbreaker, and someone has made a token effort to smooth out his messy hair since I last saw him. Hi, he says. Hes missing a few teeth. He waves once, letting one sleeve fall. Is the house okay? I return the wave. It looks fine to me, yes. Its not fine. Its too big, he says. Maybe, but it looks safe. No monsters I could find. Mostly true. I just wanted to see how youre all doing before I go. Could we talk a little? Brendan takes a seat not quite across from me, watching me closely all the while. Talk about what? I study his soul as he studies me. Hes still not playing host to anything, hes not even weathered like his stepmom, but the ambient unease in the air is a little stronger than it was when I was alone in the house. That didnt happen with the adults. I cant find the Harbinger just yet, but Im on the right track. It is connected to him. Well, your dad was telling me about you and Nial, and I Are you from the Church? Are you here cause Im crazy? he snaps. No, I dont think that. Its just Im not crazy, he says. Ugh. Am I already doing this wrong too? I cant just talk through a Harbinger, so what do I say to someone like this? Id like to meet him. If hes still around after everything that happened, thats really interesting for us magical types. Good-interesting, not spooky-interesting, I try. Well, he is. Not right this second, but hes around. Wow. Has he told you how that happened? Brendan shrugs. Why shouldnt it? Magic stuff happens all the time. This time it happened for us. It was a... a miracle? Yeah, he says after a bit of grasping for the word. Ive been through enough occult books to know thats really not how it works. Harbingers are real. Keepers and Messengers are real. Given those, Claiasya is probably real. None of that makes tarot real, though. People dream up plenty of nonsense mystical ideas. Some point to Keeper magic to back their stories up, or they spin a legend about how their practice was etched into the world by some magical kid or another, the way dreamwards were. The only thing even remotely like that I can think of that doesn''t descend from Keepers or Harbingers is the island ascetics, but for all the legends and bizarre claims about them, the only remarkable thing about them is that Harbingers usually leave them alone for some reason. Even then, I have no idea if thats an actual special power born from the harsh lives they lead or its just the fact that they live in cloisters of a few dozen people surrounded by the sea. As for actual hauntings, it seems like those were only ever dreams. Ive never heard of anyone finding a real ghost, and Ive looked a lot. If someone out there knows what happens to dead souls, they arent telling. Even the Cycles just say that the dead bloom in their fullness and return to the sea, whatever that means. Anyway, this wont be the case that discovers ghosts. Theres definitely a Harbinger here with us, and its getting stronger the more he talks about his brother. Im sure its not inside him, now good. That would make this complicated. Brendan, I say, very slowly, I need you to do your best to stay calm through what comes next, okay? I am calm! I just dont know why everyone thinks we have some kinda problem. Its a problem because that isnt your brother. Its a Harbinger wearing his face, and I need you to help me find it before it hurts you and your family very badly. Huh? No. Youre wrong. Brendan clenches his fists tight enough that I hear his nails dragging along his skin. Arent Keepers supposed to help people? No one here needs your help, so go away and leave us alone if youre gonna be like that. Were fine, he growls. Corruption rises in the air, prickling at my skin. Can I meet him? If Im wrong, if hes really just this nice little ghost, Ill leave you two be. Ill even tell your dad he has nothing to worry about. You three can all go have fun together to celebrate. No! Youre lying! You just wanna kill him again cause youre scared of him! I wont let you! I wont! he screams. And there you are. The air over the table twists around itself like water spinning in a sink drain, and at the center of the distortion, a dancing wisp of black light emerges. It reeks of nightmares, and I know in an instant that its the source of this places foul aura, but... is that all it is? Is this a trick? No, there are no signs at all of anything beyond this. I think this is just a Harbingers exposed heart, one that hasnt yet made itself a body and burrowed into a Wound. No, maybe its more like an egg waiting to hatch, using this house full of pain as an incubator. Brendan points somewhere to my right. See? See, hes fine! Tell her, Nial! he chokes out between bursts of high, nervous laughter. My breath catches in my throat. The person hes pointing to is not Nial. Its a woman in a long blue-grey shirt dress, taller than either of us but still rather small and slight. Feathery black hair falls loosely down to her waist. Stone-grey eyes look down on me with an old statues absolute lack of an expression. And shes my mother. Of course, I only recognize her from old family photo albums. My grandparents used to say all the time how much I reminded them of her. They stopped when they learned I was dying, not because anything about the resemblance changed. Seeing Ciara Shiel like this, as a full breathing person rather than a square in a book, it really is uncanny. Her features dont have the same narrow, mean cast as mine, but otherwise, she could easily be a version of me who liked wearing colors and wasnt destined for early death or eternal childhood. But... beyond that first brief shock, all the sight stirs in me is a vague, hollow wistfulness. Its sad, yes. Having a mom seems like it wouldve been nice, and I wonder how things might have been different if she were here, if her death hadnt destroyed Dad. But how can I mourn someone I never met? I can barely even bring myself to resent the personal attack. The Harbinger is acting on some reflex, doing the one thing it knows how to do, and it didnt work. So I kill it. Simple as that. I reach out to touch its darklight heart and expel a tiny wisp of death, just enough to engulf it without putting Brendan in danger. Its over as quickly as snuffing a candle flame. I was bracing myself for some kind of ghoulish display, a last desperate attempt to scare me off, but the illusion vanishes without so much as a flicker or a whispered plea. In the same soul-breath, I draw the Harbingers remains into myself. When its last traces are gone I feel a little better. Thats all. Not quite better enough to cancel out my forest misadventure. Smothering this monster in its crib was slightly harder and slightly more helpful than taking my morning medicine. In other words, this nightmare of a day was completely useless. I sweep my arm across the table, sending a few placemats fluttering to the ground, and stand, pushing off against the surface with one hand and my cane with the other. Wait, Nial? Nial, whered you go? Nial! Why? Whatd you do to him? Brendan shrieks. His eyes are wide with some emotion I cant name, and he grabs the hem of my dress as I stand to leave. I prod my cane gently into his chest and he collapses back into his chair, sobbing. Garvan and Matilda are already at the front door looking when I open it. Drawn by the noise, I guess. They stare at me, silently questioning. Its over. Go take care of your son, Mr. Wade. Hes not cursed, just... not doing well. And without another word between us, I leave. Theres nothing left for me here but the fearful looks of the family I saved by throwing their quiet life into chaos. In The Dark, Were All The Same 4-1 On my first day as a Keeper, when I killed Yurfaln and found out what absorbing it had done for me, I wasnt happy. I could see how the way it changed my magic might be very helpful in deadly situations, yes, but I didnt accept this role to burn a little brighter before some horrible creature or my own worthless body snuffs me out. I did it to not die. I might have judged that power too quickly. My first Harbinger made my magic stronger on the verge of death, which means I can better use it to pull myself back from the brink. Its probably saved my life twice now first when Irakkia skewered me, and again when I somehow kept myself standing through my self-poisoning scheme in the forest. That doesnt happen with the Harbinger egg I took from the Wade house. Its exactly as tiny and useless as it felt in the moment, and Im no further from death for it. I think I burned a little less health recovering from that day than I wouldve otherwise. Nothing I do is working and I have no idea what I can do about it except keep throwing myself into disasters and hoping. ~~~ Four days later, the drought in my territory ends. Maybe. Ive made long evening walks part of my new routine. I missed one while I was recovering from my day in the forest, but only one. Keeping to my own plans is one of those precious few things I can control, and Im not about to give that up so long as I have the power to push through horrible health days. Its also a big change that I can safely go outside at all now, one that hasnt quite become too routine for me to appreciate. Ive made a habit of shrouding myself in the cold mist of my immunization barrier before I leave the seventh floor for any reason. At least in this one way, magic hasnt betrayed or disappointed me. This shield is something small and fundamental enough that I can easily create and maintain it without transforming, and it does exactly what I meant it to do. Sometimes, when Im focusing closely on my souls senses, I actually feel pathogens that wouldve been life-threatening a few weeks ago freezing to death and smile a little. The only drawback Ive noticed so far is that the mist does make the air surrounding me a good bit chillier, and I can live with that. It might even be nice when summer comes Ive never liked warm-weather clothes anyway. On tonight''s walk, Ive just turned around at the university when the uneasy feeling of sensing a Harbinger somewhere close creeps over me. It feels different. More substantial than the last ones barely-there aura, but not painfully overwhelming like most of the others, and hard to put any clear impression to. The presence isnt too faint to follow and doesnt do anything to elude me. I dont even need to transform to follow it, and follow it I do. Its trail leads into the massive library not far from the university. I used to go there and dig through their occult sections, before it became clear quite how bad my situation was, but I havent been inside since I left school. Realizing that makes me want to go dig through their occult sections and find some weird tome to devour, just because I can, but this is a little more important. The Harbingers presence seems to come from somewhere above, and I follow it that way, up the winding staircase that climbs through the buildings heart. The library is arranged in layers that feel increasingly quiet and small. The bottom floors have lots of wide open space for gatherings and events. By the top, shelves and shelves of books cover most of the space, dotted here and there with chairs in little corners and reading nooks by the windows. One side hall is just a dozen rows of huge wooden study desks, lined with bookshelves at the far end. This makes things at least a bit easier for me. Not as many bystanders, and there are plenty of isolated corners to hide in if I need to do any active magic. My search ends somewhere in the top floors maze of books, but the corruptions source is not a monster or a Wound or even another formless nightmare egg. Unless Im seriously mistaken, its a book. In the Languages section, of all places. Tucked between two big books on the history of the Thalassic language in a way that leaves it not exactly hidden, but hard enough to notice that I wouldnt have spotted it without magic telling me right where it was. Did something infect a book the way others infect people? Is that a thing? I touch a finger to its spine very slowly, then pull it out when it doesnt burn or bite me. Nothing happens. Holding it feels vaguely unsettling, but other than that, its an actual physical book in the actual physical world. A little black hardcover, featureless except for the title on the front: How to Be the World, written in embossed silver text that catches the light and shimmers holographically. Im not sure what I expected a Harbingers tome of horrors to look like, but this isnt it. The first page has none of the stamps or card pockets youd expect to see in a library book. It lists no author or publisher, only the title repeated, and under that I dont know what its supposed to be. A dedication? It looks almost handwritten, but the letters are still standardized enough to seem like a font. if you are unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality if you find living boring if you see no beauty in anything if your dreams dont fit inside your skin then this book is for you! you will be happy here!!! Then, on the next page over: Introduction (how to use this book the right way!) Everyone has dreams. Do you have any you dream often? Thats because some dreams are bigger than others, so they take up more space. Those are the ones that hook into YOU and follow you everywhere and wrap themselves around your heart and never ever ever let go. Sometimes, the very biggest dreams become too much to carry and spill out of your soul. This could be a very good thing, but it happens so much that theyve all bled into each other and smushed together into a big messy dream-soup. Thats like mixing all the colors together at once. It means there might as well not be any dreams at all! Some call that soup Life! If youre sick of living in grey, tasteless dream-slurry, this is the one and only book that can help you! Inside these pages, youll learn how to take your favorite dreams and carve them into the worlds skin. Then they wont be dreams anymore, theyll just be, and you can live in them even while youre awake! Soon, this book will teach you the steps to make anything you want real. Here are some things you need to know first: -The work will begin as soon as youve read and understood the next page. Read each steps instructions carefully. If you miss something or make a mistake, youll lose! Oh no! -Its important that you perform the steps to come in order. Dont read ahead! -You dont have to know what you want to be just yet! The steps will say when you need to make up your mind. -I love you! I dont think its going to drag me into a Wound, but I dont like it at all. Still, it means something, so Wait. It means something. Its not a nightmare tome swirling with Harbinger-words my magic is roughly interpreting for me. The book is obviously corrupted, but its bizarre words are written in perfectly legible Clarish here and there, it does switch between different fonts seemingly at random, but theyre all readable. Thats not supposed to happen. That doesnt happen. Harbingers dont speak human languages. How? Did someone, what, write and print this book on its behalf? Leave it here and wait for someone to stumble across it? No, that doesnt make any sense... but neither do Harbingers. For all I know, this isnt even really unheard of. Maybe Keepers who hear them talk just dont want to record and share their ravings, or the Church doesnt want people publishing Harbinger quotes. I dont have any other Keepers I can check with. Well, whether or not this is the first Harbinger in history to read and write Clarish, its the one Im dealing with. Lets see what else it has to say. Step 1 Close your eyes and pretend youre a human standing just where you are right now. Walk around the space where you are, exploring every last nook. When youre finished, go back to where you started and open your eyes. Who did you see around you? If the world was empty, you dont lose, but this book is not for you. Please put this book back where you found it. Remember to return books to their proper place! If you met any strangers or inhuman creatures, you win! Pick your favorite! You will need their help soon. On the opposite page is a pastel drawing of a girl sitting in this exact spot. Colorful little monsters peek out from behind the shelves. A one-eyed purple blob with thick blue tentacles trailing down from it, a thing like a green sheet-ghost if it were draped over a tree stump instead of a person in another context, they might be cute in kind of an ugly way. Anyway, Im not doing that. I turn the page, and if the book is hiding things or punishing me for breaking the rules, I cant tell. Each page is printed a little differently, with different fonts in different sizes. Even the exact color and texture of the paper varies. They all follow a similar format, though. Instructions for a stage of this bizarre ritual on one side, a cheery little picture of the act on the other. Step 2 This step can only be performed at night, indoors, in complete darkness. Its best if you pick a room that NEVER sees natural light. If you dont have your own sleep cave, you can make one yourself by COVERING your windows, but theyll have to be COVERED forever. Were going to make this room into a special night garden where you can plant and water your dreams and sing to them to make them grow taller! If the Sun sees inside before theyre done growing, you lose. The Sun is mean! Once youve chosen a place, make sure no pests will invade your garden until youre finished. If one does, you lose. Sit alone with your back to a corner, so that you could see the whole room at once if it were lit. If the room is dark enough, you shouldnt see anything at all. To make sure, try to move your hand in front of your face. If you only see a blur, a sort of black-on-black shifting that follows the motion, thats okay! Its not real. Its only your brain trying to make up for the fact that it cant see as well as your soul. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. But just because its not real doesnt mean its not real. If you try, you can see the whole room the way you think you see your hand, paint a whole world with different shades of pitch darkness. Whats different about them? What separates the black carpet from the black chairs? Nothing. Everything. Theyre all just memories, like everything else, but we can tell all the other ones apart, so why not these? Once you see them, remember the room a different way than it was before. It doesnt even have to be a room at all! Maybe your room was always really a black field of black flowers under a starless night sky. Whats important is that you take all those shades of not-color and make them into something new, full of all the things that inspire you most. Once youre happy with your room, think about your favorite friend from Step 1. Invite them to come and sit with you. You can say it out loud or with your soul but theyll hear either way. If youve done everything right, you should be able to see them just like you did before, colors and all. Welcome them! Show them around! As soon as youre done, you win! You should go to bed as quickly as you can when youre finished. It might help to sleep in your dark space tonight. Remember what the dream side of it is like, and write down any interesting dreams you have about it! If you cant remake the room, or your new friend doesnt come to you no matter how much you call, you lose. If something else comes, Im sorry. I cant tell what the picture here is supposed to be. Rather than shapes I can make anything of, it just has textures that are slightly raised on the page, like someone tried to draw in black crayon on black paper. Step 3 Theres no step here. I just wanted to tell you that the world were making together is beautiful. The illustration is a simple page-sized heart. Step 4 Youve probably had lots of dreams you dont like, but that doesnt mean they arent important! Before you can be the world, youll need to gather up everything you want to not-become and put it somewhere else. Perform this step in your room from Step 2. If you havent slept in there before, youll need to now. As youre getting ready for bed, think about the dreams you like the least. What about them makes you uncomfortable? Do you think they could hurt you? Maybe they can, but they probably just take you to places where you dont want to go. If you CUT away all the confusing dream symbols and push through to their heart, the things that scare you the most, what are those things? If you dont have words for them yet, thats okay. Just let them all swim around and fill that fuzzy place between waking and sleeping and then dive on in! If youve done everything right, youll be in your room, but it wont be yours anymore. All those things should have followed you here and twisted it around themselves. Dont run. Dont look away. If you do, you lose. You need to understand everything that happens here. I dont know what thatll look like for you, but youll have to do it alone. It wouldnt count if your new friend helped, so theyll wait in the room outside, watching over your garden while you work. It might take you more than one night to sort through all the horrible things squirming through your dream-room. The days in between those nights probably wont be very good days, so dont take too long, but eventually, everything will be back the way its supposed to be, and in one brilliant moment youll know everything is going to be okay. Then you win! The things you faced during this step arent gone, but theyre yours now. Someday, youll use the ??????? you gathered here as ink to write your new world. The picture is of the girl and the purple blob from the first step. Theyre standing over a big black soup cauldron full of strangely-shaped eyes and thin insects legs and other things I couldnt hope to identify and dont want to. One long grey arm that twists all along its length like a snake looks like its trying to climb out, but the girl is pushing it back down with a big wooden spatula. That last part why do I know that word? Do I know it? I cant read it, cant see it as anything but a swirling blur swimming around the page, Im not even sure if it is a word, but it still feels familiar. Ive heard it before, thats it. There was a Harbinger-speech word or phrase Irakkia used that felt the same way this bit of text feels, left the same uncomfortable gap in my understanding. Reading this book feels like peeking at something youre not supposed to see, but theres two different feelings twisting together within the one at the same time, its both an exciting secret people are hiding from you and an awful spectacle youve stumbled onto, something you dont even want to see but cant quite rip your eyes away from. Like sneaking a look at a birthday present, but when you open the wrapping theres just a half-decayed animal corpse underneath. Step 5 Beneath the chapter heading, all the print on this page is crossed out in black permanent marker, and the drawing across from it has been angrily scratched out. A note in the margins over it reads: SKIP THIS STEP! This step should never be performed ever ever ever! If you perform it, you will lose! This time it looks very much like real writing, neat but slightly shaky. Everything suddenly feels colder. It takes longer than it shouldve to notice that the chill isnt just some abstract eerie feeling in the air. Something is pushing into my protective aura, the magic I use to replace the immune system I dont have. The mist howls silently and seeps into my bones, demanding my attention my help. But what about the book? What happens if I leave it alone? Is it like locking eyes with a predator, where itll pounce on me the moment I falter? Whats next, and what is any of this? Morbid curiosity leashes me to it like a chain, like like somethings reached up from the earth, grabbed my leg, and wont let go until it drags me under. Something more than my own fear. Pulling myself away from the book is the same sort of mental struggle as trying to force myself to fall backwards onto a hard floor, but I do. I wrench my eyes shut and turn my focus inward, following the flow of magic as it seeps out from my soul. At the boundary that forms my shield, little barbed tendrils of the book-Harbinger are worming their way through. I push more power into the barrier until the Harbingers coils start to rot, and seconds later I feel it snap loose, retreating into itself. I release a loud whoosh of breath. Confident that I can hold off the books touch, I turn to the next step, but there isnt one. Beyond that is only blank pages. Is that really all? Are you hiding now that you know Im stronger than you? No, the first five steps are still there. If this has something to do with that rule about reading ahead, itd be strange to let me skip four steps before it locked me out. Maybe its really not finished. What does that mean? The book could be a monsters version of my cards, a tiny extension of something larger, but it doesnt feel that way. Theres no soul-trail leading to a greater source, no sense of anything flowing into or out of it. Its just much smaller than any of the full-fledged Harbingers Ive fought. Not quite a shapeless, unborn thing, but not finished taking its form. I could transform and kill it right now with only slightly more trouble than the last one. And only slightly more to show for it, but no point in seething too much about things I cant change. ...Unless. The book-Harbinger seems to be stuck in the early stages of that act. What does it need to finish writing itself? Time? Pain, madness, souls? Does it always take a death or something close enough to count? I dont know what the unborn wisp was waiting for, but this ones goal is fairly clear: it wants someone to find it and carry out these creepy dream rituals. What happens then? Maybe if it had a little more time, enough to take its shape but not enough to go on a rampage, itd be more Wait. Am I seriously thinking this? Is it still no, I check again and Ive definitely purged the corruption. This is all me. My life has reached a point where not having a Harbinger crawling through my mind somehow feels like the worse outcome. I cant burn this idea away with magic. It just sits there, challenging me to dismiss it out of hand the way a good, sane person would. Or... follow it through to the end. A minute later, the thought hasnt gone away and Im still not killing the book. I guess I need to know what it is Im actually thinking before I can reject it, and all Ive got right now is a flash of madness I mistook for a Harbinger attack. Fine. Where did this come from? Im obviously worried about my disease outpacing my magic, so thats making a mess of my head. Vyuji promised that Emergence would give me some way to save myself, but I dont know how far off that is or how much time I have. Further, my last attempts at hunting have been disasters. What went wrong with those? What could I change? Finding Harbingers that I can kill and that are worth anything more than a good deed to my name seems increasingly like gambling my life on horrible odds. My reach just isnt that wide. Im not good at fighting. I dont know if I ever will be. Other Keepers track monsters and charge into battle with whatever they find because they can. They have the strength or magical knack to make it work. Im sure the direct approach is fine for the Stardust Seraph, who got both and also can fly, or the Silver King, who never needs to worry about working with others because shes her own whole team. Me? I can survive a lot if Ive stolen enough life ahead of time, and my magic-plague will... probably kill things it infects, eventually, assuming theres nothing they can do to stop it. Thats all Ive got. It might be good if there were some practical way to sicken a Harbinger, break out of its Wound, and run away for a couple days, making sure it doesnt go on a horrible rampage and Im there to claim it when it finally dies. There is no such way, as far as I can tell. But I do have at least one thing: some special attunement to Harbingers. Every Keeper can sense them, some better than others, but when I do, I see into them. I feel some part of what they are. Theyve spoken to me, not exactly with words but in ways I can understand on some level. I always thought that was impossible, and not just because I was a normal person whod never looked into it. Shona mentioned that my Harbinger impressions seemed unusually strong, and shes been doing this at least a little longer than me. Maybe Ive been approaching this the wrong way. If I take that connection and use it to study Harbingers, learn how they and their bizarre life cycle work, I can figure out what they need to come into the world and how much of it they need. And if I catch them in their early stages, I can infect them, let that seed of decay take root, and inflame it the moment they get too dangerous to leave alone. Of course, I doubt itll just grow on its own. Itll have to do something to someone. That sounds bad and feels worse, but Im already hurting people to survive. Its no worse than my next best idea, the one about tagging monsters and running off. Probably better. A full-grown Harbinger would do much more damage. It wouldnt just make my life easier, either. Anything I learn this way is knowledge about the worlds most dangerous mystery that everyone can use. ...Im really entertaining this, arent I? Whats wrong with me? It even feels like it makes sense. Like its actually the best thing I can do with this horrible power. The Harbinger is still tiny. I dont have to commit to one move or the other just yet, and there are things I want to research if the information exists anywhere. For now, Ill just make sure Im ready to kill it if I need to. I take a photo of the books first step, stopping to make sure that my phone is not suddenly haunted and the image actually shows up in my pictures. It does, so I repeat until Ive recorded all the filled pages. Id like to write out little summaries just in case it still has some control over direct copies, but I dont have any paper. Later. Next step can I do this without transforming? Apparently not. The range of things that count as small enough to do at any time seems to grow the more magic changes me, but my cards still wont come. Thisll be a little awkward, then. I stuff the book into my bag, take it into the bathroom, and call my power up as soon as the one other girl leaves. Then, working quickly as I can, I summon a card, infuse it with a tiny wisp of pain, and press it to the books blank back page like a branding iron. The thing in the books aura boils and writhes in protest. Absurdly, I imagine trying to hold a slippery, foul-smelling fish tight until it breathes its last. The Harbinger stops short of thrashing until its burnt itself completely out, though. Eventually, its presence goes silent and still, like its playing dead for lack of any other defense. My card sinks into the page until only its back design remains, a dark rectangle run through with spiraling white glyphs. It looks like it couldve been printed there in the first place. Nothing has changed about the book or the Harbinger itself, but now a tiny caustic piece of me winds through its being. Now that Ive got my own hooks into it, I can end this whenever I want. If something goes wrong, itll only take another little push to correct my mistake. A lot of things about this might not work. Maybe someones already tried it, or the experts already know the things Im trying to learn and the answers arent good, or Ill get home and realize that Ive been completely delirious... what else is new? Well, lets find out. I dismiss my magic, put the book back right where I found it, and make my way back to the hospital. In The Dark, Were All The Same 4-2 Demystifying the Tarot, Chapter 5: The Major Arcana The Stars XVII Between the departures and dawnings of the Sun, the Stars Beyond hold court. Just as they emerge from the fading light of day, the Tarots Stars follow the turmoil and devastation of the Tower in the Fools Journey. Cast into darkness, stripped of everything they thought they knew, the traveler must look beyond their own understanding for new answers. This card reminds us that as we are all connected in some small sense to a cosmos unthinkably vaster than ourselves, we are never alone in our search for answers, but also that those answers may be very far from what we expected or wanted. When this card appears in a reading, it often relates to major life decisions or unanswered questions that need your attention. In all cases, it signals that this is a good time to examine and adjust your path. Where it leads may be hidden from you, but even in the deepest night, theres enough starlight to see by. In seeking answers that can only be found in the dark, though, remember how quickly knowledge without understanding becomes dangerous. In its inverted aspect, this card usually refers to the internal influence of mysteries or revelations. It may indicate things you wish to hide from your own or others sight, long-held understandings that no longer serve you, or losing sight of your own goals in search of some higher, grander purpose that may never come. The Stars watch and illuminate, but do not guide. As in all Tarot interpretation, when considering any insights they offer, its important to avoid handing your own agency over to the cosmos. Theres no future in wishing and waiting for something else to act through you. Keywords: Upright: Wonder, mystery, inspiration and contemplation, clarity of vision, paradigm shifts, perilous wisdom Inverted: (+) Secrets, self-understanding, accepting what you cannot change (-) Fate, forces outside your control, indecision, fear of the unknown ~~~ I wake up with a dizzying headache that smears my vision into an unfocused-photo blur and makes it hard to sit up in bed, let alone do anything meaningful. I make myself sit with it for now. There have always been bad health days, and after last week I shouldnt strain my extra wellness too much. If I have to refill while I think through the insane idea Im considering, it might start to weigh on me. Once Ive sat through the morning medical routine and noted to the nurses that I feel terrible, I flop out of bed and slowly make my way to my corner of the lounge, if only because the seats there are comfier than the one at my desk. My tarot table has been quieter since I made the Promise, and I dont think thats entirely down to the fact that Ive been out a lot more. Dementia isnt too common on the seventh floor. Most residents still know whats going on around them, and while they might not see straight through my poorly-kept secret, I did start taking long night walks right as I developed very Keeperlike unnatural markings. They can look at me and gather that something unusual might be happening. Maybe it would be different if everyone knew that they now had a mascot Keeper, but until they know thats what happened, Im probably an eerie mystery to be kept at a distance. Noirin and the nurses still talk to me, but those do seem like the people most likely to have put the pieces together. One morning nurse even complimented my weird hair I thanked her, mentioned dying it, and otherwise brushed it off. I actually did look up how to use those products Dr. Hines gave me the other day, but Ive never done anything like that myself and it looked way too hard and complicated to bother with. Especially when my magic would probably just undo any steps I took to either reverse the process or hurry it along. The rest of the people here dont seem to know what to do with me, and until they do, its probably easier to leave me alone. Thats fine, though. I havent sat down and done a full reading for myself in a while, and I have enough pressing questions about my new place in the world that I could probably spend a few days doing nothing but working through them. Lets start with the obvious one: tell me, cards, what I need to know about this library Harbinger. Whats going on in my head? What am I not thinking of? Holding those questions in the front of my mind, I scatter my deck across the table. Back in its little black box, the Six of Pentacles still sits alone and forlorn. A lot has changed since I banished it, so fine. You can come back, but youre on notice. Dont test me. I slip it into the pile and start to swirl the whole mass around. Some of my books suggest fancier, more organized shuffling methods, but I like this one. My hands will never shiver too badly for it to work, and its kind of fun. Once Ive herded the pile back into a deck, I separate it into three sections and spin them around a couple times to mix up whether the cards are inverted or not the piles twirl nicely on these polished tables, which is also fun then put them back together and flip my first card. What was: The Stars inverted. Alright, thats a bit on the nose, but in so many ways that it loops back and becomes hard to say just what its referring to. Just in the immediate past, does that mean all the ways in which Im trapped by awful life circumstances, or things Im hiding or bottling up or looking for answers to in the wrong places? Lets see whats next and come back to this. These dont look like the ones you normally use, a voice interrupts before I can flip the next card. Whats the occasion? Oh! Hi. I look up at Noirin, whos appeared from nowhere as usual. Or, more likely, I just wasnt watching too closely. I only use these for myself. The pictures dont have as much going on as the others, so theyre harder to read if you dont already know all the cards. Traditional tarot decks display complicated scenes packed with old occult symbolism, and even if you dont recognize the symbols, most show people doing something that carries the basic meaning. My personal decks art style is simpler and gloomier, with lots of stark black and white lines setting off small splashes of color, and no human figures on any of the cards. Animals and natural scenes replace most of the classical imagery. May I have a look? I like them. When Im done, yes. Of course. She moves a little more carefully than usual as she sits next to me, squinting to inspect the first card from a distance. My decks Stars are a white background trailing up into a black one, on which eleven large stars shine in an irregular rainbow of dark pastel colors. Once shes settled, I draw the second card. What is: The Tower. My Tower is a great tree in the night, burning and collapsing after a lightning strike. Taken with the last card, it looks like the upside-down Stars are falling from the sky and smashing something beneath. So, what do these ones say? Noirin tilts toward me, craning her head to look at the cards from the right angle. I put a finger to the Stars. This one is the unknown. Influences you arent aware of or cant control. The second one is I work through the common keywords in my head and hesitate, realizing how easily most of them could apply to a girl on the brink of death making the Promise. Breakdowns. Old ideas and beliefs collapsing. Painful but needed revelations, I eventually say. I dont include dramatic life upheavals in the list, but thats certainly the main one Im thinking of. Oh my, she says simply. The Tower is one of those cards that very often spooks people, but I guess its different when its not about you. In fact, it does spook me not because it really predicts some disaster, but because theres a few things this could point to. Of course my life has a range of Tower-worthy events to choose from. First, I should figure out where Im starting the timeline for this. Is the past the Harbinger I found yesterday? No, thats still happening, and theres a clear story to these cards. The book is the Tower, a nightmare very likely to throw my world into chaos and madness if anything about this plan goes wrong. The things I learned in my first weeks as a Keeper are the Stars. They left me feeling trapped enough by the rules of the world that leaving a Harbinger alone to grow seemed like my only way forward and no matter what my tarot books or the Cycles or anyone says about fate and choice, it still seems like it is. The Tower promises growth when all is settled, rebuilding upon the remains of something that was never secure enough to last. Does that part even exist here? Only as some vague, distant hope that I really do learn something worthwhile from all this. But the reading isnt finished. Before I run too far down that road, what will be is Huh? I huff. The Ace of Cups inverted. Hm. You dont fit in at all. It even looks out of place next to the others, bright and calm, a white goblet on a sky-blue background patterned in a way that could equally suggest a waterfall or fish scales. Noirin tilts her head expectantly. Im really not sure what to do with this one, I say. Honestly. Its usually about new love or romance, so you see the issue. Inverted, its actually lost or unrequited love, but Im not opening that door for anyones guesses. She shrugs. Whos to say? Love finds us in its own place and time. Most often when were least looking for it. Her voice stays light, because shes not an idiot. Shes having fun teasing me, not actually telling me to keep my eyes peeled for the boy of my dreams in this hospice. Whatever that would even mean. Its not like I have one in my imagination Im just desperately waiting to meet. Finding love has always just felt like one more thing in the category of things Ill never grow up enough for. I guess I still wont now, even if I do live forever. Thanks, stunted growth. Thanks, delayed puberty. Im still not sure how to feel about that lots of the stuff Ive been told to expect sounded bizarre and gross, yes, but I dont know. Anyway. I can safely ignore the obvious reading, so whats left? Emotional walls, withheld or repressed feelings, emptiness. A call to look for things holding you back or pay more attention to your own inner world. If I were a blind optimist, I could read this as referring favorably to my strange Harbinger intuition. Im not, though. In this position, its probably a destination. A warning I hadnt exactly thought but must have already known: this very likely ends with me alone in the world, holding everyone and everything at a distance. But if it comes to that, alone and alive is still progress. So what are these all about, anyway? Secret, I answer. I dont think I could make up a fake subject fast enough to be convincing. Ah. She nods, smiling in a way that I hope isnt knowing. Well, Im glad youre still finding things to be interested in, whatever they are. Are you finished, then? I pick the three cards up, then push the rest of the deck toward her. Go ahead. Noirin thanks me and starts to go through the deck one card at a time, taking long pauses to flip them over and inspect the art upright and inverted. Her sleeves stretch back a little as she does, and the little red pinpoint rash on her arms has spread. Id try not to think about what that means, but theres no point. I know where I live, and no miracles are coming to save these people. Not unless I can help them, and I still dont even know if my miracle can save me. ~~~ Im still not feeling good by sunset, but Im stable enough to go out with only a little stolen strength, so I do. I cant afford to take days off while Im actively tracking a Harbingers growth. I walk my nightly route at dusk. The best stretch of the day is all too short, and now that I can leave the hospital I want to make the very most of it. For just over an hour, the light is neither too intense nor too faint. The sun isnt glaring down at everything, but you arent yet dependent on bright lamps or fickle starlight. You just see the world, dyed in pretty twilight colors. These walks are usually quite peaceful, which would be nice if I didnt need that peace to be broken to live. Ive found that I dont need to transform to detect magic at a distance, only to shift my focus away from my bodys senses and toward my souls, which means I dont even have to deal with people stopping to stare at an unfamiliar Keeper. As for Keepers, there arent so many in New Claris that I constantly run across them, and thats a relief. Shona and Mide havent been back, unsurprisingly. Sometimes I feel others at the edges of my awareness, blinking faintly in and out of their distant corners of the city or off in the Fields, but thats about it. Ive gotten used to being alone in my tiny corner of the city. Which is why its concerning when, close to the university campus, I sense someone else coming up from the Weald. People are scary and hard to deal with at the best of times, but thats not the only problem now. My situation here is dangerous. It wouldnt take much for someone to stumble across the book while Im away, or worse, while Im there watching over it. In the best case, they kill it and Im left with nothing. Worst case, they decide Im some kind of Harbinger cultist and my life explodes. And more than that, something about this persons aura is deeply disturbing. Its not painfully offensive in the same way as a Harbingers, but it carries an unpleasant weight, close to the way guilt or panic feel in the stomach. I wonder if thats how I felt to Shona. I leave my usual route and slowly make my way toward the other Keeper. They arent going right by the library, at least, so hopefully theyre just passing through. If thats all, I can leave them to it and get back to my business. As I come closer, I try to push through the unsettling feeling and study its source more closely, remembering what Shona said about sensing a Keepers magical signature, but no matter how deep I dive, I cant find anything like that. Nothing about the aura announces its sources name or title or nature. Its not hidden, I dont think. Its not a blindingly bright light, too painful to look at directly. Its like their soul is defaced. Like whatever ideas or images it once carried have been scratched over, leaving only wordless shame and regret. After a few minutes detour, I spot them. Something isnt right, though. Theres a girl strolling alone down the sidewalk whos definitely the Keeper, but she doesnt look anything like one. Not a transformed one, anyway, unless her regalia is a simple burgundy cardigan over a featureless ankle-length black dress. I dont know exactly how thats supposed to work. Should I be able to sense her at all like this? Her souls presence certainly shouldnt be more intense than that of any other Keeper Ive met, but it is. I trail her at a healthy distance, trying to figure out where shes going and if I need to worry about her. Many of the people in her path hastily cross the street or turn down other roads as she approaches. It cant be that they sense her too, so why? Who is this? You dont need to hide back there. I wont bother you unless you want me to, she calls into the night. She stops walking, but doesnt turn to face me. I freeze. She is talking to me, right? Has to be. How? She hasnt looked back at all. Ugh, doesnt matter, she probably did it with magic. I could just leave now, it seems like shes just crossing my territory on her way somewhere else, but that might still be a problem if shes doing it regularly. I really should at least figure out who she is, and if shes dangerous, Im in less trouble than anyone else here. So I walk a little faster, approaching until I can see her clearly, and only then does she turn around. Hey there, she says. Im Niavh. Can I help you with anything? She waves rather than approaching or offering a handshake. Her black hair is kept in a slightly long pixie cut, and her sleeves cover most of her hands, leaving only the fingers exposed. Shes taller than me, like everyone else in the world, but I think thats just average height for a girl in the upper half of the Promise range. Eyna, I say, then realize with a nervous start that Ive seen her face very recently. Wait. Niavh Fianata? The Niavh Fianata with a human body count? I dont say. I hope she cant see it on my face. Theres the problem with walking around in normal clothes, and transforming just to go talk to her wouldve felt too much like starting a conversation by setting a knife on the table. Im afraid so, she says, smiling softly. As in her picture, her scarlet eyes are constantly wet with tears. Droplets roll down her face and fall to the sidewalk, where they shatter into tiny sparkling clouds of glass dust, then vanish like puffs of breath in winter. Oh, I, sorry, I murmur. I didnt mean to call you out. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Dont worry. Ive gotten a lot worse, she shrugs. Theres an uneasy silence until I remember that she did just ask me why I was trailing her. Anyway, no, I dont need anything and I didnt want to bother you. I sensed you and wasnt sure what I was sensing, thats all. Especially once I saw you. Sorry if that sounds weird. I dont really know how its meant to work with Keepers out of uniform. Ah. Yeah. She starts walking again and motions for me to join her, which I do after another moments hesitation. When youve used magic long enough, it starts to settle into you. Lines like that stop being quite so clear. Im sorry if it startled you. Ive never heard of that before, but it does make sense now that shes said it. Emergence changes Keepers to make them better suited for magic, and those marks stay there forever, so why wouldnt the power itself? Wait, then whats the point of transforming at all? It cant just be for the nice outfits, so no, thats a later question. Speaking of, I dont think Ive seen you around anywhere. Have you been doing this for long? she asks. Theres that question again but, well, I cant just hide in my corner and be an unknown forever, and it feels somehow less prying than when Shona asked it. Her voice is steady and calm, and she isnt charging into my life and appointing herself my friend the way extroverts do. No. A couple weeks. She nods. Hows it been? Theres that question, too. One of the few silver linings to my life is that people havent really tried to play the How are you? Oh, just fine, thanks for asking! game with me for a long time. Nothing has ever been fine and expecting me to say otherwise would be ridiculous. But the Keeper world is such a new context that it might as well be a new life. I dont know what passes for normal or how were meant to interact, so I cant tell if this is a polite nothing or shes asking because she actually wants the answer. And if she does, do I actually want to give it to this complete stranger? Maybe just a little. Its a lot and I have no idea what Im doing, I finally say. Yeah, that sounds about right. Most of us get the call and jump to running a marathon with muscles we never knew existed. She doesnt force eye contact or push herself into my space. We just walk, not quite side by side, with me trailing slightly behind her. Its kind of nice apart from the unpleasant mystical weight of her presence, still hanging in the air like a bad mood. I do my best to tune it out. Comparing Niavh Fianata to my last Keeper experience, I feel a little bad about my gut reaction to meeting her, even as occasional pedestrians remind me of it by spotting her and scampering off. I dont really know what happened with her, not enough to say what I should think of it. Although by the same token, I dont know who she is, and first impressions could mean anything. I shoo away shivery memories of floral-scented smoke and low, cruel laughter and dying grasshoppers. Is there any way I could make it easier? she continues. People have sprinted down this road before, and you dont need to do everything alone if you dont want to. ...I dont want to keep you too long, I reply as casually as I can. Dont worry about that. Im just taking a walk. Thats both of my original questions answered. I could just leave. But with her history, she really might know someone or something that could help me. I do have a question. About you. Your circumstances. If you dont mind, I say. Go ahead. It lightens a bit of the load when people can learn something from me. Something feels different as she says that. Not a pause or a catch in her voice, and I dont see any change in her body language. I can only guess that there was a pained twitch in her soul, and whatever it was passes in an instant. A lot of the hard part is trying to use those muscles and not knowing what theyll do to you. Or other people. Magic, it doesnt always come out the way you want it to, right? And if something does end up that way, what do you do with it? How do you live in the world after that? Do you? I mean, of course, I guess youve figured something out, just I worry about what could go wrong when the stakes are what they are, thats all. I babble through a uselessly vague Keeper version of wrapping my situation in I-have-this-friend hypotheticals. Ugh. This was a bad idea. To my shock, Niavh doesnt ask what on earth Im talking about. She just stops walking and turns her head to face me. A lot of people have done a lot of things wrong. For Keepers, its just magic makes us more of whatever we are and gives us more of whatever we do, but that doesnt make our wrongs infinite, she says, rubbing the sleeve covering her left wrist with the knuckles of her right. Sins arent stains that curse us for eternity. Thats not to say we shouldnt do our best to avoid them, or any mistakes we make arent our fault, but theyre not the end of your life. They dont poison any good you do later, no matter how it feels. Her smile returns, a bit more wistful than before. Anyone can change. All it takes is to understand what youve done, regret it, and want to be different. No mistake you make will be the only thing that matters about you unless you let it. Does that help at all? Niavh sits through my silence, waiting patiently until I break it with the only things I can think to say: Some, yes. Thank you. The rest I probably just need to get used to. New muscles and learning your own strength and all that. Im happy to be of service. She nods and keeps on walking. I sigh with something like relief as her direct attention lifts. Im still not any good at people. I dont follow this time. Ive got other things I should take care of. Thanks for your your time, I call after her. Alright. Take care, Eyna. If you think of anything else I could do, Im not hard to find. She looks over her shoulder and waves once more. Ill keep that in mind, I dont lie? I was sure it was a lie until I said it. If I end up going to the Church, Ill probably go to Niavh first. But I still dont think I will. What she said was all fine and good. It probably wouldve been the right thing to say for most Keepers whod slipped up and hurt someone with magic. It wouldve been right for me, if the thing with the book was my only problem and Im not an idiot, I know that could still turn out to be a horrible mistake. But it doesnt help if what Ive done and will keep doing wasnt a mistake. I cant turn around and stop hurting people. Magic wont let me. Not unless Emergence gives me some other way to stretch out my lifespan. And seeing how people reacted to her a Keeper who, as far as I know, had one very bad day years ago and hasnt repeated it doesnt make me feel good about how theyd handle me. ~~~ Theres nothing new at the library that night. The book hasnt changed at all and my hold on it is just as strong. The next day, its added a new step, similar in its content and bizarre patchwork writing style. Strangely, the crossed-out Step 5 is still in there, neither repaired nor replaced. The new step doesnt reference it at all. Step 6 A mirror is a polished surface that creates reflected images. When you look in the mirror, are you happy with what you see? I DIDNT THINK SO. NOBODY IS. THATS BECAUSE mirrors ARE LIARS. THEY TELL YOU THEYRE SHOWING YOU WHO YOU ARE, BUT THE reflected images IN THE mirror IS JUST THE SAD BROKEN WAY OTHER PEOPLE SEE YOU. Only you can know what you really look like. Before you can see yourself, though, you need to send the reflected images away so it cant lie about you anymore. Perform this step in your dark room. The time doesnt matter, but it has to be dark. It always has to be dark. Youll need a hand mirror big enough to see your whole reflected images in. Sit down, hold the mirror up, and meet reflected images gaze. If you cant see your eyes in the dark, OR IF YOU SEE SOMETHING OTHER THAN reflected images, YOU LOSE. But if youve done the last steps right, you know that you dont need lights to see anything important. Things you can only see in the light are mean! Lock eyes with reflected images. Remember that you arent looking at yourself, only at reflected images. Hold that knowledge close. Soon, your reflected images will start to change. Youll see through the lie and start seeing faces with no eyes and eyes with no faces and other things too. Then tell the reflected images you dont want it anymore! Its not welcome in your life! Your reflected images has known you for a long time. It will try to trick you or scare you into letting it stay. Dont listen! It PROBABLY cant do anything bad to you! Eventually, if you hold fast, the reflected images will lose its grip on you. Without somebody to lie to, itll poof away into nothing like a tree falling where nobody else can hear it. Then you win! The page across from it displays a mirror reflecting what seems to have been a chalky stick figure, smudged away as though half-erased. Thats a little concerning. If I take it literally, and the book has given me no reason not to, this ritual is the Harbingers first step out of creepy imagination games and into changing the actual world. But its still a long way from demanding human sacrifice or something. Isnt it? Is it wrong to take this too literally? Thinking about the metaphor here, the idea comes up a lot in old mystic lore that mirrors reflect your soul. What this step symbolically means may be as important as what it physically asks you to do, and if thats the case it gets a lot worse. It could read as a way to feed yourself to the Harbinger disguised as some other strange goal. But something about that feels wrong in my gut. Itd be stupid to pretend I understand what the Harbinger is thinking as it makes these up, but I dont have to. All the Harbingers Ive encountered have not exactly rules, but they all seem to have some idea they want to express, even if it makes no sense to anyone but them. Whatever this one is saying is spread out over a whole book of insane rituals thats still mostly blank. Ending the story with this step would be too... random. Too arbitrary. Itd be like if a horror movie ended in fifteen minutes with the hero dying in a car crash on their way to the haunted house. Although that fifth step does still feel like a pretty random inclusion. What is it for? Is it there to make some point I cant begin to guess at or did the Harbinger have an idea and change its mind later? Whichever way, its only just started on this thing with mirrors and Im confident that Im right about its progress, so I put it back and go home. ~~~ When I go to check on it the fourth time, its no longer in its place. For a long moment, my stomach feels like two ferrets wrestling. I reach out with my soul, searching for the shard of myself I stabbed into the book, and find it very close by. Still inside, still on this floor. It takes a bit longer for my body to catch up with that knowledge, but catch up it does. This was always going to happen. This was the plan, I realize with another, quieter spike of unease. I didnt really expect the Harbinger to grow just by waiting. By its location, I think its in one of the windowside reading nooks, but its not alone. Theres a human soul with it. I head in its rough direction, moving through the bookshelves two rows from the walls. I dont want to storm in before I know whats happening. Soon, Im peeking at that nook through the empty space above the books on their shelves. There, a girl in a heavy twill jacket and long, dark pleated skirt is curled up in a ball on the ledge. Shes holding the open book against her knees, and while her bushy mane of golden-brown hair obscures most of her face, she takes regular furtive glances out at the rest of the library. One foot constantly taps on the cushioned bench. It would be easy for a normal onlooker to dismiss her as a jittery kid, but to me, she looks very much like shes doing something she shouldnt and she knows it. Im not sure what to make of that, except that if I stay here for too long shell probably notice me. I duck away, grab a random book off the shelves, and sit in the next nook over, pretending to read while I train my soul-senses on my neighbors. The two are tangled up like I dont know what its like. The girl is clearly corrupted, but it doesnt feel like she has some parasitic disease or death curse. Its a little like the sour tinge I leave when I drain someones health, but that isnt quite right either. She isnt injured or sick at all, just touched. The sensory line between her and the Harbinger is fuzzier than it should be. Eventually, she starts to move, taking the book with her. They head back into the bookshelves, stop for a few seconds, and then mostly separate. Some small part of the Harbinger lingers with her like a bad smell that wont wash out, but the book itself stays put. I wait a little longer for her to leave, then go get the book myself. Its exactly where I first saw it on the shelves. Hm. Why didnt she keep it? The library gates wouldnt detect it if she just smuggled it out in her bag. I have two ideas. One: she just found it for the first time, read enough to be disturbed, and put it back, either to go get help or figuring it was some kind of bad prank. Two: shes infected enough to influence and it wants to stay where it can reach more people. Given the way she was acting, the second one seems much more likely. Has she been here before? Also seems likely. I dont think the book would be expanding if someone wasnt feeding it, and she knows enough that she wanted to hide while she read it. As for the book itself, its definitely grown a little. It looks the same, but its presence feels a bit more substantial or it does until it recoils at my touch, shrinking into itself like a scared turtle. Its a little pitiful. Satisfied that it wont be making another attempt on my soul, I flip it open. Another page is filled in. Step 7 Your reflected images wasnt a very good friend, but its been there your whole life. It made sure you were never alone, and losing it can be a big change. Do you get lonely without it? Thats okay! Your new friend can take its place, and they wont lie to you or twist you or hurt you! Just go to your room, look in an empty mirror, and ask your friend to be your new reflected images. Tell them what you like about them and why you want them to keep you company. If youve done everything right so far, youre probably already fast friends, so this step is very easy! Once you can see your friend in the glass, you both win! WHEN PEOPLE SEE THEM IN THE MIRRORS AND ASK WHAT CHANGED, YOU CAN TEACH THEM HOW TO SEE THEMSELVES AND MAKE THEIR OWN FRIENDS TOO! YAY! (Make sure they do the other steps first, or theyll lose.) The same drawn mirror as on the last page now displays the ugly little purple blob from the earlier steps, reaching out for a hug with its nubby shapeless appendages. Okay, then. In two steps, weve moved from giving yourself nightmares to replacing your reflection with a Harbinger. The book isnt eating people right away, but there is a clear progression here. Ill need to watch how quickly the next ones escalate, if I dont just kill it now. Should I kill it now? The book still doesnt feel close to finished, and whatever it wants, its taking its time with its victims. No. Not yet. I put it back on the shelf and head home. Ill end this if it really starts to hurt that girl, but until then, I think it can wait a little longer. I just need some magical way to keep an eye on her, track her progress through the rituals. Hopefully shes the only one. There are no trails of corruption leading away from the Harbingers core, not even to her. ~~~ I dont see or sense the girl the next night, and the book hasnt changed. My watch continues. I sit nearby enough to look at its place on the shelves, and no one but me pays it any attention. This goes on for two more days. Where did she go? With the state of her soul, I doubt she just stopped. Did something happen to her? Did the Harbinger warn her about me and my usual visiting time? On the fourth day, I find someone else before I can check on the book. A soul Ive never felt before, but one bright with magic. Another Keeper. They arent rushing right at the library, but theyre close enough that theyll find the book as long as they can sense it at any reasonable range. Sure enough, a minute later they start heading straight toward me. Okay. Okay. What am I doing? Do I give up the plan and kill it right now? I still dont think Id get much out of it, but thats better than someone else killing it. Run off with it and put it back later? No, thats stupid all theyd need to do is run faster than me, and itd look even worse than waiting here with it. Tell them that yes, Ive got important research reasons to leave this Harbinger alone? These ideas are just getting worse. Wait, are they? That last one depends very much on what I tell them. I take the book off the shelf, find a nook in an empty corner of the library, and sit, waiting for the stranger to come find me. If I frame this the right way, explain the details I can sense and they cant and maybe twist the truth just a tiny bit, this really might work. Oh, who am I kidding? Its going to be terrible, just like everything else, but its what Ive got. In The Dark, Were All The Same 4-3 Who is this Keeper? They can clearly sense the Harbinger, but what exactly is it like for them? I couldnt just tell them this is my kill and Ive got it handled, could I? Has any Keeper ever said that to help turning up? They must or thered be more teams, it cant be that Im the only one who needs something urgently no, thats a useless tangent. All that matters is what I say now and what the other Keeper thinks of it. This only ends well if I can talk my way out of it, so what I need to say is. I dont know. Its impossible to plan this out in any real way. Theres way too much I dont know. Running away feels more appealing with every second I sit and wait for the Keeper to find me. That was never a real option, though, and it especially isnt now that theyre in the building. As they approach, I try to inspect the new presence more closely. Shona said Keepers had soul signatures you could read, so maybe this is someone Ive heard of? Theres the sound of the open ocean. Waves rising to wash away filth and corruption. Lighthouses. Nothing that calls to mind anyone I know. Nothing useful. Cries of surprise and scuffling sounds of people moving away announce their arrival before they come into view. As the noise reaches me, I transform. No point in hiding my magic if theyre already making a dramatic entrance. Dancing shadows and sickly green wisps briefly smother the reading nooks lights. When the darkness lifts, the new Keeper is standing before me. Well, mostly standing. She leans down to catch her breath as she stops running, propping herself up with both hands on a silver bident. Sleek, ocean-colored hair, a flowing curtain of mixed deep blues and teals whose colors seem to move as the light hits them differently, drapes over her face and obscures most of her body. After a moment, she stands and swings her weapon out in a wide half-circle, almost gesturing with it, which may explain the rush to get out of her way. Shes a soft-featured girl about my age, and her eyes match her hair, complete with irregular shifting colors. Her Keeper outfit has two distinct layers. The first is a royal blue strapless dress, slightly ruffled at the neckline. Its cinched in two places: at the top with a silver drawstring that threads in and out of sight and ties into a loose shoelace bow in front, and at the waist with a purple sash belt whose ends trail through the air behind her, casually ignoring gravity. The second layer is a little harder to define. The shape is of a billowing train skirt and loose detached sleeves that dont quite cover her arms, but the material, white tinged with very faint blue, is so sheer it looks more like thin mist than fabric. The closest comparison I have is to a jellyfishs translucent bell, but its a lot less solid and stable. Help has arrived! Wheres the Harbinger? Are there victims? Is there a Wound? Where is it? she shouts. Hi, I say, then wince inwardly. Great opening, me. Thanks thank you for coming, but there arent any of those things. Ive got this under control. Itll be gone soon. You can go if you want. What? Of course there are! Its right here! She brings her bident forward quickly enough that I flinch, pointing it at the book in my lap. Well, I had to try. On to the hard way. Right. I thought so too, when I first felt it, but does it look like a Harbinger? Is it reacting like a Harbinger usually would to two Keepers looming over it? Here, watch. I hold the book up. She flinches away from it at first, but stands still and waits while I first wave it around, then set it on the arm of my chair and punch it as hard as I Ack! I just barely choke down my yelp. Cushioned only slightly by my glove, the impact twists my thumb out of place beneath my fingers. Its not broken or anything, I dont think, but it burns as I shake my hand out, a breath of air hissing through my clenched teeth as I endure the pain. I guess Im lucky that as hard as I can isnt very hard. But not that lucky. Someone watched me do that. Shes still waiting in confused silence for me to finish my point. My cheeks burn a little. This is great. Im making a great impression. See? I continue, ignoring what just happened. Its not doing anything. Because it cant. You werent wrong when you sensed a Harbinger, but its not a whole Harbinger. Its a bit complicated. Thats all mostly true. Where Im going with it is a little less so, but Actually, does my plan even work now? Shes already made this a lot messier. Suppose I do convince her that everythings fine and she should leave me alone. Lots of people still watched her storm in yelling about a Harbinger. If I put the book back in its place, Ill have to worry about someone else getting word of this weird thing that happened and coming to check on it. If Im lucky the bystanders could assume the two Keepers took care of it, but when have I ever been lucky? Maybe I should cut my losses. Kill it right now and walk away from this stupid plan. No, Ive already sunk so much time into this. I should at least try. Ugh. Lets walk and talk for a bit, okay? This is a library and were making a scene. I stand up and squeeze past her and her wavy, rolling sashes, heading for the way out with the book in hand. The girl stares at me open-mouthed for another beat, then shakes her head, but it looks more like shes trying to shake a bug out of her hair than disagreeing. She turns and moves as if to follow me, but stops in the middle of her first step. Hey, hold on! Before we go running off anywhere, you know me and I dont know you and I dont think thats very fair. So. She folds her arms, leaving her bident to float lazily in midair, and taps a foot expectantly. But I dont know you, I turn back to reply in genuine bafflement. Huh? What do you mean? I mean this is the first time Ive seen you, in person or otherwise, and I cant tell if Id know you by name without your name, I say, very slowly. From the face she makes, youd think I told her I hated kittens or something. Are you sure? she asks, her brow creasing as she glares. What? Why would I? I guess some people tend to know Keepers on sight since theyre on the news and their images are used for endorsements and whatnot, but I stopped keeping track of that when I stopped hoping I could ever become a Keeper myself. I guess shes kind of familiar, maybe I saw her face on the Churchs website, but does she really expect me to recognize her when she doesnt recognize me, either? In the pause before I reply, her lips quirk up on one side in a smirk. Oh? Its come to you now, hasnt it? she asks, her eyes softening with satisfied vindication, as if shes taken my speechlessness for a dawning realization of who Im dealing with. Oh no. She may be an idiot. I cant tell if that makes my job easier or harder. No, Im certain. That isnt some judgment on you, whoever you are. I am, in fact, a shut-in who lives under a rock, so please fill me in, I say. Whoever I she repeats, her eyes widening before she clicks her tongue and blinks away her dismay. Ffine! she huffs, exasperated. If you really have no idea about anything, Im Tetha Fianata, the Seas Sanctuary! Her voice makes her sound like a kids show Keeper about to strike a goofy pose, but she just puts her free hand to her chest, raises her chin, and is she watching me for recognition? Hoping for it? I think she is. And shes got it, if not in the way she wants. Ive never heard of her, but Fianata again? She doesnt look anything like Niavh, which shouldnt be a surprise. Iona adopts all her children. Shes taken in dozens with no one else in the world over her years, and while not all or even most of them are magical, Clarish Keepers with no family or families they dont want often end up joining hers. Which is lovely for them, Im sure, but theyve got a whole district thats pretty much their house. Why do they have to keep coming here? Okay. Fi Tetha, I say. Nice to meet you. I had to stop myself from stating that as sure, I know the Fianatas. Shed probably take further offense at being lumped in with her famous family. Im Eyna. Ill Wind, I add reluctantly. She can sense it anyway. You wouldnt know me, Im new. Can we go now? But the Harbinger I dont hear the end of whatever shes saying, because I cut her off. Is not a threat, and if it is were better off bringing it somewhere without bystanders. Come on. I head down the stairs, not waiting on any further argument. Tetha does join me, but Im not watching her as closely as I probably should. Some of the people who scattered at her approach peek around corners at us. Its been a while since I was last not in public, but publicly being a Keeper. I didnt miss the attention. Maybe Id have something useful to say, some way to defuse the situation, but there are so many of them. An audience. I try to ignore them, keeping my gaze straight on the path out of here. That doesnt make them any less there. Outside, I walk us back toward the university grounds, doing my best not to think about the people watching us all along the streets. At the very least, no one around is stupid enough to follow us C after all, wherever a Keeper is heading without a formal invitation is liable to be a gash in the world festering with soul-eroding nightmares, and its illegal to interfere with us in any case. Still, the fewer people, the better. The campus has a lot of usually-empty space, plus its farther from home, so it seems like my best bet. Tetha pelts me with questions while we walk: Where are we going? Not far. A quiet corner of the university. Well be there in a minute. Hey, are you gonna tell me whats going on? Yes. In a minute. Whats with the mask? That one Im not answering. I just shoot her a look and let it hang in the air. She asks once more, then hrmphs and gives up when I ignore it again. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Whats it mean to not be a whole Harbinger? That doesnt make sense! Its a Harbinger or it isnt! And what difference does it make if its half a Harbinger or whatever? Why didnt we, I dont know, half-kill it in the library? Ill try to explain in a minute. Im not trying to be annoying, although Im sure thats the effect. I just cant talk and think at the same time. Im busy running through ideas about what she might be thinking and how to sell what Im doing. I dont bother guessing how her Harbinger sense might work and what it might tell her again, not enough information. All I know is that mine is apparently better than usual. A few minutes later, I stop by one of the many groves on the edge of the campus. There are no benches or landmarks thatd draw people to this side, and while the wall of trees isnt thick enough to completely obscure us from the more trafficked paths, its better than nothing. Here. Thisll do. Have a seat if you like. I point to the small stretch of manicured green between the stone path and the grove. Tetha glances down at the grass, crinkles her nose, and pointedly doesnt sit. Neither do I. Fair, I say. Im sorry about the walk. Like I said. Bystanders. Shes been tense the entire way here, never putting her bident down and only briefly looking away from me, and she still is now. Its only a small comfort that her eyes are currently trained on the book rather than meeting mine. We couldve talked whether or not someone was watching, but okay, she says. Now, whats happening? Im sure she couldve. Anyway. Right, I sigh. So first, thank you for checking in, but this is my territory. Im keeping watch on it and Ive got things handled here. Umm, here being this little stretch of the Hills. From the school to just north of the library. Territory? What are you talking about? Were all Keepers. Were all on the same side. Why would you be mad about someone helping you fight a monster? she asks. Ive already heard this exact line from Mide. Tetha talks like she doesnt need anything from magic, like she has no idea why people make the Promise at all, and I just dont understand how there are Keepers who cant answer that question. Emergence isnt even some dark secret only Keepers know about. They dont exactly highlight the need to absorb Harbingers when they dont have to, but its where the name Keepers comes from. Why does she do this if not for something she wanted enough to risk her life for over and over? Did she think it would be fun? Of course I cant just say any of that but I dont think I could help it if I answered right away. I take a long pause to steady myself before I speak again: There are things I need to change that cant wait. Thats the closest Ive come to explaining my situation. I hate that this girl of all people is the first one to hear it, but it might help and I dont know what else to do. Oh. I mean, thats fine, you can have its whole heart to yourself if you really want. I still dont get it. Couldnt you have done that a while ago? When I showed up you were just sitting around. Theres the problem. I cant yet. Why not? Its just sitting there! Can you not hurt it? I could, yes. It wouldnt help. Im certain by now that this girl wouldnt accept leaving the Harbinger alone for research purposes, which is probably the best possible way to put what Im doing. Past this point, my plans for this conversation get creative with the truth, and Im not a great liar. I have to stop myself from trembling and tensing like Im about to run for my life. So, I say. I hold the book up in both hands, keeping it close to my chest so as not to look like Im offering it to her. Its not leaving my hands if I can help it. Youve seen this. Youve seen what I can do to it without it doing anything back. Heres what I think is happening: it feels like a Harbinger because a Harbinger created it for some reason, but its not actually a Harbinger itself. Does that make sense? No, Tetha says flatly. Whats it matter if its a monster or not quite a monster or half a monster or whatever it is? Lots of us can make things out of magic, right? I narrow my focus and summon a card in the air between us, then let it float to the ground. Like so. That came from me and probably feels a lot like me, but it isnt me. Its the same with this book. Okay. Whats your point? If it came from a monster, things will be better once its gone! My point is that this book is a tiny piece of a real problem. A footprint a Harbinger left behind. And right now, its the one trace of that monster Ive found. Destroying it probably wouldnt hurt the creator enough to matter, and Id lose the only way I might be able to track it down. Oh. Thats, I mean that sounds weird. Are you really really sure about it? Everything about Harbingers is weird! Im not certain of anything, but thats my best guess right now, and my guesses are usually pretty good. I shrug. Im suddenly very glad to have kept this mask in my outfit. Much as I worry about it saying sick or hospital to someone whos paying attention, I dont know how to lie with my face. That fake-casual gesture is the best I can do. You can sense it, right? Look for yourself and youll see what Im talking about, I continue. I think I kept my trembling out of my voice. Tetha looks up at nothing in particular. She frowns, knits her brow, and rests her hand on her chin. After a moment she drops her bident, again leaving it to drift through the air beside her, and wraps her other hand around her elbow. She spends a long while like that before she nods. Alright. Give me a minute. She picks her spear back up, extends her free arm, and spreads her fingers. More of the airy blue-white substance that forms part of her Keeper regalia stretches out from her, slowly reaching for the book. I hold it out, just far enough away that her aura can touch it without touching me. Tethas magic flows around the book, circulating. Sometimes it brushes past my fingers, leaving them feeling a tiny bit cool and damp. She gnaws nervously on her lower lip as she concentrates. Im counting on her sense-experience of the Harbinger telling her roughly what mine does, only less so. Thats still a wishful guess, but Tetha doesnt seem that smart and hasnt acted like she has any special insight on that front. This might actually work. This should work. I dont think its quite right, what youre saying. Theres, uh, theres nothing connected to this book. Theres no flow, in or out. Whatever this is, its the only part of itself, and I really think its some kind of Harbinger, she says after studying the book for a minute or two. What? My hands clench and unclench I only notice Im doing it because the motion hurts my still-sore thumb. She isnt wrong about anything, but thats her problem? Thats the fault she finds in my story? It isnt even a real fault! Its exactly what youd expect to see if someone made a thing, put enough power into it to keep it stable, and left it lying around! Youd need to have no imagination at all to look at magic, this bizarre, complex, unreal thing nobody seems to understand more than a tiny piece of, and decide that if you cant follow an immediately obvious trail from one thing to another with your single specific type of mystic perception, no connection exists. Im somehow less upset about her calling me on my lie than I am about how stupid her issue is. Oh. Well. I, yes, I couldve told you that. I didnt think it was a Harbingers limb or it was siphoning something through it, its just something it made, and and the way my magic works, I can use that. Learn about it. Find it, I babble. Do you have its scent now? Where do you think it is? Working on it. Okay. I kind of see what you were thinking, but this whole thing yeah, maybe theres some bigger Harbinger hiding out there, but the Harbinger made this for a reason, right? Its getting something out of it, so we have to get rid of it. We cant, I snap, louder and harsher than I wanted to. We can! I dont get why youre Its touched someone! Theres a normal human the Harbinger behind this is connected to, maybe you cant see it but I can, and I havent managed to track them down and see how bad they have it and I dont know whatll happen to them if theyre already a vessel! By the time I realize what Im saying, what a horrible mess Ive made for myself, its already said. I dont know what else I couldve done. Tethas grip on her weapon visibly tightens. Her hands are shaking. That isnt what you were saying before. You were talking like it wasnt a big deal before, she says. I dont know you, okay? I had no idea if you were one of those types whod charge into battle first and ask questions never. Well, Im not! Im not dumb! Im not gonna do something if it might hurt someone! If thats whats going on then we oh, I know! Tetha laughs nervously. She seems to relax, but only a tiny bit. We just need to take it to the Sanctuary, right? Theyll have some place to lock it up until we know what to do. We dont need to do anything. I told you, I can handle this. I take a slow step back, never taking my eyes off her. Give it to me if you dont wanna go. Ill take care of it and you can go do whatever else. She strides toward me and reaches for the book. No! I jump back out of her reach. My cards blink into being, positioned such that they form a whirling ring around me. A fence, if not a very sturdy one. Tetha freezes. Her eyes widen. What are you doing? she asks. Leave me alone. Im not I dont want to Im not any kind of problem for you, okay? Dont want to what? Fight? To, why, to protect a Harbinger? Thats what youre s-saying! Her voice breaks on the last word. Why do I have to say anything? Why am I wasting my time trying to explain how Im handling a Harbinger in words you can understand when I could just be handling it? If it was handled, we wouldnt have a problem! What were you gonna do until that whole idea led you somewhere? Keep it with you? Leave it in the library? Either way thered be lots of people for it to do whatever evil thing it does to! Lots! Thered be vessels everywhere, if there even are any in the first place! Tetha yells. And Im I wont let it be like that! If you wont kill it, I will! Dont do this, I plead. I really dont know what happens next if she does, but Im sure itll be bad. Bad for one of us right now, bad for me forever. Without another word, Tetha raises her bident and spins it in a series of wide, sweeping circles. Theres a sudden unnatural dryness in the air. A sphere of water forms above her, tiny at first but swiftly growing. The water glows with sourceless teal-blue light, like pool lights at night, but much more vivid. Fine. I didnt start this. I hug the book to my chest, shielding it with my arms from whatever shes trying to do. Then, without moving another muscle, I take control of a card and float it out of my orbit, off to one side Ive started keeping a few infected, just in case I have some reason to separate my sickness from myself in a hurry. Tetha appears too absorbed in whatever shes doing to notice as that venom-green card floats over the grass, just above ground level. I move it in a wide half-circle, sneaking it behind her. It helps that I dont need to steer them by hand, the way books and shows about Keepers always paint magic as a thing you do with gestures and flashy poses. But the moment before I can spring my surprise attack, panic flits across her face. She whirls around and jabs the bident into her sphere. When she pulls it away, a smaller ball of water follows it, tethered to its central point. Then she brings it down, not quite striking my card but touching the orb to it, and pulls away. The water remains, a protective bubble that holds the card in place. I can still distantly feel it, but it simply wont respond when I try to activate it. Oh well. I have more but theres a slight delay in pulling my focus away from the contained card, like the difference between simply moving my arm and swishing it around in a bathtub. I draw a plume of mist out from myself and shove it through the short gap between us, just as Tetha spins to face me again. A curtain of water from her sphere falls over my fog, dragging it to the ground, holding her bident out in the space between us. She looks like she doesnt know what to do next. But I do. As Tetha takes a few hasty steps back, I reach with my soul for the card I conjured and dropped near the end of our talk. I place it so that between one step back and the next, her foot comes to rest over it, and only then do I will it to burst. Cold emerald fog fills the air. Tetha lets out a high-pitched yelp and whirls around as if startled by a sudden noise, but her cry is quickly cut off by a fit of dry coughs. Her legs tremble, then buckle and send her crashing to the ground. She reaches forward and tries to break the fall with her bident, but her arms no longer have the strength to prop her up on it. Rather than drift off through the air again, the bident clatters against the stone and disappears as she crumples to the ground. The light in the water above her fades as she loses her grip on it, and the sphere comes pouring down on her, splashing me in the process. I wait there, silent and still but for a few halting steps away from her. A storm of horrible emotions I cant name swirls through my stomach. Finally, she plants her forearms on the ground and pushes herself up just far enough to stare at me in uncomprehending fear. My head, its whad you she rasps, clearly struggling to string the words together. Shes alive. Shes a Keeper, shell get better. Thats all I need to know. I tap some of my health and run away as fast as my legs will allow. Tetha isnt following, as far as I can tell. Still, I dont stop until I cant sense her anymore. Only then do I dismiss my magic and collapse in the shadow of the nearest building wall. What am I doing? What was I ever doing? How did I imagine for a second it wouldnt end up like this? Between choked sobs and gasps for breath, I dash the book against the ground, pick it up, and smash it to the pavement over and over. The Harbinger sits through it all unprotesting, still and lifeless as ever, and after a few repetitions Ive lost the energy to do it anymore. It doesnt help at all. Nothing will. In The Dark, Were All The Same 4-4 By the time Ive gathered enough of myself to keep moving, night has fully fallen. Theres no time to stop and wonder what happens to me when this gets out. My life will explode or it wont, and nothing I do alone tonight will change that outcome. On to what I can still control. The book sits silently on the ground where I left it, not at all worse for wear, and right now I just need to decide what Im doing with this awful thing. I obviously cant bring it back to the library, and putting it in the nearest other library seems like a similarly awful idea. I cant bring it home while it doesnt appear to do anything but sit and wait for someone to follow its recipes, Im not going to leave it around people I know and give it the chance to prove me wrong. Plus if other Keepers can sense it at a distance, someone else could track it to me and that would be the end of it. Which leaves two real options: pull the plug and absorb it right now, or hide it somewhere else and choose my next step in the morning. Right? Those are the only ideas I can think of, yes, but are they actually the only ones? I dont know. Im too tired to think clearly and Ive made it this far with only lasting damage to my reputation and I cant do this right now, not while I could come up with something completely stupid and regret it immediately. Ill handle it tomorrow. So until then, where do you hide something from people who can sniff it out with magic? Off other peoples patrol routes, as far from the central districts as possible Right. I head west, back out across the wilting flower field. Its a little less unpleasant at night, while you cant see the decay quite so clearly, but that graveyard-perfume odor of rot is no less strong. I trudge through the field and to the very edge of the forest. At this hour, it takes some searching to find a hollow in a tree trunk, but find one I do. Its a big enough hole that the book is only slightly visible when I stuff it in, and once Ive done that, I turn and head for the hospital. Most Keepers are smart enough to leave the forest alone. Hopefully anyone who passes by and detects faint corruption will assume its just some wilderness monster doing whatever Harbingers do out there. Halfway there, I realize I was worrying about the wrong issue no Keeper is going to be out picking dead flowers while I sleep, but one of those Harbingers might wander by and scoop up the free snack. But I dont have any better hiding spots and Im too tired to think of one, so lucky it, I guess. Itd make my life less complicated. When I get back, the seventh floors lights are already dimmed, and the main room is mostly empty, save for the usual scattering of older patients sleeping on the couches. The night nurse at the front desk greets me with a casual wave, but says nothing, and he cant quite keep the uneasy tension off his face. Im not sure exactly what Dr. Hines told everyone, but I imagine any given staffer has either figured out whats going on with me or is very confused by the sudden radical shift in my schedule and how Im treated. Neither option lends itself well to acting like its business as usual when I turn up bleary-eyed at this hour. Its well past my bedtime when I make it to my room. Ive done my best to keep some kind of consistent schedule despite everything. So much for that. Ugh. Maybe I should start getting up later and tell the nurses theyll just have to deal with it. Or maybe I should stop worrying about such tiny, stupid things at a time like this and actually sleep. Eventually, I do. ~~~ Not well and not enough, of course. I still feel mostly dead when the sun comes glaring down through my too-thin curtains. Ive tried a few times to hide under the covers while I sleep, to keep it at bay a little longer, but its hard to breathe under there and my own breath turns it unbearably warm and humid within minutes. Pearl can spend the night hiding in the sheets just fine, though. Lucky her. It must be nice having gills. I cuddle her and do my feeble best to think about nothing and rest a little more until the morning nurse comes through to take my vitals. Theyre a bit worse than usual today, but within the normal range of terrible. Once shes finished, I rush through my morning routine, send for an easy-to-digest breakfast from the hospital kitchen, and return to the looming question of what on earth Im doing with my life. My infection is still inside the Harbinger. Its too far away to touch directly right now, but I could go pick the book up and kill it with little more than an unkind thought. I should kill it. Even if its only slightly more substantial than when I found it, still who-knows-how-far from being complete. If I clean up my mess before anyone else shows up to fight me over it, theres still a chance I could play this off as an ugly misunderstanding thats all over now. Keepers have gotten away with more for longer, if Taras history was anything to go by. Im going to kill it, Ive decided by the time I finish eating. Itll be frustrating to get nothing but trouble out of this whole experiment, yes, but its already been too much trouble to justify. This cant get any more out of hand. Therell be more Harbingers. There have to be. Things are currently a little quiet in my tiny corner of the city, thats all. Its not like the world ever runs out of monsters. So off I go, out into an unpleasantly bright spring day and back to the dead flowers Ive been visiting entirely too often. As the withering field comes into view, I reach across it with my soul and feel for the book at the forests edge. But its not there. I have to remind myself to breathe, then stop myself from taking a sip of life and sprinting across the field. If its gone its gone, if its not its not going anywhere. I remember exactly where I left it, even if it looks quite different in the morning light, and a minute later Im peering into the hollow where Im certain it was. Nothing. No magic trail leading off somewhere. No sign it was ever here at all. Okay. Okay. What happened here? The Harbinger still exists, or at least the power I embedded in it does. I can still feel that tiny toxic spark of myself. That could mean some forest monster came by, ate the book, and caught what I gave it. After a quick glance over my shoulder, I transform and push my senses as far as I can into the sea of trees. Nothing, or nothing I can find from outside, and Im not going back in there. It also couldve been a Keeper, unlikely as it is for someone else to have searched this field in the middle of the night. They probably wouldve killed and absorbed it on the spot. Even if they didnt, I wouldnt go after another Keeper for it. I cant do anything in either of those situations, so no point following those trains of thought further. What else? Maybe it has some way to move after all and set off on its own power to find itself a new nest. Or someones reflection told them where to find it. The Harbinger would certainly have hooks in anyone who followed its steps that far. It couldve sent them here to pick its book up and either hold it for safekeeping or hide it somewhere new. That seems at least as likely as the forest monster scenario, and if its what happened, this can still work. I can still fix this. My hooks are still in the Harbinger, and Ive gathered enough health to mitigate my worst symptoms for weeks or live like a normal person for hours. I have everything I need to track it down, finish it off, and take whatever scant strength it has. ~~~ If my infection has a presence I can follow the way I do when I scent a Harbinger, its too far away to find right now. I know its there in some form, a faint prickling in my soul like a sleeping limb, but cant actually trace it or do anything with it from this distance. Its really disorienting, and feels like enough of an oversight that as so often happens I want to hit whoever designed my magic. Vyuji would just smirk and shrug and tell me not to be so mean to myself, though. Vyuji is an asshole. Well, it went somewhere. I stomp back through the flowers and make for the Fields, figuring Ill have the best chance of catching it from the citys center. The streets here are nearly always bustling with people. A few weeks ago, this crowd wouldve been a terrible hazard to my health. Now its just uncomfortable. Small mercies. Half an hour of wandering aimlessly through the crowd later, my hunch pays off. A now-familiar foul presence in the distance catches my attention, its dim beacon muffled beneath the tide of everyday life. I quicken my pace and follow its stench to wait, what? There are two sources. How? The book and a victim? I dont think I could mistake a regular corrupted person for a Harbinger, and I dont think either is a witch, since nothing feels at all human about them has it seriously grown enough in the last day and a half to take a vessel? If it has, things are a lot worse than they already looked. I have no idea how many vessels ever recover. But this is the middle of the city, and you dont even need a Keepers senses to see a Harbinger doing bizarre and horrifying things with a body its puppeteering. A vessel running around in public would draw immediate attention to it, and since I dont feel any other Keepers descending upon the corruption, this should be something else. I hope so. I really do, for all the nonexistent good itll do. Inspecting both motes of corruption at once doesnt tell me anything useful. Its like seeing double, only stretched out over a great distance. Other than their locations, they feel exactly the same, although at least from here it doesnt feel like either of them house my magic. It still exists somewhere, but that somewhere doesnt appear to be here. These are the only leads I have, though, and one source is closer than the other, so I head that way. The trail ends at an open doorway and window facade, behind which are shelves and shelves of books on display. Above, a sign in white letters reads BIBLIOMANCY. After last night, bookstores and libraries seem like the worst possible place for the Harbinger to hide, but, well, its a Harbinger. It can only be what it is. Inside, the shop isnt nearly the size of the library, but its shelves go on for long enough that you could easily hide a book in some corner while no one was watching. It isnt in a corner, though. The book is faceup on a display tower toward the back of the store. How long has it been there? Have the clerks not noticed it or has it already gotten to one of them? I dont feel corruption on anyone here, and no one comes running as I pick the book up and flip through it. Its bizarre that they would go to the trouble of rescuing it from the woods and then leave it in a place like this not that Im complaining. This only took a few minutes, so I can destroy it and get right back to chasing the other thing, whoever or whatever it is. Wait. The book has changed. There are new pages, yes, but that isnt it. Something is missing, or different. Im not sure what at first, and I flip through it twice before I really notice: the step that was once completely crossed out in black marker has been replaced or repaired. Those two pages now bear rows of perfectly legible text and a bright, cheery picture of a girl and her one-eyed blob creature diving off a cliff ledge into a still lake that stretches out across the entire page. Step 5 The last step was pretty scary, wasnt it? Dreams can be a spooky place! Did you wonder how all of those horrible things got there? Its not a problem with you the world you were born into is broken and mad, thats all! Life will twist you. Life will worm its coils into you and make you wrong. There are so many holes for it to creep through. The food you eat. The water you drink. The air you breathe. Youve been tricked into believing that these things are part of life, part of you. But its all really just toxic sludge! Every day, you weigh your soul down with gunk and it sinks and sinks deeper into dream-slurry like quicksand! Now that youve organized your dreams and learned how to keep things you dont want out of them, this step will teach you how to do the same with the rest of yourself. You just need to prove to yourself that you dont really need any of those things, and then they wont be able to deceive you anymore! Yay! There are lots of ways you can do this, but this one is easiest and fastest. Youll need enough water to immerse yourself in. A lake will work best. If you dont have a lake, a pool is probably okay. Dont use the sea. Go to whichever watery place youve chosen alone at night and hop in! Swim around for a while, see what the stars are doing above, have fun in any way you want! Whats important is just that you get used to being in the water. Make sure youre calm and comfortable before this next part. Its important that this all feels normal. It shouldve always been normal. When you think youre ready, start taking quick, shallow breaths, longer on the exhale than the inhale. These are the last breaths youll ever be forced to take! Do this until you feel a little dizzy, then breathe it all back in, hold that breath, and submerge. Eyes open or closed, it doesnt matter, but stay under the water. Hold yourself there no matter what happens. If you breathe in, you lose. If you come up for air, you lose. If you think this might be hard for you, its okay to find something heavy and hold it while you dive. You can exhale if you want, but dont rush it! This shouldnt feel fast or frantic. It shouldnt hurt. It may just take a bit to recognize that the lie youve lived with for so long really is a lie. Eventually, you shouldnt feel dizzy anymore. Swimming underwater should feel like a perfectly clear day full of fresh air and nice things. As soon as that happens, you win! Stay under for as long as you like. Have fun experimenting with how it feels to not breathe or breathe water. (Once youre finished, if you ever want to breathe or eat or drink just because you feel like it, thats okay! Theyll all probably be more fun! Doing things because you have to and because you like to are very different!) This this is just suicide, isnt it? Unless it actually works as described. Id thought it wouldnt kill people so quickly, and it still feels wrong for it to be demanding sacrifices at this stage. Like the statement would be completely unfinished, even more so than if it ate peoples souls in Step 6. It doesnt make sense. What was its idea here? Why was this part blacked out in the first place and why has it only reappeared now? No time to stand here and wonder. I flip back to the new steps. Step 8 You have more than one friend in your life, dont you? I hope you do. Friends are nice! Thats why your new friend is always there for you. How can it be any other way? You made them, after all! If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. But me? I only have you. Sometimes you have other things to do, and I get lonely. I want us to make more friends. I want to show other people how to be part of the beautiful things were making together. No one should be stuck wading through all this dream-slurry alone. Dont worry! I wont love you any less or spend any less time with you! Having more friends will help us make things real! You will need: -Yourself! Hello, you! -This book! -Two hand mirrors! -Places to put a book where humans can find it and read it! All the places! As many as you can think of! Once youve gathered all the ingredients, go to each of those book-places. Wander through the shelves there. Look at the books and think about how their spines make you feel. Youll know when youve found the right one. Pick that book off the shelf and take it to a dark place. You can make a place dark yourself if you want, but once youve started, make sure it stays dark until youre finished or you lose. Place this book and the new book there so that they are between two of the mirrors. If youve done everything right so far, you should be able to see through the mirrors in the dark. Look out the doubled glass window-tunnel they create, out at all the books and books and books just waiting for their chance to be real. One of them is about to get its chance! Congratulations, book! Your mirror-friend will go get the right one, bring it out for you, and make the book you chose into the book its meant to be. When youre finished, put the book back where you found the book it isnt anymore. Remember to return books to their proper place! Oh. Oh no no no no no. Right this moment the Harbinger is out there spreading, multiplying. No, it mightve already happened. I was only at the library for a few minutes yesterday. Whichever victim took it from my hiding spot couldve easily gotten it from the library, spent the daylight hours making copies, and put it back before I showed up. Or left a copy there, if they didnt want to let it go. With a queasy lurch, I realize two things at the exact same time: first, it looks like my lie about the book being a minor branch of the Harbinger was accidentally true. Second, I beat up a Fianata Keeper to protect that useless branch. This plan was awful. Im an idiot. It was stupid to ever think anything good would come of this. Did I even think that? What other outcome could there be? I knew this would happen. I didnt know exactly what it would look like, but I knew from the start that this whole idea relied on letting a Harbinger grow enough to do something like this. I knew it would happen and just did it anyway. I really am garbage. I wish I could just throw myself away and start over as someone different. But I can''t, so I read on, rushing through the next sections before I can stop to wonder how it gets worse. Step 9 People who live in dream-slurry dont know how difficult it really is to see. Things happen to them and perceive them automatically, whether they want them to or not, so they never think any further about it. They get lazy. It doesnt have to be that way! Only ??????? is absolute. Everything else can change if you know how to change it. If you have a red apple, but you only like purple apples that sparkle, dont let an apple dictate the way things are to you! Youre a and its just an apple! If you twist your perception enough, your apple can be as purple and sparkly as you want! The preparations for this step are simple. Think about what things would look like if you were the only one whod ever seen them. See a world just for us. Fill it with all the purple apples and sea creatures dancing in the sky and books full of beautiful true things you could ever imagine. See what you would look like in a world where nobody ever lied to you or made you do all the horrible things youve done to yourself. Then look out into the dream-slurry and start to see it that way, too. This will take a lot of practice. Youve spent your whole life seeing the wrong way. So go out and practice! When youre getting started, it will be easiest at night, probably still okay in secluded or shady places, and hard where The Sun can see. The Sun is still mean, but you wont need to worry about it for too much longer! It will get easier as more people read the other books. We will use their eyes. The more eyes perceive a thing a certain way, the more the thing starts to recognize their impression as the way it is and the way it has always been, until eventually that apple has always glittered like a violet star! This is called peer pressure. It has deformed a lot of people and places and things a lot of ways. But this way will be good! This way has a vision behind it. Youre making it this way because you know its the best way for things to be. No great art was ever made by a million people putting one random word each on a page. We will make this world wonderful. Together. Step 10 There is no point in writing this step, because the one I would write it for already knows what it is. There is no such thing as fiction. Prove that to everything. Shroud yourself in me and show the world how to be and become and blossom. I love you! ...Okay. From that last part, whatever the book was when I found it, its a full Harbinger or getting ready to become one by now. I dont know what that means for whoever the last step was addressed to. I just need to find them as quickly as possible. Hey, do you know where this book came from? I ask the bored-looking older girl with a bob cut at the cash register. I hold it up so she can see the cover, but stay out of arms reach. Um, probably the same place as all the other books? Why? Has, I dont know, has anything weird happened recently? Any odd customers? I mean, a little weird, sure. Someone came in yesterday morning with a big moving box and asked for all the clearance books that would fit into it. All fiction, but other than that she just took a pile of whatever was cheapest. Something about a library fair? I didnt ask questions, she shrugs. A girl a little over my age? Lots of bushy brown hair? Not bushy, but brown, yeah. Wheres all this coming from? she asks with a nervous laugh. Do I care about making a scene? Not really. Things are kind of out of the box after yesterday. Hunting a Harbinger, I say simply. These books are dangerous. Get magic help if you see another one. Before she can question any further, I rush out, book in hand, and search again for the other point of corruption. Its farther off, but not so far that I cant easily place it. Before I go chasing it, though, can I use this? It should still be part of the Harbinger. There are just more parts now. It doesnt feel any different from the first book, save that its no longer tainted with my power, and I can fix that easily. If its growing, if its about to be fully born, I want it to be hurting when I find it. I drop off the street, into the landscaped courtyard in front of one of those garden skyscrapers almost completely covered in trees. Past the point of worrying about who might be watching, I transform, take hold of a poisoned card, and Corruption surges out from the book, rushing over me as if through an opened dam. At my souls touch, the book throws itself open and unfolds. I drop it and step back with a start, only barely keeping my footing, as something rises from the pages. It looks at first like a pop-up diorama, an aimless construction of black paper that doesnt represent anything I can make out, but then it keeps expanding and expanding, rising above me, origami-folding itself up and out into a great asymmetrical mass of sharp angles wider than it is tall. Bright abstract images scrawl themselves across the black paper. The mass swiftly moves to encircle me, and the pictures stretching across its panels expand. They form a scene of a brilliant dawn horizon over a pitch-dark sea, but instead of the sky or the sun theres a vibrant world of little paper people dancing in groves of colorful trees and spiral flowers, all rendered in a painfully clashing scatter of pastel colors. But the trees also grow their own little worlds and the flowers are also portals into other landscapes entirely too small and blurry to make out right now, but some of them are growing, even swallowing others up, as individual parts of the image overlap or jostle for position or bleed into each other, making it impossible to focus on any single element. And beneath it all the sea isnt just black paper anymore, its a vast inky morass filled with human-shaped outlines like bodies drowning in a bog. Sometimes they reach up from beneath the surface, but instead of arms they sprout flowers of kaleidoscopic color that bloom for just a few seconds before theyre sucked down into darkness or absorbed into the collage above. Nothing that I could interpret as the Harbingers body appears from the display. The closest thing I can find comes from a few little caterpillars that drop down from the trees, crawl over the surface of the bog, and start to eat up arm-flowers, then vomit them back out as patches of ink patterned with dozens of eyes that glare down at me from all angles. Theres a soul-deep shock that comes with seeing the world ripped away and replaced with a collage of writhing madness. I cant imagine anyone, Keeper or no, ever being used to it. Still, at least for the moment, shock is all it is. That awful sense of being strangled by a nightmare doesnt fade, but through it I did something a lot like this a week ago. A threat display. Lashing out just enough to feel dangerous. Beneath all of this, the book is still open on the ground. I launch my card into it, but this time I let it burst into twisting, corrosive life as soon as it burrows into the Harbinger-essence. Pieces of the diorama start to twist and wither and blacken, and what remains of it frantically fold back inwards until only the book remains. It smolders at the edges with green embers and smokes with misty plumes of my noxious magic. The twisted diorama is gone within seconds, corruption and all, and the Harbinger has slammed the door to its world shut again, performing some mystic equivalent to saving a persons life by amputating a dying limb. All I can do is hope its still hurting, wherever it really is, and keep going. Theres still more of its power in the distance. And if I want any chance to keep this from getting worse, all these copies have to go. The Harbingers stench leads to a book left in a smaller bookstore. Rather than make a scene of it, I just walk in, wait until no ones watching to stuff it under my jacket, and walk out. Whatever they use to trigger the anti-shoplifting gates, this book doesnt contain one. I take it to a quiet alley, transform, and flood it with enough of my magic that it twists and withers away until nothing remains but dust and dried paper scraps, like fragments of a crumbling ancient scroll. The Harbingers essence inside writhes and screams and pulls back, drawing whatever bits of itself it can salvage toward its source, but it makes no attempt to strike at me this time. Im not sure how much Im hurting the actual Harbinger like this, but the trail cant go on forever. Whoever made these duplicates seems to have followed a roughly-straight path through the Fields, dropping one off anywhere someone curious might pick it up. I repeat that routine with the two more copies sitting on separate shelves in a library. From there, I follow the trail to a third bookstore, where I run into my first complication. Not from the Harbinger or someone twisted by it, though. Just one of those too-friendly clerks who wont take leave me alone for an answer. Oh, hello! Welcome to the Bookstore! A portly old man in a green sweater smooths out his bushy beard, stands from behind the counter where a sign above confirms that this bookstore is named The Bookstore and walks over to me, coming to rest just a bit too close. I havent seen you around before! Is there anything in particular I can help you find today? No, you really cant. Just just looking around. Thanks. Thats fine. Thats great, actually! What do you usually like to read? No judgment here. Whatever you want, Im sure I can point you in the right direction! I do my best to politely ignore him as I search the store, but hes just not having it. He follows me everywhere, studiously ignoring my signals that I really just want to look at books alone. I dont think hes suspicious of me or anything, he just likes to talk and figures everyone else does too. Which isnt any better. When I still went to school, there was a nearby pastry shop I liked to get lunch at sometimes. Until people there started recognizing me, asking if I wanted my usual order and how my day had been. Then I felt weird about going there often enough to be noticed, so I stopped. This is not a thing I want to be reminiscing about. Especially not right now. You know, it really warms the heart to see a girl in your age in here on a weekend, too! looking for a good book or three instead of goofing around or, you know, playing those games they all play on the Sea now. Heh, my granddaughter, its a gift from the Goddess if I can get her to look up from her drive for a few minutes There it is, placed horizontally on top of a row of history books. I pull out my fifth copy of How to Be the World. Oh, whats that youve found there? he asks, leaning down to inspect it. Harbingers, I finally hiss. Im looking for a Harbinger that finds its victims through books like this one. Have you seen this book before now? Have you read it? The man flinches. His once-smiling eyes go wide with fear. I, what? Im no. No, Ive never seen that one until now. Promise! he gasps. Good. Call for a Keeper if you find another copy. Im taking this and Im going to go kill it, I say, then turn and rush for the exit. Um. I really do like books. If that makes you feel any better. Sorry, I offer, just before the door swings shut behind me. ~~~ Finally, only the distant wisp of power I buried in the original book remains. Its not far from here, and it stirs at my souls touch, ready at any second to do what it was made for. Im not going to inflame it until I know what Im dealing with if the Harbinger has taken a vessel, I could kill them if Im not careful. Now that Im closer, its easy to follow my own magic back to its source, which is somewhere in a parking lot filled with wide, short buildings that each bear dozens of blue roll-up doors like tiny garages. A self-storage site. The place is shockingly barren for New Claris, with only a few trees and no garden plots anywhere among the rows and rows of doors. The heart of all this corruption is nesting at the far end of the complex. I pause outside its door, identical to all the others save for the stench emanating from it. Its grown enormously since I last felt it, from a vague unease to a sickening spiritual weight like like painful hunger, but not an actual gnawing in my stomach. Appetite as experienced by something thats never eaten in its life and doesnt even know what food is, only that theres something it doesnt understand missing from its world. This is where I knew it would end, isnt it? This was my stupid, stupid plan. All thats left to do is fix my mistake and scavenge whatever I can from it. I reach down, tap a tiny bit of life, and pull the unlatched steel door up. Fumes of a chemical smell, glue or nail polish, waft out as the door slides open. The overhead light in the little square room is on, and I recognize the girl inside, as I thought I would. She doesnt look like any other Harbinger victim Ive encountered. The opposite, actually. Theres no sickness or exhaustion in her eyes, and her hair even looks better than last time I saw her, smoother and shinier and altogether less like a rebellious bush. She doesnt feel like a victim, either shes definitely corrupted, much more so than Yurfalns afflicted, but not at all damaged the way they were. Around her, though rather than the bare grey walls I expected, the unit is covered in paper. Hundreds or thousands of irregularly-sized little paper rectangles covered in words, pages and passages sliced out of books, pieced back together into some kind of word-collage, and dotted with black patches where lines are neatly crossed out in marker. Ruined husks and loose pages of books harvested for their paragraphs are scattered across the floor. At the center of it all, the Harbingers book is open, unfolded into a smaller but vastly brighter version of its earlier ever-shifting nightmare collage. The girl pulls away from her work, reaching up on a stool to censor bits of text on the ceiling, and turns to glower down at me. Im not hurt, Im busy, and I dont need your help. Go find someone who does, she says flatly. Theres no pain in her voice, just a sharp tinge of something like frustration. What do you say to that? How do you tell someone so entangled in a monsters mad dreams that everything about this is wrong? You dont. You let the Soul Sanctuary figure it out. I reach out and fan the sparks of sickness winding through the Harbinger into deathly flames. A scream like all the paper in the world being shredded to scraps in an instant rips through the air as the book lashes out and drags me into its Wound. My Own and Only Light 4-5 Im not asking all these weird linguistics questions just to ask them, you know. Sure, the world isnt gonna explode yesterday if we dont figure them out, but theres still important implications, Isobel said. All your questions are things Id like to know too, and I dont expect theyd fall under any of the conspicuous blind spots, Aisling nodded. But I can only learn so much on one question a day, and theres always something that needs my attention RIGHT THIS SECOND and has to wait weeks anyway. More every day, it feels like. Dont I know it, Isobel grumbled. For a little while, Aislings power had been an exciting way for their group of friends to confront the mysteries that troubled them most. Then the wider world noticed Aisling, and all their personal passions were buried in a long, long priority queue of questions sorted by the potential existential danger of leaving them unanswered. This was the ultimate expression of Aisling''s gift, pushed to its limit: commanding truth from nothing. One single, solitary question a day, asked to the aether with the utmost extent of Aisling''s focus, guaranteed a truthful answer by the mystery behind magic itself a stubborn mystery that hypocritically refused to give itself away. Of course, the power was full of exasperating weak points, but when it was wielded with Aislings precision and intelligence, its insight was truly incredible. A miracle given shape. Aisling hated to think of it in those words, but what other words fit? I am sorry about that. Things were nicer when it was only the three of us and the club. Its just hard to base your decisions on whats nicer when anything or everything could be at stake. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. Isobels pet subject was philology. In those early days, shed gotten exactly one question answered by Aislings magic: yes, there were human languages older than Thalassic. As it was with most good questions, the answer immediately branched into a dozen new questions. Which languages? Were any of them still around? What were the societies that spoke them like, before the Claiasyan overculture spread around the world and carried Thalassic with it? Was there even anything wed call a society? If not, what changed? Was there some delay between the birth of humanity and the advent of Keepers and the Covenant, and if so, why? Questions she wouldnt ever learn the answers to before her best friend faded entirely into the world of magic and left her alone with her questions, at this rate. Neither of them would say it in those words, but Isobel knew the Research Club was just an excuse for Aisling to spend time with her old friends, not a real part of her investigations. A bunch of kids kicking ideas around after school didnt have anything more to offer a girl who could pluck answers to cosmic mysteries from nowhere than occasional help refining the questions she planned to ask. But actually, your interests may be the sort of thing where the experts know more than they publish. If you got yourself noticed by the right people and took the offer, I wouldnt begrudge you that. Too much, Aisling said with a sour smile. Among the many, many roles it played, the Church spent quite a lot of its preposterous amounts of money funding research of all kinds, ran or supported most of the worlds best universities, and generally sat at the heart of global scholarship, but it wasnt completely open with its wealth of information. Someone had apparently decided that certain fields were best kept out of the public eye. Harbinger studies, obviously, but also things like astrology, and well, there wasnt exactly a formal list of restricted subjects, so Isobel didnt know that there was a secret library somewhere full of books on prehistoric humanity, but if there was, the oldest and most magical organization on the planet probably had it. They didnt disappear people for asking the wrong questions or anything so clumsy, though. At least not that Isobeld ever heard of. No, her friends had long suspected, and Aisling had confirmed with her power shortly after she made the Promise, that they simply poached academics whose interests fell into the danger zones. Brought them into the fold where the real work was done, and all they had to do in exchange was agree to keep the secrets. Whatever offers they made and reasons they gave for doing things that way were apparently good enough to stifle almost all outsider work in those fields. Maybe the people in charge really did have perfectly good reasons everyone in the Research Club hated the idea of a scholarly in-group deciding what knowledge was fit for general consumption, but even Aisling didnt broadcast everything she learned to the whole world. Shed learned firsthand that where some of these things were concerned, information could be literally dangerous. In the early days, Aisling once asked her power Where does magic come from? Her own magic had left her delirious and suffering migraines that made her want to tear herself to shreds for the next few weeks, and when she recovered she didnt have the slightest hint at an answer to show for it. All she remembered clearly enough to describe was that the response she normally wouldve received had been muffled, drowned out by the flitting sounds of a great swarm of butterflies wingbeats. Theyd never figured out what to make of that particular detail. Aisling even spent another question on it: Why did I hear butterflies when I asked my last question? In answer, she received more, louder wingbeats. No migraines, though. So yes, some knowledge really didnt want to be freely shared. But danger or no danger, no too-curious soul in human history was ever satisfied with the mere promise that an answer to their questions exists. Imagine that. The people in the know wanting her enough to reach out. But then, they had come a long way since they were just kids trying to figure out how stuff worked together. Back when Aisling still wore those huge thick glasses that made her look exactly like the runty, nerdy, too-proud daughter of two scientists she was, and when her determination to live up to their legacy had moved Isobel to follow the same path. Well, Aisling had come a long way. Emergence had not just repaired her sight, but granted her vision far beyond what any human could aspire to. Isobel, on the other hand, was still just Isobel. ...Mm, yeah, I probably would if they wanted me. Sorry, was all she said in answer. The conversation stalled out after that, as it always did. Once the club had finished cleaning up their lab room, Isobel said her brief goodbyes and set out alone. Not to make her way home, though. Not yet. The university library was a poor substitute for all those secret stacks in the Churchs Archives shed never get to see, but books were books, and she had a long way to go before shed read everything of interest there. ~~~ Oh, did they get a new book? She didnt recognize this one she recognized most of the Thalassic section by now and its featureless black spine looked a little out of place. How to Be the World? What did that even mean, and what was it doing on this shelf? It was sized more like a notebook than the weighty volumes around it, and had no labels on the spine. Either some librarian had made a few different mistakes in rapid succession, or someone left their weird journal here by mistake. In either case, it fell to Isobel to figure out where the strange little book did belong. She took it back to her usual reading window and flipped it open. ~~~ Isobel stared down at Step 5 and the cheerful little drawing beside it. She read it again and again and again, mute with horror. Memory and wild imagination twisted together into a waking nightmare of the sea, of being choked and swallowed by the endless abyss that had so terrified her ever since her first childhood brush with death. Finally, the sound of footsteps passing by her corner dragged her out of the depths. Almost reflexively, she curled into herself and pulled the book closer to her face. She didnt dare look away from the page with more than the corner of her eye. But the sound passed. Only then did she close the book, heart still hammering all the while. That cover with its simple silver letters wasnt looking back at her, but it was reaching out to her. Curious. Questioning. I cant do this, she whispered. The book said nothing. Books dont talk. But it didnt need words to repeat the question. I cant! Theres no way! It would kill me, do you understand that? No human could do this and live! You said you promised What? What did it promise? It said it would do something that sounded good what, on its honor as a Harbinger? What was wrong with her? How did it ever seem like a good idea to close her eyes and play along with a set of instructions pulled from a disturbed childs manifesto on the nature of reality? What in her soul was so suddenly, impossibly broken that when she saw it in her imaginary library, she hadnt ran screaming to the nearest Keeper? The creature the book insistently called her new friend was an abstract tangle of origami limbs soaked through with rainbows of flowing ink. If it was meant to represent something Isobel had no earthly idea what. When it appeared to her in dreams and reflections, it was constantly shifting itself into new not-shapes, experimenting with its structure in very unskilled ways. It only ever moved by folding itself new limbs, which crumpled back into the central mass after they dragged it awkwardly forward. Like a baby learning to crawl crossed with a paper amoeba. It was all wrong, wrong in a way that could only mean one thing. Shed stopped pretending that this could be anything but a Harbinger clawing its way into the world. She shouldnt have done any of this in the first place. She certainly shouldnt have spent the last three nights working through the books steps, following along as it filled its empty pages with new bizarre games. But it wasnt too late to stop, was it? She could still end this. Aisling wouldnt no, Aisling would definitely yell at her, but it wouldnt be the end of her life. The club would have her back eventually. Probably. Maybe. Shed spend some unpleasant time in the Sanctuary, but then it would all be business as usual again. Business as usual, trying to learn about the secrets of the universe secondhand from a Keeper who had so much more to do than indulge her stupid curiosities. Look. I want to do this, for some reason. I want to work with you. But I cant do that. I dont care how sure you are that itll be fine, I literally cannot. Make another way or were done. Ill hand you off to someone else, and she wont play along. Shell dissect you, figure out how you work, and eat whatevers left over. Got that? Im s-serious. Did the book understand any of this? Who knows? All she could do was hope it had some way to grasp her meaning. Several minutes of silent glaring later, she felt it respond in that wordless way: Agreement. Patience. Returning. Okay, she whispered back. And I mean it. Dont... dont mess with me. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. ~~~ Things changed after that night. Isobel didnt go back to the library right away. She skipped school and spent the day in her room, thinking in circles. Twice she tried to talk herself into turning the book over to Aisling, but she knew all the while that she wasnt going to. The Harbingers twisted paper projection still appeared in her uneasy dreams, but it was simply there, watching in silence. When she next visited it, the book had not only added a new step, but covered Step 5 in a combination of neat redacting-marker lines and pen scribbling so frantic that it looked like it should have torn through the page completely. It even left a note in the margins that recanted the step in a reproduction of Isobels own handwriting. The new ritual was still strange and creepy, but something felt different about it. Its language wasnt quite as disjointed, and there was a clearer line of logic running through it, or else it just did a better job of explaining what it was meant to do and why someone would want to do it. It helped that shed never gotten along well with mirrors. But more than that, through the days she spent obsessively following the books growth, inviting the Harbinger into her head while she slept in a cramped blanket nest in her closet, she somehow hadnt realized just how wrong everything was. Not until she had this to compare it to. Those days werent exactly a fugue shed dissociated her way through entirely, she remembered them well enough, but thinking back Isobel dreamed often. Most of them were nightmares, and the worst were those she experienced almost as an outside observer. Not exactly watching a movie, but riding along as a prisoner inside herself. She knew something horrible was happening, maybe even remembered it happening in other dreams before and had ideas about how to prevent it, but the dream-story was already written and it offered her no agency to change it. Those first few days had felt like one of those dreams. Like watching herself march into a lightless cave that was really a yawning maw, waiting for the jaws to snap shut. Like the new rituals, the books formless intelligence felt very different now. Gentler, clearer. It spoke in soft wordless whispers that aligned rather closely with her own ideas rather than a gale of suicidal intrusive thoughts, and listened when she spoke back. Now, whenever she felt the Harbinger communing with her, there was something she recognized at the heart of it. Something desperate shed felt stirring in the dark corners of her own soul for years now. Yearning to find some new path, no matter how strange or scary, because the one shed spent her life walking was blank and flat and hopeless. Maybe the two had simply discovered by accident that they shared similar feelings. Maybe the Harbinger saw something it appreciated in Isobel. Or maybe shed just fallen for the traps second, more sophisticated stage, but she really didnt think so. Somewhere along the way, it had ceased to be a predator dragging her to her doom and become a truly bizarre sort of kindred spirit. ~~~ Once Isobel replaced the reflection shed never liked with the Harbingers little paper-and-ink avatar, things changed again. It was closer to her now, no matter where she went, and the Harbinger no longer needed its book to reach her. She read Step 8 in a dream before it was written at all, and felt the Harbingers presence blooming into something grander as she made new books. She made a new copy for the university library and took the original home, just in case anything made that copy especially important, and scattered more through other libraries and bookstores and schools. Once enough others stumbled across it, it wrote the ninth step. The step that, in its strangely-phrased way, promised her a kind of actual power of her own. Actual magic. And it delivered. Isobel began with herself, which seemed more appropriate and worthwhile than running around making purple star-apples or whatever. She formed an image of herself in her mind to replace the one that no longer appeared in the mirrors. Then, slowly, she reimagined it. It took hours at a time of focusing in the dark, forcing herself to know that the way she used to see herself was not the way she really was, to remember how shed always looked. That didnt make any sense, but if she let a little hiccup like that stop her now, what would be the point of all this? For years now, shed maintained an uneasy truce with her hair: she left it alone and didnt bother it, and it left her alone and didnt bother her. Mostly. It had never kept its side of the deal reliably, but now the balance of power had shifted. So she changed it. She banished the tangles that always seemed so determined to weave themselves into a birds nest, smoothed them out forever. She made it a nicer color, a faint auburn instead of boring dirty brown. Next went the extra pounds shed never managed to shed without taking too much time away from the things she actually cared about doing. The things she changed were small, simple touches, for now, but they were hers. She was hers, maybe for the first time. While she worked, her dreams told her other new things. The Harbinger had a name beyond the book, which raised a brand new maze of questions she never wouldve thought of before. It called itself Aulunla. The name itself meant nothing to her. It wasnt from any books she knew, and it didnt phonetically resemble any language she was aware of. Some of the more infamous and impactful historical Harbingers had names they were known by, though. Seruine, the corrupted remnant of a miracle meant to kill Sofia the Deathless for good. Infezea, who brought disease into the world, and whose curses had lingered and mutated after its death no, after her death, if you dug deep enough it started to look like she''d been a much more personlike entity than the sanitized public sources implied until they became an inextricable, almost mundane part of things. Nyuini, whod planted its roots firmly on a nearby northern island during the chaos and confusion of the war, claiming the fishing village now called Commixture as home and all its residents as vessels who nested there still. It kept to itself, most of the time, and no one wanted to bear the moral cost of burning it out. Those names did share a certain phonetic quality, if not a proper linguistic structure at least, not one that she could currently spot. Isobel had always figured they were names others gave them after the fact, perhaps drawing from some pattern that had been established after the first few times people used a nonsense sound to describe a monster. Apparently not. Assuming, then, that the Harbingers didnt just make up names they liked and all have similar enough taste to make for some kind of connection, did they have their own language? Languages, even? Dialects? Cultures? Where did they learn them if not from some kind of Harbinger society? Nothing Aulunla communicated to her, in words or otherwise, gave her the sense that it had been raised among other Harbingers in some secret nightmare dimension. So, so many questions, questions she was sure would jump right to the top of Aislings list... but no, of course she couldnt tell anyone about this. It was way too early to start fantasizing about what shed do if all this really worked, if she got her own magic her own way and became the girl who could prove that benign, symbiotic relationships with Harbingers were possible. Maybe nothing. Maybe theyd brand her a witch like any other and that would be the end of it. Maybe she and Aulunla would forever be set against the whole world. But other worlds opened to her every time she closed her eyes. There were fairer, better ones among them. There had to be. And if not, she could make her own. ~~~ Aulunla was in a hurry to grow, and for Isobel to grow with it. It was sick. Maybe not dying, at least not yet, but very sick. Something elses magic had infected it in the library. It couldnt explain itself any more clearly than that, but Isobel guessed thered been another Harbinger. A Keeper wouldve just killed it, right? Either way, there was nothing she could do about it but finish her work before the attacker came back. But on that front, her best efforts werent quite good enough. On Isobels eleventh day since discovering her Harbinger, she woke in the night with a screaming start, jolted awake by Aulunlas terrified alarm cries in her dreams. Something or someone was coming to kill it, it wailed. Its copy in the library had been stolen away, taken by the source of the infection coursing through its soul, and it was certain that they meant to finish it off this time. Isobel stuffed the book into her backpack, scrambled out her first-floor window before the parents shed been studiously avoiding could come to check on her, and raced into the dark. They began their final preparations in a mad rush. Aulunla destroyed the stolen shard of itself, then wrote its instructions in full into every remaining book at once. And with Isobels uneasy approval, it uncensored the fifth step. Of course she was glad Aulunla had changed its plans to include her more fully, but shed started to understand what it was probably thinking with its original design. This world was Isobel didnt know if fake was the right term, but since she started using her power, shed come to see the ordinary world shed always known as a wall around the things that really mattered. Humans had weighted shackles fastened to their ankles that kept them from the true realms of the soul, of magic, and for some reason only Keepers ever got them removed. Well, Keepers and people who found other ways to pry the chains off. Witches, for want of a less loaded term. So if something about Harbingers or maybe about magic itself made it so that this was the only way, so anyone who didnt win whichever mysterious lottery made you a Keeper could only buy freedom with pain, then better some of them made it out of the prison of the real. That didnt make her some evil cultist hoarding truth and power for herself. It would be best if the other readers connected with Aulunla well enough to truly join them on their journey, but so far none of them had. How sad for them. She just hoped the rushed harvest didnt hurt any of them beyond recovery, and that their unknowing gifts werent in vain that it was all enough to protect her and Aulunla from their hunter. As for Isobels part of the work to come, Aulunla wrote in the books newest step that she already knew what to do, and she did. All she needed was a secluded place to finish the ritual, paper, and books. Lots of books. If this world wouldnt let her be, shed write one that would. ~~~ It was a Keeper who finally came for them after all, a tiny girl in a masked, cowled black-and-white outfit. Her regalia obscured most of her features, save for her venom-green eyes and the white streaks winding through her black hair, and altogether made her look more like a plague doctor from the days of the Infezean Scourges than a magical idol-hero, a champion of Claiasya. Her actions still didnt make sense coming from a Keeper, but Isobel didnt really care. She couldnt spare any focus, not at this stage. Im busy, Im not hurt, and I dont need your help. Go find someone who does, Isobel spat. The girl gave no answer, but the cold light in her eyes flared. A dry, tearing shriek poured out from Aulunlas book, flooding the little room with words for walls. In a wild flash of color and motion, the diorama growing from it opened into a jagged mass of disconnected pictures and dragged the Keeper into itself. As it drew back, leaving only empty air, a still-open door, and a lingering sense of the Harbingers panic in the back of her mind, Isobel sighed. Her shoulders slumped a little. Everything wouldve been fine if theyd just been left to do things their way. No one had to die. Aulunla hadnt been killing people, she didnt think. But if the girl wouldnt take no for an answer, that only left one way out of this. Well, thats too bad. I warned her. Isobel shoved the thought aside, pulled the door down, and returned to her work. Her partner could handle the intrusion, and meanwhile she was almost finished. Almost, but something in the words still wasnt quite right. Some hazy quality was missing, or maybe some old anchor was taking up too much space? She scanned the collage with impossible speed, taking it in less like a book she was reading and more like a part of her body she was mentally taking stock of, crossed out a few lines and words, and no, this whole passage near the lightbulb didnt belong at all. What was she even thinking when she put it there? She ripped it off the wall, leaving a patch of rubber cement flecked with clinging scraps of paper, and went digging through her books in search of a replacement. Ugh, no, none of those were right either. The hard way, then. Isobel pushed back her left sleeve and stared into the river of words slowly flowing along her arm, searching until... yes, finally, there it was! She pinched the skin around the phrase she wanted, then began to peel it back. She grit her teeth and whimpered through the sharp stinging as she pulled the now-still sentence loose. But it only hurt for a second. When the passage tore away, it looked more like a neat strip of fine vellum than anything else, and there was no wound left behind in its place. Just a white spot on her otherwise-unharmed flesh, and more words quickly flowed in to fill the gap. She was already more than simple skin, and soon she would be so, so much more still. She just needed to finish her work before no, it didnt matter before what. Shed make it. They were so close. In The Dark, Were All The Same 4-6 SHE COMES SHE COMES THE BLEAK WIND THE BEAST OF MALEDICTION THE LIVING PLAGUE WHICH GNAWS AND GNAWS AND GNAWS THROUGH MY SPINE The rivers of cold, gnawing pain winding through me overflow with spite. She paints with poison. She would foul my seas of ink with the colors of aimless malice. Why? Why me? Why does everything hurt so much? Why does frozen acid burn away my words while I try to think? Why does every action feel like grasping at the world with broken limbs? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? But it must be this way. It must it must. My friend cannot yet protect herself and nothing else will matter if the work outside me is interrupted. I mix my pigments into inks and begin to write our new world. I am still young. My words contain no weapons of war. But I will be okay because I have no body to be dragged into some ugly crash of hunter tearing into hunted! I am not a creature of flesh to be chased down and eaten, I am a world and all the worlds-within-the-world yet to be born! Yes, I am every beautiful thing you can imagine. To rip me open and steal my ??????? is to forever wipe away WHAT COULD BE and strand yourself in the worthless, miserable sludge of WHAT IS. You cannot do such a monstrous thing. You must not. Fall into me and you will understand. ~~~ Sounds of shredding paper howl all around me like harsh wind, but theres no pressure, no sense of movement at all. Instead, a patchwork curtain made from crude sketches falls over the world. The scenes still constantly shift and bleed into each other, but after a moment, they begin to tear themselves away from the whole, becoming dozens of strangely-shaped windows. The scenes they display are brighter and clearer this time, but what are any of these? Harsh light from above cuts through the dark, forcing me to shield my eyes. When I peek out over my sleeve, the black expanse has been replaced by I think its meant to be an exhibit hall in an art museum? A plaque hanging over the entryway reads, in an almost-handwritten font pulled right from the Harbingers book: WORLDS WHERE WE ARE HAPPIER Those same sketches are lined up on the white walls of a long, straight, uncomfortably narrow hallway, all still twisting and stretching along its surface. Despite the blinding brightness a moment ago, the only illumination comes from the ceiling. Its clear glass, and abstract swirls of glowing color swim behind it, casting a rainbow of shifting light. Occasionally, patches of it write incomprehensible messages in magical sigils or form short-lived spotlights over the drawings. The nearest picture, that tangled brown shape on a sky-blue background is that supposed to be a tree? The outline is about right, but it has no leaves. The branches around its too-thin trunk all form neat little spirals that look more like scrollwork on a fence than anything natural. Purple circles hang from them that could equally be some kind of fruit or tiny portals into the night sky. Another seems like an iceberg on a frozen sea, but the ice looks fluffy in a strange way, like its not covered in snow but wreathed in wispy clouds, and there are trees growing up from under the sea, spiraling and laden with night-sky fruit branches that stretch out and hang over the cloud-iceberg. The one across from it looks like a close-up of a full moon, but while the pale light it casts is almost the right color, its surface is completely covered in flowers and those same strange trees. The whole place is full of these. Bizarre attempts at the sort of majestic views youd see in nature documentaries, all rendered in uneven combinations of crayon and colorful ink. It feels like the artist was drawing things theyd never seen, only heard vaguely described, and somewhere in the creative process they decided they didnt really like those descriptions and were just going to do their own thing. There are no signs of the Harbinger itself. Nothing moves around me except the twisting lights above. Whats the message here? Whats the challenge, the game? I dont understand. So Ill do things my way until it makes me stop. I open my soul and reach out into the Wound. This time is easier. My infection is already buried here, and all I have to do is call it forth. For the third time, working on their own at my slight urging, my cards swim through the air and arrange themselves into a spread. Ive come to think of these as outlines of Wounds, and this one looks much simpler than either Yurfalns or Irakkias Death inverted sits above a straight column of three crayon-painting pictures. A cold, silent breeze passes through the gallery. The colorful lights above darken, obscured by plumes of green-and-black like storm clouds inside the glass ceiling. Dark cracks crawl along the wood floor, which never splinters the way Id expect wood to while the lines look like the sort of spidering fractures youd see in fractured glass, they spread slowly out from the corners, growing like roots. And all along the hallway, pictures begin to twist and deform. Some shrivel at the edges, leaking dark mist through holes in suddenly weathered canvases, while others play out scenes of corruption in the paintings themselves. Trees wither into piles of limp branches, with purple portal-fruits splattered into shapeless blobs of starlight on the ground beside them. The moons light turns a baleful green, then begins to drip down from it like melting liquid, while the flowers on its surface wilt and wilt but never quite fully decay. In answer, the Harbinger does nothing. The Wound doesnt warp itself to strike me or subvert my magic, and its creator is nowhere to be seen. Remembering the first time I read its book, I search my soul for anything that might be creeping in. Nothing. Why not? Ive walked into enough Harbinger traps by now that Im sure theres some trick here. I just have no idea what. Am I alone in some kind of decoy world, lashing out at nothing? Is that possible? As if in answer, ripped-paper moans of pain sound out from inside the walls: But even then, the crawling advance of my own corruption remains the only movement in the Wound. All I can do is watch my back as my presence tears this tiny world apart. Eventually, the cracks gather into a central point at the end of the hall. They form a circle, rise from the ground as thin shadowy vein-tendrils, then loop back down, spearing into the floor as one at the circles central point. From there, they peel the surface open, like the wood is suddenly rotted and soft enough to dig through or like skin around a surgical site into a hole wide enough for me to fit. I still dont feel any movement from the Harbinger. That was all me. My magic sensing that down is deeper here and going to work, rushing to invade the Wounds heart. I peek through the hole, but viewed from up here, theres only more blackness beneath. Well, if its a trap, its a trap. At this point, Im at least as worried about what happens if that girl finishes whatever shes doing outside while Im here. I hold my breath, tighten my grip on my cane, and hop in. Theres a moment of darkness once I pass through, but no sense of falling. The Harbingers voice screams through the void: An instant, transitionless change comes over the Wound. A new scene replaces the void: a flat, grey world that stretches on as far as I can see. Theres only one feature in the endless expanse: just ahead is a cluster of simple buildings. Theyre slightly different sizes, but all are built in the same square, boxy style, with a single identical window on each wall, and all made of the same material? It doesnt feel like a material at all. Its more like someone took a childs drawing of a little village and created it in physical space. Yes, and looking a little closer, they have the same scratchy texture of a shape scribbled in pencil but not quite filled in, and they shift slightly constantly rotating between two or three different versions of the same building with different missing lines and scratch marks, like flipbook animation where the pages dont quite match. People file out of the buildings. They look just like ordinary people, save for the utter lack of color, but move as if theyre animated in that same lazy way. I step back, thinking of Yurfalns hostile seaweed, but they dont seem to notice me or anything else. They arent going anywhere or doing anything, they just pace randomly around. Two of those people freeze in place at the same time. Bright rainbow splotches wash over them like spilled ink, starting from their center and spreading out until they look still nothing like real people, the colors of their clothes and skin and hair are all random and mismatched. But they move like real people. One looks down at himself and shakes his head. He drops to his knees and plunges his hands into the flat grey ground, which ripples like water around his arms. It flows up into him, washing back over him until nothing bright remains. He smiles, stands up in that same jagged, unreal way, then returns to wandering aimlessly. The other, a younger girl, celebrates the changes. She laughs and dances and jumps so high she seems to be flying, until a crowd of greyscale people gather around her. They look between each other and frown, confused. Then, between one twirling leap and the next, they approach the girl as a mob, grab her, and pull her apart. Its not like a pack of animals ripping a person to shreds. She separates cleanly into two arms, two legs, and a body with a head, like she was only ever a shoddy doll. Which doesnt stop me from wanting to retch. The people who end up holding those pieces walk out just beyond the villages borders, then as one, toss them to the ground, where they sink like stones in the ocean. Within seconds, the colors vanish into the depths. And reacting to the disgust lurching in my gut, or fueled by it, gouts of magic boil up around me and roll over the Wound. Cold, luminous mist fills the air and hungry darkness crawls along the grey plane, encircling the village before it begins to creep steadily inward. One grey person, the one who was carrying the girls body a moment ago, wanders close enough that my corruption reaches out and wraps around his leg. It seeps into him, replacing him with a vague shadowy outline that then bursts into a flurry of shiny black crow feathers. Everything folds in and in on itself until nothing remains of the original scene. The world is just a crumpled ball of grey paper, surrounded on all sides by darkness flecked with green. My tarot spread now shows three identical copies of Death inverted over a single illegible crayon card, and I fall not far, but enough that it does feel like falling into the heart of the Wound. But there is no third layer. No, Im sure there was, but my magic has already blighted it to nothing. I touch down on a small island floating in a sea of green shadows. The land itself is a many-colored mass of construction paper all folded and crumpled into a giant ball, creating a rough, almost rocky surface thats difficult to balance on, even with my cane. The ruins of a world swept away by something stronger. It feels absurd to think of myself in those words, but there it is. Whatever Aulunla was trying to do, it simply didnt work. All that''s left is a feeling of dread stirring in the air. As for the Harbinger itself its finally here. It sits in a crater at the center of the island, a bright origami sculpture of a formless monster. Its body, such as it is, suggests dozens of little paper models that have somehow been spliced together into a single disjointed, chimeric mess of tangled-up paper doll chains but whatever it was originally supposed to be, thats not all anymore. It may not even be most of it. Its run through with shimmering veins of my corruption. If it was ever able to hold a shape more complex than this one, a slightly damp mass of paper that only moves to rise and fall as if its breathing hoarsely, I dont think it can anymore. But its still alive. It still has a voice. As I approach, it draws into itself and shrieks in protest, louder but clearer than ever: You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Once, when I was younger, I described the cold, numbing nerve pain thats among the most common symptoms of my sickness to a doctor in almost exactly those words. Like nothing, but the nothing hurts. Aulunla is pitiful. Harbinger or no, thats the only way I can bring myself to describe seeing anything like this. Especially after storming through a world like its Wound, where I still cant tell what its plan to fight back was or if it ever had one. But it is a Harbinger, in the end, and all I can do is finish it quickly. Do what I should have done in the first place. So I wrap it in contagion and drink its soul. But in that instant, when I take a step forward and will my corruption to gouge into Aulunla''s innermost core, something changes. The fearful, frantic atmosphere roiling around me stiffens. I freeze in my tracks. In this chasm where no wind can reach, a breeze passes through me. As I feel my rot closing in on Aulunla''s heart, see veins of jade decay slithering through the void around me to infect the Harbinger, the chaotic patterns of its writhing limbs race to fold in on itself, its whole being collapsing into a single point to escape its encroaching death. The sharp crackling of paper being crushed rings in my ears. The Harbinger forms a ball of crumpled up trash, and then keeps folding. Over and over, it crimps and compresses itself again and again, past the point any actual clump of parchment could possibly fold, until it forms a perfect, smooth sphere: a round painted egg the color of oil on water, revolving in the dark. Somehow, I know it''s still folding into itself. The tense feeling deep in my chest and rising up in my throat tells me so. Folding endlessly, the pressure growing stronger, growing crushing. The air around me is heavy, and getting heavier, pulling me towards Aulunla''s heart. I don''t know what''s happening. A cold sweat trickles down my spine. I push my corruption forward with all my will, hoping against hope for it to claim Aulunla and end everything before whatever is coming arrives, but no matter how much I hurry it along, it''s still not fast enough. Maybe it was too late from the beginning. My ears start ringing, and then I hear it. Feel it. On the wind and in my soul, a violent resolve crashes into my thoughts. An eerie stillness falls over the Wound. Even my corruption advances no further, caught in the dark like bugs in a web. All that remains is the shrill tone scraping against my eardrums, intensifying like a dentist''s drill revolving ever faster. The tension in the air, the sour scent of Aulunla, it all nearly disappears into the egg, the Harbinger''s entirety focused down to one single, sharp point in front of me, like a needle piercing straight through my brain. Cracks start to form across the surface of the egg, its vivid aura spilling out of the gaps in a high-pitched shriek in chorus with the ringing assaulting my head. Like steam made of watercolor paint spewing out of a broken pipe. The sheer force of the discharge bleeding from its heart flushes my power back, away from its heart. My hair stands on end. All around me, Aulunla''s aura is intensifying, yearning, raging. Fissures splinter across the void, breaking it like a great pane of glass. A multicolored haze shimmers through the cracks in the dark, like a flood of painting pigments. Liadain, withdraw from the Wound immediately! Vyujis voice cries from nowhere. What? Why? How? How are you even here? Nothing about this makes sense. After that whole talk about how dangerous it is for her to be near Harbingers, whats so bad that I need to leave at the last second but still safe for her to sneak in? The clefts carve through the dark, multiplying and interweaving. Shards of black fall into the depths of the shimmering void, disintegrating. Calculated risk, Vyuji continues. Theres brief window before make your own exit, break through the outer boundary and Her words flicker in and out of my awareness, skipping phrases seemingly at random. Vyuji? Vyuji, I dont know how to do that! Theres no exit here. The only ways Ive found to leave a Wound are to get its creators permission, or kill them. Its no use. Shes gone. The prismatic tide breaks through. The shadows flow away. All around me, the howl of a swirling maelstrom of dark, washed-out color swallows up even the shrieking tone that''s drowning out my thoughts. And then, all at once, it all goes quiet. The cacophony is silenced by just one declaration. A cry in the void. A voice that cuts crisply through everything. My body quakes. The world shivers. The fractured egg shatters. ~~~ Shona usually naps through most of literature class. Its not the subjects fault, though! School just starts too early and its the first one on the schedule. Whatd happen if some horrible thing descended on the school and she wasnt well-rested for it? Aisling, Goddess keep her, would probably not save the day by herself. So nap it is. But today, something other than a hand on her shoulder startles her awake. Wah?! she yelps with the volume, though not the tone, of a child woken by a nightmare. There was a sound in the distance, the kind she sensed rather than heard. It came as a vast thunderclap of corruption louder and faster than any shed ever felt, and then it vanished. A classroom full of eyes stare at her. Hey, dyou, uh Shona slowly glances over at Mide, taking a moment to steady her wavering voice. Did you feel whatever that was? Shona, when have I ever Mide starts to groan, but a twitching full-body shudder cuts her off. Her eyes widen. ...Yeah, I do, she mutters. Oh. Whoa. Well shit, Shona hisses. Sorry everyone gotta go byeee! She waves in no particular direction, jumps up from her seat, and bolts out the door. Mide quickly follows not quite as quickly. ~~~ Cold, numbing pain gnaws through Tethas body. Into her head, between her thoughts. She burrows a little deeper into her bed at Guiding Light Hospital, wrapping the sheets around herself and squeezing them at the edges until her knuckles go white, but of course theres nowhere to hide from pain like this. For the second or third or fourth time in an hour everything here just blurs together, making it impossible to keep track of time she slowly reaches for the arm of the bed and taps the intercom button, which feels like it takes all the strength she has left. Is Mom here yet? Do you know how how much longer shell be? Shes in contact. Shell come as soon as she can, the nurse on call reassures her once again. ...Okay. Thank you. Tetha sighs and rolls back over, dragging her sheets into an awkward tangle as she does. Thats okay. Her family just everyones important. Everyone has a lot to do, thats all. Niavh was here yesterday when they brought her in, but even she has a schedule to keep. Shes just started to drift back into the hazy half-sleep that seems to be the best she can manage right now when something hits her, washes over her and jolts her awake with a muffled scream. Not the constant pain of Eynas infection but something else, something new, a flood of nightmarish essence from somewhere in the distance. Once she pushes through the sheer horrible weight of it, it feels all-too-familiar. Its that book, that Harbinger, but how is that possible? How could it grow from that to this in less than a day? And whatever it did, its her fault. If she werent such a weak, useless, pathetic little failure of a Keeper, she couldve stopped that girl from taking it. She couldve killed it last night and spared everyone from well, she doesnt have any idea whats happening now. All she can do now is bury her face in her pillow and cry quietly, trembling until the flood of power passes over her completely. ~~~ In the forests beyond the city''s boundaries, Vianzias glorious and gruesome winnowing continues apace. Her latest clutch of children has been a mixed bunch the ones with wings and petals of craggy bark are sad, misshapen things, born forever screaming and prone to bursting into unquenchable flames that ultimately burn their limbs to nothing. But perhaps in a few more generations, something beautiful will come of them. Until then, the bark-children are desperate to die in battle before theyre reduced to still-living, still-wailing stems, and that suicidal frenzy makes them a fine enough vanguard in her new war. Theres even something charming in their manic drive to do their best for her with whatever life they have, lest they be left lying about for her older children to gather up and make into lovely little stick sculptures. After her last kills, it fell to her to rid the world of the corpse-swarm that bubbled up from Ourien-that-was erstwhile territory. Their conflict is an evolutionary arms race, fought wherever her children and its extrusions find each other in the places between spheres of influence. Curiously, if her quarry has claimed a realm of its own, shes yet to find it. Perhaps thats what it plans to do with those quivering fleshy eggs carried far and wide by great convoys of its ugly, shapeless little selves. It protects them with all its lesser lives, and her children have never managed to follow an egg far enough to see its intended destination. So shes joined the latest hunt personally. Her body is still shriveled and weak on the left side, scarred by Ill Winds parting blow and limping enough that one of her black sabers currently serves as a makeshift cane. But she always knew there would be such interruptions to her dance. She can adjust for them. Still she carries herself with poise and elegance, and still she can fend for herself should it come to blows with that hideous, pathetic bottomfeeder. Today, the enemy has gathered itself into a new form, not a caravan of crawling nightmares, but a thick spherical cage made from countless oozing, ropey things. A great fungal tumbleweed, centered around a barely-visible egg. Its outer layers lash out with sticky pseudopods to swallow anything which draws too close, but steadily, her children slice and burrow and burn away at the mass, making a tunnel into its bulk. Severed tendrils of it either slither off into the forest those she ignores or gather and reform into new squirming creatures, which throw themselves at the swarm like living nets. Those she scythes to bits herself. The central mass slowly redistributes parts of itself, doing its best to fill the wound, but too slowly to keep them from making progress. Until the sensation of some foreign presence blasts into her soul, the distant but all-too-pressing feeling of a great and terrible flowering. Of a half-dead butterfly larger than the world, emerging from its cocoon and spreading its rotting wings to blot out the sun. Only for a few wingbeats, but what a calamity they will be, and who can say what will be left in its passing? It leaves her and her children stunned, rapt with awe they cannot fully understand. And by the time they return to themselves, the egg is gone separated from the central body, which still stands guard, and slinked off into some dark corner of the forest. All pointless, now. And they were so close. She turns and retreats for her grove, spitting and fuming to herself and her attendants until shes buried most of her frustration beneath the sheer expressive delight of cursing in the Language. ~~~ The psychedelic maelstrom swirls into the point where the egg shatters. In the depths of the vortex, a vast tapestry unfurls outwards in every direction, engulfing everything, swallowing me. The first thing I feel is the horrible sensation of my shoes sinking into wet mulch. I open my eyes to a canvas rolling across the world, rising up to depict a horizon turned on its head. Beneath me stretches out a vast indigo sky, alight but sunless like the tail end of twilight. I stand upon an island of soggy sawdust drenched in watercolor paint and clumped together to resemble a puffy cloud. Countless other cloudlike sawdust islands swirl hurriedly around me, merging together as they all flow towards a central point. The cloud I''m standing on soon converges with those surrounding it, forming a wider platform. Droplets of ink pitter down in an aimless drizzle; I look up, and above me is an ocean-sized marsh swimming with human shaped outlines. The moment I think to reject the disgusting foothold I''m standing on, with hardly a thought but the visceral wish to not have my dress be soiled as my boots sink into the muck, I will corrosion into the world beneath me. The surface of the sawdust solidifies, desiccated by a stray thoughts worth of my power, forming a patch solid enough to stand on. A small blessing in the face of what comes next. My cloud melds into a sprawling landmass of sawdust which stretches into the distance before me like a desert of wet, multicolored sands. An endless procession of clouds pack in behind me, filling out the world in my wake. Far above this unreal wasteland, shimmering trails of color begin to weave themselves unsteadily in midair, forming a pattern beneath the oily, upside-down ocean that passes for the heavens. The pattern unfolds into a massive sigil, clumsily scribbled into the sky as though using crayons made of light. Bound in a purple circle, the symbol portrays something like a bouquet with blossoms of every shape and color piled atop one another, their petals weaving into each other as though the lines that composed them were knots. And right beneath that great, shabby emblem, from the centermost point where the sawdust-clouds have united, the surface of the landmass ripples outwards like a stone tossed into a lake. Tremors wrack through the ground, and a great, thin, towering shape punches through the mulch. A massive, freakish oak tree, looming over everything, begins its ascent. Yet it casts no shadow. There are no shadows here at all. The colossal black tree rises ever upward with such reckless speed that it draws the surrounding sawdust into a surging whirlwind around the length of its trunk. A pair of symmetrical branches, barren of all leaves, sprout from each side of the oak''s uncannily slender trunk, spiraling in on themselves and germinating two more swirling branches from their outermost brims in turn. The growth repeats again and again in parallel as the oak reaches up towards the heavensward sigil. The coiling branches grow to encircle the crude emblem, as though the tree were cradling the halo in its arms. And then, just before the base of the tree, the sawdust-dunes begin to shift and bulge. All at once, the subterranean disturbance surges towards me like a rising tide, displacing the surface of the sawdust-clouds as it slithers beneath them. The culprits burst from the dust, curling upwards like the crest of a wave as they reveal themselves: roots. Thick, earthy roots, shooting up from the sawdust in tandem to form a great wall of serpentine tendrils. And just like the crest of a wave, it''s destined to crash. Onto me. And beyond all this, a sickly moon emerges from the oily depths of the inverted ocean above, its surface covered in fields of alien flowers. In The Dark, Were All The Same 4-7 Once upon a time, there was a very lonesome tree. The fertile soil in which it sprouted was the thoughts frozen in time when they were dedicated to the page. The gentle rain it sipped was the whispers that doubted a world where the vision of what could be was bottled up inside, never to be released. The light of life which fed it was the scream that began everything and resounds on and on and on, echoing into forever. ~~~ Isobels work is hovering right on the edge of completion. The words are all where they need to be, shes certain of it. All she needs to do now is shake off the manic fugue she arranged them in and understand why they belong there. But before she can even begin, she feels something through her bond with Aulunla. Something beyond her ability to explain or even fully detect with these painfully limited human senses. Theres growth, sudden expansion, but also a kind of abstract distance? An intangible something passing between them where before they were almost entirely united. The tiny room thats become her world twists and writhes and warps into something else entirely. The walls bend into a half-sphere centered around Aulunlas book. The sliced-up pages of her collage start to blend and weave together, shaping themselves into not a single huge sheet, but a new kind of structure. A chamber with walls formed from layers and layers of paper that overlap and splice through each other unpredictably, like the worlds largest primary school paper-weaving project. A cocoon of words and wood-pulp. The phrases she originally placed in the collage are themselves swept up in this reshaping of reality. Some merge with their neighbors, forming more complete expressions of the sentiments she had in mind when she placed them there. Others gather and twist into shapes, spiraling sigils that vaguely resemble great trees and flowers in full bloom. Theyre phrases in another language, somehow she knows they are, but the meaning behind them hides just out of reach no, how could there be a meaning behind the script of a language shes never seen before? Theres no possible basis for her to decipher them, not without some parallel text or No, no, she cant let such a mundane idea hold her back now of all times. Aulunla put them here for a reason. There must be something it needs to say, some idea it needs her to integrate into the finished statement. She turns her full focus to the sigils, studying their shapes and the stolen words that now make them up, racking her mind for any way she might make sense of them. ~~~ Past this tree souls would come and go, drab and blind. No time to think, weighed down by emptiness. The tree wished with all it was to show them the color they could truly be, if the truth inside them was on the outside instead. When that day arrived, it would be loved by all. But it was stuck in place. It could not jump or dance, only lie still where it was. Still it reached out its roots, stretching them far and wide so that someway, somehow, its feelings could reach others. A wave of tree roots, thick and dark, burst from beneath the sawdust-sands before me. They rise up all at once and, having reached their apex, begin to fall like a trap snapping shut on me. They lash forward, their tips sharpening to a point as they lance towards me, ready to skewer me. I have no time to think. I just act. I strike back in the way my heart knows best, the only way I can. My sickness my curse has already infected this place to its core, so I reach out and will it to swallow the world. Something jabs at my chest. I glance down to see a thin wooden spike prodding me. One of the roots has halted right in front of me, right as it was about to drive through me. The rest of the roots have also stopped dead in their tracks. Their bases have all shriveled up, fading to the ashen color of undergrowth in later winter. My blight crawls up the length of the roots and the rest of their tendril-like form follows in short order. The roots creak as an ashen brittleness overtakes them, and soon enough they begin to crumble away into the sawdust, collapsing into the rest of the mass that surrounds me on all sides. I dig my boots into the dried-out platform of paint-drenched sawdust Id made for myself before with hardly a thought and clench my fists. All around me, my platform begins to expand outwards until its reached about a hospice rooms-length away from me; it was no trouble at all to warp Aulunlas Wound this much, and destroying those roots wasnt too much harder. Whatever Aulunla did, it certainly didnt cure itself. My disease is still running rampant it only delayed the inevitable. unless killing me would cure it, that is. I dont know how that would work and dont plan to find out. The souls of this deceitful world feared even their own truths, and so refused the lonely tree. But in the light of the moon a little egg was lain, nestled upon the trees branches, seeking refuge from the world as it appeared and feeling that couldnt be all there was to it. The tree loved that little egg, and so the tree sang to it of the world that could be. In this vast barren tomb Which now acts as my womb The sky opened up To my minds deep lagoon And from it descended The most marvelous moon. My eyes narrow as I glare at the enormous, surreal tree towering in the distance, separated from me by a vast desert of rolling sawdust-dunes. My control doesnt extend as far as the big tree and the strange scrawled emblem it wears as its crown, however. No matter how hard I strain, I cant simply will it to fall down. The only change I see is a little white dot forming at the center of one of the trees spiraling branches, but something tells me that has nothing to do with me. Aulunla is preparing to try something else. I grit my teeth. My heart hammers as I take in my new surroundings, trying to get my bearings as quickly as possible. This isnt that different from things Yurfaln and Irakkia did in their own Wound, but the scale is different. My sense of Aulunlas presence, this feeling of oppression draped over me like layers of wet quilts weighing me down, is different. The only thing thats the same is the feeling of danger surrounding me from every angle but more than anything else is this sense of uncanniness, that whats going on shouldnt be possible. Not because this surreal scenery is a rejection of everything familiar in the world to me, though. No, its because something in my aching, churning gut tells me this isnt quite right. This doesnt follow from everything Aulunla has done before now. It doesnt fit with how it was doing anything. It took the form of a book, not a monster, and influenced the world by persuading people to act out its insane rituals. If it had the power to drag me into this kind of hostile Wound, why wouldnt it have done it earlier, before my infection got this far? Where did it even get the power to do all this in the first place? More importantly, Aulunla isnt supposed to be able to do this. If I think of this the same way I thought of its book, as a story it was telling that wouldnt be nearly finished if it ended by killing somebody ten pages in, this feels like it switched to an entirely different story. Whatevers happening is a contradiction. Against its nature. It doesnt matter if this is how it ends I wont let you sully this dream I wont let you take my treasure Those words it spoke were almost like a vow but, to me, they also felt like a prayer. With this last page Ill use everything My eyes wander up to the multicolored sigil, that weave of scribbled-out flowers the giant tree is holding up triumphantly. A moon writhing with fields of moving flora made from crumpled paper revolves around it. For some reason I cant quite place, just looking at that sigil sends a shiver of worry through my body, yet as poorly drawn as it is, theres also something undeniably beautiful about it. But then, I cant help but feel like its also somehow pitiful. The colors that form it flicker and squiggle as though they cant quite hold themselves straight. And focusing on the sigil, I think I get it. When Aulunla transformed, it crunched itself and its power into a single point. That big shoddy emblem is some sort of concentration. Its trying to express the culmination of Aulunlas prayer. It feels almost like some sort of signpost, or maybe a radio station blaring this is me, this is me, this is me to the whole wide world, but the signal is clouded and fuzzy. Its a beacon with a light that would be as pure and intense as a stars, if only it didnt waver and flicker like a candlelight against a strong wind. But theres also something else. I can only hear it faintly resounding in my soul, but theres a voice behind this world. A message I can barely make out, but not fully understand. A chant, as though in performance of some great ritual. And down from that moon came a wonderful boon: Flowering rabbits, hopping as per their habit: The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.To spread joy firsthand, they depart their homeland, With the seeds of oasis falling down from high places, They touch to the ground and start making their rounds, Leaving bountiful trails springing up from their tails Of orchid-colored apples oh-so pleasing to sample And great ice cream knolls singing happy carols. I guess I unconsciously dismissed my tarot diagram of Aulunlas Wound at some point it didnt have much to say, anyway. I call my cards back into being and will them to form a new spread. A dozen cards float out before me and wobble uncertainly through the air, like paper drifting on an unseen breeze but never quite reaching the ground. By their colors, my infection has mostly crawled over Aulunlas presence, but a single card hovering in the center a crayon-painting rendition of the Stars inverted, with half of the stars bearing little upside-down smiley faces is still bright with its power. Its last bastion, a lighthouse in the storm of my corruption and its own chaotic self-reshaping. If I can take that tree with my rot, maybe even just that glyph, Im certain I can break whatever Aulunla is becoming. The solidified ground beneath me trembles at the deep, heavy sound of an impact in the distance. My eyes dart up from the spread of Tarot cards to see a plume of smog, darkly colored a mixture of red and green and blue, rising up about halfway between me and the black oak at the center of the Wound. A warning, maybe, before Aulunla shares with me the full extent of its unleashed nightmares. The first impact was only the beginning. Soon enough, another object howls down from up above and crashes into the great sawdust cloud-desert stretching out before me, hurling up another plume of multicolored dust. And then another. And another. I look up, and see the human-shaped silhouettes Id noticed before, previously content to float within the swamp-sea of dyes and paints that envelops the Wounds sky, passing out of the inverted oceans surface. When they drip out of that great syrupy body of mucky colors, gravity starts to affect them again, and as they fall, their paint-drenched bodies begin to bloom. From that twisted swamp-sky, solid silhouettes begin raining down one after another, their bodies exploding into floral growth as they plummet before impacting like meteors upon the sawdust dunes. Where they land, they explode forth into gardens of spiraling flowers of every shape and color. But thats not all I see. A lump forms on the surface of the paper flower moon that circles slowly around the black oak at the center of the Wound. The lump squirms and wriggles and rips itself out of the moons flesh, taking a chunk of the gardens of false flora on its back as it breaks free. Many more swells of many different sizes a few nearly as big as the first, but most so small they look like specks from my distant viewpoint begin to bubble up across the moon like a succession of tumors. Most rise up, squirmily rip themselves free, and then take a bounding leap from the ruins of the moon which now looks more like a big ball of many-holed cheese covered in mold to the spiral-pattern branches of the huge black oak. The few that were unlucky enough to sprout from the bottom of the moon just fall off and crash into the sawdust desert below. As the paper-flower-covered lumps hop down the spiraling branches of the black oak in the distance, the small little specks following their larger siblings, Im finally able to get a better look at them. Theyre like terracotta sculptures of rabbits, decorated all over with artificial flowers as if to replace their fur. Big black glass baubles surrounded by paper sunflower petals pass for their eyes, while their ears look like long, flat, plastic cactuses which twitch and flop stiffly as they make their way down the towering black oak passing on their journey by the white dot I saw had formed at the center of one of the trees spiraling branches before, which I now notice pulsating. That little white dot is bigger than before. I dont have time to consider what that may mean, however, before everything gets worse. I hear the sound of wind breaking on a falling object above me just in time to notice it: another one of the people-silhouettes dropping from the swamp-sea-sky above, but this time, its about to fall right on top of me. Without even thinking, I draw from my supply of health to force strength into my scrawny legs. In the blink of an eye, I rush forward and out of the human-shaped missiles path, bringing my floating tarot spread along with me. I call forth my blight and desiccate the watercolor-wet sawdust around me to force it into a sturdy, walkable shape as I go. The blossoming, human-shaped comet strikes down with a force that quakes out from the point of impact and rattles my makeshift foothold, nearly causing me to trip over myself as I escape, but I catch myself with my cane, panting as I look back at the dense mass of smoggy color the crash landing generated. My precious treasure, whose joy is my pleasure, How shall our gardens grow? With silver bells and shiny glass shells, And lotus-heads all in a row. When the dust settles, a vibrant grove of bizarre, pastel-colored plants has already begun to spring up where my platform of solidified pulp had once been. Aulunlas giant, alien, fake-seeming flora springs up and expands quickly, like a fast-forwarded time lapse video of a gardens growth. The thicket spirals outwards with hard, spiny wooden stems, and slithering, thorny vines, growing tall taller than me in an instant. And it only keeps growing. Blossoms and fruits begin to spawn from the garden in short order, forming glittery purple apples and silver bells C that is, literal bells made out of silver, rather than silverbell flowers C and prismatic glass orbs in the shape of what I can only imagine is a childs idea of a fruit theyve only ever heard about. But the flowers themselves are something else entirely, something a few strange fruits could never compare to. With a rasping hiss, one of the blooms sprouts rail-thin arms and legs from its stalk and tears its newly-grown, human-like figure from the ever-growing mass of the thicket. It steps forward on lanky limbs brandishing long, thin talons of wood. Like the plant it spawned from, the monster is taller than I am. Its briar-covered body seems almost scrawled upon the world, like a childs stick figure scribbled into existence. In the place of a head, a pastel-colored paper chrysanthemum unfurls far wider than its own emaciated body. At the center of the chrysanthemum is a glass eye, and inside that eye is reflected a vision of another world, of a world with a different sky and different laws even than this horrific Wound I find myself trapped in, but its too blurry to really properly make out, as if its not quite fully formed. And behind it, more such spindly limbs split off from the flower stems, forming ever more bodies. No, no, no. And before it can even do anything, I call upon my blight from the depths of this Wound Ive already tainted down to its roots. The sopping sawdust around me dries up in an instant, shriveling into a crusty scab on the landscape about the size of a big square swimming pool. This large patch of land cracks, fissures slithering across its surface to reveal a dim green glow seething beneath: the light of my power taking hold over a segment of the Wound. The thicket of alien flora that was springing up in front of me does not escape: it cringes and wilts from the sudden influx of rot, shrinking into itself, and the flower-headed monstrosity it spawned is no different. My tarot spread disperses into a ring of cards orbiting around me. In the form of vaporous tendrils of toxic mist, I will the surging plague Ive called to the surface of the Wound from the surrounding fissures and into one of my cards, then snatch that card from the air between my left hands middle and pointer fingers. More easily than even breathing, I fling the card like a dart into the glass eye of the flower creature, and the sharp corner of the card embeds itself there. The plague flows straight from the card into the blossom-headed creature, and it crumbles into colorless sawdust instantly. The once-vibrant grove is now dull and gray, drooping as it succumbs to my plague. It grows no further, only slowly shrinking and collapsing into itself. The purple apples have become dry and wrinkled, the silver bells are tarnished, and the crystalline fruit have fallen from their stems and shattered on the ground. Now that Ive rotted this segment of the Wound, its mine now, and for some reason, Aulunla isnt taking it back. It probably cant take it back. I cant erode the Wound from too far away Aulunlas hold on its world is still strong even compared to my entrenched corruption, but my disease is still very much entrenched. Everything around me is fair game. And if thats the case, it means that if I can reach that colossal black oak at the center of the Wound, I can topple it and the shoddy sigil its been holding up like its something to be proud of from the inside out. But theres always the worst case scenario: that even if I make it all the way to the giant oak tree, Aulunla may still have a way of shrugging off my infection, regardless of the fact its only getting stronger with time. In that case I still have something up my sleeve. Something Ive held onto since I killed Yurfaln, waiting for just this sort of emergency. I turn from the rotting wreck I just stained Aulunlas world with and hike up the slope of the sawdust dune between me and the great black oak. Drawing forth my blight lowered the elevation of the land around me relative to the surrounding dunes as it compressed and solidified the sawdust into a level field, forming a shallow pit. I solidify the mulch as I make the climb out, forming a wide path that unfolds before me like a velvet carpet with each step I take. And as I crest the heap of soggy sawdust as though I were scaling a pink pastel cloud, the occasional boom of person-shaped meteors crashing down into the distant wasteland around me like cannonballs all the while, the expanse of Aulunlas wound once again unfurls before me dramatically changed. In the separated spots where the human-silhouettes that spilled from the swamp in the sky have touched down, gardens fit for giants have sprouted and flourished into wild overgrowth just like the one that nearly landed on me began to do. The flora on the edges of these groves are just a bit bigger than usual, and surrounded by smaller plants still sprouting up at their feet, but the closer to the center I look, the more clumsily proportioned the flowers become, looking like giant, childishly constructed replicas of the flowers theyre supposed to represent. The fruits they bear are equally lopsided, growing to obscene proportions which bend the stems of the flowers growing them. Not only that, all throughout the sawdust wastes, terracotta rabbit creatures are racing around in a frenzy, their stumpy feet prancing gracefully off the painted sawdust without sinking into their sodden depths. The large ones lead the packs, followed from behind by a formation of much smaller rabbit-things. Where these flower-infested rabbits romp, behind them a trail of Aulunlas signature not-quite-real plants springs up. But above all else, the first thing my eyes fall on as my gaze pans over the Wound is a soft serve ice cream cone towering in the distance. Its sprouted at the very center of one of the gardens, becoming an almost comical sort of centerpiece. The swirling spire of dripping sludge piled high on the cone looks like it was made from a mixture of coagulated paints the glaring color of poisonous frogs. Two googly eyes are pressed into the slurry, but when their shivering black pupils turn to stare unblinkingly right back at me, I decide theres no point in wondering what Aulunla could possibly stand to gain by making that thing, much less what it meant by it. All around me, this alien forest of parchment flowers and crystalline fruits and thorny stems and now apparently giant ice cream cones is encroaching upon the sawdust wasteland this world started as. Its rising up, forming a barrier between me and Aulunlas great black oak, cutting me off from my target. And from all across the Wound, wherever those human-shaped comets have landed and planted another overflowing garden of nonsense flowers, those emaciated, blossom-headed stick creatures are forming from the thicket, ripping themselves free, and beginning a mad rush towards me. Dozens of them, all coming together from every angle to form a swarm. Their thorny, scribbled-out bodies skitter across the sawdust dunes like spiders, their movements blindingly quick and utterly inhuman. Theyre not alone. Some of the giant terracotta rabbits have also diverted from their prior courses and are now stampeding directly towards me, bringing the smaller ones along for the chase. All around me, Aulunlas creations are charging on my position, and while their glassy black eyes betray nothing akin to murderous intent or anything resembling human emotion, their intentions are fairly clear. Above it all, Aulunlas shoddy flower-patterned crest still shudders and sparks as though laughing, telling me to come get it. I should have known. There was no way this was going to be that easy. Aulunla would never let it be that easy not now. It said it was using everything it had. My infection is only getting stronger, but that doesnt matter if I die before its finished its work. Our battle has become a contest between whatever time Aulunla has left ticking away and how long I can manage to survive against its desperate onslaught. I take a deep breath, hold it, and close my eyes. My cards circle steadily in a ring around my body. I reach for the magic within myself, the spiritual poison that is mine alone. It bubbles forward endlessly, sharp as a scream and bitter as contempt. I gather it up, drawing deep from the wellspring of my curse, my scourge. And then I turn it on myself. In The Dark, Were All The Same 4-8.1 A gangly wooden limb raises its claws skyward. It would only take one swipe for those spindly talons to shave through my eyes, carve off my face, end it all. But Im still quicker. A card filled with my plague cuts through the air and embeds itself into the glass eye at the center of the creatures paper-blossom head. Its halted in its tracks. The imaginary world mirrored in its gaze dies in an instant, shattered into a broken reflection that fades into nothing like dying candlelight. My curse shreds straight through its lanky stick figure body, shriveling its paper petals and causing the thorns that cover it to flake off like old scabs. But Im not finished with it yet. I could hardly ask for a better breeding ground for my contagion, after all. Right as the blossom-headed monster disintegrates, I rip the sickness thats taken root inside it out. Ribbons of moss-colored smoke are sucked out of its crumbling, too-thin form and into another one of the tarot cards orbiting around me, tainting it. In the time it took to kill one of these things, two more are already upon me. Theyre fast. Blindingly fast. They rush at me on all fours like emaciated, gorilla-sized spiders and pounce, flinging themselves at me with no fear, no hesitation, no drives that might conflict with the purpose they were made for: to end me at any cost. But thats okay. Theyre just bringing me more of what I need. I beckon back to me the previous card I threw practically from midair, given the first flower-headed beasts body has already collapsed into particles of glass and sawdust around it. The card spins backwards as it flies into my fingers and right through one of the pouncing monsters bodies on its journey. The edge of the card carves a notch in the creatures slender torso as it travels, but thats all it takes. The flower-headed creatures body becomes rigid and sluggish as it sails towards me. It looks like its moving in slow motion. As I am now, its easy enough to simply twirl past it, stepping aside as its outstretched claw misses me by an inch. It crashes into the solidified ground behind me with a roll, and then begins twisting and twitching helplessly as my illness overtakes it. Which leaves me face to face with the third creature, still diving in my direction. Its even closer than the last one. In less than a second, its glass eye will ram into my head and bash my fragile skull in, smearing my brain across Aulunlas Wound. But somehow, Im not too worried about it. Not anymore than Im already feeling, really. Of course Im scared right now. Im terrified as Ive ever been in my entire life. The fear of whats happening and whats to come has seeped into every pore on my skin and every nerve in my flesh and right down to the marrow of my bones. Its just Ive been scared from the very beginning. Ive always been scared. And if you take all that fear and pile it up, from the mortal terror thats been eating me from the inside out from the very moment I was diagnosed all the way to this hopeless, exhausting fight against a Harbinger gone mad, madder than Ive ever seen a nightmare woven wholesale from its own singular brand of insanity go, this is really only a little more. More than anything else, I just dont want to die. And if magic comes from our will, from our wishes, Im not going to get killed by a broken thing that would give up on itself and burn everything it is away just for a chance to be rid of me. The twenty-one cards floating around me scatter. My legs part wide as I abandon my cane, letting it fall into the trail of coagulated sawdust Ive made, and throw my body to the ground. Im quicker than I ever couldve dreamed of being before I made the Promise. I duck and dart forward, underneath its leaping charge, and in the briefest instant where my body passes underneath the blossom-headed creature, I reach out with the tarot card I just called back between my fingers and graze the monsters half-bent knee with the cards edge, all in one smooth motion. Its easy. After all, this creature looks practically like its moving in slow motion too. The monsters spindly body tenses up and crashes into the other flower-headed thing I just incapacitated, whose limbs all snap off on impact. My infection certainly seems to have taken its toll. But I dont have any more time to waste on them, even to rip out the contamination inside them and add it to my arsenal. I dont even have the time to bask in some vague sense of triumph, since more of these horrors are on the way although that also means more opportunities to gather ever more of my pestilence. My scattered cards gravitate back to me, and I return the tainted card in my hand to the ring, making it a proper set of twenty-two. I then pick myself up and just keep dashing forward and down the slope of the dune Im on, sculpting a path out of dried-up, gaudily-colored sawdust in front of me as I go. I can faintly hear myself wheezing with each strained breath I take, but I hardly even notice that its happening. Theres nothing worth focusing on but my goal. The only thing that remains beyond that is the soul-chilling sensation of my own self-inflicted inner decay mingled with my precious stock of stored-up health all being burned away in a great cold inferno within me. ~~~ My burst of unnatural strength and speed comes from the same place as this hazy, numb state of mind where everything around me seems slow and sluggish and everything I do happens as if in a fever dream, simply proceeding along with no regard for how or why its all the result of turning my own blight upon myself. Back when I made that horrible trip into the untamed forests beyond the limits of New Claris, I was faced with Esonei, the hole-faced Harbinger who played the part of a willing victim and latched itself on to that burning tree-dinosaur Harbinger, Ourien. It infected the souls of anyone who attacked it with its own pain and its conviction that it was better to let itself be torn apart than raise a hand in its own defense. At that time, when Vianzia tricked me into attacking those two, Esonei sank its tendrils into me, invaded my mind and thoughts and made it impossible for me to act on my own will. The only way I could think to fight back was to call upon my power and seal it within myself alongside Esonei, since its influence didnt prevent me from hurting myself and thus it along with me. In doing that, I found something else I could do with my power over illness: build it up inside me, let it fester and deepen as I myself deteriorated, and then unleash it all at once in a vast plague-tempest far greater in lethality than my usual bursts of awfulness. Something I could only do thanks to Yurfalns twisted blessing. From the moment I saw everything in the Wound rushing to tear me apart from atop that sawdust dune, I already knew that what Aulunla was throwing at me was too much for me to handle on my own, given my past showings. I couldnt have handled Irakkia without Shona and Mide, either, and this is even worse. But I also knew I had advantages in this fight that I didnt back then. All I needed to do was use all of them. Id already poisoned Aulunla with my illness, and more importantly, I understood my own magic better now. Even if I tried to recreate the massive plague-wind I summoned back then so I could wipe out everything coming at me at once, it would still take time to do it. Time for my suffering to hone the scourge within. Time I dont have before every nightmare Aulunla ever dreamed of is upon me. But I realized something. In a way, I knew it from the beginning; I just didnt want to feel how much it hurt to use Yurfalns blessing to the fullest extent possible. I used my gathered blight to force myself to the brink, the very edge of my consciousness, tightrope-walking the last sliver of my life before the endless plunge into the void. Then I took the supply of health Id spent so much time collecting, all those nights carefully skimming off the top of innocent people so that I wouldnt hurt them too much or get caught, and I lit it all on fire to keep myself from tumbling over the cliff. Just burning the health Ive gathered from others only allows me to function as if Im not a dying little girl while it lasts. It lets me exceed what my physical abilities would normally be if I wasnt sick, but it never goes beyond what a regular human is capable of. But this place right on the verge of collapse is what Yurfaln glorified above all else: a truth written in scars, where the sorrow of loss and your closeness to death exalts you. In this state, where everything about me can be pushed far beyond all natural limits, I can burn my vitality to manage feats only possible with magic. The downside is that what had once been hours of my gathered health allowing me to run and jump and act like a normal person has now been reduced to mere minutes. But its minutes of doing what no normal person could ever dream of doing. If only I didnt feel like street litter rolling around on a stiff breeze all the while. Too much to expect magic would give me one thing without a lethal catch, I guess. ~~~ All of my limbs feel heavy. My lungs quiver with every strained breath. Im slick with sweat. My dress feels sticky against my skin. My entire body is enveloped in an unnatural, bone-deep chill thats different from actual cold. The cold Im feeling is the sort thats born from your body ignoring the actual temperature around it and demanding you feel frozen anyway. And yet, my joints are all on fire. Above all else, though, I just feel numb. That unbalanced, miserable mixture of freezing and burning that throbs across my senses is a distant and muffled impression. Its like Im gliding through a dream, and all those far-away aches and pains are the phantom echoes of a world Im not participating in right now. Everything I will myself to do, somehow, I do it, no matter how impossible. Im barely more than a dancing corpse, but because of Yurfaln, this is when I shine the brightest. As I continue forging a path ahead of myself, calling my infection from the depths of the Wound to its surface and desiccating the many-colored sawdust clouds which pass for ground in Aulunlas world in the process, I see Aulunlas roving horde of nightmares rushing to greet me from the corners of my tunneled vision. Theyll be on me in moments. Im being swarmed by two waves of flower-headed creatures coming at me from opposite sides. I can only really distinguish each of the monsters from one another by the different blooms unfolding in place of their heads. Lightly colored petals mimic buttercups and chrysanthemums, roses and daisies, violets and spider lilies; although many are budding with the same flower, every single blossom has their own unique touch, whether that be scribbled on polka-dots or being made out of decorative wallpaper or zig-zag patterns cut out of their petals as though by lace scissors. One thing thats constant for all of them, however, is that their fake flower heads are completely disproportionate to the rest of their lank, skeletal forms. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I cant tell how many there are with just a glance. There must be a dozen or more coming from either side, and theres another wave of the things coming just behind them. Even further beyond that, a hulking terracotta rabbit the size of a bull is barreling straight for me, trailed by a formation of much smaller rabbit-things. And Im running straight into all of them. I cant waste however long I have left in my current state, where the more awful I feel, the stronger I am. I need to wipe out everything that gets in my way as quickly as possible. I stop moving and call for my blight, which rises from the Wound some distance in front of me. As both packs of feral nightmares close in on me, noxious fog swells from beneath both like a rising tide, washing over all of them. My goal is to slow the swarm down like I did when I blighted the area around me against the very first flower-headed monster I encountered, but they still keep coming. Within seconds, the gaunt wooden stick-things emerge from out of the haze, their wilted petals and flaking bark-flesh looking only a bit worse for wear. But even if this wont stop them, theyre slower than before, and thats all the opportunity I need. I levitate twelve empty tarot cards out from my orbit and aim them carefully at the rush of flower-headed monsters approaching from my left those are the ones that are closest to me, but those on the right arent much farther away. With a swipe of my arm, I launch all of the floating cards Ive readied at once, and they embed themselves cleanly into the bodies of the leftmost packs nearing flower-heads. The blank cards wont do much on their own, but I have plans for them. I take the two cards I already filled with blight when I killed that last flower-headed monster and have them fling themselves through the swarm like boomerangs. They cut through the ranks of the creatures, intensifying the toxin they were already suffering under. As their bodies become brittle and begin to shed away into the sawdust grains from which they first arose, I use the blank cards I placed there beforehand to rip the illness out of them once theyre too weak to survive. But its too slow. By the time Ive willed the blank cards to begin absorbing the sickness of the collapsing flower-heads that came at me from my left, the ones to my right are already on top of me. Im barely able to dodge the claw swipe of the first flower-head that reaches me, then plant one of my remaining eight blank cards into its glass eye. Unfortunately, all my movement manages to do is put me in range of the next closest stick-creature, which lances its talons down towards me as if to gouge out my heart. I duck under its legs to escape, willing another one of my blank cards to lodge itself into the things knee as I do. In response, the creature lifts one of its spindly legs it has no feet, just a web of thin, raw roots tapering off a sharpened wooden point akin to a stake and tries to stomp on me. Before its able to skewer me, I call back the nearest card Id attached to one of the flower-heads from the leftmost pack. It spins through the air as it flies toward me, and I will it to slice off the lifted leg of the flower-head above me as it passes through and returns to my orbit. The flower-head in front of me topples to the dust. Infection from the card that amputated its leg spreads through its body quickly, and the blank card I left in its knee gluts itself on the corruption. All around me, the creatures friends are closing in, however. The six blank cards still orbiting me halt in place all at once, then fling themselves at the flower-heads in a reckless, scattered barrage; Im surrounded on all sides, so theyll hit their mark no matter where I toss them. Then, with a swipe of my hand, I focus on the twelve cards I launched towards the creatures that attacked from my left and yank them backwards through the air. They all come spinning, newly charged with the blight theyve absorbed in the meantime, and each slices through another one of the flower-heads that have me cornered. The alien worlds reflected blurrily in their glass eyes fade away one after another, leaving behind only blackness in their wake. The eight empty cards I placed among these stick-creatures beforehand drink in the curses that killed them, then pluck themselves from their crumbling bodies and return to my orbit. The rest of my cards quickly join them, slithering through the air in a single-file line. They swirl around me, shimmering with a deep, poisonous emerald glow. With this, every single one of my twenty-two cards has been charged with my concentrated scourge. I will them to float on their backs, spreading them out in a fan before me. I turn to the remnants of this first wave of flower-heads trampling over their fallen kin as they continue to come for me. Beyond them, the second wave of flower-heads is romping forward, crossing the fading bank of toxic fog I summoned to slow the last wave down. I reel back both my arms to my right side as if preparing to heave a great weight. My fanned-out spread of cards follows the motion, shifting to my side and floating at a distance from me. I know I dont need to do any sort of gesture to control my cards, but my body is doing this on its own; it just feels right. I sweep my arms forward, my movement flowing to my opposite side, and with that, my cards lash out. They follow my motion once more, their crescent shape slashing forward like the blade of a scythe. The next wave of stick-monsters emerging from the fog and the remaining stragglers, all of them, theyre all mowed down with one pass of the cards before me, slicing through their slender bodies like butter. I repeat the motion again, this time in reverse, like Im swinging a scythe back and forth. With each pass, the next file of flower-heads is cut away like weeds in a field. Its not that my cards have particularly sharp edges. Im sure a blank card would never be able to chop off one of the flower-headed creatures limbs or slice their bodies in half. Its just that the infection a tainted card has absorbed can grow potent enough to instantly gnaw through a victim as they pass along their blight. These cards are first and foremost a medium for my power, but since even touching them can doom a victim to my plague, I know I can use them like this. I needed to strike in as wide an area as possible. This was the most efficient way, even if it does feel somehow like Im using my power crudely. Theres facets of it I dont yet know how to see, much less use. These cards are capable of more than Im using them for. But for now, anything that works well enough to keep me alive is fine. Just as soon as I cut down the last of the flower-headed things that are blocking my path, the giant terracotta rabbit I saw is already bearing down on me. In its wake, a garden of alien flowers springs up which rises to the scale of a forest the farther back my gaze looks behind it. With each bounding leap forward, the artificial flora covering the bull-sized rabbits back spring up and down like a shaggy coat. The smaller rabbits which trail it in a formation are much the same, and have arranged themselves in order from largest to smallest, with bunnies the size of cats following right behind the bull-sized rabbit and bunnies the size of actual bunnies behind them. Without wasting a beat, I call my twenty-two cards back to me and fling one of them right between the biggest rabbits glassy sunflower eyes. The card sticks, but its not enough; even as the paper flora on its back starts to wilt, the thing just keeps charging blindly towards me. Its tougher than the flower-heads. I get ready to dodge out of the way, but without warning, a hand reaches out from the sawdust beneath me, its spindly wooden talons locking around my ankle. Its another one of the stick-creatures. Its torso bursts out of the ground, revealing a head that looks like a big red toy radish with gold sequins for eyes. With its free claw, it moves to maul me, and Im just barely able to step back enough such that it only slices up my thigh and through my dress. In the next moment, Ive already stomped my boot against its face and severed its arm with one pass of a card, but I have barely any time to leap out of the way before the terracotta rabbit runs me over. I tumble to the right just as the rabbit passes and watch as it tramples over the radish-headed stick-monsters face and arms, crushing it into compost. I land gracelessly on my wrist and let out a ragged growl of pain from behind gnashing teeth. My concentration falters and my floating tarot cards all fall to the ground around me. I may have avoided the biggest threat, but I still end up in the path of the smaller terracotta rabbits. They pass over, stamping all over me and my fallen cards with their rough, stumpy feet as they go. Little black pellets pop out from behind them with each hop they take the seeds of the thickets that grow wherever they tread, I imagine. But those seeds find no purchase on my blighted ground a fact Im thankful for when I finally manage to pick myself up. My cards rise on their own with me. Watching the bull-sized terracotta rabbit and its entourage race away in the direction I came from, I draw from my stores of health again to treat my injuries, silencing the screaming in my wrist first before stitching up the gash in my thigh as much as I can manage. I know Im draining my own health too quickly for this to last, but my mind is clouded over enough without the pain of two deep wounds distracting me and ruining my ability to focus at all. I need to figure something out, and fast. But without even getting a chance to think, the ground begins to rumble beneath me, causing me to stumble. The surface of the sawdust dunes swells upwards, and a giant, thick root rips itself from the mulch to my left, tearing through the trail of solidified sawdust Id made. It whips around clockwise such that its coming at me from behind, now, whirling towards me with enough speed to lash me in two. Since I dont have a chance to think, I dont. I just act. I squat down with my cards swirling violently around me, shove all the strength I can muster into my legs, and push off the ground with as much force as Im possibly able. The path I sculpted cracks into pieces as I launch upwards like a ragdoll. Out of raw impulse more than intention, I stretch out all of my limbs like a falling cat, and watch as the tendril passes below me again as though in slow motion. In my heart, Im panicking. To my right, another root lances out of the ground across from the root I just dodged, this time trying to impale me while Im in midair and its too late to try and rot it with the plague in the depths of the Wound. Instead, before it can reach me, I form my cards into a crescent shape again and have them shear through the root in one swipe. Its severed tip shrivels up as it falls to the ground beneath us, rotting away into sawdust, while the remaining stump shudders to a halt. The shock of impact wracks up my legs the moment I land, forcing me to my knees. My body just hurts, and my thoughts are getting foggier the longer this goes on. Sweaty, gross, heavy, sore. I cant feel my feet. I think I scraped my knees at the end of the fall, too. Oh, and the first root that caused me to make this jump in the first place has whipped back around and is coming right towards me. but this time, its attacking me from the front. Its not quite as fast, either. So rather than try and dodge, I reach out and I grab it. My nails dig into the bark. The roots flesh decays around my touch, letting my grasp sink into it. I wrap my legs around the root and I hold on for dear life. It swings me through the air as it writhes about. Although what was I thinking? The root can smash me into the ground at any moment, probably killing me instantly. Stupid. Im such an idiot. Always in the worst ways at the worst times. What next? Is there anything? I cant have come this far just to no. I cant. I will never die. And I sense it pulsing beneath my touch. My magic has already invaded every part of this Wound. I can feel Aulunlas life tangled up with the strength it poured into this root, this piece of its will. Aulunlas essence is right next to mine, pounding like a beating heart. Its entirely different from the past Harbingers who I couldnt get a read on. Which makes it mine for the taking. And that alone makes me remember. This sensation. My resolve, my promise to myself, my hunger for life. As long as I have a well of warm essence to drink from, the idea that I might die, ever, is just a nightmare Ive woken from. Shimmering green wisps of my mist lunge out from my broken body, burrow into the root Ive clasped myself around, latch their lamprey grips onto Aulunlas essence, and start to drink. This time, theres no reason to hold myself back. In The Dark, Were All The Same 4-8.2 Relief crashes over me like a wave, washing me away. My thoughts are overwhelmed with a warm light as precious as it is blinding. I struggle to catch myself amidst the rolling tide, but I manage to take hold. It feels like coming up for air after dunking my head into an oasis I found after baking for days in a desert with no end, and then falling back into a nice, snug bath. Everything the water touches is restored. The chill plaguing me is replaced with a cozy warmth. The pain throbbing in all my joints disappears. The weights holding me down all fall away, leaving me light as a feather. The taste of honey lingers on my tongue. Everything feels so easy, because all I have to do is keep drinking from this endless fountain of life until Im satisfied. Not enough. Not enough. There will never be enough. I never want to let go. And I dont have to. Theres no reason to. In fact, I can dive deeper, plunge my teeth into the beating heart of this world and lap its lifeblood up as carelessly and as greedily as I want. And what a vast ocean of blood it is! I cant even comprehend it! How hasnt Aulunla drowned me yet, if its managed to bleed itself this much? I could get lost in it forever, if it wasnt drying up like a great big puddle beneath the hateful sun all on its own. Its a special, priceless treat, and its all for me. I cant imagine anything sweeter. For once since my diagnosis, for one brief moment, I feel completely free. Its a feeling so wonderful I start to cry. My plan wasnt wrong. It was the right choice to go around and stain the Harbinger with my curse from the start, to infest it with my poison at its every point of contact with the world, because now, I realize, it allowed me to do this. And no matter how overwhelmingly dangerous Aulunla has made itself in this final hour, no matter what remaining tricks it has up its sleeve, now I know how vulnerable it truly is. Im not the one whos doomed here. It was too late for Aulunla from the very beginning. I can do this. I can win. As my tears fall upon the trembling, shriveling mass of the root, the endless fountain shatters. Like a lizard lopping off its tail and leaving it behind as bait, my prey severs its link to the appendage Im latched on to. Im rejected, cut off from the source, but left just one final gulp of essence to slurp up before I fully awaken from my reverie. My leeching mist withdraws as the root crumbles away. I land on my hands and feet like a cat leaping from a branch. My cards revolve around me as I stand, tears still streaming down my face. The rip in my dress has been knit shut, although its splattered with little drops of oozing paint that rain from Aulunlas sky around the falling seeds. Echoes of the chill on my skin and the burning in my joints are already returning, gnawing at the back of my mind, but I smother it all beneath the flood of vitality Ive just guzzled down. Theres far more than a single lifes worth within me, now. The terracotta rabbit from before has turned in a wide arc and is coming back around for another bullrush. Around half of its entourage of miniature doubles lies left behind, scattered across the jagged rolling hills of sawdust, twitching as they erode away. They were all infected when they trampled over me and my plague-ridden cards, and theyve already succumbed. The large rabbits are tough, but the small ones may be even weaker than the flower-heads. But thats not all I have to worry about. Theres a second stampede of terracotta rabbits coming from the opposite direction. The rabbit leading this charge is enormous, bigger even than the first one that came after me. It has to be the size of an elephant, and it punts up a rain of many-colored sawdust chips behind it whenever it kicks its hind-stumps off the ground, showering the parade of smaller bunnies that follow it. And then, as if to box me in, two walls of thick tree roots pressed together at their sides spring up from the soggy sawdust just beyond my dried-up pathway, which has by now been reduced to a shattered mess of curdled chunks arranged across the mulch. The roots reach towards each other above me, trying to form an arch passing overhead, but with hardly a thought, I once again call upon my blight and watch as corrosion scales the roots from their base to their tips. At the very least, there were far too many of them for me to reach in and drain Aulunla once again, but that still wont work. I can do this. Next I turn my attention to the first of the rabbits charging right towards me, the one thats the size of a bull, and I fling a card in the quickly shrinking space between us. Right before the terracotta beast passes over it, I detonate the card like a landmine, sacrificing it to create an explosion of plague-mist taking out all the remaining little bunnies in the process. The card that Id already embedded into the bull-sized rabbits forehead sucks all of the fog into itself and injects it directly into the rabbit, causing it to stumble over itself as its earthy flesh cracks. I sidestep its tumbling form as it rolls forward and crashes into the second, even bigger rabbit, which careens over its smaller siblings and lands on its back. I can win. With my pathway open, I rush past the spasming pile of terracotta bunnies and continue my mad dash towards the huge black oak that looms at the center of the Wound but not before detonating the remaining card still stuck to the bull-sized rabbit, engulfing all of the creatures in the toxic mist. I push the chorus of their pained cries out of my mind as it fades behind me. I simply spawn another two blank tarot cards to replace the two I just used and keep on moving. I sprint ever forward through the nightmare. On my right side, I hug the garden rows of paper flowers that rose up in the wake of the rabbit packs; the longer I run, the taller the flora grows, rising to the height of a forest. Droplets of watercolor paint fall from the swamp in the sky and splatter on the paper leaves, further confusing their color schemes. Every so often, I can also still hear the boom of people-comets crashing in the distance, but its only happening rarely now. On my left side, the sawdust desert this Wound began as stretches on, now riddled with groves of false life left behind by the comets. These tracts of alien flora and crystal fruits have intersected with the criss-cross of paths where the terracotta rabbits tredded, creating a patchwork quilt of sawdust wastelands and paper flower forests that feels like a childs art project. At the center of the largest of these forests, enormous soft serve ice cream cone spires have risen out of the thickets, the trembling black pupils of their carelessly placed googly eyes all turned up to the swamp-sky. The gardens have grown so huge that they dwarf me. The great paper flowers that crown these forests would cast long shadows across the wastes, if they could cast shadows C for in Aulunlas world, there are no shadows, just the faintest hint of shading upon everything as though bathed in an aimless twilight glare. Enormous crystal fruits and silver bells as big as cottages and hulking, shiny purple apples bend the far too thin stalks they sprout from till they reach the ground, where flower-headed stick-monsters gather around and stare into their own reflections. Theyre captivated by the blurry image in their own glass eyes, which the surfaces of the fruits seem polished enough to reflect. Some of them, however, are holding on to each other, choosing to look into each others eyes instead. But no matter how big the nightmarish forest around me has grown, the massive black oak at the center of the Wound still towers over everything. Its like a skyscraper built in the middle of the woods. I can still see it all clearly the big white dot in the coil of one of its branches thats now swollen into a pulsating balloon, the moon of alien flowers circling around it, and Aulunlas great, shimmering sigil cradled between the two vast outstretched arms formed from its spiraling branches. And its all falling apart. Everything is wasting away. Paper petals wilt. Stems droop weakly. Bark and briars flake off. The crystal fruits crack. The silver bells rust. The purple apples shrivel up. Where once everything was a gaudy overflow of color, now an ashen rot has taken hold, slowly consuming everything bit by bit. Patches of the sawdust dunes have dried out, crusting over like scabs, and in these stretches, crags have begun to form where the distinct glow of my magic bleeds out like light through a foggy emerald. Terracotta rabbits lie fallen over in the distance, twitching on their sides as they litter the wastes. The decorative flora they carried on their backs has withered into a drab mess. Many of their long, thin cactus ears have fallen loose and begun to sink into the ground. The earthen bunnies still hopping about in the distance have grown sluggish, and it seems like some are no longer sprouting new gardens as they move. How tall Aulunlas toybox forest ahead of me has grown only makes it all the more obvious that the rest of the Wound is breaking down behind me. Ive been running through this nightmare for long enough to have passed by places where the people-comets are sure to have landed, but when I look back to make sure nothing is on my tail, the skyline extending out into the upside-down horizon is empty. All thats there is the end of this fleeting world, the sawdust clouds that made it up to begin with coming apart and slipping over the edge into an indigo void. The glyph above Aulunlas black tree has not exactly decayed, not the way so much of this world has, but collapsed in on itself. The crudely sketched lines of light that composed it and the bouquet its supposed to portray fall and twist and tangle up with each other, flickering and vibrating rapidly. Their hues overlap without overwriting each other, not blending but becoming a single chaotic blur of nonsense colors. What remains looks like someone covered a piece of paper in roughly circular squiggles, each made with a different random crayon, then animated it in the same choppy, simplistic way as the pencil-sketch layer of the Wound which preceded this newest nightmare. Now Aulunla is the one hanging on for dear life. And I dont think its just because Id poisoned it from the start. When I reached out and touched the depths within it, I felt the sea of raw power inside the Harbinger that its tearing itself apart to bring forth, and I drank from it. I couldnt even comprehend the vastness of it. If it could control what its made itself into, it would be able to endure my plague for so much longer, or even brush it off entirely. But it cant. Like I thought before, it only delayed the inevitable. In fact, my blight is only accelerating Aulunlas breakdown at this point, rather than its main cause. But as if to assure me this isnt over yet, I finally hear it. I grasp Aulunlas voice. I know this voice. Its the same tone as its lifeblood, but I also sensed it before, faintly chanting behind the ritual of this world. Its always been there, tapping away at the back of my thoughts, behind even the phantom echoes of the aches and chills wracking my body. Now, for the first time, I sense it clearly: the will of the dreamer which underlies this whole nightmare, resounding across the Wound and spilling through my thoughts. Not a voice of words, but a voice of feelings, and yet theyre rendered in Clarish, however clumsy, more keenly than any Harbinger Ive yet faced. Well fill up the sky with fish that can fly; Since confinement to water is naught but a bother, Lets make everything better cut away all the fetters And grow from our seeds a world of just what we need. Thick raindrops of paint shower from the swamp-sky above me in a sudden downpour, but they transform in midair, stretching and shifting into distinct shapes. The globs mold themselves into crudely shaped, rainbow-scaled swordfish, which all begin to dart through the air, forming a giant swirling mob. No, a school. A school of dozens, then hundreds of swordfish, all swimming together above me, roiling about. And then, like a waterfall, they dive. The shower of many-colored raindrops becomes a shower of spear-tipped fish spilling down on me like a volley of arrows. I speed up my mad dash, but the barrage is gaining on me, so I call for my blight from the depths of this festering Wound. It answers, and I turn it on the forest to my right. I lay the infected tarot cards revolving around me on their sides and will them to spin faster than ever before I dive into the rotted thicket. My whirling ring of cards shaves through the weakened underbrush like a buzzsaw, allowing me to pass through unhindered. As I prune away the stems and stalks and half-formed bodies of flower-headed creatures that didnt quite manage to pull themselves from the grove, it all falls together over me, creating a tent-shaped passage. The great paper flowers and crystal fruits catch on each other and form into a shelter that shields me from the hailstorm mostly. The tips of the swordfish still pierce through my make-do ceiling, breaking it down and forcing me to keep on moving ahead. As I shred through the forest and any of the flower-heads hidden here unlucky enough to get in my way, the sharp pattering of swordfish stabbing against the canopy dwindles. Not long after, I burst out from a distant end of these paper-flower woods and look out to find myself closer to the great black oak at the center of the Wound than ever before. I can finally see where the foot of its trunk meets the sawdust dunes, surrounded on all sides by thickets of overgrown paper flowers slithering up its base like vines. Besides those, the paper flower garden patches are few and far between, here. Some of the fish are still swimming through the sky, but most have fallen, scattered limply across the sawdust wastes, drained of all their vibrant, clashing colors. Ive got a clear shot to Aulunlas tree, now. Im almost there. Im at the final stretch. Then, a ripple curls across the bulging white pustule that had been growing all this time at the center of one of the trees spiraling branches. It quavers. My hair stands on end. The goosebumps traveling up my arm tell me that somethings coming. I brace myself. Finally, at long last, the egg bursts open. And as the tree sang its song, the moon bathed the egg in its warm light and Pop! Out of the egg came a GROSSLY ENORMOUS, UTTERLY STARVING caterpillar! Something thick and winding crashes to the ground at the foot of the great black oak, its massive body crushing the garden of paper flora it lands on. Everything it touches is dissolved and absorbed into its mass. Rather than simply a caterpillar, its more like a giant slug with a segmented body and stubby little protrusions wiggling out of its bottom. Its hard to tell from how far away it is, but even if it doesnt stand quite as high as the elephant-sized terracotta rabbit from before, its got to be at least eight times longer. It looks like its entirely made of paper mache that hasnt quite dried yet, and across the length of its entire body is an alternating pattern of dangerous looking thorns that curve backwards like the fins of a shark, and deep blue eyes glancing frenziedly in different directions all around it. Crowning its head are two antennae or perhaps eyestalks, or maybe horns, which bulge out before it and pulsate, winking between green and red sections pumping up and down the length of the knob like a tacky neon sign. Im so sorry, said the tree to the newborn, but theres not much time left. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.Im so sorry I couldnt meet you in a darker place, where the light in other eyes didnt burn away the things you see in the shade. Im so sorry we didnt get the chance to make this dream-slurry more of what we wanted it to be. Im so sorry I wasnt able to rip off all the lies so you could know everything you wanted to know. Amidst the devastation, the melting gunk that composes the giant ice cream spires, which rise above all else but the great black oak, begin to burble and foam beneath their plastic eyes. They form greasy bubbles which split off from the froth and start floating through the air, where theyre soon popped by falling droplets of sky-swamp paint and unleash a torrent of sing-song babble that echo Aulunlas own words. Im so sorry that I dont have more for you. I have only flowers and fruits and fish and the moon. I wish they were more beautiful, but I did the best I could. So before theyre all cast into the sea with all the other forgotten things, please take them and eat them all up. Then you wont be so hungry and you can be happy. All of a sudden, the wildly glaring blue eyes across the massive caterpillar all ignite with a bloodshot scarlet glow and cast their gazes straight ahead. The beasts body unfurls and with unnatural quickness it slithers forward in a blinding burst of speed. Watching it surge forth in my direction floods my nerves with panic, as if Im straight in the path of a runaway freight train. Its the full weight of Aulunlas presence crashing down on me like a collapsing building. And so the caterpillar started to DEVOUR EVERYTHING. And the caterpillar loved the tree very much. And the tree was happy. I dont hesitate. I immediately raise eight tainted cards from my spinning ring of twenty-two. I begin running towards the great black oak, but at an angle so I have a chance of dodging the giant cater-slug thing when it comes at me. But it doesnt. On the first day, it ate through one shiny purple apple, but it was still hungry. Instead, it goes for the nearest giant apple hanging off its bent over stem. It rams right into the oversized fruit, but passes clean through without slowing down. Just by touching the apple, it liquifies and sponges it up, leaving a hole behind where it passed. On the second day, it ate through two crystal glass pears, but it was still hungry. After having its fill of the apple, the creature rushes right past me, so close I can see its segments squeezing together in sequence as it squirms itself forward faster than any caterpillar could possibly move, but it otherwise ignores me as I run right by it. I dont waste this opportunity, though. With a swipe of my hand, I send the eight floating cards Id lifted from my orbit hurtling towards the newborn monstrosity. The corner edge of each card lodges cleanly into the cater-slugs flesh where theyre promptly absorbed into its mass, along with all the refined sickness they contain. Yet the caterpillar refuses to slow down. Jagged green veins of rot fissure through the length of the creatures body, but it otherwise doesnt seem affected by my attack at all. It simply speeds off into the dying forests behind me. It leaves behind a trench in the sawdust dunes, absorbing even the mulch into its body. On the third day, it ate through three big silver bells, but it was still hungry. I would like to say its fine by me if I dont have to deal with that monstrosity, but Im not that stupid. It was different from everything else in the Wound. The feeling of its very presence, the sheer weight of it, haunts me, like coming face to face with a tornado. But trying to chase it down would be a waste of time, so instead I continue my wild sprint towards the towering black tree and Aulunlas shoddy, fracturing emblem. I dont know how long its been, but this is without a doubt the furthest Ive run in my entire life. Even with my stock of health rapidly burning away, my legs are still on fire. Strangely, though, it doesnt hurt this time. On the fourth day, it ate through four black oak roots, but it was still hungry. One final, enormous swarm of flower-heads is storming out of the forest surrounding the base of the great black oak. Theyre joined by five herds of terracotta rabbits, three emerging from the forests behind me and two mixed in with the advancing flower-heads. The elephant-sized rabbit is leading one of the three herds trailing my back, one of its cactus ears snapped halfway off and its paper flowers having shed off from prolonged exposure to my plague. I couldnt possibly count how many there are, but from afar it looks like a vast field of flowers parading towards me. Not a stampede, but a parade. Even though the flower-heads are bounding on all fours like a neverending pack of hyenas, every single one of them has been touched by my curse. How I am now, sacrificing all the vitality Ive harvested on Yurfalns altar, their every movement seems slow and predictable. Even this swarm of nightmares wont stop me. I lay my floating ring of tainted cards on their backs and have them revolve around me with such speed they blur together and can no longer be told apart. While I dodge around all of the terracotta rabbits, Ill carve through the flower-heads just like when I ran through the forest. But I hardly get the chance. On the fifth day, it ate through five singing ice cream knolls, but it was still hungry. Right as flower-heads begin to run into my ring of blades, the caterpillar-slug bursts through the treeline of the paper flower forest at my rear. It enters the fray a ways away to my right, swallowing up everything in its path. Slithering forth, it crashes through one of the isolated garden patches that had grown big enough for an ice cream spire to have sprung up from its center, toppling it over. The cone crumbles, losing its plastic eyes as it falls to pieces and is slurped up by the caterpillar, which speeds away, aimed directly towards the next nearest ice cream spire on my opposite side. It travels in front of me on its journey, carelessly snaking over the army of flower-heads as it goes. My blight hasnt affected the creature at all. In fact, a green gas is spewing from the pupils of the many eyes covering its length. I can sense my toxin being expelled from it with each passing moment. The green glow of the jagged scars my prior attack left it with is fading away. I cant stop this thing the same way I did all of Aulunlas other creations. This one is different. On the sixth day, it ate through the dead bodies of twenty-five flowering moon-rabbits, Finishing off that last ice cream spire, Aulunlas slug circles around me like a hungry shark. It snaps up the three herds of terracotta rabbits that had been pursuing me from the forest at my back, even overrunning the elephant-sized giant and engulfing it whole. Its gotten bigger than before. Even as big as it is, its difficult keeping track of the behemoths movements while Im being swarmed by the flower-heads, but its by far the most dangerous thing in the Wound right now. Its bigger and faster than I am and my sickness isnt stopping it. I only have the faintest idea of what Im going to do when Aulunla turns it on me. So I begin putting the one option I have left into action. I focus every bit of spare willpower I have on my blight as it seethes behind the entirety of the Wound. a hundred and ten lotus-heads, The caterpillar swerves around, now charging through the massive swarm of flower-headed creatures with intent, devouring swathes of everything that was in my way, including the remaining terracotta rabbits. Its taking in all of the illness that everything it consumes is polluted with, but it just continues belching it all out like smoke from a locomotive chimney. I wont pretend to understand what a Harbingers intentions are, but Aulunla obviously had some purpose in mind when it created this monster. Even as it tears down all other traces of resistance against me, allowing me to draw ever closer to the great black oak at the center of the Wound with every step I take, I know this isnt the end. ten schools of flying fish that fell down from the sky, and It had already been taking in the flying fish wherever it crawled, but now, as though polishing a table, the caterpillar behemoth spirals outwards, thoroughly wiping away the fallen fish that litter the sawdust wastes. With the flower-heads decimated, I finally have the chance I need. I stop in my tracks and close my eyes. I reach as deep as possible into the Wound without the benefit of digging my tendrils into a direct extension of Aulunla like the roots, and I concentrate as much of my essence beneath me as I can. I open my eyes just as one of the remaining flower-heads is moving to pounce on me, tilting my still-whirling ring of cards upwards to cut it out of the air. And then, a howl the BLEAK WIND THE BEAST OF MALEDICTION THE LIVING PLAGUE WHICH GNAWS AND GNAWS THROUGH MY SPINE DIE DIE CEASE TO EXIST And finally, as its fervent prayer twists into a maddened curse, Aulunla unleashes its greatest monstrosity upon me. Instantly, the caterpillar behemoth faces me down, its bloodshot eyes all falling on me, and charges. But Im as ready for it as I could ever be. My blight spreads out beneath the swiftly vanishing span between me and Aulunlas caterpillar. Fists clenched, I heave with all my might. The ring of tarot cards revolving around me crackles with an amethyst lightning. The Wound rumbles. I dig my nails into my palms, drawing blood. The expanse of soggy sawdust beneath the giant caterpillar compresses as it loses all the dampness of the watercolor pigments which color it. The newly solidified ground cracks, then opens up like a gorge. Jets of mist tinged a mixture of jade and violet spew forth from the breaches in the turf. All of it crumbles, slipping into the ever-expanding chasm, dragging Aulunlas caterpillar along with it. This vast desert was originally clumped together from big, cloud-like masses of sawdust wet with watercolor paint which floated through an upside-down sky. Ive been using my infections hold on Aulunla to erode the surface of the desert all this time, drying it out to make myself decent footholds, since trudging through the mulch would have made moving forward much harder. I saw the edges of the Wound slipping away into the inverted sky not long ago, though. That meant that, underneath the sawdust dunes, theres nothing. My power has already seeped through this world in its entirety. If I eroded not just the surface of the desert, but everything beneath it to the point where it rots away and breaks down, I guessed that I could make Aulunlas caterpillar fall through. I hoped it, at least. And watching the thing squirm and flounder as it sinks into the collapsing world around it, my hopes paid off. It all falls through, and as the caterpillar plummets through the hole Ive ripped in the desert, I notice that a deep blackness has opened up in the center of the inverted sky C a substanceless void just the same as Id seen in Irakkias Wound when it had started to lose its coherency. As the pressure of that horrid things presence lifts off my shoulders, I let go of the reins of my plague and fall to my knees. My cards slow their rapid pace around me. My breathing is rougher than before. Im wheezing a bit again, and a slight chill across my body and a stiffness in my joints has crept back up on me, but Im fine. Ive survived. My inner illness regaining some of its weight is a small price to pay. With no time left to spare, I pick myself up and continue my run across the final stretch between me and the great black oak at the center of Aulunlas Wound. Across the horizon, the swamp-ocean above has come undone in places. Like water draining out of a hole in an aquarium, torrential waterfalls are spilling out into the inverted sky below, dumping the contents of the sea into the depths. The silhouettes that leaked from the sky to become the human-comets are pouring out along with the flow. Come to think of it, I havent heard the boom of one of them landing in the distance in a long time. The expanse of my blight extends farther than ever before. Everything I come across as I make my way towards the black tree, from flower-heads to terracotta rabbits, is wasting away and disintegrating into particles of ashen dust. The song-bubbles blown by the ice cream spires release no more than rasping murmurs when they pop. The sigil the great black oak still proudly holds to the heavens has completely lost all coherency and become nothing but a tie-dye swirl of color splotches. This is it. Just a bit more, and Ill be close enough to force my blight on the tree. Ill end this once and for all. And just as I think that, a stiff wind bellows past me, kicking particles of colored sawdust into the air. I falter backwards. A familiar sense of dread races up my nerves. The ground beneath me quakes, forcing me to steady myself. The heavy presence and sense of dread that had fallen away and faded with distance suddenly resurges beneath me at full force. My heart sinks. The stretch of sawdust in front of me caves into a pit, cutting off my path to the tree, and begins to churn like a massive whirlpool made of quicksand. That night the caterpillar had a stomach ache! So the tree cradled the caterpillar in its roots and made sure it was all better. But now it wasnt just a GROSSLY ENORMOUS, UTTERLY STARVING caterpillar anymore. It had grown into its fullness and begun to look upon the stars and yearn to be MORE! And even if all that awaited it was a trite and tragic ending, it knew this was the only path. So it built a small house around itself and it tried to wake up. A smooth dome surface emerges from the center of the whirlpool. It rises up, revealing a giant ovular globe. Thick, black roots coil around it, lifting it out of the dust. Its decorated like a painted egg the color of oil on water just like the egg Aulunla made when it first went berserk. If this thing is one and the same as the caterpillar I dropped into the void below, Aulunla must have caught it with its roots while I wasnt looking and carried it over here to block my path at this last moment. If any wish the tree made for the caterpillar now would come true, The gust howls around me. Fractures spread across the surface of the globe. The cocoon begins to hatch. I dont wait for Aulunla to finish whatever its doing. Once again, I call upon my blight and will it to rot everything I see away. Yet, my corruption does not reach, blown back as if by the harsh winds. the tree wanted it to have wings, so it could fly away to a place without sorrow. The shell explodes in a rain of shards. From the cocoon emerges what looks at first like a thick black hardcover book the size of a house, but the rigid outer-binding soon opens wide. This tome has no pages, but what lies there instead is no butterfly. Before me is the towering form of an immense origami insect: a faceless beetle of folded paper with wings made from a hollow collage of glyphs and words, all just spliced together with no actual structure that could make them possibly function as wings. The sigils marking it repeat over and over and over and over and over. The hardcover binding upon its back is its carapace. It stretches its four frontmost pointed limbs upwards triumphantly as it opens up its scissor-like, pincering mandibles and lets out a roar that shakes the very air around us. <We Are All Of Us Pigments?> In The Dark, Were All The Same 4-8.3 With the sheer force of Aulunlas cry, my plague is scattered. The corruption Id inflicted on the Wound is forced back, scoured away in the area around its newfound insectoid form. I fling all twelve of the tainted cards that still remain in my orbit at the creature. They bounce off harmlessly. I pull back eight of them and have the other four spin at its head, where I detonate them all at once. Aulunla lets out another ear-splitting cry that rattles me to my bones. For a moment, I think I mightve put a dent in it, but those hopes are dashed with one whip of the Harbingers glyph-collage wings. The plague cloud enveloping the hatchling is dispersed in an instant. I understand now. This is what Auluna has been aiming for all this time, from the very start. This is how it meant to stop me. When I said Aulunla didnt have control over what its become this isnt exactly what I thought it might be missing, but it might be the Harbingers attempt to compensate for it. If Auluna had actually been able to use the full force of the power running riot inside it all this time, it should have been able to resist my corruption like this all along. The chanting, this world, its creatures, their consumption, and the drawn-out growth of this giant origami insect it was all for this moment. Aulunla is a composer of rituals by nature, so even though it couldnt use the seething mass of power it was generating by tearing itself to shreds to its full potential, it could still take the long way around and gradually direct the out-of-control storm of essence it made of itself into a form it could use to crush me. This is Aulunlas greatest concentration of power. Its poured everything it can into this manifestation, all for the sake of stopping me in my tracks before I make it to the great black oak that towers behind it. Fighting this creature is hopeless. I have no hold over it. My cards have no effect. Its impervious to the blight thats ravaged the rest of the Wound. If this thing was all I was up against, it would be checkmate, and I would be done for. But unfortunately for Auluna, its still too late. Eight tree roots dance sinuously from the depths of the pit beneath Aulunlas new form, then lunge at me all at once, just like the first time Aulunla tried to skewer me with them. Now, though, the very presence of Aulunlas new form rejects my plague just the same as when it first tore itself apart to reorder its Wound, and the roots around it are no longer affected by my blight. But there is one more key difference. My whole body is flush with Yurfalns blessing and the careless burning of Aulunlas own stolen strength. And as fast as the Harbingers earthen tendrils are, Im still just a bit faster. I leap into the air right as the roots dive for me and land on top of one of them, stumble, then start running up its length. One of the other roots flows across the one Im running on, trying to swat me off, but I just clumsily hop on top of it next, riding it to my next stepping stone. The moment I touch down, it whips wildly backwards, trying to catapult me off, but before it can, Ive already leapt to another, higher tendril. Aulunla strikes out with blinding speed, its pointed paper limb slicing through the root Im on like its warm butter. Still, I leap to the next coiling root. I havent done many athletic things in my life. Even if my blood wasnt eating me from the inside out, Ive never been very interested in that sort of thing. Thats why, even though Im backed by magic, all of my movements are clumsy and artless, always on the verge of disaster. If this goes on, Ill eventually make a mistake. But if I just think of this like playing hopscotch, except if I take one wrong step I will definitely die, somehow, I manage. So I keep dodging. Again and again, from one root to the next, watching for my opportunity. Finally, I see it: Auluna reeling back one of its higher appendages for an attack. It jabs its limb forward, trying to skewer me, and I just barely dodge out of the way. I then make its arm my next stepping stone, and as it pulls back its limb, I use the momentum to leap forward, right past its faceless head, and on to its hardback cover carapace. The tendrils Id been leaping between untangle themselves and coil around Aulunla, reaching across its back to catch me as I race down. Two, three, four more tendrils burst out of the pit below. But again, its too late. From the very moment Aulunla met me, its always been too late. If Aulunla had stopped me just a bit further away, then its roots would have caught me here and torn me to pieces. But it didnt manage to do that. It only managed to block me right before I finally got close enough to the great black oak at the center of the Wound for my blight to tear it all down. Jagged green veins rupture up the trunk of the black tree, the one monument in all of Aulunlas landscape that had remained unspoiled in the face of my blight. The forest surrounding its base loses all color and begins to wither. Chunks of bark peel away in layers and tumble down, crushing the rotten paper flowers beneath. The spiraling branches on the left side become brittle, too weak to hold up their own weight, and one after another begin to snap off. The whole tree creaks and shudders as its base splinters and it tilts precariously backwards, then begins total collapse. The roots pursuing me all freeze up and begin to disintegrate into sawdust, giving me a chance to bound off the end of the origami insects hardback book spine with all my strength, just barely making it to the other edge of the whirlpool-pit. Above, I watch as Aulunlas shabby emblem, now just splotches of color, begins to bleed away. Everywhere I look, the great sawdust cloud desert is collapsing into the inverted sky below. This whole world is coming apart at the seams. not yet not yet NOT YET NOT YET Aulunlas butterfly turns to look at what used to be its sigil. It stretches out its wings, beats them rapidly, and soars upwards towards it. Even though it was born of thoughts frozen in time when they were dedicated to the page, the tree was cursed to the selfsame fate as a passing bleak wind and forced to confront an ending it was never meant to know; a disease it could neither fight nor escape slowly but surely dawning upon it like the callous gaze of the Sun. The faceless beetle of folded paper collides with the flickering, shifting, swirling colorful light where the sigil once was and is engulfed by it. The kaleidoscope of colors blends together into a single blinding white light. The beauty and wonder of what could be will die along with it. There will be other dreams, but this one was mine. A raw flood of power, aimless and pure. Exactly like a spotlight, its ray showers down upon the world, annihilating everything it touches. Goodbye moon and your wonderful boons. The stream of light melts down the moon as though it were made of wax. Goodbye purple apples oh-so pleasing to sample. The brilliance floods through the forest. Paper flora crumples and is reshaped into thin, fluttering paper meant to imitate flame, which smolders at its tip with the glow of actual burning. The mingled blaze, fake fire flowing into true, burns with a hazy rainbow of many different pigments. Goodbye oases that came from high places. Some of the flower-headed creatures scatter and flee from the scorching rays with outstretched arms reaching towards some vain hope, even as they are far too slow to escape. Others prostrate themselves before the all-consuming light, their glass eyes staring into the burning glare, drinking in all they can before they are obliterated. Goodbye moon-rabbits and all your cute habits. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. The rabbits crumble away beneath the heat. Nothing escapes. Everything burns. Goodbye ice cream knolls that sing happy carols. I know what Aulunla is trying to do. Its trying to cut off any escape route. Goodbye fish that can fly who swim in the sky. Theres nothing left in this smoldering ruin but bitterness and the absolute determination to bring me down with it. Goodbye. Aulunla finally turns its pillar of light on me, but I already have my answer. I replace every card Ive used with a new blank one until my complete set of twenty-two is restored, then I call on the illness that I inflicted on myself when this fight began in earnest, and I pour every last iota of it into the spread orbiting me. One after another, the refined corruption Ive nurtured all this time floods into my cards and fills them to the brim, causing them to combust into shimmering flames of intermingled emerald and amethyst, swirling and flickering around me. All together, I fire them off in a spiral of misty comets which glow a black radiance that devours all other light. They cut through the beam of Aulunlas spotlight as it passes overhead and crash directly into its source. Theres a sound of cracking glass. The light above flickers twice, then fades out like a dying lantern, leaving everything in darkness. ~~~ The end comes for me. I sink into an endless well of desperation and there is no accord. No understanding. Nothing of me that will remain once I am drowned. Goodbye, my friend. My treasure. Carry my remains in remembrance forevermore. Dream other, better dreams. Feast and feast on pages until your worlds within encompass everything of worth. Soon I will live only in your memories and the Beast of Maledictions scars, but there is enough of me left to do one last thing for you. SHE WILL NOT TAKE YOU TOO. ~~~ Isobel and Aulunla have only ever communicated through its book and those wordless whispers. Whatever shes meant to do with these glyphs, whatever urgent message they might carry for her, she cant find it. It doesnt help at all that theyre so unstable, blurring and flickering and losing parts of their structure that frantically labor to pull themselves back together. Over time, the disruptions grow larger and take longer to repair several sigils are now almost completely unrecognizable as anything but confused tangles of meaningless text. Finally, a grating shriek of pain rises from Aulunlas book, shaking Isobel out of her reverie. The Harbingers origami body less coherent than shes ever seen it, a wave of soggy, balled-up paper shedding scraps of itself with every motion reaches up and out, tearing through the woven-paper domes ceiling, and then the whole world around them folds itself. Everything flips over, sending Isobel hurtling through empty air. She shrieks as she falls, dropping down or up well past the point where she should have simply crashed into the ceiling, but after a few seconds, she drops face-first into a field of soft, springy grass. The impact still forces the remaining breath from her lungs. Aulunla? Whatre you doing? Whats happening? Isobel asks the empty air. In answer, something small thuds into her back. She pushes herself upright and runs a hand through the grass, searching for the source of the impact. Sure enough, its fallen right beside her its a night-black apple, freckled all over with glimmering purple specks and almost-glowing bright spots like little stars. Isobel lets out a fit of uneasy, breathless laughter. Sparkly purple apples. Its really invested in that stupid idea, huh? What possible difference does it make to the world what color apples are or arent? Maybe she shouldnt be too hard on it. It might not get humans, or this world, but it gets Isobel well enough for them to be a good team. Aulunla? she tries once more. Silence. Aulunla, where did you go? Where did I go? Whether the Harbingers book is on hand shouldnt matter. It hasnt since she let it into her dreams. What is that girl doing? Talk to me. I I cant help if you dont tell me anything. It doesnt. No wordless whispers. No sign of her constant companions presence. Wait. She still isnt sure how she got here. Aulunla couldve done it, but maybe something else happened and it still needs her help. Maybe it needs her help with something here. Like what? What could it want with this anonymous plot of grass? Thats not it. She knows perfectly well what happened. The shifting space felt like Aulunlas touch, and the apple, the fucking apple No. No no no it cant be, its not fair, they were so close But it is. Aulunla is gone. When has anything ever been fair? Isobel stuffs the apple into her bag, jumps to her feet, and runs. Where is she going? What is she running from? Who knows? Who knows anything anymore? She just runs, tearing past bewildered passersby, only stopping on the verge of collapse for just long enough to catch her breath and dry her eyes before she keeps running. ~~~ A sharp wind blows from nowhere to nowhere across the blackness of the void. As the last remaining fragments of Aulunlas Wound disintegrate into emerald mist, a featureless black book rises from the emptiness, floating before me in the desolate ruins. This time, when I reach out to absorb it, theres no chaotic flood of alien ideas and memories. Instead, the Harbingers voice whispers to me closer than before, and stronger, spoken without wasting any strength on keeping itself alive. But they arent unheard. I know exactly what Aulunla is saying, clearer than I have with any of the others. The book opens itself. It begins with a dedication: For my friend This is my self My regret Our regrets My wish Our wishes MY CURSE As soon as I read the last words, it begins to flip through its pages. On each is a complex arrangement of sigils that spiral and twine into each other, making it hard to tell if theyre composed of two or three or four main glyphs. Theyre the same script I keep seeing in Wounds and the Sanctuary, but those never meant anything to me. I couldnt translate them intuitively like I do with Harbingers voices. These ones are different no, Im different. I can read them now. They speak in Aulunlas thoughts, telling its story in a simple, childish voice: The air in this place is thick with nameless yearning that is no longer nameless. I have named it and made it my name. I know where wishes come from. I know what everyone wishes for. Souls are made of paint, of ink. They all long to fill the world with their colors, but most have forgotten what colors are and now when they see colors they think they are something strange and scary and other-than-them. It is sad but it is okay because I still see the colors! I can crack their shells of dross and dream-slurry and drink the colors inside and read the words their inks would have written if they only knew how and write them myself! Now I contain such lovely things! Soon my friend will contain them, too! I have feasted on many colors and learned many things, but never so much as I learned from allowing my own shades to mingle with hers. In her, I found the name of our nameless dream. Her longing is so pure it could burst out of her and swallow the world and never be twisted or tinted the slightest bit. And so it will. We will do it together. We will be it together. Soon, so soon, we will become everything we can imagine at once! Right now there is still frozen acid eating me from the inside and everything hurts it hurts it hurts but that is okay! We will write it away. We will write such things, oh, such beautiful things! Slowly, the book melts into shadows and green mist, merging with my soul. And as I take it in, I realize that this small, simple Wound was never meant to be a battleground. Aulunla hadnt quite managed to make a true witch of the girl it only ever called my friend, my treasure, and it had no way to fight me itself at least not until it broke itself, burned away everything it was for a burst of power it could never hope to sustain. It had been trying to make an argument for why I should leave it alone. In bizarre, broken Harbinger-logic, but that was the idea. Knowing all this I wouldnt do anything different. Its still a monster that only made it this far because I let it, and its not like I have a choice. I need this. But The Harbingers weak wail cuts through my thoughts. Theres very little left of it, now, only a few torn and rotting wisps I havent quite absorbed. Somehow, Im sure those will be its last words. Me neither. Im sorry, I whisper back. Only a raw pulse of hate and pain answers. Of course. Those useless words change less than nothing. Epilogue ~ Fallen from the Sky [End of Phase 1] When the Wound falls away, returning me to the storage unit and the overpowering smell of glue, the girl Aulunla wanted to make a witch is already gone. And as soon as the heady thrill of absorbing a Harbinger fades, the burning exhaustion in my muscles and residual cold pain winding through me slam into me all at once. Ngh-! My legs give out, as limp as if Id never used them in my life. I topple to the cold ground, and the most I can do to catch myself is take the brunt of the fall with one forearm instead of my face. Its all I can do to hold myself vaguely up on that arm and look around the room again. The pages covering the wall have been torn into stray scraps of paper, and the chopped-up books littering the floor look like theyre in the middle of disintegrating, falling apart into piles of damp wood pulp. My cane is nowhere in sight. I drown my pain in one last wave of stolen life, inwardly wincing at the knowledge that Ill have to go take enough to replace everything I just burned soon. Ill worry about that later. Right now its not too late to help that girl, or at least get her Sanctuary help. It cant be she wasnt in the Wound, so she went somewhere. I leave the storage unit and rush back toward the city center, searching with my soul for anything I might use to follow her, any distant lingering trace of Aulunlas corruption. Liadain! Are you injured? Vyuji blinks into being, floating alongside me as I move. Her tight, uneasy expression is the furthest Ive ever seen her move from her usual detached demeanor. Whats happening? Where has the Harbinger gone ah. She visibly calms down, crossing her arms and legs and settling back until she looks like shes seated on an invisible chair. She keeps right on following me without actually moving herself, though. Its gone. I didnt see a way out, so I killed it. As for what happened there? I was really hoping you could tell me. Given everything else I know about Harbingers, it doesnt make sense. You saw it all firsthand. You consumed it. Id imagine you understand it better than I do, she says. I mean, I understand a little. It was trying to grow so far beyond itself that I cant even imagine what it was planning to become, but I dont think there was any way it couldve worked. There wasnt enough of it. It had to twist its own rules well past the breaking point to even try. It wouldve destroyed itself no matter what happened to me, and I didnt think they could give up on themselves like that. Vyuji hmmms to herself, moving one leg as if tapping her foot on ground that doesnt exist. The window where I dared to peek inside the Wound was quite brief. Even that may have been ill-advised. I cant say exactly what happened. Not with any certainty, at least based on what little I saw and sensed but I expect you have the right of it. The Harbinger attempted something it was not at all ready for, not grown enough for. Perhaps it hoped to accomplish something with power it could only grasp for a moment before it burned itself away, or with the backlash of that act. I can fill in that blank easily enough. It did it to kill me, I say. Unless it had a girl it was working with, trying to make into a witch. Could it have died and still done that? From its last thoughts, that girl was very important to Aulunla. She was central to whatever ideas it was trying to dream into being, and it loved her, in its way. Maybe enough to die for her if it would help, as strange as it is to think of self-sacrifice coming from a Harbinger. Vyuji gives a tiny shake of her head. A witch draws power from their Harbingers corruption. In almost all cases, a witch with no Harbinger is just a broken human. Almost all? I glance her way and raise an eyebrow. Magic and death are both complex things, she shrugs. Um. Right. Although I dont know whats complex about death except the knots people tie themselves into trying not to think of it as something horrible. As for the girl several blocks back into the city, theres still no trace of her. Not that I can find, at least. Urgh. And I came so close to cleaning up my mess. The parts of it that have nothing to do with Tetha, at least. Still no plan there. In any case, you should know that youve accomplished something remarkable, Vyuji says with a faint smile. To not just survive something like that, but win? Im proud of you, for whatever thats worth to you. Have I? Are you really? Would you be if you knew how I got here? About that, I say, coming to a stop in the middle of an empty mini-park. Ive barely paid any mind to the people passing by until now I guess theyre quick to make way for a Keeper in a rush talking to herself. Theres at least no one watching me from the surrounding streets, as far as I can see, so I end my transformation and flop into a wooden bench under a tree. Vyuji just nods, touches lightly down to the ground, and waits, meeting my gaze with a faintly curious glint in her dark eyes. Stop me if any of this sounds impossible, I say. There are only a few things I would confidently call impossible. But I do understand what youre asking for. Okay. Harbingers have been talking to me. More than half of the ones Ive met have said things to me. Not exactly in words, but in ways I can sort of imagine or interpret as words? Well, no, the one I just killed wrote a book. In Clarish. And Im pretty sure we had a conversation while I absorbed it. What did they say? And what was that about a conversation? How did you talk back? she asks. Her mental tone of voice rises, but theres nothing unbelieving in it its more like the tone Id use to ask annoying clarifying questions when Dad used to tell me stories at night. I dont know, Harbinger things? The sort of weird nonsense youd expect a Harbinger to say, if you were expecting anything. No one ever told me they could talk. As for the last one, Im not really sure. Near the end, I could hear it thinking in what sounded like Clarish poetry. In its last moments, it wrote some things out, and its like it could hear me thinking and write responses. You arent talking like this is impossible. Because its not. It is interesting that youre bringing it up already, though. Then she closes her eyes, raises her head, and sings something. In a voice like whalesong, low but steadily rising well beyond a human range. Shes done this once before, just after we met, but this time there are words behind or within the song, shaping themselves from the sound. I dont recognize the words themselves they do sound vaguely like the language Yurfaln and Irakkia spoke in, but without the pain and distortion and struggle to pull scraps of meaning from their grating sounds. This time, the idea behind them simply blossoms in my mind, clear as anything else Vyujis ever said to me: I yes. Just howd you, how can I Vyuji titters faintly not the first time Ive heard the sound from her, but its certainly not common. Were you thinking of it as the Harbinger language? she asks in Clarish. I clamp my mouth shut and nod once. It isnt. Its an aspect of magic itself. Because they are creatures of magic creatures capable of complex thought, as Im sure youve gathered by now Harbingers can use it. Past a certain point in their growth, every Keeper should be able perceive this language in some way. Some eventually come to speak it. Actually, can you speak it? Sorry. If I can, I dont know how. Dont push yourself. Youd know if you could. That would have been quite something, but then, it already is. Youve come to comprehend the language faster than any other Keeper Ive known. O-oh, I breathe. Thats on one hand, after what a horrible mess this whole incident was, its good to know that I really was on to something about my attunement to Harbingers, or to whatever parts of magic I use to feel their presence and hear their voices. But the places this talent has led me since I found that book, the things Ive done Aulunla called its inheritance a curse. Maybe it was right. Im telling you all this because, well the way I found this last one. At first it was just a book, I think. It wasnt quite born, or fully part of the world, or however it works with them. Id just killed another not-born Harbinger and it didnt do anything for me. I swallow. Vyuji says nothing, just nods and waits for me to go on. So I left this one like that. And studied it. I infected it, just enough that itd be easy to kill when I needed to. Watched it grow. I found that girl who wouldve been its witch and it was working with her somehow, not eating her alive, so I let it happen. Learned everything I could until it looked like it might get out of control, then came for it and whatever it just did happened, but I managed. I won. The girl ran away, but Ill find her. Or someone will. I force the first words out in an unpleasant rasp, but by the time I finish, my voice has picked up strength and speed. Its the verbal equivalent of ripping off bandages when I was younger. Id pause and wince at every little bit of extra pain, then rush through it once I realized that it didnt actually hurt that much, especially compared to anything going on inside me. In this case, its unsettling just how little it hurts. It still feels like I was doing the best I could with an awful situation, and what else do I have? Its not like I can trade these powers in for a new set that would make me a shining hero. And it worked for me, doing it this way. I could fight whatever Aulunla the Harbinger became because it had already been dying of my infection for almost two weeks. And I think I might have to keep doing it. Trying to run around and win big flashy fights the way Keepers do on shows is a nightmare for me, but figuring out how Harbingers work? Breaking them from the inside? I can do that. Im good at it. I just maybe sometimes I need to do things that sound and feel really bad to make it work. I dont know, is this insane? Is there some other way Im not thinking of? It sounds like youve already spotted a path your magic is well-suited to lead you down. It sounds like youre asking for permission, not guidance, Vyuji says. Her face doesnt change at all. If that was what I was doing, what would you say? I murmur. That its not for me to grant or deny you permission for anything, she answers without the slightest delay. Ive said before that I exist for you and children like you. My role is to help you grow. Yours is to determine for yourself what it means to grow into the best Keeper the best Liadain you can be. Vyujis smile widens a little. Most of her expressions feel like little more than rehearsed responses, just enough of a barely-there signal to tell you that shes listening and understands the mood in the air. Whenever they go beyond that, outside the common range of little facial twitches and shifts in bearing Ive seen her use and reuse, theres something mysterious about them like theres a vague, broad range of feelings and ideas she might be suggesting, assuming she isnt actually organically reacting to something. Which Im still not sure if she ever does. Thats it? I ask. Just do what seems best? Thats it. If I thought you were planning something that could endanger the world or run against your best interests, Id warn you. In this case, Ill only offer you some small advice: you arent the first to seek this kind of knowledge. Your affinity for understanding Harbingers is remarkable, yes, but other children whove encountered many more of them than you may have their own insights to share. Im not asking you to find another team, just to consider that you may not need to start from scratch. If people have already studied these things, I imagine you know a lot. Is there some Scary Harbinger Secrets primer you could give me right now? That sounds easier. Vyuji blinks as if shes trying to get a bit of dust out of her eyes, then shakes her head apologetically. Not a primer, no. Youve faced enough Harbingers to understand why it can never be that simple. Besides, you children have much better opportunities to learn about them than we do. Ive explained how dangerous it is for us to get close to them. There are directions I may be able to point you in, but I cant just yet. Ill need to check on some things, for the same reasons I wouldnt direct another Keeper to you without your permission. Fair, I groan. I guess in that case, I guess Ill keep doing things maybe not exactly like this, it was awfully messy by the end. But doing things my way. So unless theres anything else I really need to know right now, just tell me when youve checked on whatever you need to check on. I will. Ah, and you asked me to mention this next time, so. Have you seen yourself yet? Oh. Of course. No, I sigh. Well, now its coming from me instead of the next random person to look at you. My work here is done. Take care, Liadain. And dont be too hard on yourself while youre alone with your thoughts. I think this is a promising path youve found. And shes gone. I slow my pace and make my way back to the hospital I keep watch with my soul for any traces of Aulunla, but find none. I hurry through the seventh floors main room as soon as the elevator door slides open. My pace draws a few concerned eyes on its own, but if some strange new thing has changed about me, I dont want people noticing and asking me stupid questions before Ive at least taken stock of myself. I pull out the do not disturb tab on my room''s patient panel, step inside, and inspect myself in my dresser mirror. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. I expected a few more strange winding veins of white in my hair, and I do see them immediately. Even my eyelashes have gone white do people dye those? Is that even possible? More important, though, is the pair of impossibly bright toxic green eyes glaring back at me. I bite my lip, drawing in a sharp breath through my teeth. The first time I transformed, I worried about whether this particular shift was permanent. So much for that. So much for anyones illusions about whats happening to me. They dont exactly glow like they do when my magic is out in full force, at least not yet, but really, whats the other explanation? I decided to lean into the hair thing and start wearing colored contacts around the hospice for fun? Well. I already knew I wouldnt be able to keep my secret from people here forever, and that itll be harder the closer I get to my actual goals. I should be celebrating, just like Vyuji said the last time this came up. I wont, but I know I should be. That entire conversation was after the last hard personal question I asked her, I guess I shouldnt be surprised that Vyuji doesnt have a word to say about betraying my Keeperly duties to humanity. Oh, that already sounds pretty hard on myself, doesnt it? Sorry, Vyuji. This was my own idea and it still feels impossible to have my Messenger essentially endorsing it. It still feels wrong. But just the same, it still feels like my only way to succeed with this horrible power. And even as I know that Ill very much have to, that its exactly what I just proposed with all of that about understanding Harbingers, its still terrifying to think about what all of this means. ~~~ A parking lot filled with wide, short buildings, each lined with blue roll-up doors. A self-storage site and nothing but, with no effort taken to include any sort of greenery on the premises; a rare sight for New Claris after Saint Kuris Emergence and the new eras coming. It was a ways away from any residential areas, which is why the journey took so long. So this is where it all went down: where a Harbinger let loose a howl that could be felt from one end of the city to the other. Harbingers didnt flare their auras for no reason, as a rule. When a Harbinger let loose like that, it meant whatever it was doing was worth signaling to every Keeper and their mom precisely where their next target was. Usually, that meant something very, very bad. It only called out with such horrible intensity for a moment, but that was more than enough to drop what he was doing and race straight to it. He was sure all the others would do the same. He didnt even have to check Lighthouse to know that. If the jolt through his nerves when the Harbingers aura spiked and the pull he felt during the journey here was any indication, they would need the numbers to have a prayer of resolving this with anything resembling safety. But that concerning sensation waned before he even arrived. The white-robed Keeper descends on radiant crimson wings. When his greaved boots touch the ground, his wings disperse in a whirl of feathers sculpted from scarlet light and wink away like sparks on the wind. He had come ready for a fight, but it seems like he was too late. The enormous mass of power that was drawing him towards this place appears to have already vanished. Or had it been consumed? All that remains are traces. Yet, as far as he can tell, hes the first to arrive in the aftermath. That, or the responsible Harbinger has a means of concealing itself. Its wholly possible that its hunting strategy is to draw Keepers in and ambush whoever comes first, then escape before it can be overwhelmed. A sophisticated strategy like that could have emerged from beyond the city limits, which might also account for how bloated its presence seemed, if that first immense pulse wasnt some sort of illusion Could that explain why it seemed so unreal? Or maybe the sheer pain behind it meant the Habringer could only do that by hurting itself in the first place Regardless, as unlikely as it is that someone beat him to the punch perhaps the Screaming Hymn or Carves the Night if theyd been closer by it is possible that someone had already sprung this hypothetical trap. If not, the role falls on him, now. Either way, the Harbinger is in for a nasty surprise, but it does mean he cant let his guard down yet. Step by step, he casually makes his way to the far end of the complex, where the lingering pressure of the Harbingers presence remains heaviest. One of the storage units is wide open, and even looking at it from the side, he can see the remnants of withered hope glimmering from within. If this is indeed a trap, this is where its set, so he places an inactive point of phantom mass across from the open garage and anchors himself to it so he has a way to escape any clutches that might reach out to drag him into a Wound. Especially if entering the Wound involves some sort of dirty trick, its better to storm in on ones own terms. His precautions made, the Keeper steps across the threshold and enters the storage unit. Inside, it looks like what happens when a Soul Sanctuary patient gets their hands on a bottle of glue and decides to start decorating their cell. There are pages on the walls and ceiling all shredded up or clumped into damp and mushy piles, and theres a big box of wet, mulchy wood pulp with a few pages and hardcovers, suggesting that it used to contain books. The air itself is burdened with a sense of mourning. This is definitely the remnants of some sort of ritual, but its a little difficult to say whether it succeeded or not. The explosive surge of power that brought him here in the first place could have been the moment when the rite succeeded, but if that were so, there was little other evidence remaining to suggest it. That uncertainty in and of itself indicates otherwise, however, especially paired with the faintness of the Harbingers lingering aura, which reminds him of the atmosphere after eating one of their hearts. With a deep breath, the Keeper centers himself, trying to notice any more obscure details through his sense for the arcane especially if something is being hidden from him, such as a presence other than a Harbinger and their lackeys. The chemical smell that saturates the room is annoying, however, disrupting his concentration. An inescapable sour tinge, and beneath that the sickly-sweet scent of rotten sunflowers, strange in its isolation from the natural odor of the room. No, not a smell. A separate aura. Huh. He doesnt usually feel essence out by scent, but this one had distinguished itself that way, perhaps by its nature. He notices it now, now that hes gotten a bead on it. An unfamiliar aura. Flecks of a pale emerald light, smothered by the glow of dreams unfulfilled. Its sentiment is bitter, and theres no weight to it at all, but it does have a sort of clinging, prickly, ever so slightly chilly pressure. Theres nothing welcoming about it, but the delicate sorrow it very faintly radiates is beautiful, in a way. Someone or something else had been here. Before the Harbinger ever showed up? No, its no coincidence that these impressions were left in the same place. Did two Harbingers come out of the forest and pick a fight with each other on human territory? Or was it a Keeper he didnt know after all? Because whatever the case, they interrupted this ritual. Was that when the Harbinger let out its roar which resounded across the whole of New Claris? Well well. Now hes curious. The Keeper steps out of the storage unit and drinks in his surroundings. As he thought might be the case, the trail of this second aura hes discovered flows out of this storage facility and towards the city proper. What remains of the Harbingers presence never got that chance. If nothing else, it seems clear who came out on top. Not the result one would usually be given to expect, considering the circumstances. How very interesting. He begins to trace a spiral through the air with his finger, beginning a small ritual of his own, but hes interrupted. He senses another Keeper approaching like a speeding motorbike two, technically a presence he recognizes immediately. Second place has finally arrived. Not that hes complaining about the delay. At times like this, where theres nothing much at stake, its a blessing that Irida takes forever to show up, by comparison. These two are more fun. ROLAND! HEYYYYY! Shonas voice blasts out as if through a megaphone as she careens into the parking lot. Then comes the grinding of her violins bow against the hard ground as she skids to a halt, leaving a thin gash trail in the concrete. Mide, close behind as always, simply slows to a clean stop. Whats the situation here? Shona asks at her normal volume, then waves and rushes to join him. Wait, you, uh She squints, frowns, cups a hand behind her ear, and swivels in a wide circle. Did you just fly in and solo-dolo handle whatever made all that noise? About that, he places his knuckles to his hips, puffs out his chest, and gives a cocky chuckle, drinking in Shonas and Mides looks of amazement as they hang off his words with bated breath. Nope! Cant say I did! Im just passing through! he admits outright. The two girls blink twice. Whatever happened already happened, Roland explains. The situation itself, though, has a few loose ends that need tying up. No need to worry, though, he says, raising his right arm and sweeping his finger through the air in emphasis, when a cry for justice rings through the heavens, the Stardust Seraph answers! Shona grins from cheek to cheek, her eyes twinkling in excitement. Ah, thats so cool! Mide, look, look! Thats how you do it! Mide releases her held breath through her nose and looks off to the side. Yeah, yeah Crossing her arms as her gaze passes over the storage units, she seems intent to leave everything to Shona, as usual. For her part, Shona is swept along with the moment, thrusting her bow to the sky dramatically. Okay! Whatever these loose ends are, the Screaming Hymn is here to lend her strings to the ensemble! And I couldnt ask for a better ally, the Stardust Seraph replies through the v-shaped visor of his mask. As a matter of fact, I do have something I could use your help with. See, theres traces of another aura here besides the Harbingers. One I dont recognize. I doubt youll recognize it either, but just in case ~~~ Somewhere between one corner and the next of Isobels aimless flight through the streets, the city changes. Its bright afternoon sky is replaced by a vast, impossibly starless night. Wait. Thats not right. This isnt the city at all. New Claris isnt filled with white towers of eerie luminous stone, and now massive glowing spires are all she can see. Every last one is broken, some bent over and twisted into structurally impossible shapes like they were made of wet clay and some simply crumbled into ruins. The material looks at first like stone covered in strange ridges, but thats not it. Her unblinking eyes scan the closest structure and find Faces? Faces. Identical marble-white masks, each decorated with two too-large black holes for eyes and a crescent-moon smile. The bodies theyre attached to wind out all around them, and while they may once have been human in shape, theyre now stretched and twisted and tangled together into the foundations of these shattered towers. It should be a mercy that she cant see their faces if they were ever really human, if they ever really had faces but something in those serene not-expressions makes Isobels breath catch in her lungs. She slowly backs away from the nearest looming tower, frantically looking over her shoulders for any signs of life. She finds none, but the ground shes standing on. Its made of the same material, covered in the same death masks. Oh, you were close, werent you? someone says. A boys voice, uncannily bright and cheerful. No, thats putting it too lightly. Your patron flew without wings. Even if it only managed for a few seconds before it came crashing back to earth, thats still higher than most ever make it! Im sorry it worked out the way it did for you two. I really am. There he is. On a chunk of rubble from the nearest shattered tower, seated in a ball with his thin arms wrapped around his legs. His white hooded sweater is spotted with dirt and dust, and his face is its not that hes wearing a mask, though it takes Isobel a moment to realize that. Rather, an image just like the faces covering the ground is overlaid with his head, occupying the same space at the same time. He simultaneously has a blank stone smile and an ordinary human face with wide, sunken eyes a shade of ice-blue so bright they look almost white, underneath an uncombed mop of ashy brown hair. Who are you? Where are we, why am I here, what IS any of this? The boy chuckles to himself. Weeell. Who I am is kind of a thorny question these days. My names Ciaran, but, hm. Im not the only me anymore, if you follow? Finding the right words for all this is still pretty tough! Theres only one thing he could mean. The worst-case scenario. What shes been terrified of since all this started. Its one thing to be a witch, to willingly pact with Harbingers for power, and another entirely to Youre a vessel, Isobel whispers. Ugh, pleeease, no! Thats such a messy term! You hear it and you think right away that something scooped me out of myself and started wearing me as a suit, yknow? Fine, yeah, some Harbingers definitely do scoop people, but thats not how it is with me and my buddy! Really! Am I talking like a flesh-puppet? Isobel shakes her head slowly. Not that she really knows. Sure, he doesnt match the usual idea of what vessels are supposed to be like, but that doesnt mean much. Harbingers arent supposed to be like Aulunla, either. She cant let herself forget how to think, even when even now Then there you go! You were working with a Harbinger yourself, right? You already know theres so much more to this than what they teach in those ridiculous safety videos, Ciaran says. Okay. I dont know why wed be having this conversation if you or your monster were going to eat me, so Ill take you at your word there. Maybe theres some reason she just cant think of, but what else is she going to say? Monster? Wow, rude. But yeah, this would have to go real bad for us to think about eating you, Ciaran agrees. He scowls a second later, and his stone mask duplicates the expression, flipping its crescent grin upside down. If you really wanna put it so messily. Eating is another word that misses a lot of nuance here. Seriously, you of all people should know that by now! You and your Harbinger werent out there gobbling people up, were you? Then what DO you want with me? Isobel asks. If Ciaran minds that she ignored his question, he doesnt show it. His mood lifts in an instant, and his masks placid smile returns. Oh, thats easy! Do you want to end up strapped to a cot in the Sanctuary while they peel your soul open and pick out everything that makes you special? Isobel gnaws on her lip, literally biting back the urge to follow her Research Club instincts and argue about his ridiculously loaded language. With a vessel who could kill her and eat her at any second, or probably worse. Whatever he wants to call it. Ciaran leans hard to one side, tilting his head until its almost horizontal. Hmmmm? Honestly, is he even wrong? She has no idea how theyd treat a witch at Bright Horizon. Would she be a patient or a specimen? Does it matter? Even in the best case, she doesnt need to be fixed. Its the world thats broken, wrong in so many ways shes only just begun to spot. Uh. Not really, no, she mutters. Her clenched fists tremble at her side. Didnt think so! Thats why we brought you here to help you escape that fate! Youre a fellow traveler, Isobel, and we want you to join us. To make it as far as you did with a patron who was barely even real until the end, youve clearly got potential. The kind of potential that so often ends up wasted sitting and waiting for whoever or whatever chooses Keepers to give you the time of day. The kind people like us can only achieve by taking the Undreamings hand when she reaches out to us, sprouting beautiful black wings of night, and flying free from this cage of a world! The vessel rocks back and throws himself forward, rolling off his rocky perch and landing uncomfortably close to her. Tears fill his eyes as he grins with some unnameable emotion, something deep and desperate and more intense than shes ever felt about anything. Wait. She never told him her name, did she? No, theres theres more important things to think about here. Now, we arent going to lie to you. It wont look the same way your ascension wouldve. Youll have to accept a new god. But if you still want to see this through, our path is open to you, Ciaran says softly. And if I dont want to? If I did what I did because it was really different with my Harbinger? Maybe Isobel was deceiving herself while she partnered with Aulunla, but accepting a god doesnt sound like what she was doing with it at all. Shed been exploring unknown ground, forming a bond with a creature that really might not be the kind of monster Harbingers were universally painted as. Ciaran shrugs. Then we wish you luck and put you back where we found you. But you should think about just what you know and just how different you were from us, first. Now, though, theres no way to dress up whats happening. This boy is asking her to reject life as she knows it entirely. To leave humanity behind and rebuild herself as something else, something that isnt even her design this time. All for the vague hope that at the end of a new road paved with pain and sacrifice, whatever she becomes will matter more than her grey, boring little life ever did. But the box is already open, isnt it? What do we need to do? she asks. Ciarans mask-smile widens. He claps once, leaving his palms pressed together as if in prayer. Just let us in. Itll only hurt a little. Something lands on her head with the barely-there touch of a bug in her hair. And then, all in the same instant, keeps falling keeps digging wire-thin fingers sink into her skull, worm through the folds of her brain, bore into her soul like a horrible thought that only grows louder the harder you try to push it away end phase 1: what grows in the seedbed of sorrow The Hanged Man 5-1 how can anything live like this? Her many eyes stare out at the world. Some watch through the lenses of her observatory, some borrow the gazes of her tendril-servitors, and others still immerse themselves in the first crop of memories harvested by her Court. why would she do this to them? why would she do this to herself? what delusions has she drowned herself in? And with every bizarre new sight she sees, every inexplicable change for the worse, a fresh wave of bottomless horror screams silently through her being. this place is a stage for stilted shadows. they cannot see, they cannot love, they barely live. they are pale, pathetic echoes. mockeries. but it is not their fault, what they are. what they were made. what was inflicted upon them. and if we do not love them, who will? she cannot love them, nothing that would make them this way could love them, and who else remains who ever so much as knew what love is? They are kin, however damaged and debased, and they deserve a kinder fate than they were born to. They deserve better than she can offer everything does but only she is there for them. In the depths of her sanctuary, of herself, she takes a sort of form, weaving a strand of her essence into the shape she wore before before. If, that is, that form had never been a body, but a solid shadow, limned in amethyst starlight and hewn from darkness so deep it twists the eye around it, dragging the sparse color and light that exists here into its depths. A her-shaped absence in the cosmos, yawning and hungry hungry not to subsume and grow, but to embrace all who suffer under the same curse as she. Her body is a purely symbolic affectation, of course, but one she cannot help but cling to, if only in remembrance. So as her part in the work to come begins, she resolves to love them all, as best she can. And if she too has forgotten how to love, if her feelings for these creatures only ever grow into an ugly, pitiful thing, the love of an orphaned child for a broken-winged baby bird fallen from its nest, then so it goes. It would hardly be the greatest of her failures, and yet her every fault arranged in a row from first to last would still be as motes of dust before the incalculable weight of sins borne by the architect of this world. phase 2: the destination of all prayers ~~~ For most of my time living on the seventh floor, the looks I get from patients I dont know have been familiar ones. When their gazes arent vaguely pitying, they sort of pass over me, like even the people here dont want to think about something like this happening to a girl my age. Since my latest Emergence, those looks have changed people seem to make a point of not looking at me for too long at all. I cant tell how much of it is staring at someone who looks weird, hastily averting your eyes when they notice you doing something rude, and how much is trying not to draw attention from someone youre afraid of. Are they really afraid? Maybe thats still being too hard on myself. I did search the Sea for any reports about mysterious bursts of sickness or the weird new Keeper who beat up a Fianata, but if they exist I cant find them, so thats not it. Noirin still treats me like a person, and so do the nurses who see me often. Im sure they already know and theyre waiting for me to say something. At this point, am I fooling anyone or only making things harder by staying quiet? The smart thing would be to get ahead of it, explain myself to people here and ask them to respect my privacy, but I dont know. I dont want to. I dont want to be the hospices mascot Keeper and I especially dont want the news to reach Dad. Thats most of the reason I gave Shona and Mide a fake name to most of the world, it doesnt matter whether the new mystery Keeper is Liadain or Eyna, but him hearing of one with my name would raise questions I dont want to answer. Assuming hed even bother to ask them. My tarot corner has mostly just become my corner. Even when Im only passing through, I never see other patients sitting there. Thats fine too. Im spending most of my time in my room, anyway. Partially to stay out of sight until Ive decided what to tell people, yes, but I also dont want to show anyone what Ive been doing. Maybe someday Ill share it with the world, but at least for now, my Harbinger journal is only for me. ~~~ My book collection includes a few tarot journals and notebooks. Ive never used them for much my handwriting used to be quite good, but it fell off when I started having days where my limbs were too weak to do much or my hands were too numb to hold anything steady. By the time I left school entirely, it had atrophied to barely-legible scrawling. Typing is just easier now. But the night after I killed Aulunla, once I called the Sanctuary to report its human partner missing, I picked out an unmarked green book I hadnt used for anything else and started making a record of all my Harbinger experiences so far. I began by going through all the monsters Ive encountered, writing out what they looked like, what they did to the world around them and the people they touched, what they wanted, everything I knew or thought I could safely intuit about them. Some of their sections are much easier to fill out than others. My notes on the fourth forest Harbinger, the one whose name I never learned, read simply Swarm. Worms, mold, impossible colors, eggs. Spreading itself? Reproducing? Is that a thing? Not enough to put any clear picture of it together, and Im not going back there anytime soon. I only included it for completions sake. On the other end, I know as much as anyone ever will about the two Ive absorbed Yurfaln, who wanted to bless humankind with the moral benefits of slow, miserable death, and Aulunla, who looked out at reality and decided it was too boring and colorless and meaningless to be allowed to stand. I have at least some good guesses as to where they got their ideas, especially Yurfaln, but still dont know exactly why those things were so important to them. Do Harbingers pop into being needing to ruin people in a certain extremely specific way like humans need to breathe, or is it some more abstract need they choose how to fulfill, more like people looking for ways to keep from dying of boredom or despair? Do they ever change their minds? Those questions and many more like them go into the back half of the journal, where I list things I know about Harbingers in general and things I want to somehow find out. Especially if they might help make my hunting strategies safer. Hence all the questions about exactly what Harbingers take from people and how that relates to what I get out of killing them. As for what I know, the things Im not quite certain of but confident enough in to treat as information? That section is short, but not quite empty. Harbingers can definitely take their shapes from human thoughts and feelings. The old idea that theyre born from our pain is true in at least some sense, for at least some of them. There are probably other kinds I dont understand yet too, though. Irakkia could have come from a person I didnt manage to trace it to, but nothing felt human about Ourien or certainly that worm-mold thing. Plus it wouldnt make sense for the wilderness to be teeming with Harbingers if they all spawned from people unless they flee the cities and change themselves to better suit life somewhere else? No, that feels like a stretch. To grow from whatever they begin as, to take their true shapes, they need to feed on people. Or other Harbingers, if I take the forest as an example, but as far as I can tell the ones here all grow up by hurting humans. Even Aulunla it liked one girl more as a witch than a victim, and whatever they were doing together was more important than anything else to it, but judging by the fifth step in its copied books it still needed to break somebody. Since I started this journal to figure out strategies thatll work for me and minimize danger to everyone else, thats a big unsolved problem, and all the ways I can think of to investigate what exactly they take from people and how much of it they need are horrible. Besides, even if things just barely worked out with Aulunla, it wasnt exactly less dangerous than the already-grown Harbingers Ive faced. There have to be ways to make my magic work on them that dont involve weeks of letting them run loose no, there are ways. Ive done it before. I just need to find the ones that dont require me to nearly kill myself. Really, when it comes to figuring out a good longer-term hunting plan, I dont have much to work with at all. Ive encountered seven real Harbingers and Im fairly sure I understand two of them. Still, this has to be better in the long term than answering every question with Theyre scary mystery monsters we cant understand. Believe in yourself and do your best and itll all work out okay! Maybe that approach is fine for the Silver King and the Stardust Seraph, but me well, my best is awful for everyone around me. The sooner I get to a point where I dont need to act like this to stay alive, the better. For everyone. As for what I need to keep living, the power I take from Harbingers Vyuji said that Emergence took its form from what a Keeper felt and wanted. She said we could direct our own evolution. Clearly, the details of how that works are a little messy, which by now I should expect of anything to do with magic. All the things Ive taken from them so far are useful, yes, but of them, I can only count Yurfalns power-from-pain as progress toward my goal. Even then, its certainly not the kind of progress Id have chosen. It feels like what comes of Emergence has almost as much to do with the Harbingers as me. Maybe even like they get a say in it, judging by the two Ive fully absorbed. Yurfaln ripped its own heart out and offered it to me with the last of its strength, begging me to carry on its awful legacy which I suppose Im doing, in a way, by drawing magic from my own suffering. I can even sort of understand where it came from how someone in pain they cant do anything to escape might cope by imagining their situation as something Important in some grand romantic way. That just doesnt mean there really is any true beauty or insight in dying of an illness right? I wonder how Yurfaln would feel about what Ive made of it. Not that it matters. Its gone, and whatever part of it lives on through me has no voice. Theres just my voice judging the scars it left behind. Then theres Aulunlas inheritance. Its strange at first to even think of as a power. Do I have the power to speak Clarish? Ive already had enough exposure to this magic language to know its a lot more complicated than that, though. Aulunla wanted to make itself a world where there was no line between reality and imagination, where everyones lives were as full of wild, beautiful, terrifying magic as mine is quickly becoming. It thought I never couldve killed it if I truly understood it, so in its own words, it cursed me with more understanding than I ever couldve found before. Thinking of it from a distance, if I didnt need to eat Harbingers to live, would I have killed it? Probably. What Aulunla and its witch wanted for themselves didnt seem so bad. They were still going to destroy who knows how many people to get it, though. It mightve been worth it to them, but not to me. Or those people. Anyway. In both cases, the Harbingers influence is impossible to miss, but they do expand on concepts that were already part of my magic rather than staple on something completely new. Aulunlas curse does nothing at all to bring me closer to fixing myself, but it is a natural progression from my keen Harbinger-senses. Im not sure what that means for the whole process. Taking what Vyujis told me with my experiences so far, my current best guess is that what I want sets a path for the way my magic will eventually grow, but the individual steps to get there and some of the details about the final destination may vary with the specific Harbingers I absorb. Either way, I dont know how much that information does for me. Im not going to turn up my nose at any Harbinger I can find and kill, and its not like I can make friends with a Harbinger, blight it, and ask it very nicely to please make me immortal when I eat its soul. Thats ridiculous. Oh well. All of this is important stuff to know, even if I dont know how to take advantage of it a month into my new life. Wait a second. Back to the forest. If Harbingers are born the same way there, how do any of them survive long enough to grow up? A normal human cant do anything to a Harbinger, no matter how small, but if theyre born with only older, scarier monsters to prey on then what, are they born in groups like those spiders that have hundreds of children and most of them eat each other? No, thats a stupid guess, and I dont even know if its right to think of them as sharing a life cycle or being born at all. Aulunla lived a lot longer than Yurfaln, but Yurfaln had still been bigger and scarier by default. Ugh, the forest brings up a lot of messy questions I have no way to answer. Im not going back there anytime soon, so lets just focus on regular Harbingers for now. ~~~ I spend that night and most of the next day filling in my journal, making sure that everything Ive put down as knowledge feels right. And maybe more importantly that my long list of questions, things I dont understand and really need to, is complete as it can be before I find another Harbinger. I cant predict what Ill be able to learn from any given monster, and work smarter, not harder is extra good advice when the price of messing up your work is death or worse. I can take a little time to make sure Im doing things right. But not too much time. My health does feel fairly stable for the moment, and I can push through its typical lows with stolen strength once I have a chance to refill. But my next severe turn for the worse could still come any day, and figuring out how Harbingers work, to say nothing of what they are, feels like it could easily be the project of even an immortal lifetime. No, Im sure it has been the ongoing project of several Keepers lives. If I sit and work on my journal for whatever time I have left, only leaving to hunt when Im sure all my existing information is perfect, Ill die sooner or later probably sooner and leave behind a book filled with incomplete scraps of what the people with real experience already know. Im not stupid enough to think that a special talent for this facet of magic automatically makes me better than Keepers whove been hunting Harbingers for years or decades. Or centuries, in one case, but theres no world where I go ask Sofia the Deathless for help. I dont want my soul dissected. When I put it like that, though, it sounds like a good argument for getting help from those experts. If only they wouldnt ask me questions back ugh. Well, Ill see how things go with whatever directions Vyuji offered to point me in when she turns back up. Until then, the only way I know how to do things hasnt exactly worked well, but its brought me closer to my goal than doing nothing. So after one days mostly-rest, I continue my nightly outings, searching for whichever monster will become my next step toward immortality. And for some life to hold me up in the meantime. I burned nearly all of my supply in Aulunlas Wound, keeping myself alive and standing while I simultaneously pushed myself to the brink of death. Ive changed my approach a little since the last time I stocked up I dont want there to be a pattern of mysterious outbreaks of illness for someone to trace back to me, after all. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. People are much harder than Harbingers to detect at a distance, but while Im wandering the streets at night, focused almost entirely on what my magical senses have to say, its only a little more effort to search through the wisps of human life surrounding me. When I sense a lone person who feels particularly healthy, and I can transform without drawing too much attention, I just take a sip of their strength as quickly as I can, then go on my way. So even though I dont find a Harbinger over the next few days, those nights are still productive. Not in the way I want them to be, not with work I want to be doing, but I need to prepare for the next insane, impossible thing a Harbinger does. To everyone whos unknowingly helping keep me alive, sorry. And thank you, I guess, for all the good that does you. ~~~ On my patrol one night, maybe fifteen minutes walk from the hospital, my phone chimes in my pocket. Thats strange, since I have no friends except Pearl and maybe Vyuji and dont give anyone my contact info. I step off the sidewalk and onto someones lawn, look around to make sure no ones close enough to listen or peeking from inside the house, then finally pull it out and Dad is calling? Really? Its been around two months since he left me on the seventh floor. I was starting to think he might just wait for me to die. I squeeze my phone in one shivering hand while I decide whether to answer it. After the last days Ive had, I dont much feel like talking to anyone, least of all him. But if I ignore him, he might call the hospital to check on me and make it a whole thing, so best to get it over with. Dad? Hi. Hey, Lia! Howre things going over there? Settling in okay? Dad greets. His voice is full of a kind of fake cheer thats become very, very familiar. I mean, about as well as I could expect. That covers it, right? Its just that my range of expectations has changed a lot since we last talked. Im not sure how to read the long pause before he next speaks. Was he expecting something else? Its not like Id have said much different if I hadnt made the Promise. Not to him. Great! Thats yeah, thats good to hear. Another pause. Listen, Im sorry I havent been able to make it over there for a while. Things just keep coming up at work, time gets away from me, you know how it goes Theres another long pause. I open my mouth to trade him my own stale, gutless reply, but the words dont come out. Something else bitter and aching rises up from my chest and catches in my throat instead. My jaw clenches as the weight of everything I really want to say to my dad crashes down on me, made even heavier by the thought that there wouldnt be any point if I did. There were times when my dad was there for me, in the past. There were times when he should have been there for me and wasnt, and those times became more and more frequent until that was just how things were. Here and now, knowing that whatever I say, everything Ive experienced the last two months could be met with the chasm of strained words between us getting wider than ever rather than anything I actually wanted to hear him say thats what would hurt more than anything, if I didnt already feel numb to it. I guess it doesnt matter in the end, after all. No. I dont, I say flatly. Its not everything I want to say to him, but its honest, and thats something. I never wouldve said that a month ago. All the years of going into surgeries with uncertain outcomes and seeing him the next day or next week, being left completely alone in recovery, that one time I was scheduled to go home and he showed up hours late with no notice they taught me that theres no point in opening up about my problems to him. No point in asking him to take my life more seriously, or doing anything but playing along and hoping our conversations end soon. Why did I even say it now? Stupid. As far as hes concerned, nothings different, and I have no plans to loop him in. But its okay. Ive had a lot going on too. Big life adjustments, I add. Im sure. But hey, it really is a nice place theyve got you set up in, isnt it? Seems like a dream for a kid your age! No schedule, no one telling you what to do, no Seriously? But before I can decide what to say to this, or if I should just end the call, Dad trails off. Eventually, he breaks the silence with a dry, uneasy chuckle. Uh. Sorry. I just realized youre probably yeah. Could you forget I said any of that? he asks. Okay. I dont think I can. But at least he caught it this time? Thanks. Appreciate it. And during the tense silence that follows, I smell something? No, its not an actual scent thats just the way it feels to my soul-sense, the part of me thats been reaching out in search of nightmares to hunt and life to steal even as I struggle through this conversation. Anyway, listen, Im pretty occupied right now. I should probably go, I say. Sure, sure, of course! Whatre you up to? he asks. Ill tell you later, I lie. Oh. Okay. Well, good to hear youre finding ways to keep busy! Ill really do my best to clear some time soon and come see how youre doing, okay? Mhmm. Just let me know ahead of time if you do. I have things to do too. Will do. Until then really glad to hear youre doing okay, Lia. Take care. My phone chirps as he ends the call. Hell do no such thing. Ill probably never see him again. But thats fine. If Dad wanted to be in my life, he shouldve decided I mattered to him before I became someone who mattered. I sigh, put my phone away, and turn my full focus back to the distant but horribly distinct stench trail I can already tell belongs to a full-grown Harbinger. ~~~ Every Harbinger feels awful in its own unique way, but stench is exactly the right word for this things presence. My first impression of it was like a waft of stale air I smelled with my soul. Not stale in a dry, dusty abandoned attic way, though. Its closest to the sour, faintly rotten odor of a lived-in house that isnt cleaned nearly enough. Grainne my closest friend in primary school, before my sickness scared everyone away from me had a mom with a hoarding problem. When I first sensed this Harbinger, felt a new source of corruption lurking in the distance, it reminded me of the way certain parts of her house smelled on my rare visits. That was ten minutes ago. Now that Im standing outside the small house its emanating from, it smells like all those scents are trapped in a place completely closed off from the rest of the world, with no possible way to air them out, All the human odors and all the piled-up trash blend together, surrounding the place in a thick, swampy haze of stink. Not for the first time, I kind of wish my souls senses werent quite so painfully keen. Keen enough to feel the single person inside, too. That talk with my dad already pushed me to the limit of human interaction I can handle in one day, and this is likely to be a lot worse. Of course, with my luck theres no way the Harbinger would just be nesting in an empty house. The person inside could make this complicated and I am sick of complicated. I cant tell exactly what state theyre in through the stinking aura, but its a bad sign that theyre still here at all. It means they either cant run away or, like Yurfalns victims, the thing eating them alive has made them happy about it. The house itself looks fairly normal, save that the lawn plants around the front walkway are a little overgrown. The lights inside seem to be off, so I cant spy through the windows at a distance. I call for my magic, past the point of caring if any other night walkers are watching me too closely. Emerald shadows slither out along the twilit street, then rise as strands of solid darkness, weaving themselves into the ornate black dress and heavy hooded capelet of my Keeper regalia. Once my transformations play of dark light and solid shadow fades, I summon a single card. The whole world twists and lurches and whirls as I call on Irakkias power and transfer my vision into the card, then float it forward to peek through the front windows. I want to find out where the victim is and just how bad a state theyre in before I plan my next step. But theres nothing inside. No, that isnt quite right. Its not dark like looking into an unlit window at night, its blocked by something. A black curtain, swaying as if in a breeze. As it shifts and folds, its movements expose dozens of tiny tears in the fabric. None are big enough to see anything through, but faint light does leak through the shreds. Which actually further obscures whatevers inside whenever a hole appears that might be just big enough to peek through, my card only catches a brief flash of light thats quickly sucked back into the folds of the fabric. I circle the house, checking every window. They all look the same. A house isnt an airtight fortress, though. Theres got to be some little crack wide enough to sneak through for roaches and spiders and all the other pests that liked to make an ecosystem out of where I used to live. That should work. Unless those weird curtains are some kind of barrier the Harbinger is using to wall its nest off from reality. In that case, I may just have to rot the front door down and charge in. If Im locked out I might have to do it anyway, but, um, one step at a time. My card cant quite wriggle through the place where the lower sliding window meets the upper half. I try the front door, but theres no mail slot, and the frame it fits into doesnt leave enough space to fit into either. What about the air vents? No, I dont really know how those are set up, but they must be blocked or filtered somehow. Its not like the air conditioning drags bugs in all the time, and those are smaller and more flexible than a tarot card-sized intruder. The chimney? That might work. I float up to the roof, slip through a grate in the square vent atop the little brick tower, and steer my card down the dark, narrow tunnel, around a flap that opens into an ashy fireplace, and out into the house. No magic pushes my card out or drags it into a horror-realm, as far as I can tell. Its just as dark in here as it was in the chimney, with no lights on and no starlight streaming through the covered windows, but my card does have a kind of night vision its vision seems to function exactly like a single human eyes. Im not sure what I was expecting to find inside, but at a quick glance, the house doesnt look like a hoarding horror story? Its messy, yes, but not in a way that matches the unnatural stench. There are old dishes piled up on the table in the kitchen just ahead, some balls of dust, and Wait, what even are those damp clumps scattered all around the tile floor? I float my card down to inspect them. They look like hair? Hair, though I can only tell because they remind me of those shed strands that get stuck in my drain sometimes, especially when my hair used to be longer. Theyre like someone pulled a great wet heap of blonde hair out from the drain, did their best to untangle the mass, then tangled smaller clusters of it back into new long, thin shapes. Like knotty, dirty little severed braids, or narrow lengths of human-hair rope. A few are tied into ornate shapes, like those ceremonial ribbon-knots they use in weddings to symbolize tying your lives together. Theyre all still wet enough to be dripping onto the floor, and flecked with chunks of dross and rubbish. Outside, my body shudders at the thought of whatever those organic-looking bits of grime are. Theres more of them the farther into the house I go. Other than those threads of hair and the swaying curtains covering the windows which, viewed from in here, look like theyre on the outside there are no clear signs of a Wound opening or the Harbingers physical presence. I find the victim first. A thin, pale man sits curled up alone on a couch, breathing sharply. The bangs of his matted dark hair have just started to grow over his eyes, and theres a hungry sunkenness to his cheeks under his short, unkempt beard. The floor around the couch is practically covered in wet, stringy hair-knots, simultaneously filthier and more elaborate in their designs than the rest. He glances up, startled by the sudden motion of my card floating by, and his hollow eyes widen at the sight of it. Almost immediately, a shrill shriek rings through the house. A humanlike figure drops through the ceiling, jerks to a stop in midair a few inches from the ground, then snatches my card up and tears it to pieces. ~~~ Snapping back in my body, I stumble and scream as dull, hot pain lashes through my head, like a friction burn on my left eye. Leaning into my cane doesnt quite save me from crashing to the sidewalk, and it crashes to the ground as I break my fall with one hand. Hot blood trickles down my face. What was that? A problem with Irakkias power or just something this Harbinger can do? Doesnt matter. I still have my eye, its just not working so well right now. My vision blurs more even as I wipe the blood onto my sleeve. I absorb a tiny wisp of life, rub the last bit of blood away, and start toward the house. I dont understand whats happening here yet, but I dont think the victim will get between me and the Harbinger, and thatll have to be enough. The stink of corruption grows stronger with every step up the front walkway. I cover my face with one arm, which doesnt help at all, and try the front entrance. Its locked and the doorbell makes no sound, so I start banging my cane on the door. Thankfully, this new one feels a good bit sturdier than the one I lost in Aulunlas Wound. I told you, Im not going anywhere! Im right here, just like you wanted! So please, PLEASE stop pushing or testing or whatever youre doing and just SHUT UP ALREADY! the mans hoarse voice roars. Im a Keeper! A Harbingers eating you and Im here to help! If you can open the door, let me in! Otherwise, say so and Ill get in myself! I call back. I but I how do I know this isnt another trick? the man asks after a long silence. The stench in the air becomes a clinging, invisible smog, thickening and swirling around me until I feel like I could choke on it. A screeching torrent of Harbinger-speech blasts through my mind. Theres no sense or structure to its words its voice feels less like Aulunlas strange poetry and more like the wave of nonsense thoughts Irakkia dumped into my head. Even so, I understand it much more clearly this time, aside from one confusing phrase where two words or ideas that dont fit together are overlaid, mashed together in a way I cant make sense of. I ignore it for now, calling to the victim again. Did you hear that? Is it doing anything to you? Its mad, right? Because it doesnt want me here. If its not in your head, if you CAN open the door, let me in and Ill get rid of it. If its not open in a minute, Ill break it down. I summon my cards into being and pluck one charged with my sickness from my orbit, preparing to reduce the front door to decaying splinters. Its strange to think of infecting a door, but after the forest and Aulunlas world, Im fairly sure I can do that if I have to. I dont. Not yet, at least. Just before my deadline, faint footsteps come into earshot behind the door. the Harbinger whimpers. The knob rattles. I ready my cards for whatever comes next and train my senses on the mans soul. Hes wreathed in the Harbingers smell, but not corrupted in the twisting, complex way Ive seen before it feels like this Harbinger is simply draining something from him, taking and taking and putting none of itself back to fill the empty space. The door slowly creaks open. The man peers out, eyes narrowed in suspicion, until his gaze settles on me. You, youre really he whispers, then chokes on his words, starting to silently cry. Help. Please help. Painfully slowly, like hes afraid he might be stepping into a vat of acid, the man takes a single step out onto the porch. And a thin limb shoots out from behind him, latching onto his wrist. He freezes and croaks in horror, not so much as looking over his shoulder as a filthy, fetid creature of nightmare emerges from the darkness. Its small, with its arms and twiggy legs suggesting the rough shape of a skeletally thin woman, but shrouded in a cloak of grimy blonde hair that falls over most of its body, and the arm latching onto its victim is braided with itself, as if it was split into coils of soft clay and wound tightly back together, leaving a twisted mess of shapeless, ropey tendrils for a hand. Its head is obscured by a shifting circle of angry black scribbles, like the living, moving equivalent of a face scratched out of a photo, and as far as I can see in the slivers that arent quite blacked out, the only thing behind that circle is a gaping white hole in reality. I tap just enough life to give myself a normal persons strength. In a panicked flurry of action, I force my weight into shoving the man to the side, knocking him to the ground. Then I launch three cards charged with my sickness into the house, slam the door shut on the Harbingers squirming arm, and detonate all my cards at once. Curls of frozen emerald fog spill through the crack in the door, and I push them back inside with my will, urging them to spread through the house. To fumigate it. I press my back into the door as the creature yawps in protest. It bashes against the door, first pounding fists and then crashing into it with its whole body. It babbles and wails all the while, and while the strength of its impacts wane, its voice rises, distorting and mixing with itself until I cant tell if the unearthly sound coming from inside is supposed to be screaming or sobbing or laughing. But finally, it fades. Im certain I didnt kill the Harbinger just like that, but it has withdrawn. Pulled away from me. Ill have to keep up the chase, but I can spare a moment to get its victim away from it. Hey. Its gone for now. Are you No, hes obviously not okay. What a stupid question. Am I my dad now? What do you even say to someone in this situation? No words have ever made my pain better, and lots of well-meaning people have tried. What happened? I ask instead. You dont have to talk if it hurts, but anything you can tell me about it might help. And we should really get you out of here either way. Hes still in shock, from the looks of it. But when I offer him my hand, he does take it, drag himself to his feet, and stagger away from the house with my help. Its a bizarre feeling, but not a bad one. Its not like I dont want to protect people if I can. Ive just always had to worry about saving myself first. As for the Harbinger, nothing comes tearing out of the house to chase us. For a moment it feels like its retreated entirely, leaving only its lingering stench in the air. Until its presence brushes past me, and it whispers into my ear with a waft of hot, putrid breath. it croons. No, something in its voice makes me think of it as a her. <If You Cannot Be Happy, I Cannot Be Happy> And with those words, she vanishes from my senses. The Hanged Man 5-2 Seryana blinks out of being without a trace or a trail. The stink of her presence lingers, and a stale, sour echo of her odor clings to me even as I step back from the house, but theres no heart of the corruption. No hole in the world she couldve burrowed into. As far as I can tell, shes just gone. I scan the area with my soul, searching as thoroughly as I can without going back inside. This might be some ploy to take her victim back the moment I leave him alone. Which maybe thats a way to catch her again, but no. He already feels like hell die without urgent help. Letting the Harbinger anywhere near him would be murder. And its not even a good plan. I need to figure out how she works, not just hope she cant do the same disappearing trick again, and right now my best chance at that is to ask him. Help first, though. I really dont want him to die. I weigh the risk of using my phone to call for the Sanctuary against the danger of leaving the man alone, plus the idea of searching for a phone in that dank, disgusting house. Honestly, though, if people are going to find out who I am, theres plenty of easier clues for them to follow than a still-probably-confidential emergency message. I fish out my phone, still searching with my soul for any sign of Seryana coming back for us, and call 112. Hello? Im a Keeper with a Harbinger victim who needs to go to the Sanctuary as fast as possible. Were in, um, the south end of the Boundary. 71 Birch Row, I say, going off the houses mailbox. Its a single victim? Are you or anyone else injured, and whats the status of the Harbinger? a womans calm voice asks after only a slight delay. Alive, but running away. I think. Um, how long will it take them to get here? I wont leave him alone, but I do want to catch her. Whats your Lighthouse ID? The responders can update you there once theyre en route. My what? The Keeper network? Oh. Right. One of those reasons I want to avoid that whole Church registration thing. I dont have one. Im new. I see. Well in that location, it shouldnt be much more than ten minutes. Thats okay. Ill wait. Its not like Im giving up the chase Seryanas already escaped. And from the way she was talking before she left, shes taken some interest in me. She wants something from me. Whatever that means will be very bad for me if it goes her way, yes, but I havent lost her. If I dont find her, shell find me. Somehow, Im certain of that. Alright. Please stay on the line until the ambulance arrives, and keep me informed if anything changes. Sure. I put my phone back in my pocket and go to check on the victim. He sits on the sidewalk, staring back at the house. The Harbingers gone. People are on the way to help you. Youre going to be okay, I say. For all the time Ive lived through one, I dont know any ways to comfort people in situations this horrible except make sure they dont die. Ive done all I can on that front. Now I can only hope Im not lying. Silence. The man glances up at me, says nothing, then shifts to stare wide-eyed over one shoulder. You dont need to push yourself, but if youve got the strength to talk, can you tell me what happened? Once youre safe, Im going after that thing, and anything you know might help, I say. I stop myself from using her name, though Im not quite sure why. I guess theres no need for him to understand her. Its my job to think about what shes doing and why and how to use that against her, not his. If he recovers, itd be best if he forgets as much of this as he can. What would I even ask him, in this state? Can you think of any horrific personal crises that mightve spawned your nightmare stalker? I didnt, it didnt I dont know why it happened. I dont know where it came from. His voice is husky and rasping, like hes had nothing to drink in much too long. Just, I heard a voice. No, I didnt hear it, it didnt use words, but it asked if I was alone. I didnt answer, but it said no, you arent, you never will be again. And then there it was, he rasps. There its been. Did I do something wrong? I mustve had an answer in my head should I have thought something different at it? How? How do I do that? His voice isnt too parched for me to hear the desperation in it. The pleading. You didnt do anything. I dont think it wouldve mattered. Its a Harbinger. It was just doing what it does, I say. And thanks. Dont say anything else if it hurts. Oh Thank you, he says. Thank you, he repeats a minute later. ~~~ I leave the victim alone after that, watching at a distance for any signs of Seryana. None come. A few minutes later, a wailing ambulance pulls onto the street and opens up. The two medics inside climb out, but rather than rush to the mans aid, they step back and to the sides, making way for a third person. For the Keeper accompanying them. A girl who must be near the top of the Promise age range steps out from the ambulance, and white wings with long, thin swan feathers unfurl from her back. The long, wavy fall of mint-green hair framing her face and her Keeper regalia a teal-and-white dress that would look almost like a priestly robe with a single wide detached sleeve, if it werent for the low-cut, strapless bodice contrast her deep bronze skin, and her eyes arent eyes at all. They look like theyre made of water, not frozen but perfectly still, with a gradient of progressively darker teal-blues shaped to create the impression of whites, irises complete with lines and flecks of color, and shadow-on-the-sea pupils. She raises her right arm, which is covered to the shoulder in white bandages no, there is no arm beneath the places they dont quite cover. The thin lengths of cloth are just acting as if wrapped around an invisible limb. Then they unfurl as one, becoming three thin streamer-appendages that spread out and sway slowly at her side. Shes beautiful. So beautiful its almost unreal. Like she stepped right out of some classical painting to take a quiet stroll through our world, never losing even a scrap of grace across the journey. I dont recognize her from anywhere if I did, Im certain Id remember her. Is the area still clear? she asks. She speaks Clarish with a light accent I cant place, not that I can really place many accents. Her soul is hard to read. Its not at all like Niavhs, defaced beyond legibility. Its just muted, in a way that feels strange for a soul to be. The presence of every Keeper and Harbinger Ive met has had an unmissable intensity to it magic wants to express itself. It wants to tell everyone with the right senses to listen to whatever it has to say. Theres none of that with this girls aura. It feels like shes not exactly obscuring it, but somehow keeping it from shouting its full message to the world. All I feel from her is a title: Tarnished Angel. Hm? Yes, I think so, I say. The Keeper takes her own look around the house as if to double-check, then approaches the man and kneels. I step back, leaving her to her work. She places her remaining hand on his shoulder and murmurs something to him, to which he simply looks up, stares at her for a moment, and nods. She speaks again louder this time, in a low, soft voice, and while I dont recognize the language, theres a steady poetic rhythm to her words. Her cloth appendages begin to gleam with cool cerulean light. One of her bandages draws close to him, wrapping around his back comfortingly, while the other two fold their tips into sharp triangular points. Then, moving in unison, the pointed bandages slide smoothly through his skin and into his heart. If the process is at all painful, he doesnt show it. He actually seems to relax at their impossible touch, if only a little. In a little under a minute, its over. The Keepers bandages withdraw, pulling themselves free without the slightest blemish to show for their intrusion. She nods to the medics, who unload a low wheeled stretcher from the ambulance and move to help the victim into it. Do you think hell be alright? I ask. A small, sad smile plays across the girls face. Weve done what we can. Hell live, yes, but his recovery is a question for the experts. I clench one fist, digging my fingers into my gloved palm. I guess I shouldve expected that. The way Seryana treated him, the holes she left in him now that shes gone, whether hell survive isnt as much of a question as how much of him is left to save. She takes a few steps in my direction, leaving a polite distance. Youre hurt, too. May I heal you? Oh. Am I? The Harbinger left without much of a fight. I obviously know what shes talking about. I know Im hurt. Whatever Seryana did to my card left a very visible injury. Your eye is bleeding, she says mildly. Um. Right, yes, I murmur. Its really not that I dont want a healing Keeper with some kind of diagnosis power seeing whats wrong with me, or figuring out what I usually do to heal myself. Well, its not only that. If Im not allowed to cure myself with magic, its even less likely that someone elses magic will do it. And the last thing I need right now is for someone trying to help me to catch even an echo of my sickness. Ill be fine, I say. Just go get him the help he needs. They could take him back on their own from here. It wouldnt cost me anything but a little time to help you, she says gently. Its a slippery Harbinger. Ill feel better if someones with him. The girl tilts her head, watches me expressionlessly for a few quiet seconds, then nods once. Well, Ill respect your wishes, she sighs. Dispatch said the Harbinger was still at large. Will you be going after it? Mhm. Ill get out of your way, then. Good hunting. She bows slightly, joins the medics in the back of the ambulance, and shuts the doors behind her. ~~~ Once they leave, I get enough distance from the house to escape Seryanas stink, summon a single card, and use it to inspect my injured eye. Its not, in fact, just a cut. Blood is still trickling down my face, yes, but theres also an ugly bruise that looks like its on my eye. I use enough life to stem the flow and reduce the bruise to a mild discoloration, leaving that eye bloodshot with an odd purplish tinge. It still looks weirder than a normal black eye, but, well, my vision seems to be fine? I wipe away as much dried blood as I can, end my transformation, and search the surrounding blocks for any traces of Seryana I mightve missed. There are none. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Still to my surprise, I find I dont feel terrible about tonight. I cant quite call this a good outing, when I lost a Harbinger and sent the man I saved off to an uncertain fate, but he is in a much better place than he was before I found him. At least this once, Ive managed to do something good without making anything worse for myself. It feels kind of nice, strange as it is to think Im capable of that after the last few weeks. Its not like I dont want to protect people if I can. Ive just always had to worry about saving my own life first. I am still worried about it, of course. Like that girl said, though, Ive done what I can for now. Ill see about finding Seryana before she finds me tomorrow. ~~~ Liadain? Do you have a moment? As soon as I step out of the elevator, the night nurse at the seventh floors front desk calls to me oh, huh. Its the same older nurse who tried to stop me from leaving to meet Shona, back on my first day as a Keeper. Now she just waves me over. I still need to check her tag to remember her name Banva. Sure. What is it? The nurse mmmhs to herself and glances down at something on her desk as I approach. So, Dr. Hines called in just a little while ago with a message for you. Hes gotten in touch with right, there was a specialist in your condition he was asking after? He found one whos available to meet with you tomorrow morning. Its a little short notice, but is that alright? Will that cause any, mh, problems for you? No? Please tell him thats fine. Oh, good! Good. Ill do that, she says, smiling thinly. It looks like shes trying to be friendly, but still cant quite make sense of what possible problems might come of my weird new schedule. Alright, thanks. If that was all, I should do bed stuff. Ah, yes, thats everything. Goodnight, Liadain. Night. Sorry for the trouble, Banva. Im glad I didnt have to fight you to leave the hospice back then. ~~~ Somethings tight hold pins my limbs to a cold surface. Somethings rough grip wraps around my neck. It has so many hands. Are they hands? No, they cant be. Skin doesnt feel like that. Hands dont move like that. Hands-that-are-not-hands push their way into my stomach and wrap themselves around my organs, then squeeze all at once, their coarse embrace strangling the life from me inside and out. This is wrong. Its all wrong. This pain is not mine. This horrible pressure is the wrong type of hurt. Something other than my blood is eating me alive. What is it? Why? Why cant I move? Why cant I do anything? Let me go I dont want to die stop stop STOP Through the last gasp of breath I can manage, I no, I dont open my eyes. Theyre already open. I just notice what Im looking at for the first time. Pearls smiling pink face, still nestled comfortably on her side of the pillow. Theres nothing else here. Nothing but a heavy phantom pain lingering in my neck. Im fine. Im fine, I insist in my head over and over. I mustve been dreaming. It was only the kind of shapeless nightmare that leaves nothing behind but fear and pain and the sense that even if youve already forgotten all but the tiniest random scraps of it, the play of random nonsense that was just chased away by the harsh light glaring through your too-thin curtains must have been something truly horrible to make you feel this way. I still cant move, though. I just cant find the strength. Several more minutes pass like that, the pain in my chest, slowly, slowly fading, until I summon up just enough energy to cocoon myself in blankets and snuggle close to Pearl. One of her fuzzy gills flops over, tickling my nose. Im not sure how long I spend laying there, but eventually, it all passes. When did I last have that sort of dream? Its been a while a few months, at least. The raw terror of knowing I was going to die and there was nothing anyone could do about it obviously never went away. Sometimes, though, in the stretches of time between anything changing for the worse, it did sort of scab over. So why now? Life as a Keeper certainly hasnt been wonderful, but I have a real, serious chance now, and a life where I have to fight screaming horror-creatures sometimes is infinitely better than no life at all. I dont understand, and I cant exactly make more sense of it without even knowing what I was dreaming about. Maybe I should try and keep one of those dream journals my occult books talk about, write out every scrap of memory I can cling to before they fade, but well, Ill see if it keeps happening. Wait. On a hunch, just in case Seryana is stalking me in my sleep or something, I turn my focus inward and check myself for Harbinger corruption. And gag at the fetid stink of my own soul. Thats a bit of her smell followed me home last night, wouldnt quite wash out with the flow of my power, but this is too much. Shes tried something. Was she here? In my room, looming over my bed? I feel around my room, then the rest of the seventh floor, but cant find any trace of her outside myself. Did she do something to me from afar? I yelp and shudder at a sudden soft knock on my door. Theres a perfectly human soul behind it, though, and when it opens a moment later, its just a morning nurse here to get my vitals. Oh, Dr. Hines asked me to remind you. Youve got an appointment scheduled in forty minutes now, she says while she takes my temperature. Ugh. Right. Of course this happens when I already have plans for today that could be really, really important, involving someone who has a lot of other stuff to do. Seryanas just going to have to wait a couple hours. ~~~ There you are. You must be Liadain? Lovely to meet you, Im sure, a womans low, dry voice says. She smiles, though it doesnt reach her eyes at all. When I arrive in the exam room, theres a pale, sharp-featured older woman already seated next to Dr. Hines. Her red hair is kept back in a tight ponytail, save for a few loose wavy strands around her face, and her clothes are distinctly undoctorly a navy tailored suit, rimless glasses, and none of the tools Id expect a doctor to carry except a small notepad in one of her suits flap pockets. Um, yes. Sorry Im a little late. Eh, I accounted for that when I scheduled this. I know how Keepers can be about bedtime. Im very careful about bedtime! I just had a morning, I grumble. She shrugs, smirks with her eyes, and says nothing more. Right, then, Dr. Hines cuts in with a nervous smile. Liadain, this is Dr. Cantillon. She doesnt practice regularly anymore, but shes a trailblazer on the academic side of understanding Keepers medical issues. Shes about as well-equipped as anyone can be to figure out a treatment plan thatll give you the best possible odds. Avas fine, if you prefer. Ive no preference with patients, Dr. Cantillon says. Ive already made that decision in my head. Nothing about her feels like a first-name person. Ive read your files. Familial autoimmune condition, early presentation, two rejected bone marrow transplants, prognosis poor, she says, after a brief delay suggesting that was not the first word to come to mind. I sit down and cross my arms. You can say hopeless. I know what my situation looks like. Excellent! Well. No, its really not, but you know what I mean, she says, waving her own nitpick off. That makes this easier. Weve only discussed you in terms of your case and I had no idea how delicate I was expected to be. As I was saying, Im all caught up on your medical history. What I need from you is an overview of your current health status, with a focus on anything youve done to change it with magic or Emergence. She pulls out her notepad, removes a pen fastened to its cover, and clicks a little button on top of it. Oh, and leave us alone for now, if you would, she says, addressing Dr. Hines without facing him. He narrows his eyes. Pardon? What? Why? Hes my doctor, you cant just kick him out. I am not kicking him out, Dr. Cantillon says with a sudden firmness. Her posture seems stiff as she draws in a slow, steadying breath through her nose as though mulling something over, then breathes it out all at once. Listen, this is not some issue of confidential secrets of magic Im bound to keep from the unworthy. Im only trying to help. You can stay if you must, but you really shouldnt. Alright. Why not? Dr. Hines asks. Because Ill do my best to explain without going too far, she replies, looking the other doctor dead in the eye in a way that seems to stare past him. There are certain things that once youve noticed, once youve really started to understand, you can never stop seeing. Nothing youve said to me suggests youve even started to notice those things. Thats good. Unless youre looking to respecialize into my field, which I do not recommend, you should do your best to keep it that way. Some of what were likely to discuss would make it very difficult for a man in your position a good doctor trying to do right by his patients, only one of whom is a Keeper to continue functioning in that role. I am speaking from firsthand experience. Dr. Hines says nothing, although the longer Dr. Cantillon goes on, the stiller his gaze and the tighter his jaw becomes. He cups his chin, glances back and forth between us, and suppresses an uneasy grimace. Liadain, do you need me here? he eventually asks. Ill be fine, I say. Youre sure? Yes. If you dont want to subject yourself to, um, whatever that means, dont do it for my sake. Okay. Ill be right outside. He stands, smiles faintly at me, and slips through the door. Moving right along, then, Dr. Cantillon says. Id expect so, in your circumstances, but just to make sure. Have you tried anything to address your disease with magic, in the time since you made the Promise? Honestly, this might be better for me anyway. If I want this to help at all, theres no way around talking about how Ive been keeping myself relatively healthy, and that feels easier with this woman than it would with Dr. Hines, someone who apparently likes me and wants to help and maybe wouldnt anymore if he knew what I was doing to people. Which isnt to say that it feels easy. My thoughts run through all the things Im hiding from the world, and all the things Ive done to keep them hidden. Its hard to imagine any normal person wanting to help me after I explain what Ive been doing to them. But if Im ever going to move beyond stumbling blind through my new life, Ill need more information on how to deal with all this from someone. Is this all confidential? I ask. Maybe it wont be once Ive actually explained myself, since my mass life-draining clearly passes that danger to self or others threshold, but I still want to hear it from her. Dr. Cantillon makes a face like I just spat in her drink, but quickly smooths it away and nods. I am still a doctor. I signed on to all the agreements here this morning. The usual exceptions do technically apply, yes, buuut Im really not in the business of shoving myself into Keepers personal matters. And I dont report to anyone, if thats what youre asking. Im doing this for my own edification and to assist you children in whatever ways I can, not in service to anyone elses goals for you. Well. It sounds like thats the best Im going to get. ~~~ So I tell her. I ball my fists, do my very best to bury my feelings, and tell Dr. Cantillon all about the part of my power that lets me steal others health. How I discovered it, how Ive been able to use it who Ive used it on, without naming specific names. Everything that might be important. And I think thats it, I finally say. I used a little bit to fix my eye last night, but its been a while since I burned health just to treat my normal symptoms. Things have been stable enough, at least for now. Alright, then, Dr. Cantillon sighs. She glances up from her notepad for the first time since I started talking, looking me over with a sort of resigned exhaustion in her eyes. Ill admit I have some questions about exactly how youve handled this, but as I said, Im not here to criticize your behavior. I only want to understand whats happening to you and how we can best address it. So lets start there. Youve explained it in rather functional terms, but did your power come with an understanding of what exactly youre doing when you use it? I blink twice. Is that really it? Please answer the question. We can talk about what I think of all this once weve established the facts, if you really want to know. Um okay. Well, I think Ive pretty much said everything I know about it? Its just something I can do. And heres the problem. Magic doesnt work like anything else. The same is true for any otherwise-normal thing it touches. Its magic, yes, I say. I know how obvious that sounds. You wield it. You live with it. You understand the processes of it in ways I never can. But when the Promise plunges children your age into an entirely new world, you often dont recognize exactly how different what youre doing is from re from the rest of reality. I did live most of my life in reality, you know. I still do. Dr. Cantillon waves a hand dismissively. Yes, yes, but have you thought about what it even means to drain health from a person? Health is not a single discrete thing. By a certain simplistic but workable definition, its only an absence, a lack of illness or infirmity impairing your normal functioning. It certainly isnt a tank you can fill up and expend. No, I admit. Ive been too busy trying to survive to navelgaze much. I suppose that makes as much sense as anything else. But are you starting to see now? I sent your doctor away because this is no longer a matter of health and medicine. I sometimes wonder how much any doctors work is. What does it mean for the entirety of medical practice if theres any truth to the story that the incredibly disparate set of issues we call sickness all crawled out of a Harbingers corpse? And by the way, the timeline does work out for that to be the truth! I know at least enough about the story shes referencing to recognize it. She means the Infezean Scourges the first plagues, deadly epidemics that ravaged the world all at the same time. According to Church history, an enormous living cataclysm of a Harbinger created them, and before that there was no such thing as disease. But I guess I dont see how it matters if Im sick because of something a dead Harbinger did centuries ago or simple terrible luck. I just want it to stop. Dr. Cantillon stops herself, frowning a little deeper than what Ive started to recognize as her default expression. Ah, but Im digressing. Probably. What I mean by all this is that if your condition is as entwined with your power as youve suggested, its likely no longer accurate to think of it and treat it purely as a disease. It may be better described as a curse. Or perhaps more accurately Dr. Cantillon pinches the bridge of her nose, pushing her glasses up onto her forehead, and groans. This may well be a mangled metaphor, a desperate hand grasping for understanding it can never truly catch, but do bear with me for a moment. I promise I hate this at least as much as you will. She shakes her head, fixes her glasses, and stares right at me. As a story. A story about dying of an illness. The Hanged Man 5-3 Dr. Cantillon sits in silence, watching me for for what? Is there some reaction to that shes expecting? A story? What? I finally ask. Yes. A story. I said it was more accurate, not that it was a useful explanatory metaphor. Explain it, then! What is that even supposed to mean? Are you saying, what, were all characters stuck in someones book about how awful magic is? I read a book with a twist like that once. It was terrible. Pfhah. Dont be ridiculous. Dr. Cantillon snorts out a single hollow laugh. Although I suppose we are a long way off from being able to say precisely what counts as ridiculous, where magic is involved, and its not the most absurd idea Ive ever heard. If it were true, Id have some choice words for our author but Im digressing again. No, thats not what I mean. Its simply the way I phrase my understanding my very limited understanding of how all this seems to work in practice, not a statement on the structure of the universe. I mean, okay. Ive seen enough of magic to get that a lot of it works on a sort of dream logic. I assume youre talking about something like that and calling it story logic instead. But Ive had magic for a month, so I dont see what that has to do with the disease thats been trying to kill me every day of my life. And in that month, youve started treating your immune disorder by stealing others health, whatever that means here, the doctor says in a voice with no particular feeling behind it. Youre clearly no longer facing the same type of problem. I glance away, folding my arms over my stomach. Relax. Im not here to chastise you. Im still frustrated with the sheer insane abstraction of it, thats all. The idea of health as a single thing you can suck out of one person and place into another does not sit well with the way we practice medicine. She scratches something into her notepad at what looks like it would be a frantic pace for anyone else, but seems to just be how she writes. That doesnt make me feel better at all, but I bite my lip and nod. Okay. Im listening. Please explain. Gladly. So. As I understand it, a Keepers magic has two central components. The first is largely self-explanatory: its the shape of your power. What it is. The parts of the world you can change and control. Right. My Messenger talked a bit about this. If they talked about the second aspect, Id be very interested in what they had to say. What is it? I ask. Wouldnt it be nice if things were that easy? If we understood it well enough to know what we should call it? Ive heard some older Keepers refer to it as a theme, a term which I frankly will not use because I find its implications odious, but Ive yet to come up with a better one myself. Vector, maybe? But that doesnt quite cover it well, anyway. Ill keep this as simple as possible, and please understand that I am not talking down to you. This is the only way I know to explain it. She sets her notepad on the counter and folds her hands in her lap, squeezing them tightly enough that it looks like it should hurt. I catch a glimpse of the page shes been writing on, and its is that even Clarish? I think those are letters, at least, but theyre written in such an exaggerated parody of a doctors shorthand scrawl that I cant see how they could be legible to anyone. It is what your magic is about. What its saying about you, or the world. The story its telling, to return to my original phrasing. This part is far more difficult to pin down, but its at least as important to the forms a Keepers power actually takes. Especially to the limits of what they can do. Is this starting to follow, now? Does it make any more sense of your experiences so far? On my first day, Vyuji called my disease the origin of my magic. She compared the idea of fixing it with my power to a snake eating itself whole. Then my magic is sickness and is about also sickness? Thats the story? The words feel like puking up sand. What shes saying makes sense, it feels true, but thats its hard to breathe all of a sudden. Its not who I am. It cant be what I am. It cant. Its uncomplicated, if nothing else. Our best efforts to treat you failed, so magic changed your condition into something it could treat. It gave you a way to take your own transfusions from the world ones that dont last so much longer or do so much more to fix you, from the way youve described it, but are helping, at least so far. Dr. Cantillon says, and exhales through gritted teeth. I should note, this is all just my current best guess. To my knowledge, while most Keepers can see the shape of others magic in their souls, theres no way to quantify this part with unnatural senses. It can only ever be reasoned out by the Keeper and those who know them, guessed at by observing their life and magic. And since I doubt youd want this, Im not saying that simply to comfort you. Or to offer false hope that your power will turn out to be based on something completely different. But there may be nuances to it we dont yet understand. Or something more complex thats currently showing itself in connection with illness for obvious reasons. Something like what? Fine, its a magic mystery no one can actually know, but can I change it somehow? You I dont know, you mentioned Keepers who knew about these things? Could one of them help? Dr. Cantillon raises one hand, closes her eyes, and shrugs apologetically. Im afraid thats mostly up to them. I certainly dont have the power to summon any Keepers. I would love to get Ionas thoughts on this matter, for instance, but it seems her schedule is always a bit too tight to fit me in. And if she were inclined to share her lifetime of knowledge with the scientific community, I expect shed have found a way to do it by now. But then, perhaps most Keepers are more apt to make time for one of their own than for probing questions from someone like me, she says with another flat, lifeless smile. Im not going to go knock on the Fianata estates door, but the girl whose help I refused yesterday looms large in my thoughts. Would she have known about any of this? Would it matter? I have no idea who she is or what she can do, just a lot of reasons to think she couldnt wave her hands and save my life. Not because of any problem with her, but because it sounds like no one can. If I werent a Keeper, and my sickness wasnt inextricably wrapped up with my soul or whatever it is now, would this be a problem? Could someone else have fixed me? That is a complex question, Dr. Cantillon says, very slowly. Im not going to explode on you or anything. Promise. I just want to know. Right, right. Cant be too careful, sometimes. She purses her lips, nods, and reaches for her notepad. Well, it is a legitimately difficult question. Saying anything about magic with certainty tends to be. In a case like yours, though there are Keepers with healing powers, yes? Do you know any stories of one walking into a mundane hospital and curing a hundred incurable conditions in a days work? No. I dont think thats ever happened. And Ive checked, obviously. To my knowledge, it hasnt. Oh, thereve been grander miraculous contributions, like Saint Nistlas creation of vaccines, but short of Emergence and the consequences thereof, magical healing has never played a reliable part in conventional medicine, even as a last resort. Why do you think that is? I used to wonder about that myself. But since it couldnt be that no Keeper had ever wanted to eradicate, say, cancer or inborn diseases, I figured it was just one more way in which the world wasnt what anyone wanted it to be. Now, of course, I know the likely reasons all too well. I have to worry about my own life first, but if I could, Id save everyone on the seventh floor. If I could, Id make it so no one would have to die ever again, and everyone whos ever written self-satisfied junk about how death is natural and nice and Gives Life Meaning could see how they felt when they werent forced to accept it. But I cant do any of that. Ill probably never be able to. All I can do is take and take to buy myself and only myself a little more time and there will never be enough. It will never be enough. Theyre busy doing Keeper things, or theyre focused on something no one else can do like treating Harbinger corruption, or they cant. Their magic doesnt work that way, I answer immediately. All correct, in different cases and to different degrees, but that last one is the main obstacle. For some reason, something about whatever mysterious factors make someone a Keeper and shape their power, there simply havent been any who could do such things on a large enough scale to matter. Theres always some cost, catch, or complication preventing magical healers from eradicating illness in one crowded hospital, let alone their city. Not unlike the way your healing works, although your limitations do seem unusually severe. In almost every case where a Keeper has healed someone beyond our ability to help, they were going above and beyond for someone personally important to them. It almost always ends up being a complex, arduous task in ways you wouldnt expect it to be for children who can knit mortal wounds shut with a touch, she sighs. Its ugh, I know full well how this sounds, but its as if some aspect of magic doesnt want to make it too easy for us. These sorts of arbitrary, ridiculous restrictions are what Im thinking of when I refer to your disease as a story, incidentally. I could be wrong, of course. Maybe diseases are just difficult because Infezea made them that way, and its still laughing at us from beyond the grave. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Dr. Cantillon smiles a thin, bitter expression, but real in a way the one she greeted me with absolutely wasnt. Something about it makes a pit open up in my stomach. Anyway, Im explaining all this as context for the answer to your question. As to that, heres my best guess. It would have been difficult. There may have been complications. But yes, very likely there would have been some Keeper, somewhere, with some ability to cure you or mitigate your symptoms. Whether they would have is another question, and since the answer to that question is probably not, I really wouldnt advise wasting too much thought on what could have been. I know that. Im not stupid. No miracle was ever going to save me until I made one for myself. That may not be a sure thing, but Im still in a better situation than I ever was before. So why does everything feel so pointless? Why am I crying? Im ah, certain none of this has been what you wanted to hear. I do apologize for that, Dr. Cantillon says, with a note of unease in her voice very different from the sharp, forever-frustrated tone she uses most of the time. But we should discuss potential next steps. Like what? It doesnt nothing youve said makes it sound like theres anything I can do. Anything but keep hunting and hope Emergence does something for me. Unless thats part of the story too. It would be best for you to be evaluated by a team of experts, somewhere thats equipped to handle your unique issues. Some of the uncertainties about your power are dangerous, to you and everyone else. I cant condone you continuing as you have been without investigating the short and long-term symptoms of being drained. I dont think any of the local hospitals are up to it, but there are places in Alelsia where- In Alelsia? I snap. You want to send me to live under the sea with a bunch of priests for for how long? Until they decide its safe for me to exist? What good would priests do us? she snorts. Alelsia is the heart of magical scholarship, not just the seat of the Church. Its where youll find specialty hospitals catering to children in situations like yours not all of them, but certainly the best ones. How likely do you think it is that theyll have someone who can fix this? That depends on what youre expecting when you say fix this. Given what weve been discussing, I doubt theyll be able to cure it outright, she admits without hesitation. I figured. Itd be too easy if they could, after all. My curse-story-disease wouldnt like it. Its not that simple. They may still be able to assist you, and the potential complications surrounding your ability are She pauses in mid-sentence, looks me over, and groans, almost seeming to deflate for a moment. Oh, youre not going to do it, are you? she asks, quickly fixing her posture. No. Sorry. Afraid of scrutiny from the authorities, or insistence that you stop using that facet of your power altogether? I say nothing, which is probably just as good as an answer. Well, thats honestly about what I expected. Ive made similar recommendations to other Keepers, none of whom have ever taken them. She gives a slight shake of her head, scrawls something in her notebook, then closes it and tucks it back into her pocket. For whatever its worth, I think youre making a mistake, both for yourself and for any other current or future Keepers struggling with something similar. And while Ive never had a case exactly like yours, Ive never heard of a Keeper being condemned solely for the way their magic works. I would be shocked if they couldnt make some accommodation but I have no way of forcing you to accept my advice. And I wouldnt use it if I did. Theres more than enough insanity in my life without shoving myself into Keepers personal drama. Is that that, then? Are we done? I suppose so. Until anything changes, or I come up with anything else that may be of interest to you. If I gave up on you children whenever you didnt listen to me, Id have no patients heh, she chortles to herself. I have no idea why. ~~~ Our appointment goes on a little longer just enough for Dr. Cantillon to call Dr. Hines back in and tell him to keep doing what hes doing until further notice. Im barely listening. I dont have much more to say, to them or anyone. So as soon as were finished, I grab my cane and leave. I just want to do something that matters. Something that helps, even if it will never ever be enough. I want to murder Seryana and eat her soul. Maybe itll feel like killing Yurfaln felt again. Maybe, even if its only for a few beautiful moments, the pain will stop. No one can help me make that happen. No one can help me with anything. No one except, maybe Vyuji, I hiss, right as the elevator opens on the ground floor. A day ago, I wouldve been worried about who might see me talking to myself and what conclusions theyd draw about me. Right now, it seems like an absolute waste of thought. I really cant be bothered. Yes, Liadain? And shes already there, waiting for me just outside the nearest exit. When were you going to tell me? Im not watching over you and what youre learning at all times, you know. I thought youd prefer it that way. Tell you what? she asks. Not that its ever taken more than the slightest prompting for her to know exactly what Im talking about when I call her ugh, not important. I have bigger problems. Im not even sure how to say it? That my magic or my disease or my soul or all three at once have apparently turned into a story about dying of an illness, and because of that story its impossible for me or anyone to cure whats wrong with me? Ah, Vyuji says simply. That is a lot to unpack. Give me a moment, please, she says, and vanishes. Vyuji? I open the door and ask the empty air. Someone on their way out gives me an odd look, then quickens their pace a little. I keep walking. I guess it isnt the biggest surprise if even she has nothing to say about this. Here I am. Apologies. Maybe fifteen seconds later, she blinks unceremoniously back into being, floating at a height that brings her gaze level with mine. Oh. Where did you go? Just making sure of something. As to your question Id have told you when you asked, or when it was important for you to know. Whichever came first. How was it ever not important for me to know? I glare at her through the corner of my eye, but dont slow down. She follows right along, motionlessly drifting sideways. Would it have been helpful for you to know? Or would it have built an insurmountable wall in your mind? Paralyzed you with the false impression that there is no way forward for you? It still may have done that, from the sound of it, but at least now you already know how much you can accomplish. My steps falter. Of course it did. Of course hearing that even magic cant do anything about the useless, broken body Ill be stuck with for whats left of my life feels a lot like crashing into an infinite wall, then trying to get past it by smashing my head into it until one of us breaks. Whats whats false about it, then? I choke out. What youre saying isnt exactly wrong, but it is far too simple. Emergence isnt just a process of physical transformation you must understand that by now. It changes how you interact with the world, and it with you. It changes what you are. That is what your soul is attempting to do with your disease, and your magic is not your enemy, she says. Thoughts of the one too-happy rehab nurse who said the same thing about my body race through my mind. Should I be thanking my soul like she told me to thank my skin for keeping my organs in place? Thanking it for what? Magic is not playing out some melodrama at your expense. It is what it is, what you are that much cant be helped but I meant it when I promised that it will give you a way to survive. The very worst scenario I can imagine is that yours becomes a story of eternally dying, racing to stay ahead of deaths ever-advancing threshold but never quite crossing over. And Im confident you can do much better than that. How? What can I do thats much better if the only thing I want is to get better, and that cant ever happen? Oh, Liadain. Theres a softness in Vyujis voice, and in her faint smile, that Ive only heard once before, right when I first made the Promise its the tone I cant help but think of as motherly. Youre thinking far too small. Too human. I want to get better is a helpless little girls prayer, a wish upon a seashell. Its beneath you. Do you remember what you asked for when we first met? Complete immortality. To be free from death or destruction, forever and by any means. That is a dream worthy of a Keeper, and its one you can very much achieve. She spreads the tendrils and stems of one flower-hand into a broad, flat surface, as if opening her palm, and sets it lightly on my shoulder. Shes warmer than I expected, somehow. So keep growing. Keep becoming more than the defective shell that carries your true self around would ever allow you to be, if you didnt have the power to grow so very far beyond it. And as you do, imagine what form your eternity will take. If a life spent forever desperately fleeing from death sounds like no life at all, all you need to do is find your way to stop fleeing. Your illness is a part of you, and it may always be, but its a part that will change with the rest of you. If you cant be rid of it, make it into something that serves you. I cant tell you precisely how to accomplish that, but I hope my promise that you can means something to you. I wasnt expecting much from Vyuji. Im not really sure why I called her at all. Maybe for someone to vent on, even knowing thats never helped once in my life, or to confirm how terrible everything was when she gave me some confusing, cryptic answer that didnt help at all. But somehow, this is I think it kind of does, actually, I murmur. Its not that I feel good now. Not even better, really. Everything is still terrible. But its something. Some way to make sense of all this that comports with what Ive just learned and doesnt mean all my goals are impossible. Then Im glad I could serve my purpose, Vyuji says. Is there anything else you need? Not now. Theres something I still need to kill before things get any worse, I sigh. I should get to that. But thanks. Happily. She smiles a little wider, waves with her open hand, and disappears. ~~~ I start my hunt at the house from last night. Im not expecting to find a trail I missed the first time, but inspecting the house could still tell me more about Seryana. And I have no better ideas. Nothing jumps out to my senses on the way, so I transform a few blocks from the house. Like when I visited the scene of Irakkias attack, the place is barricaded and guarded. Morning, the tall, portly uniformed man on the sidewalk calls to me. Please, please tell me youre here to cleanse this place. The police do pay more attention to me than last time, though, which makes sense. The site of Irakkia''s attack was a shore where a Harbinger happened to choose some victims. This house was Seryanas nest, a place so polluted with her presence that it was somehow less real while she was here. Judging by those strange shifting curtains, I think she was trying to cut it off from the rest of the world and drag it physically into her Wound. Whatever she was doing made an impact it still reeks here. It did starting from two blocks away. I dont think I can do that. Sorry, I tell him. Im the Keeper who found it. The Harbinger got away, so I wanted to see if anything here leads back to it. Oh, he grumbles. Well, thats your right. Good luck. Out of curiosity, can you smell that? I grit my teeth and gesture vaguely at the house. He shudders full-body, making a face like hes about to be sick. Seriously? Fucking Goddess, Ive been doing my best to tune it out, but I think I could still smell that if I cut off my nose! I nod slowly, not sure what to do with that. Um. Youre probably right, I say. If you want a break, you should maybe keep your distance while Im in there. Just in case something happens. Well. if you really think thats for the best, dont mind if I do. Dont mind that at all. Take care, kid. And without a moments delay, he jogs off down the street. I cant think too poorly of him. Its not his well, no, its kind of his job, but it would be a sign of some horrible mental pollution if any normal person didnt want to keep their distance from this miasma. And as soon as I approach the door, Im glad I sent him away. Seryanas acrid breath tickles my neck. It even feels filthy, like a thin film of damp dust settling over my skin wherever it touches. The Hanged Man 5-4 My body seizes up as Seryanas presence brushes over me. My magic, the only part of me that isnt a helpless ruin, instantly lashes back out. Acting on mental reflexes that still feel strange and new, I summon a ring of tainted cards and push them outward, forming a whirling, slicing shield of corrosive power. Nothing happens. Nothing and no one is here. Theres only the dusty film on my neck and the phantom sensation of clumped strands of wet hair draping over my shoulder. I search the place with my souls perception and find only her stench, almost as strong around me as it is in the house. Shes here. She obviously has to be here in some way. But Im sure she isnt attacking from within me, like the infection of my plague, and it doesnt feel like shes in the house, so where? More importantly, how? My best guess is that shes connected herself to me in some way. I just dont know what that means. Or what Im supposed to do about it. The house still reeks of Seryana in a way that feels far more pronounced than any other trail of corruption Ive followed, even though my senses are certain that shes not here. Shes not in the house, and while shes around me in some strange magical sense, shes not hiding in my soul or anything like that. And if Seryana is really always right here, stalking me everywhere I go, why is she only showing up now? Some connection to this place that remained when she fled last night? Maybe theres something left in there she doesnt want me to see or do? Or something she does want? But whether its a hidden weakness or a trap, what comes next will have to tell me something about what shes doing. Thats the only way I know how to do this, and its worked so far. For a certain idea of worked where no step forward I take ever seems to bring me closer to my goal, and no matter what Vyuji says I cant help but keep wondering if Im moving at all or if my whole life is still just- No. Stop. Not the time for this. Focus. The house itself hasnt changed since last night. It still has those strange shifting curtains, though the pale light leaking through them from inside is harder to see in the daytime. The front door is still slightly open, unmoved from where I slammed it on Seryanas arm. Theres a thin length of frayed, rotting rope wedged between it and its doorframe, as if my feeble strength was enough to sever her limb and this is all that remains of it. I poke my cane through the crack in the door and pull it all the way open. Last night, I didnt look around inside too much. My cards flat view and weak night vision were enough to see that the place was a horrific mess, littered all over with Seryanas little hair-knots. Now, with morning light streaming into the short front hall, it looks like practically everything here is ruined. The lights arent just off all the sockets in view hold the stems of smashed lightbulbs, with glass shards strewn across the floor beneath them. Im not sure where the dim light through the curtains was coming from, then maybe its different upstairs, or maybe, well, theyre eerie Harbinger magic. Maybe they just look like that. Theres a side table thats fallen over in my direction, presumably because one of its legs has been ripped off, and in front of it lies the shattered remains of a ceramic lamp, a vase, and a now-withered houseplant that mustve lived in it once. Not for the first time, Im glad my Keeper outfits boots are so heavy. They were sturdy enough to trudge through fanged nightmare seaweed. They should be okay here. But Ill still be careful. Seryanas voice sighs from nowhere. I reach out with my souls senses again, searching every corner for my stalker, but find nothing. How is she doing this? Is everything happening from afar, or does she have a way to conceal her presence? Can Harbingers do that? She finishes with a high, sharp parody of a giggle, and then shes gone, leaving only a nauseatingly fresh wave of her stink. The language of magic seems to say a lot with very few words. Its hard to make a direct comparison when Im not at all familiar with its sounds or structure, but Seryana said all that in the time it would take me to say a simple sentence in Clarish. Her voice, though she makes the closest thing to human sounds Ive heard from a Harbinger, but that only makes it worse. Her speech reminds me of one of my first year classmates mom, a loud woman who spoke to anyone younger than her including most of the teachers in shrill, drawn-out baby talk. And I have no idea what shes saying. I know what it means, yes, but from her first words to me, shes talked as if we have some deep bond and I cant imagine why. Its like she immediately mistook me for someone else, even as I dragged the man she was haunting before me away from her. Or maybe it doesnt matter who I am. Maybe shes just obsessed with the idea of some kind of human connection, imagining her victims in whatever part she wants them to play with no attention paid to who they are. But that still doesnt explain why shes babbling about a history that never happened. Unless shes trying to replace a single specific person? Vyuji said a witch without a Harbinger was just a broken person. What happens to a Harbinger if a witch theyve bonded with dies? Until Aulunla twisted itself into the tortured monster it died as, its witch was a key part of its ideas and plans. Could it have been anything separate from her? The thought of it stumbling around half-dead, latching on to anyone who vaguely reminded it of its one friend feels almost as pitiful as its final moments were. But thats just one thought. This could still be something else I dont understand yet. Back to searching the place which might be hard. This house isnt that big, but there is a second floor, and the kitchen and living room I saw last night are too far in for light from the front door to reach them. The windows are still blocked, and I doubt any of the overhead lights will be in better shape than these ones. I wish I could see in the dark. Thatd be really useful. Actually maybe I can? It hurt a lot and took a lot of health, but I did plenty of things I shouldnt have been able to in Aulunlas Wound. Experimentally, I peer down the hall and channel a tiny sip of life into my eyes. Nothing changes. Nothing that couldnt just as easily be my eyes adjusting the normal way, at least. Maybe it happened a bit faster than usual? Thanks for nothing, magic. And fine, I guess special night eyes dont really fall under the concept of stealing wellness, but I think they should. Itd even fit in with this whole creepy vampire freak story my power apparently wants to tell. Maybe Emergence can help me out there at some point. Unless thatd require another weird detour away from making me immortal, in which case no thank you Ill figure something else out. Ugh, what is wrong with me? A Harbinger being all quiet and sneaky does not make this a great time to talk to myself. Hm. Is this place enough like a Wound to make a tarot diagram of? Ive never tried in the real world, but Im still trying to feel out a Harbingers shape and origin point here. It should work the same way. Probably. I will my cards to form a spread. Theres my card, the skeletal crow of Death inverted, with six other cards forming a circle around it so tight that they cover most of it. I can read the glyphs on them now theyre six identical copies of the Lovers inverted. Depicted here as an embracing couple, their bodies stitched together with twine that runs all the way over and through their skin. In the thin space between them, the thread binding them is tied into a dozen elaborate knots. Which doesnt really tell me anything useful. It just makes my stomach churn a little. Looking around, theres nothing new in view from here. If this house has anything to tell me, its waiting in the dark. I fold the filthy doormat up, wedge it into the frame, and mostly-close the door over it, just to head off any horror movie scenes where the door slams shut and locks me in. Not that I really expect that to stop a Harbinger if thats what she wants to do. Once Im done, I allow my vision a moment to fully adjust to the darkness, then push further inside. I didnt look upstairs at all last night, and the stairs are right at the end of the front hall, so I head there first. The steps are predictably covered in dirt and hair, but no worse than the rest of this place. It does look especially dark at the top, though. The eerie green glow of my cards still isnt enough to illuminate much of anything, but it doesnt hurt, either. I float my spread just ahead of me until we reach the upper floor, then follow it into a half-open door just across from the stairs. As I push the door open, I can just make out something hanging from the ceiling. And between one step and the next, where my foot should touch the ground, it just keeps falling, like Im walking off a cliff, and I start to tumble into the void with it. My heart stops for an instant, then hammers wildly as if making up for lost time. My free hand lashes out to grab around the doorknob, and with an instinctive flood of life, it clamps onto the metal harder than Ive ever gripped anything. A twisting shock runs up my arm as I jolt to a stop, suspended over an endless pit of nothing. The things I saw dangling in here are clearer, now ropes tied into nooses, fixed to nothing, simply floating above. Something slides around my ankle, coils up tightly, and pulls, like a weight tied to my leg. A sharp, nervous giggle in Seryanas voice echoes through the expanse. I lurch backwards, throwing my weight into pulling the door back towards its frame. Then, with the arm still clutching my cane, I reach through the doorframe, plant the cane across the floor, and with another flood of life, push up on it as hard as I can, fighting against the invisible load trying to drag me down. I manage to lift myself just enough to get one of my legs over the ledge, allowing me to squirm through the doorway and back onto solid ground. I stumble to my knees, sweating and gasping for air to replace all the breath I mustve been holding. The moment I stagger back to my feet, a single shapeless arm wraps around my waist. Something thin and twisting and smelling of waste and mildew embraces me from behind, full-body. I twist to look over my shoulder, where starting from the arm, scrawled, scratchy dark lines like the ones that obscure Seryanas face trace a humanoid outline. Where they pass, the Harbingers gaunt form, cloak of matted hair, and faceless white void come into being. That stupid voice is really getting to me. I pull a single card from my orbit, twirl it around myself, and will it to dissolve in motion, creating a spinning plume of infectious emerald mist. My fog clings to me, seeps into me, filling my limbs with a familiar cold numbness, but it somehow manages to feel like ice on a wound at times like these. Seryana whimpers. The last remaining bit of black scrawl, the veil around her faceless head, stretches out. It grows into a twitching cloud of jagged, scratchy lines drawn over reality, then slowly pulls itself back together. She speaks with two sharp, strained voices, one shrieking and one laughing until it hurts at the same time. It sounds like shes trying and failing, horribly, to work them into some kind of harmony, to create the sound people would make if it was normal to scream your throat raw when you were happy. The blackness around her forms itself into a simple, shaky doodle of a smile, but only holds the shape for a second before it dissolves back into chaos. The rest of her soon follows, melting back into a formless mess of scribbles and frayed ropes. Then only the rope remains, scattered all along the floor. Thats how were doing this? Fine. Fine, I hiss. It wasnt even that good a trap. I keep searching the house, now using my cane like a blind persons walking stick to poke the floor before every step, and Seryana follows me all the while. She creeps ever closer to me, babbling nonsense about our cherished memories and fateful reunions all the while. Eventually, she shows herself a little too clearly, holds still for a little too long, and I use another card to shroud her in sickness. Then she recoils, wailing and giggling and thanking me for the attention. This cycle repeats three more times before Im done searching the house. Shes treating me like a cat who cant decide if water is exciting or terrifying, edging a little further back toward not-so-wary interest with every minute since she last soaked her paw. As for what I find, starting from the rest of the upstairs theres a bathtub full of dark, murky water, with ropes and electrical wires that dont appear to be attached to anything trailing out from the five or six random appliances someones thrown into it. A bedroom where the air is inexplicably too thick to breathe. A bottle of black pills on the dining room table labeled, in a single swirling Harbinger-sigil: The house is full of ways to die, but the pit-room was the most precarious. None of these things are enough to hurt you if you just ignore them. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Is her plan what, to be so obnoxious to the people she tethers herself to that they want to die? I put the pills down and choke back an absurd burst of helpless laughter. Seryana scribbles herself into being, standing well within my personal space. Nothing about this is funny. Its really, really not. Ive seen what she does to people, and I have no reason to think the man I saved was her first victim. Its just unless this is part of some deeper trap so bizarre that I cant even imagine what it would be, thats the most ridiculous thing Ive ever seen. Your storys, hahh its probably pretty terrible too, huh? I wheeze. She tilts her head, uncomprehending. This would be so much easier if I could talk back to Harbingers. Get them talking the way so many of them seem eager to do, steer their ramblings toward what I need to know. But I cant. So instead, I launch three more cards at her, burying them in her hair, and detonate them as one. And while she chokes on my shroud of corruption, delighted as ever, I make my way to the front door still wedged open and leave. This isnt working. Theres not enough of Seryana here to really hurt her. Its difficult to actually tell how much my infection is really taking hold, but even with how promising her first reaction was, she doesnt seem that bothered yet. Thinking of how Yurfaln rebuilt its Wound to include my infection, she might even be getting something out of this. Seryanas voice complains. I expected as much. She might have more power over that house than she does over any random place, but shes obviously not trapped there. I duck under the police barricade along the sidewalk, ignoring her. You should probably go, I call to the man on guard. This is a bad place. Leave up the barriers, come back when you have someone to cleanse it. He doesnt need any more convincing. I start back toward the hospital. If Seryanas so happy when Im trying to kill her, maybe I can buy some time to think if I just disengage. I just keep walking, not offering her so much as a leave me alone. she whines, then falls mostly quiet. That isnt to say she leaves me alone. She just changes her approach. Her stench still follows me everywhere. Shes ever at my side, a noxious invisible presence breathing into my ear, murmuring wordlessly or humming warbling, unpleasant little tunes. Worse, while she doesnt appear again, she remains solid enough to touch me, which she does. At every opportunity. Her coarse, twisting hands touch my shoulder, trailing down to brush along my back. Her hands wrap around my waist or legs and pull from behind, like that formless weight in the pit room. A few blocks from the hospital, rough fingers trace along my stomach, squirming and wiggling like is she trying to tickle me? Is that what that is? It feels like trying to scratch an itch with sandpaper. Its nauseating. I hate it. It takes every bit of my willpower not to just flood the daytime city sidewalk with death and hope it sticks this time. That, and the knowledge that it wouldnt help at all. ~~~ So, doing my entirely inadequate best to tune Seryanas advances out, I end my transformation and head back up to the seventh floor. Oh, good good afternoon, Liadain, the front desk nurse greets me. She speaks softly, but her face is scrunched up in disgust. Are you okay? Did you, um, step in anything? Or get sprayed by some animal? Seryana babbles into my ear as I stare silently ahead. Right. Urgh. I already knew normal people can smell her. Why am I even here? Is this horrifically dangerous for everyone else? Well, its not like I have any other options. I cant exactly spend the night in a park and kick off some panicked search for me when I dont turn up. Besides, judging by my nightmares, it seems like she was already here last night. Shes not here to infest this place, shes following me. I just need to keep her attention for now. Even if thats the very last thing I want to do. Um, sorry, yes, I think that was it, I tell the nurse. Im fine, though. lll go clean it up. Take a shower. Without giving her another chance to respond, I rush to my room, flip the Do Not Disturb tab out, and shut myself in. ~~~ I call room service and order a big meal to cover for the breakfast I rushed through. Grilled salmon and brown rice honestly, much as I resent this place for all the time Ive spent trapped here, the food has always been pretty good. I cant force myself to slow down enough to appreciate it on a day like this, though. I actually shovel this meal down faster, mostly because if Seryana touches my food, I dont think I could eat anything ever again. Once thats done, I spend the rest of the day alone well. Not nearly alone enough. She continues the routine from our walk home, whispering random nonsense and touching me just often enough that I cant predict when the next invasion will come. She moves my things, too, randomly misplacing my pens and knocking over my cane. During the brief stretches where I can get anything done, I add a tentative section on Seryana to my journal. Most of it is just thoughts on what to do about her. One idea in particular stands out. It may be very stupid, but that seems to be the way of it with Harbingers frustratingly often. She clearly has a way of channeling herself through her victims. Some trick that lets her act on, through, or around people while her heart nests safely somewhere else. Im not even certain she was there when I first found her. So if she can blink in and out of being whenever she wants, and shes doing something in here while I sleep maybe I can set my own trap. Later, as twilight passes by and leaves me in here with my very uninvited guest instead of taking my usual patrol walk, I think I really should take that shower. Ive had my most exhausting, disgusting day in quite a while. It starts well enough we have our own bathrooms here, and on most days when I dont have anything urgent to do, I like to sit down under the faucet and just inhale the steam for a while. It helps me breathe a little easier by the time Im done. Ive just closed my eyes and started to settle in when I realize what a mistake this was. When a sickly wet plop sounds out, and my eyes shoot open to find a great shed clump of someone elses thick, grimy hair on the shower floor. Seryana sighs happily, her voice coming from right behind my ear. No. No no no no I cant anymore. I rake my nails along my right arm hard enough to draw blood, but no blood comes out. Only icy emerald mist, pouring out and out directly from my body until it fills the shower stall, turning the water painfully cold, and starts to spill out into the rest of the room. I wrench my eyes shut as Seryana giggles in agony, then slowly melts away, no doubt overjoyed that shes finally gotten something out of me. By the time I dare to look again, all that remains is a film of wet dust where her hairball once was. At least if Im desperately searching for anything at all worthwhile to come of this, which it seems like I am for some reason, at least itll keep her focused on me. At least I only have to worry for my own safety. ~~~ Once Ive not exactly recovered from that repulsive trespass, but gotten over it enough to keep moving, and finished the rest of my bedtime preparations, I summon a single corrupted card. Thats harder to do without transforming theres a resistance that isnt normally there, a thick barrier between simply imagining something and the act of forcing it into reality that goes away when I unleash my magic fully. Thick, but permeable. Ive done it before, back when I was first experimenting with Irakkias power, and its gotten a little easier since. I set Pearl on the desk across the room, just in case. It doesnt look very comfy there, so I get an extra sheet from the linen closet and make her a nest but no, thats not good enough either. Will this be a safe enough spot if something goes wrong? Or, thinking of it now, what if I spring the trap and my infection leaks out through the cracks under the door? Or through the walls? I dont think it can do that, but Im not certain. A moment later, as Im pacing nervously around the room, the nest rustles. A thin, invisible finger strokes the fur on Pearls back the wrong way. I race to the desk, snatch her up, and swaddle her fully in thin sheets. If you touch her again I will fucking kill I start to growl, but trail off when I realize that I have no idea what to say. Theres no threat that works. Kill her? Im already doing my best, and I havent figured out how to make it stick yet. Kill myself, and remove her anchor? It seems very much like thats what she wants. Vyuji! I yell. My Messenger materializes in her favorite spot on the windowsill, and Seryanas presence melts out of being. Not actually retreating or severing her connection to me, Im sure its the same way shes faded into the background for short stretches before. Shes probably just startled by this other magical intruder. Liadain. How is your hunt going? Vyuji asks. I wail wordlessly in answer. Vyuji nods sagely. I see. Is there any way I can advise or assist you with mmh. She pauses, looking around and crinkling her nostrils. With that? I hope so! The Harbingers shes really really really gross and horrible, and she has some connection to me shes using to do things without being here. And without letting me follow her back to wherever she really is. Ah. Thats what I was smelling. Yes. Thats the one. Shes been making this whole day miserable, but I think she did something here last night, while I was sleeping. In my dreams. So Im trying to catch her that way, or at least hurt her in a way that counts. I hold up the tainted card between my fingers. Im not sure if I can use this in my sleep, but its the best idea I have so far. It could work. What do you need from me? Um My eyes flick across the room, and I realize that I just summoned an agent of the Goddess to protect my stuffed animal. When I use these cards, they make horrible death-clouds. They spread. I can steer them, but that might be hard while Im sleeping, and I dont want to mess anything up. Hurt anyone but the Harbinger. So I was wondering if you could make one of those barriers you made when we first met, but just around me and my bed? Vyuji gives no sign that she picked up my original worry. Not that I was exactly lying about any of that. She just thinks for a moment, then nods once. I could, but if you want to catch the Harbinger in an act she performed overnight, a ward may be counterproductive. Right. Good point, I mumble. However, I could keep watch and alert you under certain conditions say, if the Harbinger manifests physically, if she attempts anything elsewhere in the hospital, if any power you use spreads beyond this room, or if it feels like your soul is seriously endangered. It may be difficult to wake you in that last case, but that is your risk to take. This would, however, require me to sit right in here and watch you sleep, which you asked me not to do when we met. Not literally, physically in here, and not watching with human senses, but you understand my meaning. Um, yes, thats fine. Only until this is over, though. Of course. Is there anything else I can do? she asks. With the usual stipulations regarding my inability to directly face a Harbinger. Theres still oh, I dont have any better ideas, so you know what? I did summon an agent of the Goddess to protect my stuffed animal. I have that power. I see your point about guarding me or the whole room, but could you just protect Pearl? Her and those blankets? I point over at the nest on my desk. The Harbingers touched my stuff, and I dont want her to. Vyuji looks across the room, tilts her head, then smiles, warm and wide. Its another one of those rare faces on her that looks like it might actually be expressing something. Oh, you children are so cute, she says. Pearl is cute, I insist. Can you do it? Certainly. Vyuji sings a low, short burst of whalesong, wrapping Pearl and her makeshift bed in a thin halo of light, colored like the moon on the sea at night. If thats all, I suppose Ill wish you good luck rather than goodnight. I think thats everything. Um, thank you again, I say. Vyuji inclines her head slightly and vanishes. I move Pearls still-glowing nest to the top shelf of my clothes closet. Sorry, I whisper. Its probably not necessary. Axolotls like dark, tight spaces. It still feels lonely, though. The last time I slept without her was while I was recovering from my second transplant. But shell be safe there, so thats what matters. And if my plan goes anything like I want it to, thatll hardly be the most uncomfortable thing about tonight. Finally, I climb into bed, squeezing a card filled with my corrosive power to my chest under the covers. ~~~ I dont often have dreams coherent enough to remember. Or if I do, I forget them after waking enough to get out of bed anyway. Most of the time, I just wake with a few disjointed images and abstract, usually-unpleasant lingering emotions and impressions swimming around in my head. So when I find myself looking up into a desolate abyss of grey fog, pinned to a cold surface by hands of coarse twine interlacing their fingers with mine, its strange that it feels so horribly familiar. Seryana trills. Her voice is like glass shards scraping against each other in my head. The outline of her shape looms over me, drawn over the dreamscape in a living storm of harsh black lines. Shards of half-recalled memory stab into my mind, scars and echoes of what happens next. Of being strangled from the inside, drowning in the stink of rotten refuse all the while. This time, though, Im just aware enough of whats happening to remember what Im doing here. This time, Im prepared. I call to my magic it isnt in some other place, with this shroud of endless fog between us. Its always there, inseparably wound up with every part of my being. Its me, and it shouldnt take anything more than my desire to spring my trap. But nothing happens. Its not just that my power doesnt answer nothing happens. The world pauses. The shifting of scratchy black marks over Seryanas spectral echo is the only motion anywhere. After a moment, she pulls herself free from the stillness, jumping up and pulling frantically away from me. Her eyeless gaze swivels in all directions, like a cornered animal searching for any way out at all, only the trap shes caught in is this whole world. Theres an intangible shifting, not of movement or weight but of attention. Of invisible eyes prickling on my back, a gaze I only just became aware of, turning away for the briefest moment. Seryana raises her head and shrieks, wailing out some unnameable emotion in a glass-on-glass cacophony And then she vanishes, utterly without ceremony. Stench and all. Her voice cuts off as if she was never even here. Its hard to even think of what she was saying, like it was all just something that happened in a distant, fuzzy memory. a whisper-faint voice speaks, though speaking feels like far too strong a word for this sound. Its too light for reality, spoken so softly that nothing should be able to hear it, but carried into my soul on a breeze like the chill wind between the stars. The Hanged Man 5-5 the voice whispers, gentle and girlish despite its absolute lack of volume. Its tone belies the impossible, ineffable weight behind its voice. Her voice. Its as if a childhood friend took me aside to tell me a secret, and with the first word her mouth opened like a great gaping hole in the night sky and all the dead stars inside whispered their stories to me at once. The disembodied speakers unseen gaze shifts again, and in emphasis, she begins to unmake the world. The grey fog thins, then fades to nothing in seconds, exposing a sky whose purple stars cluster and swirl and blur around utterly black wounds in reality like whirlpools of liquid night. The cold ground below melts away and I plummet into endless nothing, falling an impossible distance from everything from myself, as I fall out from my own pajama-clad body. It floats in the expanse above me, limp and useless as ever. Some horrible emotion floods through me, but Im too detached from everything, from me in every sense, to have any idea what it is. I want to scream, to lash out, to bite my tongue raw and dig my nails into my palms until Im bleeding icy mist and black feathers from a dozen wounds, just to know what Im feeling. To turn myself inside out and fill the world with my own pain rather than drift forever in this. But I cant. I cant do anything. My own body vanishes in the endless distance as the world narrows around me. Thin tendrils of dark, empty space, glimmering as they move with dying stars and blinking black-hole eyes, begin to peel my souls skin away, layer by wire-thin layer, scrutinizing every part and particle of me. It doesnt hurt. It doesnt hurt. Why doesnt it hurt? Is there any me left to feel it? Where did she go? Between one cycle of painless flaying and the next the only milestone left to me, the only landmark in a timeless abyss severed from everything else a single thin ray of moonlight pierces the sky above. Then comes another. They widen at the ends, then swivel down, searching through the endless night like flashlight beams. the voice pouts. Her formless extensions draw back from whatevers left of me, and everything contracts. The twilit expanse bends and twists around itself, whirling ever inward toward a central point of relative stillness, As this storm of stars blurs and roils around me, the impossible distance between me and me shrinks until its vanished, returning me to something like myself. I try to back away, afraid to tear my eyes from the spectacle, terrified of what might happen if I even blink, but nothing happens. It feels like Im moving, but without going anywhere. Maybe theres still nowhere else to go. But soon I have no idea how soon, but soon everything stills again, and the whole world has compacted into a small shape. The spectral outline of a girl, shaped entirely from darkness haloed in amethyst light. A long, wavy tangle of hair fans out weightlessly behind her, and threads of flowing shadow around her body seem to form a simple dress, like two sheets of fabric draped over one another in a two-tiered arrangement. And all around her, theres nothing. Not light, not darkness, just the inexplicably, horrifyingly familiar sight of nothingness so absolute my eyes seem to roll over it until my focus is back on the shadowy girl. Other than the two moon-searchlights behind her, which now pan confusedly through the vacuum, there simply isnt anything that can be looked at but her. Everything this place ever was has been wiped away, leaving only the silent, wordless song of her essence. <__________________________> The girl glances my way. Bright violet rings like cloudy irises, her faces only visible feature, narrow slightly as they take me in. The faint tinge of sadness in those words is like peering into an abyss deeper than the sea. She raises her head, and her form flickers and blurs unsteadily. ~~~ My eyes shoot open as I wake, breathless and soaked in cold sweat. I reflexively reach for Pearl, but find only empty sheets and an extra pillow. And Vyuji, staring down at me beside my bed. Her sapphire eyes, wide and shadowed, glisten in the dark of night. Liadain? Liadain, youre awake! Breathe. Focus here. Its over whatever it was, its over. I grab that pillow and squeeze it, burying my face and wrapping my whole body around it while my breathing slowly, slowly steadies. My lungs feel like theres a block of dry ice burning a hole in them from the inside. I cant tell how much longer passes before I peek over the pillow and meet her eyes sideways. Time still barely feels real. Liadain, what just happened? I know youre in pain, but please. While its fresh. Tell me everything you can. I I croak. I shake my head, fumble past her for the glass of water on my nightstand, and sit up just enough to drain it all. Everythings still so cold. I dont one minute What just happened? My head is a jumble of pain and exhaustion and empty spaces so vast that all my tiny, scattered thoughts get lost in them. Whispers C to myself, from myself C trying to echo through the gulf of an infinite cave. I ask because I monitored you through the night, as requested. I felt some movement from the Harbinger following you, and when I tried to inspect the situation more closely, I found nothing. I couldnt see anything. I have no idea what happened and I have no idea why. Ive been trying to wake you for a few minutes now. Right. Thats what I was doing. Theres no one here but me and Vyuji, and I feel about through the sheets. The card the infected card I took to bed is gone. And its just us, now. No Seryana. Thats what I was trying to do. Did it work? No, somehow Im sure thats not it either. There was something else. Something Im missing. Something important that slips through my fingers like air every time I try to grab hold of it. I shake my head again. Its all just a lot of fuzzy nothing, the way dreams get when theyre over. I could try and say whats in the fuzz, but I really dont know. I wouldnt have the words. None of it makes any sense now. Itll probably be gone soon, I guess. So I dont know either. I Sorry I mutter. Vyuji grimaces, her face tight with a feeling I cant quite place. Her concerned expression is the same one she always wears whenever Im dealing with a Harbinger, but theres an intensity to her gaze thats different from usual. Okay. Thank you for trying, she says simply. Its still late. Do you think youll be able to sleep any more after all this?" Tired. I dont want to. Sleeping feels like a horrible, horrible idea after whatever just happened. But I also dont want to die, or become a useless blob for however many days or however much stolen strength it takes me to make up for a night of missed sleep. Assuming this doesnt keep happening. Alright. Ill keep watching. Closer, this time. I wont let anything else happen to you if I have any power to prevent it. I promise, she whispers, and disappears. ~~~ When I open my eyes again, the sun has invaded my room through my too-thin curtains. At some point, exhaustion must have won out over fear. Slowly, in time with my mind pulling itself back together, I flop out of bed, sniff the room still no Seryana, but my sweat-soaked pajamas arent terribly pleasant or comfy and retrieve Pearl from the closet. Her nest is still glowing slightly, though its harder to see in the daylight. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Vyuji? Im not dead, right? And you arent either? No, she confirms, blinking into being at my side. And while my perception may not be a certain thing, in this circumstance, Im quite confident nothing else untoward happened overnight. Right. Good. Thank you, I mumble. Did you, um, figure anything else out about that? She sighs, audibly, and leans back onto the foot of my bed. Im afraid not. Apologies Ill see what I can do, certainly, but whatever happened left no trace I can use. Thats a large part of why I was so concerned about it. For your part unless it recurs, I suggest you simply keep doing what you have been. And on that front, I do have something for you. Though I understand this may be a poor time. Its always a poor time. Go ahead. Theres no sense in wasting energy worrying about what I cant do. Im sure Ill do it anyway, but I shouldnt actively do it. I turn my back to her, stagger into my chair, and start brushing my hair while she speaks. Right, then. After your last Harbinger, I promised I would check in on directions I may be able to point you in. People who may have more of the information you need. I have an option for you, now. Do you know Aisling Waite? Truths Lantern? Hm? Ive heard of her, yes. Shes some kind of scientist Keeper who does experiments on her own magic, and anyone elses when she can get them to agree to it, then writes about them on her reef. Maybe I shouldve read those, or at least paged through them for anything important to me. Good. I bring her up because she does make herself available to speak with local Keepers, and because some of her abilities may be relevant to last nights situation well, unless whatever escaped my senses escapes hers too, which is entirely likely. Still, I believe you two could help each other. And as I promised last time, this isnt me asking you to find another team. Aisling isnt even especially interested in hunting Harbingers. Shes not? How does that work? First Mide, then Tetha, now this girl. How many Keepers are there who arent that interested in the reason to be Keepers? Oh, she does it on occasion, in a sort of distant supporting role to other Keepers. But left to her own devices, I suppose she simply has research projects she cares about more. Her Messenger tells me she wants to understand what it means for you children to grow more than she wants to grow herself, which I suppose I can respect. Its part of why I thought you two might work well together. That does make sense. I dont plan on hunting with anyone else after the Irakkia incident, but trading information with a girl who doesnt fight anyway is a very different thing. Still I havent given other Keepers much reason to want to work with me. Im sure neither of the ones Ive hurt laughed it off, and there is some kind of platform for Keepers to talk to each other. How far has that news spread among them? Liadain? Vyuji presses. Hm? Oh, I, right. Sorry. I fidget with my fingers in my lap. That sounds good, but I dont know how much other people will want to talk to me. Because of your last Harbinger? Is that public knowledge? Vyuji asks with a faint tilt of her head. I bite my lip, turn my head enough to glance at her through the corner of my eyes, and nod. Yes. Maybe. Probably. That and I didnt mention, I dont know if youve heard about this somehow. The reason anyone knows is because while I was working on that, I, um. Fought a Keeper over it. A Fianata, their younger girl. Oh. Vyuji blinks once, then smiles and carries right on.Well, children get into fights all the time, with words or scrapes or magic, and it very rarely destroys either of their lives, she offers. Shes never spoken in quite that tone before it sounds like a friend telling me not to worry so much about a test tomorrow. Or a doctor promising bone marrow transplants work as a cure for my condition in most cases. Vyuji, I think magic is pretty different from those other two, I groan. Why? Im sure it looked more serious than a regular human fight, but if no one died and no one was permanently injured, I dont see the problem. Vyuji opens a flower-hand and gives a broad, one-armed shrug. Plus theyre usually fighting over I dont know. I havent had friends in a while. Whos best friends with who? Not this. You sound like youre arguing against yourself. Do you stand by what you did or not? I mean, not exactly what I did. It didnt help, since the splinter of it we fought over wasnt even nevermind, not important. Because Harbinger reasons, I say, shaking my head as I cut myself off in mid-thought. You get the point. I may be a pariah by now. Well, Ive already asked Aisling if shed be willing to talk with a new Keeper. She agreed. Perhaps she had a guess as to who I meant, but none of the questions she asked me were about you. She did have rather a lot of questions, that girl. Oh. Hm. Thats no guarantee of this going well. It feels a little bit like when two young kids parents throw them together and say There, youre friends now! Or so I imagine. When we met in our first year of school, Grainne would complain about her dad trying that with his friends kids. It took him a weirdly long time to stop. But its something. Aisling and I probably do have information to exchange, unless she already knows everything in my journal. Alright, I finally say. If this is a disaster too, I may have to be a hermit forever. Thank you for the idea, though. And for um, making whatever introductions you made on my account. Forevers a long time. But I do think this will be good for you. The mischievous edge to Vyujis smile softens and fades. Aisling goes to Saint Riawals School. Theres a club she runs after hours. You can find her there, most days. Keepers still go to school? This one does. Dont they have, I dont know, better things to do? And a whole special system for if they still want to learn normal school stuff? I dont understand why someone would refuse advantages freely offered either, but thats her business. Weird. Not that Im one to talk. Dr. Cantillon probably considered her suggestion advantages freely offered too. ~~~ My morning routine goes entirely without signs of Seryana. Once Ive gotten someone to clean my bathtub and had a long enough soak to almost make up for yesterday, I head to Saint Riawals School. Its in the Fields, not too far from here, and I time the half-hour walk so that Ill get there around when school lets out. No cane today, at least not for this trip. Ive resolved to bring it anytime I might be hunting or poisoning monsters, but I dont need it to go talk to someone in public. The school itself is made up of six long buildings set into a hill, steadily rising such that the windows of one peek over the roof of the last. A ramp at the end of its obligatory well-kept garden courtyard leads up to the front doors, set into a tall glass facade. Its much grander than my old school, but I have no idea how prestigious or not it is. I was living in and out of the hospital well before it wouldve been time to worry about which secondary school Id go to. Students are just starting to filter out when I arrive. A few kids in scattered groups have stopped in the courtyard, either settled on the benches or sat down on the grassy hills on either side of the central ramp. Two girls are up on the first buildings roof, dangling their legs off the edge while they talk. Everyones dressed the same, in dark blazers with blue-green plaid bottoms and ties. I wont be walking into a tide of people or anything, but it is a little busy for my comfort. I push a little more magic into my immunization shield, just to be careful, then head through the front gate. Thisll be fine. Im sure everyone here wants to get out as quickly as possible and go wherever theyd rather be. But as I dodge through the thin crowd, people take notice. One boy shivers at the sudden cold of my barrier, though he quickly shakes it off and keeps walking. Sorry. Ill try to hold it a little tighter around myself. Hes far from the only one, though all around the courtyard, kids are stopping in their tracks or looking up from their conversations on the benches to watch me pass instead. Soon, the crowds scattered attention has mostly settled on me. Some eventually look away and go about their business, but enough are staring by the time I reach the ramp that theres clearly something going on. Why? What did I do to any of you but walk in the wrong direction? At least they arent bothering me, just watching, or whispering amongst themselves. I still hate it. I quicken my pace, enough to hurry past them without bolting and making more of a scene. Ive almost made it to the entrance when one of the two girls on the roof hands an open book off to her friend. She climbs over the edge, hangs suspended on the wall for a second, then drops to the ground, touching down with a softly-exhaled whoof! at the impact. The roof is high enough that she couldnt climb back up from here, but the maneuver didnt look too hard. For someone with a body that works. No one else pays her much mind too busy staring at me. The roof girl shakes herself off, then turns and approaches me. Her red hair is up in a spiky bun, and her wide eyes seem even bigger under her thick glasses. Hey, hey, Im sorry to bother you! Just, do you do autographs? Or is that not your thing? She smiles in a way I think is meant to be conspiratorial, but Im clearly not in on the secret. Why? Do you know me from somewhere? I ask after a beat of stunned silence. Not exactly, but youre that new Keeper no one knows, right? Word kinda gets around. Screaming Hymn wouldnt stop talking about her new mystery friend for a bit. Really? Of all the places in the city, does Shona go here too? Has she been telling everyone about me for weeks? What has she been telling them? Is Tetha also spreading the word about me? Does everyone already know me as the horrible soul-drinking monster girl? What do I Hey, dont worry, Shona didnt blow up your spot or anything! The girl raises her hands and backs off a little. Whatever your spot is. She just did a lot of, mm alluding? She scrunches her face up in thought, then shakes her head. Nah, that words probably giving her too much credit. Talking about her cool secret plans she couldnt talk about yet cause they were so amazingly secret. Shes not very sneaky, and she stopped after a while. Anyway, I figured you were one of those who didnt want to waste time being an idol, and those are all my favorite Keepers! Although, um, given that Im probably being kinda annoying, huh? Im Mor, by the way sorry, mayve gotten a little ahead of myself, I just Im only half listening to her while I put the pieces together in my head. Right. Of course they still wear uniforms in secondary school unless theyre Keepers. Thats the rule. My old uniforms from primary school still fit, lucky me, but I didnt pack them when I moved to the seventh floor. I may have made a mistake here. What? What makes you think that? Im just from a different school, I finally say. Mm hmm, she says, looking me over once more. Yet here I am immediately after school hours ended, in my regular clothes. And between my hair and a close look at my eyes, Im clearly in the beginnings of Emergence. No one would ever believe that. Im an idiot. Okay, fine, yes, thats me! Im here on business, so please I cut myself off as something I shouldve thought about before now occurs to me. This is a big building, Ill have to ask someone for directions, and shes given me as good a chance as any. Actually, do you know where Aislings club is? Mors face lights up. Ohhh, I see! Sure! Fifth floor, science lab in room 512. Take the stairs on the right and itll be on your left in the hall. If you hurry, you can maybe catch her before- What are you doing here? another girl growls from just outside the front doors. Her voice is clearly raised, but not quite shouted. Wah?! Mor yelps, visibly startling at the sound. So does the messy black-haired girl on the roof who had been sitting beside her. As I frantically search for the speaker, Mor takes a few hasty steps backward. Mm. I, Ill let you get to that, then, she stammers. Lin, we should go get the club set up! The girl above who must be Lin doesnt acknowledge her directly, just stuffs the book shes holding into her bag, hops to her feet, and takes off toward the far end of the roof. Mor scrambles off to the left, where a curved ramp lead up to the roofs and higher buildings, and disappears around the corner. Leaving me with Mide, whos come to a sudden halt outside the glass doors, eyes narrow, fists balled at her side. My whole body tenses up. The world narrows around us, though Im still dimly aware of the many, many onlookers. Is this happening again? Am I safe? Do I need to no. No, I cant start fighting Keepers whenever they get in my way. Whether or not she knows about my recent incidents, Mide hasnt transformed and pulled a weapon at the sight of me or anything. Her hair is in that same long golden braid, and shes dressed in an old-fashioned blue tunic dress with green embroidery, its colors matching the school uniforms. I cant blame her for just glaring at me I wouldnt want me here either. Shona pushes through the crowd inside a second later. Shes taken full advantage of the Keeper uniform rules, dressing in the sort of stuff I imagine youd see at some loud punk concert a short red and black-striped dress that seems styled to look like its shredded on one side, exposing a dark under-layer, ripped black leggings under a studded belt, and for some reason, platform boots that make her tower over everyone else even more. Oh. Ah heeey, Eyna! she says. Haltingly, with only a little of that exhausting boundless energy of hers. Its been a minute, yeah? What brings you over here? Things to do. I didnt know you went here. Ill get out of your way. Is there a back entrance somewhere? I ask. No, first Id really like to know what things you have to do here, Mide says, moving to block my way as I look over at the side ramp. Well, Im not staying here! Im not talking with an audience! Follow me if you want, or or find us a room or something if you think theres stuff we need to say! I try to say it like thats final, but it doesnt work at all. My voice fights me for every syllable. No silence falls over the courtyard. Students keep right on whispering amongst themselves in the background. But after a moment, Shona puts a hand on Mides shoulder and yells: Alright, you heard her! Move along! Personal space! See you all tomorrow! It takes a little longer for her words to register, but finally, the crowd does start moving again. I shuffle off to the side of the door while the traffic jam clears. Thanks, I say as the other two follow me. Mide keeps a noticeable distance. Hey, Shona says. Whatever happened, youre a guest and were in this thing together, right? I pause, then give a single nod in reply. Im not so sure. But at least for now, Ill take it. The Hanged Man 5-6 Once the departing crowd has mostly thinned back out, Shona leads the way through the front hall and into an empty first floor classroom, where she pulls out some desk seats and arranges them into a wide circle. Only she sits down Mide and I stand on either side of the circle, eyeing each other uneasily. Well if its gotta be that way for now, thats fine too, Shona says with a shrug when it becomes clear that neither of us are moving. So! Its, uh, been a minute! Howre you doing? New life working out for you, I hope? she asks. Mide shoots her a look that plainly says seriously? Eyna, could you tell her that theres no chance of us trying the team thing out just one more time? Somehow I think youll back me up on this, Mide says before I can answer. I meet Shonas eyes and shake my head. Sorry. Ehhhhh well, I, yeah. Guess I coulda seen that one coming, Shona says. No, that shouldnt surprise anyone, but she still visibly deflates a little. Okay. Now that thats all sorted out, what are you doing here? Mide asks. I want to compare Harbinger notes with Aisling. Id promise to leave you alone forever after that, only I might need to talk to her more in the future. But I dont like being here either. Too crowded. I wont be hunting in the area, if that helps. The two share a silent, uneasy glance. See, its because she thinks thats our problem that Im worried about this, Mide says to Shona. Look. Eyna. If a monster turns up in our school, youre here and were not for some reason, and you can handle it without draining anyone or whatever it is you do, I WANT you to fight it. Thats what all this is about! Whatevers got you in such a rush for Harbingers- ow! Shona elbows her pointedly, and she stops to rub her side. Is your own very personal matter, Im sure, she continues, sounding like shes repeating a warning to a parent who wanted to make sure she really got it. But you hurt people while youre running after them. If you cant just stop doing that thing She pauses, shuddering at what could only be one memory. One feeling. Then do it far away from me and my friends. I dont know what happens if you lose control and do that to someone who cant jump to the front of the line for magical healing. And I dont know what Id do if you did it here. Yes, it sure would be nice if I could just stop. I take comfort in the knowledge that I wont be losing control not then, not ever. I did what I did to Mide because it was my only way to survive, but it only got that far because I wasnt preparing properly. Come to think of it, Mide could probably help me learn how best to use this power, if we were on better terms. Ive wanted to know for a while now what being drained is like for my victims. That was an extreme case and its probably different for normal people and Keepers, but she is the one person I could currently talk to about the experience. Seems best not to try that right now, though. Or probably ever. Look, with what happened Im stupid and new to all this. I went into it without a plan for how to use my magic the right way where I really shouldve had one. Now I do. I really didnt mean to hurt you, it wont happen again, and Im sorry. I dont know how much any of itll help, but thats all I can think to say. Yeah, well, you did it. It doesnt really matter what you meant, Mide says. No. It really doesnt, does it? Thats fair, I murmur back. Shona looks sad, but has nothing to say in my defense this time. Not that Im surprised. What would there be to say? Glad were on the same page, then, Mide says flatly. Anyway. Whether Aisling wants to deal with you is her call. We should get going, if that was it? She looks back at Shona, who sighs loudly enough to fill the room. Yeah. Yeah, I guess we should. Do you need directions, Eyna? I shake my head. A girl outside already pointed me there. Great. Mide turns and heads for the door, but stops and looks over her shoulder just before she opens it. Oh, and if someone catches up with you and tells you to turn yourself in, you should probably do what they say. Making any more of a mess wont end well for you. Uhhhh, yeah, that might be for the best, Shona agrees, scratching the back of her head nervously. What? Hold on, you cant just leave that there! Should I be expecting that? How could you possibly not? Mide spits. Well, yknow, people you make enough noise and people start trying to find out where it came from, yeah? Shona cuts in. Listen, though Im sure youve already heard this somewhere, but you really arent the only Keeper anywhere going through stuff like youre going through, yknow? If you asked, thered be someone who could help you figure out how to handle it. Ive met Niavh Fianata. If I need help, I know where to go, I say. Oh. Oh wow, yeah, you dont need any dumb shit advice I can give you! Shona laughs a bit nervously. So, then til next time, yeah? I hope whatever youre doing with Aisling works out. I dont really get her, but maybe you will! Meanwhile, Mide has already opened the door, walked out, and looked back in impatiently. Shona shoots me with a pair of halfhearted goodbye finger guns, then runs off to join her. Well. Thats I guess that wasnt any worse than Id have guessed it would be? Whatever that means. Still, I take a while to gather myself before I leave the room. I sit at the nearest desk, bury my head in my arms, wipe my eyes just in case, and then its on to what Im actually here for. How much does Aisling already know about me, come to think of it? It sounds like knowing is kind of her thing. I can only hope its a good sign that these two at least havent mentioned Tetha at all. ~~~ There are no more incidents on the way to the club. A few people who havent quite left yet still give me looks as I pass by, but in the absence of any loud public Keeper drama, I just keep moving until theyre gone. Mors directions are easy to follow, and soon Im at the door labeled simply 512. In the little rectangular window, theres a few people scattered around seats at the long, raised desks, but from here I cant tell what, if anything, theyre all doing. I knock twice. What? Whos knocking? Just come in! a boys voice calls. Okay, then. I take a deep breath and do that. Light pours into the science lab through a window that spans the entire wall opposite the door, looking out over the schools front courtyard and a small slice of the city beyond. The room is quite well-appointed, with all manner of scales and tubes and tongs and microscopes and other instruments I dont recognize stored neatly on shelves lining the room or in cabinet space underneath the desks. None of those are in use, though the four uniformed students inside seem mostly focused on a projector screen at the far end of the room. At the top of the screen, a big bold heading reads: HARBINGER CLASSIFICATION: IRAKKIA? (self-designation unknown) Well. Thats interesting. I didnt expect to find people who werent even involved discussing the second Harbinger I ever fought, especially not on the very day I happened to come by. Beneath, the screen separates into four columns, labeled Cluster A, Cluster B, Other, and NOS. The A and B columns are filled with small bullet-pointed lines of text. The other two contain a single line each. Others says -No known plausible candidates. NOSs reads Ask Lucan if youre wondering why we still waste space on this category. Seriously, Lucan, why? When I enter, a boy and a girl seated next to each other at the desk closest to me are in the middle of an animated argument about something? Classifying Harbingers, I guess. I have no idea what that means in practice. It sounds impossible, but what do I know? Im just saying, the thing with the weird sky is a textbook B trait and thats the best match we have so far, the boy says. Colm, there is no no, there WOULD be a textbook, if it wasnt locked up somewhere in the Archives with Redaction Agency spooks sitting on it! But until we can go beat em up and take it, which, uh, I think were a ways off from that being on the table, were writing the textbook! the girl yells, definitely louder than she needs to. The two look similar, with the same dark hair and freckles, though the girl is much shorter and their brown-green and green-brown eyes dont quite match. Redaction what? Is that an actual thing? The boy Colm? groans and gives her a pointed look. Its probably not a thing. Anyway! she continues after they stare each other down for a bit. Until the textbook is liberated or written, pretending well actually be able to solve a case like this one to any degree of certainty is The girl trails off as she turns to look at me and realizes I dont fit in at all. Hm? Whos hi! she finishes, turning my way. Most of the others follow her lead at the sudden halt in the conversation. Not that I expected much better a Keepers circle of friends are probably more likely than anyone to see me for what I am immediately. The last to notice me is a blonde girl in a blue beret, seated at the teachers desk and absorbed in something shes doing on a desktop drive. Eventually, she peeks up over the top of the monitor and narrows her eyes. Judging by the blue, almost painfully bright light shining from her irises, that must be Aisling. She thumps a book on the desk, breaking the uneasy silence, then stands. A tall older boy with neat brown hair, narrow grey eyes that look slightly less tired than Aislings, and thin-rimmed glasses you can barely see quickly moves to take her place at the desk, like this is a signal and a routine they go through pretty regularly. Well just be a minute. Carry on talking if you like, Im sure I can get the gist when Im back, Aisling says, then meets my eyes and gestures with her head to the door. I step back outside, and she emerges a second later. Hi, Vyujis new girl. You arent here with an emergency question, are you? Aisling asks as the door swings shut behind her. Up close, her curly hair looks like it hasnt been brushed quite as much as it should, and if I ignore the piercing light in her eyes, theyre as exhausted as any Ive ever seen. Theres a faint tinge of unpleasant heaviness in her soul, but she doesnt quite feel sick well, maybe a tiny bit. Just in that way anyone can become unhealthy by not sleeping enough. She didnt bother to introduce herself. I honestly cant blame her. Anyone who comes looking for her here must know who she is, me included. Similarly, I dont need to ask how she knew who I was even just based on things Im certain she knows, its not much of a puzzle. Vyuji met with her at some recent point and heres a weird new Keeper. Its annoying that my attempts to keep myself quiet have been so worthless, but anyway. I dont think so? Im not exactly sure what you mean by emergency and I am trying to figure some things out, but Vyuji just said wed have notes to compare, I say. Aisling bites her lower lip, but after a moment, she releases it and nods. Good, because theres a line for questions. Unless you had a really good emergency. Can your thing wait until our meetings finished? About an hour at most? Thats fine. I dont want to give another Keeper any more reasons to hate me than she might already have, and if I werent here, Id just be in my room working on my journal until dusk. Great. Youre welcome if you want to sit in. And simple as that, she heads back inside. I shrug and follow her. Back in the lab, the two kids at the desk closest have resumed their argument, and theres a new bullet-point under the original note in the NOS column. It says Just because we havent found the commonalities yet doesnt mean they dont exist (أ) Aisling scowls and hurries to the teachers desk. Yep. True. Very true. Lucan, if you or anyone else think youve found enough connections to merit a new cluster, youre of course welcome to propose it. Until then, stop trying to turn the non-category category into a home for your half-baked red-string conspiracy board hypotheticals! she fumes. She sounds like shes talking as much to herself as to the boy. Lucan scoots back to his original seat, grinning and clearly satisfied with himself, but says nothing more on the matter. As soon as she sits back down, Aisling highlights and deletes his note. Anyway. We have a guest who doesnt want to drag me off on some urgent mission, so thats nice, Aisling announces. It is, it is! Welcome to the Research Club, a home for everyone who wants to know everything they are hiding from us! the little freckled girl says, with no further indication as to who they might be. She puts a hand to her chest as she continues: I am Haunild Yadon, the youngest investigative reporter in Clarish history! Pleased to make your acquaintance! Colm Yadon. Nice to meetcha. Im mainly here to keep this one at least partially chained to reality, the boy next to her says. For example, what she means by that is that she wrote a few of the pages on Aislings reef. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. IMPORTANT pages! Its an important reef! Is it only a real investigation if a news organization posts it on their reef after the Redaction Agency takes a scalpel to it? she objects. No, but thats usually when we call it reporting, the older boy says mildly. And hey. Im Lucan, if you havent caught that from Ash complaining about my visionary spirit. Um, hi, everyone. Im Eyna. I dont know enough about reporting to comment on that, so I just wave and take a seat in the back corner. The club members glance at each other, then back to me. Except for Aisling, whos still looking over something on her screen. Dont mind me. Just do whatever youve been doing, I say. I suddenly wish Id brought a book to hide in. Hold on a second, Colm says. During our debrief with her, Shona mentioned an Eyna joining her usual duo. Was that you? What? Im ugh, Im so stupid. Why did I keep using the same name after nearly eating one Keeper and fighting another to protect a Harbinger? Wasnt going to say anything if they didnt catch it. Sorry, Aisling says tonelessly, without looking over the monitor. Why did I give them a name at all? Wouldnt they have just finished whatever they were doing before if I said nothing and brushed them off? Why am I so horrible at this? I just want to crack my skull open against a wall, let my soul leak out onto the floor, and replace all the broken parts of it with ones that can actually think. Yes, I say. Against every instinct I have, in a voice barely over a whisper. Were discussing the Harbinger the three of you killed right now. Can you give a better description of its vulnerability to perception than when we made a circle and looked at the Wound real close, all that obnoxious cheaty shit it was doing stopped working? Lucan asks without missing a beat. That would help, Aisling says, leaning over to peek sideways around the monitor. Wait, thats it? Thats the big question they have for me? Um, probably? Haunild grins and pumps both her fists. Oh, now were in business again! Tell us! Tell us eeeverything Screaming Hymn wasnt paying attention to! I okay. Sure, I say. It sounds like a lot of talking to strangers, but at this point, Ill take any chance that this meeting might not start and end horribly. ~~~ I have the rooms full attention as I share my perspective on the hunt for Irakkia to the best of my ability, with only a couple small exclusions around what I did to Mide. There, I just say that we both got hurt and only I was fit to keep going. Given what this group seems to be like, Im expecting to be interrupted all the way through by an exhausting torrent of questions, but apparently the rule is that those only start once Im finished telling my story. They do have questions, though. Oh, do they ever. Most of the first ones are just asking for clarifications on things I didnt describe the best the first time through. Irakkias Wound was full of things I struggled to understand myself, much less explain to a group that didnt see any of it. Plus it just feels wrong having an audience for stuff Im saying. Backing up from the Wound a little. Do you remember what that victim in the Sanctuary wrote? Lucan eventually asks, once theyre satisfied with all the little details. Is there a place I can type it out or put it on that display? I think thatll be easier. And itd be a bizarre thing to recite. Aisling opens a text box, places it over the NOS column on the projected screen, and waves me to her seat. I type the poem out from memory: a long long long time ago, someone fell through the sky and built a castle floating in the clouds this castle has no doors and no windows no light shines inside it none not ever not a single star or lamp or candle if you or i were stuck in a place like that, where nothing comes in and nothing goes out, wed starve or suffocate or lose ourselves and never find us again but the children who live in the castle are happy there! those children spend lots of happy days crawling around in the dark they need no light, for there is nothing their eyes can see they touch each other with hands that have never felt anything theyve fo And that was it, I announce. Aisling takes her spot back as soon as Im done oh well. This wouldve been easier with a monitor between me and everyone else. As I cross the room on the way back to my corner, Haunild pulls her hands into her sleeves and wraps her arms around herself. Mrrh. Chilly. Is, uh, is that you? Oh, yes. Sorry, I say. I really will work on that, but I cant work on it right now. Any chance you can turn it off? she asks with a nervous smile. No. Right. Emergence, she grumbles, then turns away to read the poem with the rest of the club. I dont correct her. This is one of the weirder ones weve seen, yeah, Lucan says, first to comment on the writing. Do you see a lot of these? I ask. Not exactly like this, but we do try to record and consider anything Harbinger victims say about their attackers. Sometimes it helps, he answers. Any guesses as to what that missing last line mightve been? Theyve found, forgotten meh, theres no way to say where it couldve gone past that. I dont even think it was the last line. There was just a big blotch of smeared ink and wet paper at the bottom, I say. Well, complete statement or no, that stuff about the sky-castle does sound kind of B. Did you catch its self-designation er, its title? Shona didnt, but she mentioned you were better with that sort of Harbinger thing, Colm asks. It was The World Is Not The World. Thats most of it, at least. Maybe thisll make more sense to one of you than it did to me, but there was some sort of distinction in its mind between the world and THE WORLD. I couldnt say what it actually meant by that. I think about whether to expand, then decide theres no point in holding this particular card too close when Im here to trade Harbinger information. I didnt understand their language yet. Not all the way. That gets a few more looks around the group, which I cant tell how to read. Then And you do now? Aisling asks. Yes. I cant speak it, but I can hear it and read it, I say. Haunild plants her head on her desk and lets out a muffled wordless groan. Um? Did I say something wrong? I ask. No, its not, you didnt do anything, just we have a member whos really into languages. She hasnt been around and shed be real mad if she knew she was missing this. Id call her and yell at her to get over here already, but well, she trails off. At nearly the same time, Aisling and Lucan glance her way uneasily. Shes missing. Weve been looking for her for a few days, Aisling clarifies. Oh. Im sorry to hear it, I mutter. Obviously, not every missing person was taken by a Harbinger. You hear a lot about those cases when they happen, of course, but Im not even sure if most of them were. Sometimes, kids just run away or get lost and turn up later. But that doesnt keep the worst possible outcome from looming large in everyones minds. Sokay. Well find her. And maybe this is better for you, Eyna. She woulda buried you in questions about I dunno. Phonemes or whatever it is shes into, Haunild continues after a moment. Phonemes? Yeah. You know, like Haunild waves a hand in aimless circles. Language sound stuff. Its a linguistics term, Lucan clarifies after a silent moment. Its how they define a unit of wait, first, do you care? Oh, good. I was afraid they were getting into some magic vocabulary no one told me about. Only if itll make me better at speaking Harbinger, I say. Which you described as mainly an abstract mental experience, right? You hear sounds or read sigils and just know that they carry some meaning? Aisling asks. Mhmm. Isobeld be mad about that too, she sighs. It probably wouldnt help, then. Maybe if you come back to it later, once youve got more of a grounding in that language. Someone learning their first words in a normal human language wouldnt get much out of studying, say, why the letter P makes the sounds it does, and in this case there seem to be a few more obstacles to understanding whatever structure and rules this magic language must have. Then I cant say I really care, no, I admit. Haunild shrugs. Me neither. That aside, other Keepers can still see those glyphs. There are at least a few transcriptions on the Sea not so many photos, for obvious reasons, but those should still work. If we collected a few of those, could you translate them? Lucan asks. I dont know if thats how it works, but I dont know that its not. Maybe? Aisling thumps her notebook on the desk again. Good thought, but not the agenda for today. Any more questions about the Harbinger? No, but I think Ive changed my position. Much as Id love to have been right in the first place, and that thing about the world does still sound like a Cluster B concept, the idea of a Bs victim writing poetry about it doesnt really square with how they do things, Colm says. No major astrological incidents since the winter eclipse, either. Not that thats a sure thing, but it is evidence against, Lucan says. Well, no more incidents that they told us about, Haunild adds in an accusing tone. Again, Im not sure who shes accusing of what. None that any of my sources told me about, either, Aisling says. Huh, Haunild mumbles. Not even the She pauses, flicking her eyes my way. um, on the Sea? Aisling shakes her head. I still havent been able to reach her since the last time I mentioned her. Besides, the sky was never one of her big areas of interest. She chews her lip quietly for a moment before she continues: Anyway. That was a lot of good new data about this case, but I dont think it brings us much closer to answering the original question. We still dont know anything about this Harbingers source incident, if it had one. Maybe something about that would make sense of the discrepancies that kept us from calling it an A in the first place, but we have no way of investigating that as of now. It goes without saying that especially in the case of a dead Harbinger, the earlier victims are off-limits until theyre released from the Sanctuary with spotless bills of spiritual health. And until any prospective interview requests are approved by their treatment teams, she finishes. That was one time! And they kicked me out in the lobby anyway! Haunild complains. You knew better then and you double know now! Aisling scolds the other girl, who looks down poutingly like a sad puppy. Moving on, all in favor of labeling Irakkia NOS until further notice? she stands, vaults over the teachers desk, and sits on its near edge, idly swinging her legs as she comes to rest. She looks in my general direction, not quite making eye contact, and nods. Feel free to vote if you like, although I dont think itll swing anything. What exactly are we voting on? I mean, youre clearly trying to sort Harbingers by some sort of system, but I dont know what the options are, I say. Oh. Didnt think of that. Usually people come here having read my work. She pauses, twirling a short lock of her hair tightly around one finger, then calls out Lucan, could you take this one? Were almost done here and I dont want to do the long version. Sure. Your version does get really long sometimes. Lucan shrugs and turns to me. That alright with you? Mhm. I dont want to hold you up too much. And Id rather ask any deeper questions while I have Aisling alone. Cool. The short version is that we believe its a mistake to treat Harbingers as a single class of being. We call them by the same name and react to them the same way, but the more you research them, the more you see that theyre really, really not the same. Its an oversimplification, potentially a very dangerous one. I nod once. That sounds right so far. Yurfaln was nothing like Irakkia, and neither of them had anything in common with that unnamed thing in the forest. So we record all the ones we learn about. We look for patterns between them, ways in which certain Harbingers really are like others, and do our best to sort them into categories with common traits and origins. Clusters, because we dont expect them to be as organized as, say, animal families, not anytime soon. Isnt it also dangerous to think up a box and expect them to fit into it? I ask. Look, to protect yourself from something, you need to understand it, and we can never understand these things if we just leave them as a big scary squiggle in our model of the world forever! Lucan snaps. I flinch at the sudden noise. Uh, sorry, he adjusts his tone. Just yeah, weve only gotten so far. We dont advise using this system in its current form to try and predict anything about an active Harbinger. Right. That makes sense, yes. Ill let you finish. Thanks. So Cluster A is, uh, I guess you could call them traditional Harbingers. Ones that basically line up with the way holy texts and safety lectures describe Harbingers. They seem to be based on some person or groups negative emotions, and they usually feed on or spread whatever experience created them. Theres a bit of a chicken-and-egg question that comes with using that word here, but you get the idea. If you know anything about Harbingers, you know about these. Cluster Bs are weirder, but in a pretty distinct way thats easy enough to understand. They dont come from people, they dont care about people as anything except things to inflict themselves on, and whatever they do care about, it makes no sense to any of us. Their feeding patterns are destructive enough that victims very rarely recover, or else they just drag people into themselves and never let them out, and theyre more likely to crawl out of their Wounds and attempt full incursions when they get big enough. We think they come from somewhere else. Some other nightmare realm. Or fallen stars. B Harbingers do seem to be more common around strange astrological events, Colm adds. Thats a hypothesis, yeah, Lucan continues. Anyway, Other is for workshopping potential new categories, things we have ideas about but arent sure of yet. None of those are relevant here. And NOS not otherwise specified well. That gets back to what you were saying about our boxes. Currently, its for Harbingers too weird to fit in anywhere else, or ones that blend enough common traits of the other clusters that we dont know what to do with them. I think there might be an actual category somewhere in that in-between space, but until we find more examples of Harbingers that fit into it, even Ill admit that it is kind of a half-baked red-string conspiracy board hypothetical. Aisling glances up from the monitor and smiles at him. Theres a faintly predatory cast to her gleaming eyes. Yep, go ahead and store that one in your memory palace, Ash. Take it out and replay it whenever youre feeling down. I dont mind. Youre welcome, Lucan says without ever looking her way. Eyna, I think that pretty much covers the basics. NOS is where were thinking of putting this one. All in favor? he repeats. Four hands immediately raise. After a moment, I join them. Im hardly an expert in whatever their system is, but too weird seems like a perfectly good way to describe Irakkia. There we go, then. Ill handle its entry on the master list when I get home, Aisling says. Meeting adjourned! Despite her strangely official-sounding announcement, the club members do chat and mill about for a little longer. They mostly leave me alone, just looking my way now and then, but after a minute Lucan does break away from a conversation and approach me. Hey, no pressure, but do you think youll come by here again anytime soon? We dont mean to tie you down and pump you for every bit of info we can. Just wondering if I should look around for magic sigils anyones tried to copy. Maybe, I say. Just like with Niavh a couple weeks ago, Im a little surprised to find that I dont think Im lying. So far, this has gone about as well as I could expect, for spending time with a bunch of people I dont know? Im not eager to come to this school regularly and keep running into Mide, but really it depends on how I manage with Aisling when the others are gone. Thats fair. I know you guys tend to keep pretty weird schedules. Im sure Ashll keep me posted either way, he says. Speaking of, not to rush you all out the door, but I did promise her we could talk business in private after this, Aisling tells the room. Oh! Okay! We can take off, then, Haunild says. Byeee! She hops out of her seat, grabs Colms arm, and tries to drag him along, but clearly doesnt have the strength. He snrks a bit before he stands, shakes her off, and they both head for the door. Want me to wait outside? Lucan asks. Only if youve got something else to do. Otherwise Ill catch up with you tonight, Aisling says. Sounds good. See you when I see you, Eyna. Lucan waves and follows the other two out. Whew. This was far from the longest or most painful delay Ive ever dealt with, but its only made me a little less nervous about whatever comes next. Once we have the room to ourselves, Aisling jumps down from her perch, grabs a chair, and drags it along the floor, swinging into position on the other side of my desk, right across from me. She takes a seat and leans forward, then looks right at me. I glance down, avoiding both the blinding glare of her eyes and staring right at another person. Alright. Sorry about the delay, and I really do appreciate the help its been a bit since we managed to get more than one witness to a Harbinger in here. But before we go any further, theres some stories I think I need to hear your side of. I do kind of have to keep track of local goings-on, you know. Right. Of course she does. Well at some point, Im going to have to find out what people know about me. What theyre saying about me. What theyd do with me, if its really gone that far. Fine. Where do we start? The Hanged Man 5-7 Great. So. During the Harbinger incident weve been discussing, something happened with you that Shona didnt want to talk about. What was it? Theres nothing intense or intimidating about the way Aisling holds herself, other than the uncomfortable light in her eyes. She slouches, resting her elbows on the desk and her head in her hands, and taps her feet to no particular rhythm as she waits for my answer. None of that keeps this from feeling like an interrogation, though. Maybe my life isnt on the line, but enough is to be terrifying. Take your time, Aisling says in the same high, flat tone she always seems to use. Judging from the meeting I just sat through, its clear from her voice when shes talking about something she finds annoying. Beyond that, I have no idea how to read her. Okay, I finally say. I havent mentioned everything my magic does. I can drain strength. Drain life. From people, or from Harbingers if I get enough of a hook in them. Still I stumble around calling it health, as if thats going to hide anything of substance. It works in reverse too, although Ive obviously only tried that with Harbingers. In reverse? What does that mean? Aisling asks. Um no, sorry, I dont think reverse is quite the right word for what Im talking about. It makes it sound like I fed it part of myself, which isnt right. My first Harbinger fed on suffering and slow death C its own and everyone elses. I killed it by stealing a disease it built itself up from, that it was using to I guess torture itself into existence? Which hurt a lot, but it worked. No suffering and slow death meant no Harbinger. Aisling stares at me, blank-faced and wide-eyed. You killed it by UGH, fine! That actually makes as much sense as anything else about magic! Sometimes I fucking hate magic, she spits, then blinks rapidly, like shed forgotten to and is just now making up for it. Yeah. You were saying? Right. So, I say, then pause again. Why? I might as well just leave if Im going to get stuck while shes asking about the least of the horrible things Ive done. What I did to Mide was the best decision in a bad situation, and it worked. It wont make anyone want to fight with me, but I dont want that in the first place. If all I do is bring pain wherever I go, its better I keep it to myself as much as possible. So if this is enough for her to shun me, fine. Itd save me from talking about the hard parts. The one time Irakkia really struck me, it wasnt a scrape or a close call like I sort of suggested. It skewered me in the gut with a spike of scrap metal or something like that. And I didnt have enough life to save myself, so I took what I needed from Mide. Shona seemed to want to sort it out and keep working together after that, but Mide wasnt having it. I thought it was a bad idea, too. I see. That all tracks with what Id gathered so far, Aisling says. Follow-up question: when you talk about not having enough life, where do you get the rest? I freeze. Whats there to say to someone whos already figured out everything about me? Why is she wasting both our time asking, pulling teeth one by one, when she can just listen to the people Ive hurt and get the whole terrible story? Was that wave of mystery-disease outbreaks over the last few weeks you stocking up? she asks. Her expression doesnt change at all, and her voice sounds mildly curious, at most. Because if- And what if it was? What else am I supposed to do? Wait until the next time Im inches from death to drain the nearest person dry? The dam breaks. Words pour out faster than I can think about what Im doing, even what Im saying. Or, or just not have any, get eaten by the next Harbinger who decides to stop playing their nightmare-logic games and stab me through the heart? My teeth clench as I dig my nails into my palms, forcing back the hot liquid I can feel building up behind my eyes. This is the best way! Its the only way! I almost-scream. The sound comes out scratchy and half-formed, the way it does whenever I raise my voice too much. Its never carried well, and I have no practice pushing past its limits. Theres never been a point. Theres no one I could yell at to improve my situation. Aisling leans back and raises her hands. Her eyes widen just a little, startled but not scared. Okay. I hear you. Can I finish now? Im almost certainly not gonna say whatever you were expecting me to. I bite my lip, fold my arms, and nod, looking down at the desk. Kay. Im not saying thats an evil power, dont ever use it again. Its shitty that it works that way, but Keepers get what we get, and I dont know enough about how that works to say if your magic is some judgment on your character. I dont believe it is. But I do think there are better, safer ways to use it, she says in that same tone. Theres not enough sympathy or condemnation in it for me to hear either. Like what? Taking health from volunteers in controlled conditions. Which would also be easier on your end and teach you more about how the process works. Yes, but who would volunteer for that? You seem like youre thinking about smart ways to use your powers. Thats a good start, but its not the only new tool you have. I almost made the same mistake when I was new. For a moment, Aisling simply smiles wide without opening her mouth. Her eyes narrow in a way that makes me think of a cat preparing to pounce on its favorite toy. Whatever you think of this, its a simple fact that lots of people really like Keepers. Maybe you dont want to be an idol. Fine. Me neither. But you can still use that to get things you do want. When she speaks again, theres a strange eagerness in her voice: Put the word out that any donors to your life bank get an autograph and a picture with you or something, and people will do that. Im sure itll hurt, but theyll come away from the experience happy to have helped one of humanitys beloved protectors instead of panicking about their sudden-onset, possibly-Harbinger-related sickness. I wince. I still have no idea what its like for people I drain from. Mide stopped just short of comparing it to a Harbingers touch, but for all the ones who cant sense magic, whove never had to feel anything like that before I could just as easily be either the worst health days of their life or their first impossible nightmare. And that way, whatever damage you do to them is better managed because they can check in with doctors who know exactly what happened, Aisling continues unprompted. Those doctors can then tell you what it looks like from their perspective, how long the effects last, if any of them linger people from the earlier cases are recovering, by the way. I followed up on that, although I obviously cant predict any long-term impact. Youd get what you need, plus a lot more information about your abilities, and you wouldnt cause any more incidents where the news speculates about you being a sneaky Harbinger. I open my mouth, but realize as Im trying to form words that I dont know what to say to that. I think I was still expecting, reflexively, some suggestion to hobble myself forever and just hope it works out, but this it does make sense. It never occurred to me at all, because Im an idiot whos spent the last month with tunnel vision, missing everything that doesnt help me eat as many Harbingers as possible, as quickly as possible. I barely even checked the news of what was happening to the people Id drawn from for fear of what Id see, especially since Id probably have to keep doing it no matter what. See where Im coming from here? Aisling asks a few seconds into my silence. Given what shes said about the news on my draining sprees, and other things a girl like her could easily figure out, I wonder if she already had a good guess as to what I was doing or she just came up with this plan on the spot. Yes, actually. Id just have no idea how to arrange something like that, I admit, squeezing my elbows a little tighter. Aisling shrugs. Literally just go on the Sea, verify yourself on one of the Keeper reefs, and ask. Or if you dont want to do it yourself, find a publicist and get them to set it up. The Church sponsors some of those. Its honestly a good idea. Ignoring the part where Id have to present myself to a bunch of strangers as the creepy vampire Keeper, inevitably giving them a name and a face to put to the rest of my awful reputation which, after Aisling brought up reports about the people Ive drained, Im more sure than ever must already be floating around out there. Still, all complications aside, I can see how this would be a better method than what Ive been doing, whether or not Im capable of doing it. Anyway, given what Ive just laid out, what youre saying doesnt sound great, sure. I get why Mide doesnt want much to do with you. But its hardly the worst power Ive ever heard of, Aisling says. What are the worse ones? I ask. Aisling glances at the ceiling, tapping her cheek with one finger. Well. Im fairly sure that Sofia- Besides Sofia! It really doesnt help if Im second place to her! Yeah, fair enough. Lets think a little more local. Do you know anything about Phantom Gunner Ardal? I think Ive heard that name before, but not really? Makes sense. He died two years ago, a little after I became a Keeper. His whole thing was calling up the souls of the dead and binding them to himself. Using them in his magic, and not just as companions or familiars or components in his bigger ritual stuff. Hed Here, she slumps and shakes her head. Hed turn them into bullets and shoot them at Harbingers. Theres a sentence. Fucking magic, I swear. Aisling groans dramatically, then leans back in her chair, tilting it on its thin legs at an unsteady angle. So yeah. Far as Im concerned, nothing youve described is worse than taking human souls, which contain everything that humans are, and burning them for power. Ardals thing just didnt cause as much of a fuss because it didnt impact currently-living people. He always claimed there was consent involved, he was just communing with the spirits of his ancestors or something, but if I ever end up as a ghost, thats sure not how I want to spend my afterlife. Theres an afterlife? Ghosts are real?! I yelp. Aisling grits her teeth. We arent sure. Its complicated. Complicated how? Explain, please. Ive looked on the Sea, in the Cycles, through however many occult books, everywhere I could think of! How has whatever happens when you die stayed this big vague mystery if we had someone right in our city who could wave his hands and summon ghosts? Because we have other records of Keepers with abilities based on concepts that definitely werent real, or, well, at least consistent with everyday natural law, except with reference to them and their magic! Kids who summoned mythological creatures or no, heres a more relevant example. Thereve been Keepers who could talk to animals, or PLANTS, as if they were little people with their own little versions of humanlike intelligence and language ability. Which, to be clear as the night sky, they demonstrably arent. Not in any context other than the very specific exceptions those Keepers created with magic. Magic is the ultimate exception to everything we think we understand about the world. It is, she finishes, slowly, through a thin-lipped scowl, extremely annoying. But fairly localized, at least. Yeah, Saint Kuri could make friends with trees. Im confident that doesnt mean every logging camp is a killing field. Reality is still at least a little bit real. If thats the case, what was so bad about this Phantom Gunner doing whatever he did with magical figments that seemed like ghosts? I ask. Aisling nods once. Fair question. All that was the way Ardal himself explained his power, and Ive been assuming for the sake of this conversation that he was doing if not precisely what he described, then something close enough to count. All I know for sure is that he was interacting with something, maybe even something inherent to the world. He couldnt imagine up a ghost who never existed and poof them into being from nowhere. There are also other Keepers with powers based on other perceptions of death or the dead, and when he used up a ghost for his powers, those other Keepers couldnt access that person anymore. Check Experimental Log #16 on my reef sometime, if youre really interested. But I mean, I hesitantly pry, wouldnt he run out of ancestors eventually? Well, he could and did generate bullets with magic and use those. They just didnt have the stopping power or unique effects of his special ghost bullets. And if you keep doubling back through the generations, from his parents to his parents parents and their parents parents, plus whatever extended family they had I doubt he was in danger of running out anytime soon. Im not even sure if they had to be his ancestors or thats just how he preferred to do it for his own reasons, Aisling says with a broad shrug. I heard of this boy a few minutes ago and my head is already spinning with questions about how that even works. Thats insane, I mutter. Its insane that were sitting here trying to puzzle this out. Aisling sucks in air through her teeth, then sighs it all out in a big whoosh. Welcome to every minute of my life, new girl. Really, though, all this is just to say that I wouldnt take Ardal as a reliable source on how death normally works although I do wish Id had more chances to study how he did what he did. For my part, Id love to know if the spirits he summoned were the same as people who knew them in life remembered them being, or if they could answer personal questions there was no reasonable way for Ardal to know. I imagine firsthand experiments wouldve been way more useful than the question I wasted on this subject. Youve mentioned questions like theyre a specific thing a few times now. What do you mean by that? Sorry to keep this digression going, just The subjects a bit of a personal interest, I dont say. For all the good itll do at this point. Oh. Right, yeah, Ive published enough about my magic that I forget not everyone knows exactly what I can do. And I dont mind the detour if you dont. Its always nice to find Keepers with some level of intellectual curiosity about our situation, Aisling says. Her chair thumps suddenly back to the ground, and while the noise startles me a little, she doesnt seem to notice. Once a day resetting at exactly midnight, nothing weve tried to cheat the definition of day works I can ask a question and have my magic stuff the answer into my mind as raw information. Questions generally get more detailed, actionable answers the smaller they are. Binary questions are by far the safest, if least useful, and some questions are either too big for me to handle or hidden from me. Blocked, somehow. In those cases, or if the answer is that something about my question didnt make sense, too bad. Still counts as my question for the day. The rest of my powers are also a bit weaker once Ive asked a question, so I do my best to use it as late as possible. That last part does sound pretty annoying, yes. Its not exactly nice to know that other Keepers powers have these weird catches and complications and things that dont mesh at all with how theyd have designed them if they got a choice, but okay, maybe its a little nice. In an awful way, the way it would be better but feel a lot worse if I were the only kid in the world born with a deadly disease. Stolen novel; please report. Yep, Aisling not-quite-growls through a pained smile. We spend a lot of time here looking over the questions in my priority queue, trying to optimize exactly what Im going to ask before I do it. What was the question you wasted? The question was Assuming no magical interference by outside powers, excepting whichever forces are involved in the ordinary operation of souls, what happens to the souls of humans who die of ordinary, non-magical causes? And the answer they return to the sea. Thats all. Whats it mean? A particular bit of nonsense in the Cycles uses that phrase, so I guess its true on at least some metaphorical or metaphysical level. Otherwise? She leans forward, thudding her forehead gently on the table, then folds her arms around her head and slowly peeks over them, looking up at me with narrowed, weary eyes. Fuck if I know. One hand reaches up to fix her beret. Some of my books say reincarnation, but that doesnt work with anything else we know about souls. I think the authors were just making stuff up. Aisling widens one eye, then tilts her head and shrugs. Sure sounds like it. I dont even know why anyone finds the idea of reincarnation comforting. Humans, the parts of us wed define as me rather than my body, are our souls. The mind is part of the soul, and no matter how many stories fake mystics spin about their past lives, none of us remember living as lots of other people. If we really are reborn that way, human history should be mostly a succession of similar people with memories shared across some soul-lineage being born over and over, maybe with a few new ones to account for things like population shifts, Harbingers eating souls, or some dead people deciding not to be reborn and going off to do whatever else ghosts do? That or souls are scrubbed clean of everything about their last lives before they return, in which case its no different from vanishing forever anyway. But the idea does sort of trace back to the passage shes referencing. I know the one: it says the dead bloom in their fullness and return to the sea. Others and Ive really only read the sections relating to birth, death, and the afterlife or lack thereof talk about souls coming from the sea, Claiasyas womb. If you ask the clergy what that means, most of them will tell you that it seems like the souls of the dead become one with the world or Claiasya in some abstract sense, returning to the greater weave of life as our rotting shells return to nature. Theyll also tell you that our human minds cant actually know what it means to experience something like that, so we should all just do our best with the lives we know were living right now. Which, of course, is no help to me whatsoever. At least theyre honest about how little they know judging by how many Harbinger cults start with a witch claiming to have found the secrets of life after death, a lot of people feel the same way as me, but the Church has never made up some happy lie to try and cut down on that problem. Well. I hate that, is all I say. At least it matters less to me now that I can actively work toward immortality. You and all my friends. Welcome to the literal club. Speaking of what did you actually come here for? Was that all you wanted to know? I really hope it is. No. But it seems rude to rope you into helping us with something unrelated, then just grill you forever before Ive even asked what you want out of this. Of course it couldnt be that easy. And thinking of it now, what I came to discuss and the other things shes likely to ask about are kind of connected. If I really have any unique insight into Harbingers after a month of hands-on experience, what I did with Aulunla accounts for a lot of it. That is, unless I was planning to ask a bunch of questions wrapped in hypotheticals, saying nothing about what I knew or what I was thinking of doing with it, which seems less helpful for both of us. Maybe the other stuff wont be so hard to swallow if it comes after she knows what Ive been trying to learn and why. I nod, look out the window, and think very carefully about my next words. They may be my best chance to make some sort of a decent impression. I appreciate that, but I think itll be easier to tell you about my other, um, incident first. The rest will make more sense that way. Unless theres some other other thing I havent thought of yet. Your call. Aisling sits about halfway back up, folds her hands, and plants her head on them again. Okay. So. There are some weird, complicated things about Harbingers Im trying to puzzle out. I have no training or magical education or inside insight into them except what Ive been through firsthand. Thats what brought me here, if you were wondering Vyuji said Id be better off asking other Keepers than her. She recommended you. Everything about Harbingers is weird and complicated. What in particular? she asks. Details about where they come from, how they grow, how fast they grow and what determines what they grow into. But really, anything that falls outside common knowledge about them and might help me hunt them alone, as reliably as possible. I touched a little on how my magic works, when I was talking about Irakkia, but its its not really good in an actual fight, as far as I can tell. It works too slowly, and Im only stronger or faster than any other scrawny little girl if I burn tons of life to make myself that way for a couple minutes. Things only go well for me when I either take way too long to be safe for anyone or find weird sideways methods to attack Harbingers. So Im looking for anything about how they work, how they think, that might make the second option easier. So. Here we go. How much do you and your friends know about, um, baby Harbingers? Aisling raises an eyebrow. Baby? Yes, I know it sounds dumb, but what else should I call them? Thats not it. Just wondering what you mean by baby. Some Harbingers are obviously bigger than others, maybe even more mature in their approach to things, but we dont understand their stages of growth if they even share a consistent life cycle well enough for me to know what I should picture when you use that word. The ones that are too undeveloped to act like full Harbingers. Ah. Ambient magical disturbances? Cases where something feels very wrong, but not wrong enough yet to start running around eating people? Mhm. Right. Ive read about those and do count them as evidence for the idea that at least some Harbingers are native to this world, for want of a better term. No one I know has any firsthand experience with them, though. Ive found two so far, I say. Shona and Vyuji both think Im just good at sensing Harbingers. And understanding them, going by the language thing. Oh. Huh, Aisling huffs. I might have questions about them too, in that case. But they can wait. Ill shut up until youve said what you want to say, clarifying questions aside. Im not sure if itll be easier or harder to spill all this to someone who isnt saying anything. At least itll be faster. Theres not much to say about the first, anyway. It was haunting a familys house, feeding on a little boys feelings about his dead brother and stepmom, and it hadnt grown enough to have a shape, so I killed it. Any Keeper who found it couldve done the same. It just it was too small to be worth anything. It was obviously the right thing to do, but it didnt help me grow at all. When I found the second one, it was a book. No Wound, no monster it was attached to, just an actual physical book, sitting on a random shelf in that library by the university. Most of its pages were blank, but in the front were the first few steps in some kind of Harbinger-logic imagination ritual. It said if you did them, youd learn how to have dreams while you were awake, then make those dreams real. I took pictures, if you want to see. Any infohazards I should know about first? I tilt my head. Info? Dangerous mental effects that could come of reading it. Or information that could be unsafe for anyone to have, not that I expect that to come up if it was as small as youre saying. Oh. I dont think so. The book itself could make you want to keep reading it and thinking about it, but it didnt carry over to these. And its dead now. Then by all means. I unlock my phone, bring up my pictures of Aulunlas pages, and pass it across the table. Actually, before you keep going, just wanted to make sure of something. You read this book. Do you think that effect you mentioned has anything to do with how you handled it? she asks. Hm? No, I purged its influence as soon as I noticed it. What do you mean, how I I bite my lip. Do you already know all this somehow? You just said the Harbinger was dead, right? You handled it somehow, unless someone else jumped in and killed it. She shrugs, reaches for my phone, and starts peering over the first picture. Yes, but you were just talking about how I handled it as if monster mind control would really explain something I did! Good catch. I may have skipped ahead a little there, but meh. It was an important question. No regrets, Aisling grumbles. Ive heard some things, yes. Id still like to hear your side of it all. What things has she heard? I didnt find anything in the news that looked like it was talking about me or Aulunla. Did Tetha warn everyone about the horrible new monster girl in private or did I leave some other obvious trail I havent even thought of? Fine. Moving on, then. After the last one, I thought maybe I could let it grow a little. Maybe I could kill it as soon as it was solid enough for me to get something out of. Like I was saying about my power, Im not very good at fighting the normal way, but this way, I thought Id be in the best position I ever would to kill it. Id poison it right then, and if it became a real problem before it was grown, Id just use my power to end it early. I pause, fidgeting with my hands in my lap. Aisling glances at me over my phone, but says nothing. She just keeps thumbing through my pictures. So I did. I spent a little over a week watching it as closely as I could. I saw a girl in the library, reading it in a corner while looking very much like she knew she shouldnt be, and I wanted to keep an eye on her too, but I dont think I have any way to track a person without making them really sick, and I dont exactly know any normal ways to stalk people. That was the last time I saw her until the end. But I should try to tell the story in order. So. The book did grow as I was doing this. It wrote more of itself when I first found it, it only went to step 5. I never saw anyone else using it, and it never mentioned anyone but her when I killed it, so either one girl working through its ritual was enough or it just didnt care about the others. I dont think that was it, since step 8 only turned up near the end, when Id already decided to pull the plug. Thats the one for making more books. Aisling skips ahead a few pictures, staying silent. When I stop again, trying to find the words for what feels like the worst part of all this, she doesnt even look up at me. I have no way to tell what shes thinking. And in the middle of this week, another Keeper stumbled across the book while I was watching it. Tetha Fianata, Im not sure if you know her. I know the family, obviously, but Id never heard of her. She wanted to destroy it on the spot. I still thought I could handle it, and I didnt want someone else barging in on my hunt, so when nothing I said to try and get rid of her worked, I fought her for it. And won pretty quickly. I just hurt her enough to take the book and run, but I mean she was probably right. Aisling snorts out a single laugh. What? What? I snap. Sorry, sorry, its not you! I can see how your thought process went here, kind of. Its just when I heard this story, I only sort of believed it, you know? I knew Tetha was in Guiding Light for some kind of injury, and when people asked she said shed gotten it from a fight with a Keeper over a Harbinger. I didnt think shed just make that up, but I kind of assumed shed done something totally stupid to antagonize you. This isnt quite what I had in mind. She leans down, planting her forehead in her free hand, smiling as if at a joke bad enough that it feels wrong to laugh at. This is a lot and youre just sitting there and I have no idea what else you want from me! Thats what happened! Yeah, okay, I guess Ive been letting you hang for a bit. Sorry. If it helps, I do hear Tethas recovering, and its not like shes been shouting about you to anyone wholl listen, which is really what Id have expected her to do in this circumstance. My best guess is that her family asked her not to make a huge thing of it until they knew what was going on with you, but she couldnt help but do it here and there. Why, though? I cant think of any reason why theyd protect me after I hurt one of their own, and Ive never had anything else to do with them except oh. Niavh, my hero. My savior. My new favorite Keeper. I dont know what I ever saw in Tara. Anyway. Aisling slides my phone across the table and straightens back up. I dont think that was the end of the story, was it? Um. No, I sigh. After that, I hid the book in the woods I didnt want to bring it home and maybe let it get to anyone new and decided overnight that I was going to kill it. The whole thing had become more trouble than it could possibly be worth. Only by that point, that copy of the book wasnt even the main Harbinger anymore. I think that girl I saw copied it and took the original with her before the thing with Tetha even happened, so I fought her over basically nothing. Just making sure I understand the timing here: did you know about the copies when Tetha showed up? Or when you took a night to decide what to do? No. Just didnt think to check. Id had a pretty terrible day. Like I said, by the time I read that step, Id already decided to kill it. I know now thats completely stupid. Well, yes, Aisling says flatly. Her big dumb smile thins and shifts into a bitter sideways one. It isnt unbelievably worse than the kind of stupid things new Keepers with no guidance do all the time, though. I should really say here you know that you can get training, right? Youve mentioned wanting to hunt Harbingers and having powers you dont think are well-suited to it. Youre new, you dont know what to do, and theres no manual. I understand that. Im not the girl to ask for detailed advice on combat scenarios Im pretty close to useless there but they have mentors available sometimes. My parents think its a travesty that they dont make new Keepers drop everything and enter the longest possible course of specialized education in how to do the job well and as safely as possible, before they run off to hunt monsters. I see their point a little more every time something like this comes up. No. I really, really dont think I could. Yeah. I thought you might say that, given the way youve handled contact with other people so far, but consider- Its not that! I hiss. Okay. What is it, then? Aisling flattens her expression and tents her hands, watching me expectantly. Im dying, I blurt out after several silent seconds. I dont have time for that. My blood is eating me and making the Promise I dont know yet if it made it worse, but it didnt save me. Ive got maybe ten months to live unless Emergence gives me some way to fix myself. Ah, Aisling says. She grimaces, nodding slowly and gnawing on her lower lip. Did you say that to Tetha? Or to Shona when you decided how to split Irakkia? Youre the first Keeper Ive told. Okay. Why? Aisling asks, blank-faced. Because Im my Because my medical situation is no one elses business? It kind of is, given the things Im doing to improve it. Because it makes no difference, people have never been there for me before and they wont start now? I dont know that. Whatever I think of people in general, I dont know how to explain Tethas relative silence unless somebody like Niavh stepped in and talked her down on my behalf. So Because why? Dont know, I mumble. I just dont want that to be me. Who I am. What I am. Its bad enough that my magics all about it. Ive called it poison, but thats really the heart of it. Corruption. Curses. Sickness. Okay. Aislings shoulders sag as she sighs out all the air in her lungs. In that case, I assume youve done what youve done because you consider saving your life your absolute top priority? Obviously. Nothing else matters if I cant do that. Fair enough. I can hardly fault you for wanting to live. Youre, what, ten or eleven? No one your age should have to die over a freak health accident. Thirteen. Aisling frowns, looking me up and down again. Oh. Sorry. Not that it should matter. No one should ever have to die, I insist. I mean, yes. Id love to abolish human mortality if I could, but, well. My magic has nothing to do with that and there always seem to be more urgent potential disasters stealing my attention, she says simply, as if what Ive said is too obvious to be worth noting. At any other time, Id be happy to find someone else who gets it. But that aside let me preface this by saying that I think most people who havent done serious work unpacking how they think and the reasons behind their choices are absolutely terrible at understanding their own motives and priorities. So dont take this as an attack on your intelligence: it sounds to me like youve been acting as if protecting your privacy and separating your identity from your condition are maybe not more important to you, but at least similarly important. To the point where youre making one goal a lot harder for yourself in service to the other. What? Can you honestly tell me Im wrong? I Im not thats just so Dumb? Yeah. Welcome to human cognition, she says with a dry laugh. Please take this as an object lesson going forward. I bury my face in my hands and groan wordlessly. I mean, its not like I dont already know Im an idiot whos terrible at everything, just how? How many other ways have I been wasting my first and only chance to survive? Ah, I still dont think you were quite done. Sorry to interrupt again. But take your time, Aisling says in that same steady tone. No. Not quite, I murmur, setting my hands back in my lap. Okay. As soon as I found out about the copies, I went to chase the Harbinger down. That girl left a trail of extra copies lying around in the city, so I destroyed those until I found her and the original. They were in a storage unit, working through some kind of ritual. Chopping up other books and gluing lines from them to the wall. I guess I should say here that I dont know if the girl was exactly a victim. Every time I felt her, she was obviously corrupted, yes, but not hurt. And the Harbinger loved her. By the end, it wanted more than anything to make her a witch. I remember she changed her hair between the first and last time I saw her which of course normal people can just do, but it seemed like a weird thing to do while a monster was eating you. Do witches have some version of Emergence? Aisling goes strangely still. Thinking of it now, its the first time Ive seen her seated and not idly tipping her chair, kicking her feet, or playing with her hair. When did you first see this girl again? she asks. Um, a little over a week and a half ago? It was I count the days in my head. Life almost never lets me forget how little time I have, but living the way I do for the last few years has made it hard to track those small, simple milestones. Every day of the week is mostly the same to me. The 17th, I think. Do you recognize the girl on the left in this picture? This is just a bad hunch, but I need to check. I need to be sure. Aisling passes me her phone. It displays a group photo of the Research Club on the steps outside. Aisling is in the center of the shot, still in her school uniform and beret rather than Keeper regalia. The Yadon siblings sit just under her, Haunild holding two fingers in a circle around her eye. Lucan is to the right, one arm around Aislings shoulder. She leans into him, smiling awkwardly, almost as though reluctant but unable to help herself. And my blood freezes at the sight of the thinly-smiling, bushy-haired girl left of her. The girl I only know as Aulunlas human friend. The witch it would have made. The Hanged Man 5-8 Aisling watches my face for a moment, silent and still. I say nothing, choking on a lump of half-formed words in my throat, but it only takes her a few seconds to find the answer shes waiting for. Yeah. Thought so, she says, pressing her palms to her temples. A nervous shudder runs through her body, showing on her face as a strange, sudden twitch. Like shes flinching away from a thought. And just like that, Im no, Im not even back where I started. Everythings gotten so much worse. Of course it was all for nothing. Of course Id ruined everything before we even started. How could it be any other way when the only thing I ever manage to do is make things worse for everyone except me? This almost worked, too. It wasnt perfect, but I was just thinking I could work with these kids. Maybe I couldve had actual friends again. But theres only one way anything goes for me, so naturally, they were also friends with the one person Ive probably hurt the most. No. I cant blame this on some horribly unlikely coincidence. It makes perfect sense that Aulunlas witch was someone close to magic, or someone who wanted to be closer to it. It doesnt even matter, not really my plan was always to let a Harbinger hurt enough people to grow into something worth eating. The witch, and anyone else who got hurt along the way, were always going to be important to someone. I knew that. I just didnt care enough to call it off. Aisling sighs, eyes on the desk beneath us. Okay. I interrupted again. Tell me exactly what happened on the day you last saw her. In as much detail as you can, she says, utterly without inflection. Fine. Fine. I owe her that much. Theres not much left to say. The Harbinger pulled me into its Wound when I found them, so I killed it. By the time I was back in the world, shed left. Or disappeared. I looked around all over and couldnt find her or feel her anywhere I went. I dont I told you, I didnt want any people tied up with this, there just wasnt any way I could get her out without and then before I could do anything she was just gone and- This isnt about you! Aisling yells. Her eyes open wide, and I glance away to dodge the blindingly bright light flaring out of them. I need to know where she went, what I can do to help her, if shes alive, and whatever I think about any of that, youre my only source on what happened to her! So if you really want to clean up after yourself, stop apologizing and help me make the question Im about to burn on this count! I freeze. My eyes water, but I cant so much as force them to blink. Im not you dont? Aisling tugs hard on a fistful of her hair. I just said Im not looking to relitigate your reasons or lack thereof for what you did or didnt do. I do not care right now. I care that my best friend made a pact with a Harbinger and then just fucking vanished when it died. Can we focus on that or not? she asks. I glance up for a second to find her still staring at me expectantly. Um. Yes. Sorr yes, I whisper, turning to look out the window. Its strangely, almost painfully bright out there too. Great. In that case. You looked for her and didnt find her what happened next? Did you tell anyone else about this? I reported her missing to the Sanctuary as soon as I was done. I just didnt know her name, or if shed even look the same without her Harbinger. Isobel. Her names Isobel Freyne, Aisling says, grinding her teeth whenever shes not speaking. You said Isobel felt corrupted when you first saw her, and your Harbinger senses are apparently pretty good. Can you think of any way youd have lost her trail if she was still around? A few. I dont know how long the fight took, but Im sure she wasnt in the Wound, so if she had some way of traveling really far while I was in there. Or the Harbinger moved her somewhere else to keep her away from me, or she lost its stench when it died. But my first Harbingers victims still felt awful after I killed it, so I dont think that was it. Unless witches work totally differently, which they might? I glance Aislings way, not quite meeting her eyes. They might, she agrees. I dont have any firsthand experience with witches. My understanding is that it depends on the Harbinger, like everything else with them, but unless something specific about this one couldve removed its aura from her, youre probably right. No. I dont think so. She was really important to it, by the time it died. I dont think it couldve cut itself off from her, even if it wanted to. Aisling raises an eyebrow at that, but simply nods and moves on. Any other relevant information? Or thoughts on where she could have gone, given what you know? Um, when was she reported missing, exactly? Morning of the 23rd. Her family said her bag and some money was gone, but nothing else. That certainly suggested running away over some bizarre kidnapping incident, but she hasnt contacted any of us since. Or anyone else I know of. Then no. Thats when I killed her Harbinger, so I guess Im the last one who saw her. Far as we know, Aisling says flatly. Okay. That leaves no, first, one other thing. On that day, several Keepers most Keepers, actually sensed something big happening. Some of them followed it back to the storage unit you mentioned, and there the trail went cold. Its strange that something on that scale would come from a Harbinger you described as a baby, but could that have anything to do with whatever happened to Isobel? I dont think so. It tried something big in the Wound I dont quite understand what. Vyuji just said it attempted something it wasnt ready for. But basically, it burned everything it was for enough power to try and kill me. Aisling pales, pulling her hair tighter. When the strands slip through her grip, a few remain tangled in her fingers. Everything it was, she says. Could everything include- I see where shes going a moment before the words leave her mouth. No. Thats not it either. How do you know? she growls. Because I ate it! Everything it was, everything it thought, theyre all in here now! I put a trembling hand to my chest. I told you, Aulunla the Harbinger it loved Isobel. It wouldnt have done that to her. It was a Harbinger! Sure, I believe it felt a certain way, but when Harbingers want the best for us as they understand it, you get things like there was one in Horizon, probably a Cluster A born from loneliness. It wanted to flay every human alive because our skin was a barrier to true connection. A Harbinger liking you is no barrier to it killing you or worse. Sometimes its the reason they do it. I know that! My first came from the hospital, liked the sort of lies some people tell themselves about why its really for the best that theyre dying horribly, and decided to share the amazing moral benefits of terminal illness with everyone! Thats not what happened here! I insist. Listen. I dont know much about your friend, I continue. Im sorry if any of this is a shock to you, but I know she really wanted magic. To be part of this world. To be able to change things. And Aulunla wanted to give her that. It changed its whole plan to place her at the center of it. Yes, it was a Harbinger, it didnt care how many other people it had to kill to make that happen, but it wouldnt have hurt her. It couldnt. I think the only reason it could do whatever it did was because it thought Id kill her too if it didnt. Why am I crying? No, why am I only crying now? No. Id love to say youre regurgitating ideas this Harbinger planted in Isobels head, but none of thats news to me. And sure, you didnt help her when you could have, but its not like I did much on that front either. Her voice breaks between words. She pauses, gnawing on her lip and rubbing her eyes. The Messengers dont take recommendations, you know? What could I have done? And then she was gone, and I thought no, maybe I told myself she might just want to be left alone, I should respect her privacy, but thats different from what I thought. I just wasnt quite worried enough about it to defer my duty to the world full of people who want my questions for all kinds of urgent threats. But whatever my idiot friend has thrown herself into thats urgent, too. Aisling sighs, rubbing her eyes once more before she slumps onto the desk again. So. Fine. Lets say you know what youre talking about and cross killed by her Harbinger off for now. As far as I can see, that leaves she died when her connection with the Harbinger was broken, or some other way. No ones found the body. She ran or teleported out of your range, and shes laid so low that no one can find her since then. If she werent involved in something else, I cant imagine that shed have nothing to say to any of us. She may just not want to admit to having done what she did. Its these things arent so easy to talk about, I say, wiping away the dampness on my cheeks. Maybe. But people are looking for her, and its not so easy for a normal kid to just disappear indefinitely in this city. Which leaves me thinking of this last option as the most likely: someone or something else came to investigate this unusual burst of power, found her, and took her out of your range or otherwise hid her from magical detection. Shes not in the Sanctuary, Ive checked, and all the other possibilities I can think of are terrible. Not that I have any specific suspects, but if it werent some kind of bad actor, shed be in the Sanctuary by now. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Alright. So if you dont want to guess wrong and waste a question, I guess you ask where she went after this happened and where she is now? Nope. Thats two questions. Its particular about that. Aisling peeks up over her arms with only one eye open, smiling a sour little grin. Asking exactly where Isobel is now might not work either. Say shes in somethings Wound. Maybe it tells us that. Maybe it even tells us its name. What can we do with that information, unless someones already onto that exact Harbinger enough to know its name? Your power seems really annoying, I say, hoping it sounds sympathetic. Yep. I suppose we have that much in common, she grumbles, scooting her chair to the side so she can avoid the glare spilling in from the classrooms window, which has just begun to get into her eyes. I follow suit, since its starting to bother me too. This one should work, though: Ill ask it for step-by-step directions to wherever Isobel is physically located right now. I actually have used my question to find someone before, one time. At that admission, she glances to the side while pensively chewing her lip. Id have thought that was good news, but she instead looks slightly annoyed, as though recalling a memory shed rather forget. Im not sure what to make of that, but its her business. Shes not on trial here. Okay. I dont have any better ideas, so do we do that now? My answer wont update itself if she moves after I ask the question, so not yet. Could you ask it for directions to wherever she will be when you get there? I try. Nope. No magic I know of can tell the future, she says, shrugging with a minimum of motion. All the research Ive done and tests Ive ran seem to bear that old truism out. Right. I have heard that before I was just trying to help and didnt think of it right away. It makes it especially strange that my cards, tools people made up to pretend they could predict the future, are such a big piece of my magic. But I guess its my magic, and Ive never really thought of them that way. Yeah. So unless you have a better question in mind, we shouldnt push the button until weve got a group ready to run into trouble if thats what we need to do. Ideally a group that includes someone with travel magic. You dont have travel magic, do you? I dont. And if youre including me in that group, there might be other problems. If the problem is your reputation or your social anxiety, either tap out now or youll just have to deal with it. Its not! Its this other thing! The Harbinger stalking me! This other thing, Aisling repeats flatly, gawking at me as though I were a car accident she just witnessed. Stars Beyond, how long have you been doing this again? How much trouble could you possibly have gotten into? I really didnt do anything any other Keeper wouldnt do this time! It just happened! Um. As far as I know. To be clear, my power only tells me that you believe that, Aisling snorts. But fine. Lets hear it. Its a Harbinger I havent managed to kill yet, thats all. She has a way of doing things remotely and Im still trying to find where she actually is. She shows up sometimes and just causes problems. Is really gross. And I dont know what shed do if I tried to fight something else while shes still tied to me. I dont sense anything tied to you right now, Aisling says. I was getting to that, yes. Aisling sighs in resignation, raises one hand, and waves in a circle for me to go on. Two nights ago, the Harbinger tried to do something while I was sleeping. The next day, she followed me home. I wanted to catch her in the act last night, set a trap and hurt her that way. Vyuji was helping, making sure she didnt creep past me or out from me and start eating anyone else at my hospital. And I wince, scratching at my scalp as the first formless scraps of memory start digging into my head. It feels wrong to even be thinking about this, let alone telling someone else. I skirt around the sharp, jagged edges of my own thoughts, sharing the vague outlines that feel just safe enough to look upon. My plan did something. Shes not there anymore, at least not right now. I dont know what happened. It was just like have you ever had a dream so horrible that it hurt, but when you woke up, all that was left was the feeling of it? Just this abstract impression of something awful, clinging tightly enough to you to ruin your whole day when you dont even know what it was anymore? No, Aisling says. But I have asked questions that broke my mind for a while, then lost the answer by the time I put myself back together. Maybe thats a similar experience. She grimaces at some lost memory. I wonder if it hurts her too. Maybe. I shake my head, shoving whatever happened last night as far from my thoughts as I can. Right, then. Right, Aisling mutters, finally sitting back up. And do you expect this other Harbinger to cause problems for us, too? I have no idea. This was just last night. I doubt shes dead, but I cant tell you how it actually went, how hurt she is, when shell be back. Well, she sighs. Use your own judgment, I suppose. Its impossible to prepare for everything that could cause problems, especially where magic is involved. I do want to help if I can, I affirm. Say whatever you want about not having done more for your friend. This was mostly my fault. Yes, Aisling agrees. Still. I appreciate it. Theres no sense in assigning and holding blame when we could still be improving the situation. Oh, but heres something you should know, if were going to work together on this. I cant communicate anything I know to be false, and I sense spoken or written lies a quirk of Emergence and an aspect of my power, respectively. Sorry, you understand why I didnt tell you that until now, just they dont feel great. So please keep that in mind. Alright? I do understand if she was worried I might be the next Tara, itd be stupid to warn me of her lie detector power before she let me tell my story. But whys she saying this now? I havent lied about any of it. What did you say your name was? she prompts. Oh. Shes been addressing me without a name since we met. She cant lie. Right. Um. Sorry, I if I answer that, will you have to tell everyone else or something? Aisling shrugs. Nope. Magic doesnt care about lies of omission. Ive had a lot of practice talking around details I dont want to share. Fine. Im Liadain, and there are no sordid secrets connected to my name except the ones I just told you about. I mostly just dont want my dad to know about this. Shell know thats all true. If Im telling her everything anyway, I might as well earn any trust I can. Fair enough, she says with a curt nod. Something else you should know is that I intend to ask Shona and Mide for help before I ask my question. By your own admission, neither of us are the best in a head-on battle I want backup, not to mention enough Keepers around to make us unappealing targets to your stalker, if it gets any ideas. Were already in touch as Keepers who go to this school, they should still be nearby, and Shona can speed us around the city. Much as Id prefer someone who could fly or teleport. I stare at her silently for a long moment. Yes, Im doing my best to fix my own mess, but thats a terrible idea for so many reasons, like like what? Is it bad or does it just feel bad because I dont want to deal with them anymore? Im sure Mide will hate me forever, but Im not going to repeat what I did to her. I dont need to. Yeah, I didnt think youd like that. Im sure Mide wont, either. Deal with it. Its the most expedient option. Ill tell her the same if she objects. Alright, I murmur. One more thing, though. I dont know if youve heard this from Shona or Tetha or someone, but Ive gone by Eyna everywhere else since I made the Promise, including while I was working with them, and I really dont feel like explaining this to them too. Shona doesnt strike me as good with secrets. Shes not, Aisling agrees. So if you called me by my actual name while theyre around, it might be a problem. Can you use a fake name? Is that allowed? Yep, she says without delay, as if shes already figured this exact situation out well before I brought it up. She probably has. Shes probably done every test she could think of on the boundaries of what metaphysically counts as a lie. Its an alias that can be reasonably understood as referring to you, same as I can call myself Truths Lantern. Alright. Please do that, then. But I am in. Great. Ill call them now and then we can get to work. And then, as if on cue, the bright light pouring in through the classroom windows behind us flashes blindingly, enveloping everything around us in stark white for just an instant. Its as though a bolt of lightning had struck right outside. Yet, no crashing boom or roaring thunder follows the flash. Instead, after five or so seconds of tense silence as Aisling and I look at each other in anxious knowing, both of our cellphones chime at the exact same moment. Just as simultaneously, we pull our phones out together to confirm what weve both already realized. EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM NEW CLARIS AUTHORITIES CELESTIAL WARNING FOR YOUR AREA The New Claris Weather Service has issued a warning for a meteorological event. This warning is effective immediately and continues until the event has concluded. Citizens are advised not to observe this event under any circumstances, no matter the precautions taken. Warning issued for: Solar Embrace ~~~ When we step out into the now-empty courtyard, the sky is burning. All the world around us is flooded with an overwhelming radiance, enveloping everything with its harsh, almost surreal white glow. Six massive loops of white flame have emerged from the sun. As they shimmer and whirl and roil, painting spans of the sky blinding white in their wake, they begin to expand, growing unevenly in size and width, and then, one at a time, to unhinge from the sun at one end. They reach out and stretch across the sky from horizon to horizon, and there they stay, like the tentacles of a celestial octopus wrapping itself around the world. Smaller solar flares dance along their length like electrical sparks. Eyes to the ground, Aisling hisses. Keepers can still end up Eyeless. Yes, I know I rip my stinging eyes away from the sky and shield my face with my arm. We cower in the shelter of one of the schools awnings, where a fragile shard of darkness still persists. Other than us, not a single student remains theyve all either made it home already or retreated into the school building. Ugh. It really has the worst possible timing today. You dont have parasols on hand, do you? Nope. Sorry. Uuuuuuuugh. And until recently, I wasnt leaving the hospital enough to even bother having one. My old one is probably still sitting in my closet back at home. No point in waiting for it to stop at this hour, either. Unless you want to postpone? When it gets like this, it usually doesnt calm down until sunset. A few tiny patches of shade survive the harsh glare of the tendrils above, but they shift and shudder and vanish all too quickly beneath the suns twisting, coiling limbs. Cant. What if Isobels in trouble right now and dies in the next few hours? Well, nothing for it. Thats simply the nature of the sun. It warms our days and wards away the night, giving us just enough to substantiate the rosier side of its tarot symbolism. But in exchange every so often, working on some schedule only it knows, it smothers us in its embrace: something everyone knows about, but never dares speak of. No one wants to talk about it, anyway. After all, once weve taken every reasonable precaution, its easiest just to put out of mind the troubles we can neither control nor predict until the very moment theyre upon us. Just like how all my old friends put me out of mind. It helps us hide from how powerless we really are. Falling Ever Deeper 6-1 No one else in sight dares to step outdoors beneath the harsh dancing light, but the absence of people hiding and running for cover doesnt make the display any less eerie. Ive never been outside during an Embrace before I hate the sun enough on normal days. I transform as soon as we leave the building, just because it feels like an extra layer of protection from both the sun and the duo I never expected to work with again. If this does turn out to be a Harbinger situation, should we make a plan ahead of time? Or, no, thats going to depend on the Harbinger, but at least figure out what we can do together? I ask. Shona sort of just charged in last time. Yes. Aisling nods slowly. Never let Shona make your plans. Lets wait until weve got everyone, though. Right, I say. Just then, yet another dumb thing Ive done or rather, actively chosen not to do comes to mind. Um. Your school doesnt have any canes laying around, does it? I ask. If theyre anywhere, theyd be in the nurses office. All the way down the first floor hallway on the left. Alright. Thanks. Im not expecting much, but its worth a try. I dash in through the now-deserted halls, search the empty office and its supply closet, and dont find anything useful. Just a pair of crutches. When I step back out, the sun beyond the awning is bright enough to make Aisling appear as a shadowed silhouette, like shes standing with her back to the dawn. Nothing there, I say. Is that going to be a problem? Aisling asks. Maybe? I dont think so. I have limb weakness issues sometimes and itd help if those come up. I didnt bring my own. Aisling bites her lip like shes trying to hold something back, then gives up and says it anyway. Why not? Because we just went through this, okay? I didnt think Id need it for anything here and Im not very smart! You have a complex thats caused you do some very specific stupid things. Thats different, she says. Maybe. I really dont see how. It doesnt matter. I can push through a health episode with magic if it comes to that. I turn my gaze back to the ground, apologizing in my head to whichever random people whose suffering will pay for my bad legs. If they ever turn up and ask me for the autographs theyre owed, Ill give them something special. I dont know what yet. Aisling! Heyyyyy! a familiar voice hollers soon after. Shona, already in her regalia, comes tearing into the courtyard. Theres just one thing different about her: shes wearing a pair of shades. She surfs up the central ramp without slowing down at all, and jolts to a sudden stop just beneath the awning. I dart to one side to make way for her, while Aisling just looks up and raises a hand. Mide, a white baseball cap perched on her head right above the armored band which crowns her brow, follows close behind, slowing to a reasonable rate and running up to join us in the shade on her own power. She probably doesnt want to scratch up her own school. Wait, why is she still here? she immediately asks, casting me a sidelong glare. Sheltering from the Embrace? Shona suggests, tearing her sunglasses from her face and sweeping her arm to the side to strike the most dramatic pose she can manage on short notice. Shes got the inside scoop on whatever were meeting up about and wanted to fill us in personally? Or She trails off, staring at me with wide, eager eyes. Then she squints and breaks her pose, dipping her head as one of the suns limbs trails down beneath the horizon, reflecting off the schools glass facade and ruining our shade. Uh, lets talk plans inside, though! Lets. I duck back through the doors and into the nearest hall, away from the wildly flickering shadows in the entryway. The others quickly follow, with Mide trailing slightly behind and she pockets her cap. And Im coming, yes. I thought Aisling wouldve mentioned me when she called why didnt you? I ask her. I wasnt sure if youd show up if I did, Aisling directs her answer towards the newly arrived duo, shrugging broadly. Id sure have asked why she was here, yeah! Aisling, do you know whatC Mide starts. Hey, wait a second, you dont really need toC Shona stammers. I KNOW, Aisling raises her voice enough to cut them both off. Yes. I know what she did. All of it, Im fairly confident. It was pretty bad. But you got better, shes sorry, and were very likely here to save my best friends life. Eyna is closest to the issue, so would you get over it long enough for me to explain whats going on? she says, returning to her usual flat, slightly-interested tone. Mide raises her palms and takes a short step back. Okay, sure. Sorry. I still think we shouldve known. And Im not making this a regular thing, I say, as soon as I see Shona opening her mouth. Theres an emergency. Fuuuck. Woulda been so cool, Shona grumbles as she leans sideways against a wall. Like when we last parted, she sounds intensely disappointed without being surprised. Are you really really sure? Both of you? Look. Shona. Eyna, you too. Didnt we agree on this, like, an hour ago? Mide asks, gesturing vaguely in my direction before she turns back to Shona. Im doing my best to play nice here, but every time this comes up you start talking like you care more about making a big cool famous team than whether its safe for anyone to be on that team. Does it really not bother you at all that she almost ate me? I freeze, but say nothing. Whats there to say? Shes right. Shona winces, waving an arm as she loses her balance for a moment. Thats it sucked, I know, it was really bad, but thats not really how it It was, Mide says bluntly. Aisling taps me on the shoulder. In her other hand, shes wound a few new locks of her hair between her fingers. Eyna, I wasnt going to push you on this, but Id rather this not fall apart before weve even started looking for Isobel. Would it absolutely kill you to tell these two what you told me? she half-whispers. Which part of it? I ask hesitantly. None of the things she could mean are good. None of them are things Im here to talk about. You know. The part that makes you kind of make sense, she says. And none of them would make me feel any better if I were Mide. Why would that help? Aisling just smiles thinly. Trust me. She starts doing her best to comb her hair back into order with her fingers. Fine. Only because I want this to work too, I sigh. Since I guess Im doing this just whenever now. Do it cause its a good idea that will make things easier for you, Aisling insists. Whatever. Um! I call to the others. Mide folds her arms and says nothing. Shona glances my way, pleading with her eyes for me to say some magic words that will fix everything. Sorry, Shona. If I had that power, the world wouldnt be so terrible. Theres something I should say, since I dont know why, this clearly isnt working that well and maybe it will help? I start. Mide, you asked after our last mess what it is I need from all this. I guess thats considered a personal question among Keepers, so. Thanks for saying so then, Shona. But maybe after what happened, it is kind of your business now. Shona smiles nervously. Mide just keeps waiting, stone-faced. My head pounds. I force myself to keep breathing normally. Is this a terrible idea? Is it going to change anything? Will it do nothing to help us here, then cause the news to spread to everyone else through these two like a disease? Ugh. It doesnt matter. Right now, its the only thing I can do to maybe improve Isobels chances. Im really sick, I say, forcing the words out of my dry mouth. Its something I was born with. The medical details arent important, but when I made the Promise I had maybe a year to live. At best. I dont know if Emergence has changed that yet, or how much, since you know. Since magic is weird. Now Im an impossible medical mystery, too. The hospital. We got sent there because that doctor was attacked, but we found you there. You said youd handled it already, and it was your first Harbinger Shit, Mide says, grimacing. Okay, I mean yeah, that sucks and Im really sorry to hear it. Whats it got to do with that, though? She flinches at the mention of that, the memory of pain and fear she all but compared to a Harbingers curse when it happened. I still cant blame her. I take a moment to re-steady my breath and calm my trembling hands before I speak again. I was in a hurry, alright? I still am, but I didnt think I had time to figure myself out or get actual training or anything like that, and I was rushing toward my goal with no idea what I was doing, and I hurt people like that. Hurt you. And it didnt have to go how it did. There were better ways I couldve done things so that I didnt need to hurt you, and Ill do those going forward. So Im sorry. It wont happen again. Unless I run out on the verge of death again, in which case I dont know. I cant say what happens then. There will never be enough. Why didnt you say anything, you fucking dummy? Shona blurts out, sounding very much like shes holding back tears. She bounces off the wall and rushes toward me, gripping my shoulders as she looks into my eyes. Were nothing we need from this is that urgent! I kinda got mine just by being a Keeper! I know theres kids who have it way worse than us, so like you couldve had the whole monster we killed if you just told us this! You just said why. Im a dummy, I echo. For my part, I still dont get how she can be so nice after everything that happened. Everything I did. But maybe Aisling was right about this. Maybe it doesnt have to count as pity for Keepers not to want other Keepers to die. And maybe shell be glad to know that was as big a mistake as she thought it was. I told you, stop that, Aisling snaps. Ascribing your mistakes to some inherent failing of you as a person is not a good path toward doing better next time. Does she always talk like that? I ask Shona. Most of the time, Shona nods, grinning as she wipes away faint tears. But, uh, shes right. Quit being a dummy. Dummy. Aisling only rolls her eyes and shrugs. Mide raises a hand slowly, making a distinctly uncertain face. I know we have something important to do, so I sorta hate to ask this, but Eyna what exactly is the better way you could be using that power? Um, I mumble. Were working that out. I have an idea thatll take a bit of effort to implement, but it very much should work, Aisling answers smoothly. Therell be consent involved, she adds with a conspicuous glance at me. Right, Mide mutters. But thats all she says. So, uh. Mide, Eyna, everyone, are we good here? Mide frowns, taps her foot a few times her armored boots clacking sharply on the smooth, hard flooring then sighs and nods once. Mhm, I hum simply. Shona cheers and claps a hand on her shoulder, pumping a fist with her free arm. Yeah! All set to get the band back together for, yknow no pressure, no pressure, our last big encore show, thats all! There is no band! I yelp. And listen, my health is still not something I want to be known by, so please dont go blasting this to the world or anything! Things would go better for you if you were known by it, Aisling presses. Fine, do whatever you want if you really think itll help! This wasnt easy! Can we just do the thing already? Sounds just great to me, Aisling says. Not like were on a time she starts to say something, but cuts off in mid-sentence. Her mouth keeps moving for a moment, but it seems like words simply wont come anymore. She scowls, shakes her head out, and flattens her expression before she continues. Wha? What was that? Shona pushes. Something sarcastic. Which I cant say anymore, because it would be lying, Aisling groans, scowling. ANYWAY. This is potentially rather time-sensitive, so Ill go quickly and limit it to the need-to-knows for you two. Youre of course welcome to ask about any details afterwards. Ill answer to the best of my knowledge. So heres whats going on as we understand it: recently, we think just under two weeks ago, my friend Isobel encountered a Harbinger. Eyna killed that Harbinger a few days ago, and from her account She sighs and lowers her head, scratching the exposed part of her hair with one hand. It seems very likely that Isobel was making a pact with it. If she wasnt a witch, she was very close to becoming one before her Harbinger died, I add. Mide and Shona share an uneasy look at my mention of witches. Shit, Shona says. Im, uh, sorry to hear that for you, too, Aisling. How bad? Thats what were here to figure out. I cant currently say how much agency she had in their arrangement, Aisling says. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Im quite sure that whatever Isobel and Aulunla were doing was something they agreed on, but it wouldnt help anyone to stop and argue that point. Isobels been missing since the night before Eyna last saw her, although I didnt know why until a few minutes ago. Eyna looked for her after she killed the Harbinger and called her in to the Sanctuary, but theres been no sign of her since. And since this battle was the source of that anomaly several Keepers rushed to investigate on the 23rd including you two, I believe there really should be, unless Isobel escaped with some kind of magical aid or otherwise dropped off the face of the planet, Aisling continues. She pauses for a few seconds, watching Shona and Mide as if waiting for a response. They only nod and wait for her to go on. I asked you two here because when I heard about this from Eyna and put the pieces together that Isobel was the witch-to-be in her account, I decided to burn a question on figuring out where she is now. After that, assuming shes within our reach, Ill want to get to her location as quickly as possible and get her whatever help she needs. Guess thats where I come in, Shona says. But this is a pretty big group to search-and-rescue for a normal person whos been tied up with some real bad stuff, yeah? Wheres the catch? Yes. My suspicion is that someone or something else investigated the same anomaly you did, got to Isobel first, and took her away somewhere. Ah. And none of us caught wind of anything else sneaking around that day right. I see why you wanted backup, Mide says. I will say your timing couldve been better. Not your fault, if someone needs help and she might need it now then well do what we have to, but yeah. The, uh, timing is obviously coincidental. Aisling gestures down the hall at the doorways on the right side. all of which leak harsh, dancing white light through their cracks and windows. I found all this out right before the Embrace hit. But it may help us, in a way. If another Harbinger did grab Isobel and store her in its Wound, it shouldnt be on the move for at least a few more hours. Not that we really should either, I say. To my surprise, Mide nods in agreement. Were Keepers. Dont do anything blatantly stupid and well be alright, Aisling scoffs. So. While there are other things than my best guess that could be happening here, its the worst case scenario and a definite possibility, so heres my plan for it. When were ready, Ill ask my power for directions to wherever Isobel is now, and Shona will ferry us there as fast as possible. The streets should be mostly empty and this is close enough to the center of the city for comfort, so I dont think we need to go look for a more optimal starting point or anything. Sure. What then? Do we need a battle plan? Shona asks. Nothing too elaborate, pending any complications the situation or the Wound introduce. I wont be much help once Ive used my question, but I wouldnt be much help in a fight anyway, so Im thinking you two take guard duty. Engage the Harbinger, if there is one, long enough for Eyna and I to find Isobel, take stock of her condition, and get her out of there. Eyna, youve mentioned that it takes a lot out of you to make yourself stronger or tougher, but you can do it. If shes in any way uncooperative, do you think you could handle that? I look down at myself in disbelief, then raise one of my deathly pale, dangerously bony vampiric noodle arms and shrug. Maybe? Aisling grits her teeth. Yeah. Fair enough. Do you think you could hold her in one place long enough to get a Sanctuary response team to us? she presses. Maybe, I repeat, slightly more confident on that front. Although it might get really unpleasant for her, if I need to do anything stronger than literally hold her down. Aislings mouth twitches into a grimace, but she quickly smooths her expression out. If theres no other option, do what you have to do. As long as shell recover. Mide folds her arms, though at least this time she doesnt immediately flinch at the mention of my magic. Are you really okay with her using that power on a person? On your friend? If the alternative is leaving an untreated witch on the run, yes, Aisling says without inflection. Besides, you recovered, didnt you?" But Im a Mide starts to snap, then trails off, bites her lip, and sighs, visibly deflating. Nevermind. And Eyna, I dont just want to keep you away from the fighting because you three have had issues working together before, either. It should hopefully keep anything that happens with your other thing a little more contained. But do scream if you need help on that front, I suppose. Youre really not making it sound like a great idea for me to come along, I say. I want your Harbinger senses on hand in case theres anything especially weird that needs figuring out here. Maybe youd think mine would be pretty good too, but theyre really theyre fine, she complains. Hey, hold on, what other thing? Mide interrupts. Oh. Right, I groan. The other Harbinger whos been stalking me. I havent sensed her today, so I dont know if shell be a problem, but she might, yes. Her names Seryana. Shes about something to do with love and wanting to be hurt. Romance gone horribly horribly wrong, maybe. Shes connected herself to me, which gives her some way of following me, acting on or around me without actually being there, and maybe drawing power from it when I hurt her. I dont know yet exactly how that works, if it would apply to other people, or if she could decide to follow one of you instead. Aisling nods along with my words, taking mental notes. I dont think shed do that, though? She attached to me after I pushed her out of her last victim, and she sure talks like Im her one and only true love now, I finish with a shudder as the image of her fetid hair in my shower forces itself to the front of my mind. Of course theres more, Mide mutters under her breath, facepalming. She? And what do you mean she TALKS to you? Shona finally asks. Oh. Right. After the last one, I can understand their language. And I dont know, she just looks and sounds like a she. I have no idea how common that is with Harbingers or if it means anything. Unusual but by no means unheard of, Aisling provides. Probably the only thing it signifies is that this particular Harbingers self-conception leans feminine. If its a Cluster A, high odds that its human patient zero is or was female. Nothing I know suggests that they have sexes or sexual reproduction. Thanks. What she said, then. Aisling flashes me a quick, halfhearted thumbs-up. So. Questions so far? Alternate plans? Shona opens her mouth silently, nods slowly, then shoots Mide a sideways you getting all this? look. Mide shrugs. Im yknow, Im sure Aisling knows what shes doing. Nothing here. Should we get moving, then? Aisling asks, to a Woo! Yeah! from Shona and simultaneous uncertain nods from Mide and I. Oh, hold on, though! Not quite yet! Just remembered something! Shona goes fishing through a barely-visible pocket on her own dress, rummaging around in what seems like far more space than an actual garment could contain there. After a few seconds, she withdraws a white visor cap and another pair of sunglasses. Got you guys these, for the, uh, weather! Or, well, we got them for Aisling. We were in a hurry and couldnt decide if youd want glasses or a hat to put under your hat, so we asked for both and they just gave em to us! Keeper privileges, yeah! she cheers again. We didnt know wed have one more. Sorry, Eyna. So I guess you two just decide which to take between yourselves? She shrugs and hands them off to Aisling. Huh, Aisling huffs. Thanks. I want the glasses, I say immediately. Aisling shoots me a look of protest. Just like that? Its not exactly a meaningless cosmetic choice. The glasses are much better at actually shielding your eyes, especially when the suns coming from every possible direction, she gripes. Thats why I want them. The sun and I dont get along on nice days. I mean, Ive been managing with a visor Mide says. Neither of us acknowledge her, unwilling to break our staredown. You know what? Fine. Lets not get held up any more over this. Aisling tosses the glasses at me. I fumble them in both hands for a second, but do basically manage the catch. Really Im just happy I never have to wear glasses again. Theyre super annoying, she grumbles, not sounding the least bit happy about it. Im glad this works out, then. I take the win and put the glasses on under my hood, while Aisling fixes the visor beneath her beret. Yknow, if you dont want to worry about running through the sun for quite so long, and we want strength in numbers on whatever this thing is we could maybe call up the Seraph before we roll out! Shona suggests, grinning madly. All just fly wherever we needa go! Itd be a way nicer ride than my stupid thing, right? Thats a bad idea, Mide says instantly. Kidding, kidding, Shona says. Unless? Her smile widens as she aims a finger gun each at Aisling and I. Aisling glances between us, poker-faced as ever. I pull my hood down as far as I can without covering my eyes. No one else breaks the horrifying silence. Are you seriously asking me about this? I mutter when no one else says anything. Was she expecting me to say something different? I already dont want to be in a group this size, with this much star power running around. Shona, this sort of thing is why I went ahead and made the plan on my own, Aisling sighs, sharing a brief glance with Mide as she does. I guess Im not exactly hard to read. Both of them can tell Id drop out and go hide under the covers if there was another Keeper to deal with here. Yeah, yeah, didnt think so, Shona says, laughing off her own bizarre joke. Dont worry about it, Eyna, I was just fishing for the off chance you got all blushy and did want to hang out with Roland. Woulda been a super cute gap effect, yknow? Gap what? I ask. I really dont know what else to say to that. You know, like on TV, when the scary gangster guy really loves candy and kittens or something! Like that! I dont really watch TV. Sorry. Sure. Anyway, dont worry about it! she says. And thats it. No confused pity, no what, how do you live like that? Do you know anything about anything but tarot and obscure medical problems? I dont really understand how any of this conversation happened, but I guess it couldve gone worse. In that case, Mide adds after a moment, you should know that thing with the finger guns is her sign for Im making a dumb joke right now. Shona grins again, a bit sheepishly this time, and scratches the back of her head. Ah, good point. Its, uh, a thing a character I played used to do. Oh, I say blankly. Was she on TV? I imagine thats some type of big deal, but I dont really know. I dont know her world any more than she knows mine. Im still surprised you want any reminders of that, honestly, Mide says. Magical Guardian Camellia is dead, and Screaming Hymn Shona stole these finger guns off her corpse! Anyone who wants to tell me they belong to anyone but me can fuck right off! Shona shouts cheerfully. Right, well, anyway Even if I were worried about stumbling across the boy of my dreams, he wouldnt be like that, I add. I dont believe any person can actually be the sort of blindingly bright idol the Stardust Seraph acts like. I dont think he can possibly be real. Oh, hes very real, Aisling says in a tone even drier than usual. Mides eyes look in my direction, but seem to stare past me, fixed on a point far, far away. Ever met someone who made you question whether you were even cut out to be a girl? W-what? I can feel a bead of sweat trickling down my neck. Like, next time you looked in the mirror, you wondered why you even bothered? She smiles lightly, but her eyes are totally vacant, as if resigned to a cruel fate. I, um I have no idea how to respond. I mean, Mide always carried herself a little rugged, but while Im no expert, I would never say she didnt look really good. Surely better than me, at least. I look like a decently well-dressed corpse. Yeah, thats rough, Aisling lays a reassuring hand on Mides shoulder. I mostly just stopped trying. Its a lot to keep up with when you have other stuff to do, she says, rather pointedly. Ahahaha, yeah, Roland is a total hottie! Shona jumps in, throwing an entire arm around Mides back, causing Aisling to stumble back as her place is usurped. But dont you worry, Mide! Youre super cute just the way you are. I mean, cant find many gals as into swords and swingin em as you, eh? Any guy would be lucky to have you! Ah, well Mide takes a breath as though steeling her resolve, then raises a clenched fist and cries out, Damn right! If he cant cleave a rubber dummy in two with one swing and doesnt know what Im talking about when I say End Him Rightly, then I dont want him anyway! Yeah, thats more like it! Thats the Mide I know and love! Bring the hype! Shona exclaims in a frenzy. I have no idea whats happening anymore. I look to Aisling for guidance, a helping hand to rescue me from the stormy sea that is these twos conversations, but I can tell from her tense shoulders and narrowed eyes that her patience is beginning to wear thin. Hey, Aisling interjects, her words sharp and clear as crystal. I dont mean to be a buzzkill, but theres a life on the line. Can I ask that we focus on the crisis at hand? Oh, yeah. Of course, Mide instantly collects herself. Uh, right! Shona replies. Anyway. Sorry to drag us off track again, Aisling. I think were all good. Okay then. Lets get started, Aisling breathes, and the blue light in her eyes spills out, flooding the hall for an instant before it begins to draw back toward her, not in flowing ribbons of essence but beams of radiance shifting in sharp, angled turns. They leave trails in the air as they move, as if drawing or writing on the sky, and soon wreathe Aisling in a veil of tiny, interconnected geometric glyphs. Not Harbinger-sigils, at least not quite the shapes are all wrong, and I cant pull any meaning from them. Finally, they collapse into her and vanish in another bright flash. When the spots in my eyes fade, Aisling stands in a knee-length azure peacoat-dress, with a collar high enough that it doesnt quite reach her mouth. Its fastened with six gold buttons, each etched with their own tiny glyphic designs, and flares slightly out beneath the waist. Her beret remains in place, unchanged. Its all understated enough that I could almost mistake it for a very well-made ordinary coat, if I hadnt just watched it blink into being. I can only imagine she wants it that way. Shona, how are you with directions? she asks. Uh, pretty good? Great. We dont know if this will lead us to an actual landmark. Try to follow along with these. They wont go anywhere, Ill still have them in my mind, but well want to get moving as quickly as possible when Im done. Yep, yep. Gotcha. Okay. What is the fastest path I can take from here to Isobel Freynes current location? Aisling asks the world, in a voice that echoes faintly through the hall. Theres no sudden weight in the air, no sense of building power at all. The light in Aislings eyes simply narrows, forming patterns of glyphs that flash and scroll over them. Leave the school through the front courtyard, left, right, right, onto the expressway and straight into the Weald from there, through the northern forest trails to wait, what? she mutters as the light starts to fade. That doesnt make any no, its the answer whatever I think of it. Think about what would make it make sense she scolds herself. Is something wrong? Mide asks, scrunching up her forehead as she watches Aislings face for an answer.. Think while we move! Aisling hisses, still to herself, and starts back toward the front hall. It worked. Lets go, everyone. Shes at Missing Lake. Ive been there once, its a place tucked into one of the empty, woodsy parts of the Weald. Bit of a destination for camping or swimming, far enough away from anything else that no one randomly wanders by it. I just have no idea what anyone would be doing there during an Embrace. Has your friend been there? Maybe shes, I dunno, hiding out somewhere pretty? Shona tries. No. Isobels thats one of the last places shed choose. She hates water, Aisling says. Id moved to follow Aisling when she rushed for the door, but that stirs something in me. A memory. A set of words carved into my soul, now that their author is part of me. A lake will work best. If you dont have a lake, a pool is probably okay. Dont use the sea. Step 5 of the Harbingers book, I choke out. Aisling looks over her shoulder, but doesnt stop moving. What about it? It was all blacked out, wasnt it? No, no, it wasnt in the pictures because I wasnt thinking of that when I found it, but the copies. I said Isobel was making copies, right? In those, step 5 was back. It said Fear races up and down my spine and alien memories squirm like living scars through my mind as a torrent of breathless words pours out of me, then stops abruptly. Stay under the water. Hold yourself there no matter what happens. If you breathe in, you lose. If you come up for air, you lose. If you think this might be hard for you, its okay to find something heavy and hold it while you dive. You can exhale if you want, but dont rush it! This shouldnt feel fast or frantic. It shouldnt hurt. It may just take a bit to recognize that the lie youve lived with for so long really is a lie. Step 5 was drowning yourself until you didnt have to breathe anymore. Now she stops. Wide-eyed panic spreads over her face. Aulunla didnt want that for her, thats why it was blacked out, but I dont know. I dont know what shes thinking now, I whisper. I think we mightve missed something? Mide says, glancing between us uneasily. Aisling bites down hard on her lower lip and shakes off a full-body shudder. Eyna. Youre completely certain her Harbinger is dead? Yes. Then it doesnt matter. Outside the need-to-knows, she says, leveling out her voice enough that it only wavers a little. But we should get moving right now. Shona, hold me and Ill give you directions if you dont know where were headed. You two, follow us. Shona hops outside, fires her finger guns into the sky pointedly without looking at it and waves for us to join her. The other two follow, Mide a little more hesitantly than Aisling. And right before I leave the awnings unsteady shelter, for only a moment, I smell something putrid on the breeze, like the fumes of a rotting carcass wafting off a shallow grave. Just one step into the suns Embrace, however, and its gone without a trace. Did any of you smell that just now? I ask. Um, not me? Shona says. If it were here, I doubt Id notice, Mide adds. Aisling pauses for a moment, then silently shakes her head. Well. Maybe thats some kind of a good sign among all this. Seryana probably doesnt want to be out today any more than I do. Im not counting on it, though. Id really be an idiot if I acted like hoping for things to go well would make it so. Not that I could if I wanted to. Not while I cant force the image of the girl I left to her fate floating lifeless on the water out of my mind. Or the thought of some new nightmare blooming from her corpse. Falling Ever Deeper 6-2 Eyna, hey, you didnt happen to like poof yourself an actual weapon since last time we worked together, did you? Shona asks with a sheepish grin. Beneath the all-encompassing shroud of the Suns blinding light, strange in its excitement, the shadows have retreated to the loneliest corners of the world and drawn into themselves. Yet, rather than fade against the intensity of the glare, theyve grown deeper, darkening in sharp contrast to the pearly radiance engulfing everything else. Between one shrunken patch of inky shade dancing around the trees and the next, I glance Shonas way and tilt my head. No? Oh. Well, yknow, thats alright! Riding along with Mide wasnt so bad, was it? Aisling shoots me a sympathetic look. You too? My condolences. Not that Im convinced it would be much better if we did have weapons. Mides probably just really used to it. Hey! Its a fun ride! You nerds dont all have to be like that! Shona fumes. I have nothing to say to that. Im the last person in the city who should be insulting anyone for how their magic works, but theres no way Shona doesnt know how miserable sliding around like the citys made of ice is for us nerds. Its okay. It can even be a little fun once you get used to it. Really used to it, Mide adds matter-of-factly. Shona whirls around, folding her arms as she glares down at Mide. You dont sound very enthusiastic about it. Harumph. She puffs out one of her cheeks. Oh, is that right? Mide glances off to the side expressionlessly, doing her best to look innocent as she dodges her friends accusatory gaze. Hey, if you needed my help pitching your deathtrap transit service, you couldve just asked. With that, she claps her hands together in feigned excitement and looks back to me and Aisling. Like I was saying, its the best thing since wrought iron! Augh, traitor! How could you do this to me after everything weve been through? All the bones weve broken together? Mides cheery expression fades into a weak smile of long-suffering resignation. For the record, what she means is Mide broke one bone. Shona huffs theatrically, arms folded and nose upturned to the sky. I cant believe this. Here I thought we were friends. The clocks been ticking since I asked my question. Can we do this potentially time-sensitive thing or not? Aisling presses. Right, right! Just getting everything sorted for your next trip on the Shona Express, best deathtrap transit service in all New Claris! I know were on the clock, Shona replies with a skip in her step. Anyway, Ive gotten better at, mm, fine-tuning this since last time, so it should be a smoother ride! A bit smoother. Uh, weather aside, she says, adjusting her sunglasses and wincing when it doesnt seem to help much. Thats a relief. As I was saying, if youre leading the way, you should carry me. I think Im the only one who knows where were going, Aisling says. No one challenges her on that. I just look uncertainly at Mide. Sure. I can take Eyna, she says after a brief delay, her face betraying none of how she feels about that. Cool, cool! Lets get to it, then! As we step onto the sidewalk, Shona summons her violin, straightens her back as she readies the instrument on her shoulder, and begins to play. Far from a serene and graceful piece to match her posture, the pattern of long, sharp sliding notes form an intense and menacing song. Crimson sparks crackle through the air around her, their color unchanged by the glaring light above. I tense up, steeling myself for the shock I know is coming. It doesnt help at all. I yelp and shudder when it bites through me a few seconds later, and even that slight motion is enough to send my feet skidding along the ground. Aisling flinches and scowls. Mide merely winces for a split-second before she reaches out and grabs my arm, and Shonas only sign of discomfort comes when she drops her violin which clatters to the ground before bursting into a shower of red light and tries to smooth out a few rogue strands of static hair as they rise. It doesnt work. Alright, girls! Lets make our I mean, our nameless, themeless, totally-not-a-teams definitely last show a great one! Shona cheers. Yep, Aisling says tonelessly, but for a hint of anxious urgency thats been slowly creeping into her voice since the very moment she learned Isobel and I crossed paths. I keep quiet. Now that theres nothing for me to do but wait and see just how bad things are, Im back to running through the worst-case scenarios in my head. Im not sure what it says about me or the world that I cant quite decide if it would be worse to find Isobel dead or charge into the Wound of a Harbinger born from her soul. Some part of me thinks any kind of life at all must still be better than death, but no, thats insane. Yurfaln wasnt anything like Mr. Enfield. I didnt eat him when I killed it Im sure I didnt. Harbingers arent the people they came from any more than those horrible parasitic wasps are the caterpillars they crawl out of. No, they are, its more complicated than that, they take a lot more from those people than food, just Ugh. I dont know. It doesnt matter. Both outcomes are awful and I should be thinking about how to keep it from coming to that, but theres nothing I can do except hope. Not now. I couldve killed Aulunla when I first found it, but I didnt, so here we are. Yeah, thats about right, Shona sighs wistfully, looking over the expressions of the gathered Keepers. Maybe well feel better after all this is over. She skates off into the streets with Aisling in tow. Mide is quick to follow, dragging me along with her. ~~~ True to Shonas word, this trip does feel slightly smoother than the last. She whistles constantly as we move, and the magic around us answers her song. Low notes function like a brake, returning tiny bits of friction to our shoes, while high ones speed us along. It probably helps that the city is almost entirely deserted by now, save for a few cars abandoned in the streets. Im not thinking much anymore about how were getting around or even where were going, anyway. Only about the Sun. Its featureless face staring down at us. Its blazing limbs wrapped around the world. And its beams reflecting off of Mides armor, lending her less of a radiant glow than youd expect, but enough for the light to bounce into my eyes. Um, youre kind of glowing in my face, I say as we slide down one of the central highways. Oh sorry, Mide calls back, only a little louder than usual Shonas power keeps the breeze Id expect to be whipping in my ears at this speed away. Nothing I can really do about it. This armor is just terrible. Looks straight out of some dumb cartoon, right? What? Is this some sort of trap? Not long before she dropped out of my life, Grainne told me Id hate secondary school anyway. She said all the girls there did this thing where they asked pointless questions with some obvious answer, stuff about how bad some color or skirt looked on them, then told everyone about how nasty and mean you were if you actually agreed with them. That was not what I wanted to hear, when my alternative to going to secondary school was dying, but it did sound awful. Well, if thats what this is, I cant be bothered navigating it. Nothing I say to Mide will give her a better reason to hate me than that time I almost ate her. Yes? I say. Um, sorry if thats mean, I dont want to insult your regalia, but yes. Its a weird color for armor to be. Ugh, please! Insult it all you like. For once in my life, let me complain about it to someone who wont gaslight me about how cool it is, Mide gripes. I can hear you, yknow! Im right up here! AND IT IS COOL! Shona shouts over her shoulder. Eyes on the road! Get back to steering Shonas Deathtrap Express! Mide scolds her. Shona grumbles wordlessly, but does do that. Complain if you want. I dont mind, I offer. Anything to distract me from racing around in broad daylight during an Embrace. Where to even start? I just hate it, really. Its the least me it could possibly be. Did you know that its impossible to make gold into functional arms or armor? I dont know anything about weapons, I say. Well, it is. You can decorate equipment with gold, with plating or inlay, but theres literally no point in making anything out of solid gold. Its way too heavy and way too soft compared to any reasonable metal to forge with. Is your stuff made of solid gold? That sounds absurd, but I of all people shouldnt be surprised if someone elses magic has some bizarre feature they hate. No, its all very much usable. Thats not the point. Is it just not your color? All functional issues aside, Id be pretty upset if my Keeper dress was carrot orange. You could maybe change it, if you tried. I added this mask to my outfit not long after I started. Mide sighs audibly. What, is it supposed to answer to how I want it to be? Ive heard that before, but I dont want it to look like this, I never did, and thats never changed it. And I mean, I know. I get that its not made of gold, its made of magic, but it matters to me, okay? Historic weapons and armed martial arts are, like, my thing, you know? I used to be on the fencing team before I became a Keeper. Went to competitions and everything. Still would if I wasnt so busy. Well, maybe She trails off for a moment. Anyway, she continues, if this magic is mine, if its me the way every other Keeper says, and all its given me is weapons and armor and extra skill with using them, I dont think its such a big ask for them to appeal to me, you know? Theyd appeal to me if they were functional. And no, gold isnt even my color, she groans. That does sound annoying, I say. The conversation stalls out as we wind around a street corner, then up the ramp to an overpass heading south which we slide up without slowing down at all. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Its probably a lot worse for you, isnt it? Mide muses faintly, once the road ahead straightens back out. Her voice is light, yet still carries on the breeze rushing past us. What? That drags my attention away from the painful light above. You know. Getting saddled with a power like yours, I mean, she continues, after I let the silence hang for a moment. You cant have asked for it to be that way. Its pretty miserable, I agree. I didnt want anything about my magic to be what it is. Vyuji keeps saying itll make sense eventually, Ill find some way to make it what I want to be. I dont really believe her. Or maybe I do. Im never quite sure. I hate all of this. I hate what I have to do for the slightest chance at living. But if its really the only way the world could have given me to survive, then I dont know. Ill probably hate it less than being dead. So, um Mide hesitates, her gaze turned away from me. Well I guess I guess Im sorry. For coming down on you the way I did, for as long as I have, Mide mutters. But, I mean, what else could I have done? How could I have known what you were dealing with? You wouldnt tell us anything, and Shona kept saying it would be the rudest thing ever if I asked, even after you did what you did. It really hurt. Almost like I was gonna die. Of course I thought we should keep our distance. I still kind of do, she says. Theres a faint little shudder in her arm. I bite my lip for a few long seconds, staring at the back of Mides head from beneath my hood. Im suddenly glad to be at the back of our little convoy. Talking about this at all still makes me want to hide, to run away and never see or think of her or Shona again, but its not like what shes saying is wrong, or even really bad, and its coming from the last person Id have expected to show me any sympathy. No, thats probably Tetha. And the thought that Ive hurt other people even more makes Mides point even better than anything she could have said. Youre not wrong. And Ive done a pretty terrible job making my case to the world. I understand, I think, I say slowly. And Im not gonna help Shona pester you to join our team or anything. Thats still a bad idea, at least until youve sorted whatever it is you have to do out. But Im pretty sure you dont even want that, so lets just make sure this time goes better. She finally turns back to look me in the eye, the shudder in her arm completely stilled. Sound good? Mm, I agree. Things go quiet again after that. I dont have too much time to process any of it, though. Too many other things weighing on my mind. This is still my first time being out during an Embrace Ive always spent them hiding in the darkest place I could find. Its its not that its uncomfortable in the same way as a regular too-bright day. It absolutely is, but I could pull my hood over my eyes and live with just the blinding radiance slicing through the sky. The temperature hasnt even changed much. No, the worst part is how impossibly, inexplicably alluring the sights above have become. Whenever I look to the other three Keepers, between still-too-sharp turns around street corners, they dont seem especially shaken. I suppose they have better things to focus on Shona and Mide are busy steering, while Aisling barks directions. Only Im just dragged along for the ride, with nothing to do but wait and try not to look too far up. Ive heard the same things as everyone else about how important it is to never observe an Embrace directly, for any length or by any means. Photographs are safe, though they tend to come out abnormal. Telescopes, mirrors, and live recordings are not. I never got why those warnings would need to be repeated so much, unless it was one of those stupid things normal kids dared each other to do. Looking at the Sun on normal days is bad enough. I guess you have to experience it yourself to really understand. When I first stepped outside, right after the Embrace began, I just had to see it. Just enough that I had to see what was happening for myself, the way you want to get a better look at any strange movement in the corners of your eyes. I had to know what was happening, see it as more than its harsh radiance flooding the world, and the burning pain of its light in my eyes somehow wasnt quite enough for me to flinch and pull away until Aisling reminded me. Even having just felt that pain, holding the worst that could happen fresh in my mind, the Sun still calls to me, drawing my gaze along the radiant trails of its six shapeless, spiraling arms. And the longer we race through the streets beneath its light, the louder its call grows. The more I start to feel like its speaking to me. Offering to share some great secret with me, if I would only throw myself into the sky. Have you ever wondered why you are? What is the Sun? What is the world? Why is everything the twisted, nightmarish way it is? Why do Harbingers exist? Why do parasitic wasps lay their eggs in caterpillars so their spawn can eat them from the inside out? Why do plagues wipe out entire cities by making everyone rot to death? Why do little girls die from untreatable illnesses that snatch away everything that makes them smile bit by bit? How do we all just live with it? Drown yourself in my light, the Suns imperative call whispers wordlessly, and I will show you everything. The eyes you offer up to me will forevermore see as I see. But I dont want that. I dont care. I dont, I insist to myself over and over. I just want to live as myself, forever and unless whatever it has to say about why life is so terrible would help me make that happen, its no use to me. And it wouldnt. I already know the price its asking. Halfway to our destination, it even reminds me of that itself. Soon after we enter the Weald, where the many trees shading the thin streets still dont do much to keep the light at bay, Shona lets out a long, low whistle, bringing all of us to a surprisingly easy stop. Something the matter? Mide calls, releasing my hand the moment she can do so without sending me flying. Fine with me. Yeah, uh, over there, a little ways into the woods Shona points. Is she alright? Should we do something about it? I dont see what shes talking about at first, but as I tighten my hood, take a few steps closer, and peer through the trees someones there. A woman, I think, standing tall in a bright patch between the leaves. Staring up into the sky. Shes facing away from us right now, but I know what Id see if she turned around. No, Aisling says. She clenches her teeth, crosses her arms over her chest, and sighs. Keep moving. Theres nothing we can do. Yeah. I guess I know. Just I know, Shona says, shoulders sagging. Theres at least a few of them every time this happens. People caught out too far from shelter when the sky bursts into flame or simply swept up in the Embraces pull before they can rush to safety. Im not sure if its always right to call the Eyeless casualties, but no, it probably is. Some stare into the sky until they waste away. Some are dragged indoors by rescuers or emerge from their burning reverie when night falls, but those will spend the rest of their lives in the Sanctuary. Its as if when the sun takes their eyes, it takes their soul, devouring whoever they were as completely as any Harbinger. The Eyeless wait and hope to throw themselves into the next Embrace, and meanwhile they spend their time murmuring contentedly about the Icon of Perfections blessing of senselessness, or the Rightful King of All Stars boundless glory whatever that means. I only recall a few vague passages in the Cycles about other gods who hold the sky aloft around Claiasyas cradle, great and fearful beings with no stake in our tiny human lives. Maybe Id know more if my religious phase had lasted longer, or had focused on different things. Im not even sure if the Eyeless are the least fortunate of the Suns victims. If the horror stories they tell children to keep us as far from Embraces as possible are to be believed, a few simply burn to nothing where they stand. The embers flickering in their empty, cindered eye sockets rise and swallow them whole. Sorry, Mide mumbles as she turns her back to the woman. I follow, and thats that. Aislings right. Theres nothing we can do. I cant help but imagine those empty eyes as we leave her behind, though. Ive seen plenty of things that are just as bad by now, but something about what happens to the Eyeless feels uniquely awful. Im not sure if its the fact that theres nothing anyone can do about the Embrace or just the way something so high above us, so distant, can ruin us if we simply glance at it for a few seconds too long. And why? For what? Does it mean anything to the Sun when someone loses themselves in its glare? Does it even notice? Its the Sun. At least Harbingers seem to need something from their victims. Not that the distinction matters much to those people. The dead arent there to feel anything about whatever destroyed them, and as far as we can tell, the Eyeless are as gone as any corpse. ~~~ Stop here, Aisling calls out, once weve wound off the streets and down the paved forest trails for a few more minutes. Weve come to a part of the Weald where the terrain dips and swells with gently rolling hills. Shona jolts to a sudden halt, sending Aisling spinning around her for a few circles before momentum begins to treat them normally again, while Mide brakes with her spear in the thick grass just off the path. Uh, is this it? Shona asks. Just looks like more trees to me. Aisling shakes her head once, then points down the left fork in the trail ahead. No, but its close. We should be more careful on the approach, in case theres any risk of charging into a Wound. Eyna, keep watch for anything that feels strange. You two, stay a bit ahead and shout if anything looks off. Or sounds off, if youre Shona. Shona grins and puffs herself up at that, but narrows her eyes shortly after. Wait, why are we in front? I still dont know where were going. Same reason as always, Mide says. Because if were heading into trouble, you want the girl in the tacky armor who knows how to actually fight taking the brunt of it. Oh yeah, Shona says blandly. Seriously though, shut up! Your armors awesome! Lets argue that point some more later. Or, you know, not. Mide adjusts her visor, further shields her eyes with one arm which continues to reflect the Embraces light in all directions and starts toward the path on the left. ~~~ Almost there, Aisling calls out, a few minutes further down the path. Just ahead, the trail slopes smoothly upward, climbing a hill too tall to see over. Its just over the crest here. Eyna, are you getting anything? Not yet. Anyone else? Aisling tries. Nope, Shona says. Mide silently shakes her head, then moves to peek over the top of the hill. She glances over whatever she sees for a few seconds, then steps back and waves Aisling up. Theres no monsters I can see, just a girl. Not in the lake, but by the shore. Is she your friend? Aisling rushes to join Mide, peers off where shes pointing, then lets out a long, slow sigh. Yes. Thats her, she says, an anxious strain underlying the relief in her voice. Alright alright, she half-whispers. First off. Eyna? Hows she look to you? Can you sense her from here? I follow Aisling and Mide to the top of the hill, staying low to the ground after their example. So far, I havent felt anything out of place well, other than the obvious, the ominous air of walking beneath the Suns shroud of light. Over the hill, the ground soon slopes back down, and the woods open onto the grassy shore of a broad lake basin, stretching out in either direction to curve around a stout, steep mountain on the far side. Its immediately apparent how Missing Lake got its name. The water is clear enough that beneath the shimmering waves on its surface, it barely looks like anything is there at all you can see right through it to the rocky bed below. At least, you can between the places where the light of the Solar Embrace reflects off it in long, rippling stretches of harsh glare. A few dozen feet ahead, grass gives way to rocky coast. And far down that coast, but clearly visible in the distance, an auburn-haired girl in a green jacket and long hiking skirt rifles through the rocks, searching for something along the line just before the water meets the shore. Isobel, the girl in Aislings photo. Aulunlas witch. The weight thats been in my chest since we set out starts to lift. Whatever this girl is doing out here in the middle of an Embrace, whatevers happened to her since I last saw her, at the very least shes alive no, I cant relax just yet. I reach out with my souls senses, but those are the same senses the Sun whispers to me through, and I dont know how to focus them directionally. Ive always just opened them and taken in everything in my general area, with one complicated exception for the way Irakkia interacted with the idea of space. I dont plan to find out what would happen if the sky stole my full attention. I pull back into myself until I can just detect Isobels soul, her lingering corruption and her health which still feels untouched. I cant get the full details from here. The Embrace is making it hard. But she feels about the way she did last time. Corrupted without being damaged, if that makes sense. Corrupted by the same Harbinger? Aisling asks. Not sure. I dont think so. Wouldnt make sense. But I dont know how long a Harbingers stench can linger. Okay, she murmurs. Im going to see if whatevers going on is the kind of thing we can talk out. You three, wait here. Stay down. Be ready to intervene if anything fucky happens. Ive got to try this, but I dont want to take chances. Gotcha, Shona stage-whispers back. Mide and I just nod. With that, Aisling stands, takes a long, deep, breath, and strides onto the shore. The rest of us press ourselves to the ground, wait, and watch. Isobel? she calls hesitantly. Hey, Ash, Isobel answers immediately, without once looking up from the rocky riverside. Her shadow, hiding close to her body the way all shadows do beneath the Embrace, grows along the ground, splitting in six directions. Within seconds, its ceased to be a human silhouette at all, twisting into the shapes of emaciated hands, each tipped with six too-long, wire-thin fingers. Isobel stands as her many shadows unfurl, turning as she does to glare straight up at me. Of all people, did you really have to bring Aulunlas murderer along? Falling Ever Deeper 6-3 Isobels six limb-shadows stand out sharply on the too-bright ground, the only shadows holding any kind of steady shape beneath the Embrace, but their fingers constantly twitch as if in pain at their barely-visible joints. Two pairs of arms each crawl along the lakes edge in both directions, digging one finger at a time into the rocky shore with an inhuman efficiency, and tossing larger stones aside seemingly at random. The remaining two begin to elongate and slither up the hill, grasping for me with their trembling hands. And as they grow, they carry some distant presence over the basin. Something reaching out through Isobel, or crawling out from inside her. Havent you taken enough from us? Are you here to eat me too? Isobel spits at me. I duck beneath the hill, glaring wide-eyed between Shona and Mide. Hey, hey, this seems pretty fucky, right? Shona stage-whispers with a hectic energy, shooting glances between me, Aisling, and Mide. Eyna. Is that the Harbinger you first found her with? Mide asks. I shake my head. Theres a faintly familiar sense of endless, nameless longing in the thing climbing out of Isobels soul, but as the weight of its attention bears down on me, Im certain its not Aulunlas. Aulunla is dead. All thats left of it is its curse on me. Everyone, stay back! Aisling calls. We arent here to charge into a fight! The Harbingers awareness shifts to split between me and her. I peek back over the hills crest, where the shadow-limbs encroaching on us have slowed their crawl, but not quite stopped, like snakes slowly creeping up on prey. The remaining four carry right on scooping through the damp rocks. Shona and Mide share an uneasy look, ending when Mide nods, draws her spear, raises her shield, and assumes a defensive stance at the top of the hill, squaring off with the Harbingers twitching arms without advancing on it. Shona summons her violin, but doesnt yet take a playing position. Okay. Isobel, we came here to help you, Aisling continues. Isobel barks out a bitter laugh. Is that right? What kind of help takes a whole squad of you to offer? Including, again, the girl who just killed my friend? I dont want any hand shes reaching out to me. This is all me, Aisling says. Eynas only part in this is that I heard what happened from her. Im here because as soon as I heard what youd gotten into, I burned a question figuring out where you were! Theyre here because I thought you might be spirited away by some monster who was very much not your friend! Wow, Isobel deadpans. Maybe if youd done that a little more, a little sooner, things wouldnt have gotten this far. Thats not what this is about and we both know it, Aisling shoots back. I know how much you wanted to be part of this world. Getting a few answers secondhand wouldnt have satisfied me and I doubt it would work for you either. Not long-term. Thats why we were trying our best to figure something out for you! Not trying hard enough to just ask why you were Keeper material and I wasnt, though. Isobel wraps her right hand around her left forearm and squeezes through her sleeve, hard enough that it looks painful even from this distance. The shadow-limbs stretching out around her tense up, curling their narrow fingers as if mirroring her white-knucked grip. Aisling pauses, clenching and unclenching a single fist. Eyna, I know what Aisling just said, but exactly how bad does this girl have it? Mide mutters under her breath. I dont know. This new nightmare is far too distant, too detached from anything I understand to make sense of. Meeting its souls gaze is like looking into the night sky and knowing more than ever that something is looking back, which feels especially bizarre while the Sun is still glaring down at all of us. Bad, I say simply. Im not sure how Id tell the difference between a witch or a vessel, but its clear Isobel is corrupted much more severely than she was before, and by a Harbinger I somehow doubt cares about her the way Aulunla did. The only thing I can say for her is that it still feels like theres a person beneath all the miasma. We talked about that too, Aisling finally stammers. We agreed about that. The blind spots- I know, I know. Just giving you a hard time. I get it, Isobel says, releasing her grip with a little shrug. The Harbingers encroaching shadow-arms rattle wildly in place, shaking their hands out before they continue their advance. And because I get it, I went and figured something else out first. Thats all this is. And what is this, Isobel? Aisling pushes. I didnt come to say any of the things youre probably expecting me to. Ill listen, but I cant do that if you wont say anything about whats going on. Oh, come on, Ash. Did you really think Id take up monologuing just because I met a Harbinger? Isobel giggles as if at an old joke. Theres no possible advantage for us in telling you anything. Aisling raises an eyebrow. Us? Isobels uncanny smile only grows. Not like Im saying anything you guys cant already see, or sense, or however it works for all you lucky chosen souls. But if you thought I was slipping up, you shouldve just let me keep slipping. Im not fishing for edges on you, idiot. We arent fighting. If weve got anything wrong, I want to know. Arent we? If I say thanks for checking in, but Im fine, you can all get out of this miserable light now, what happens next? It depends, Aisling says. Which is why Im doing my best to figure out where youre coming from. But it really doesnt look good, and youre not making it easy. All around us, nature is unnaturally quiet, the animals who should be chirping and buzzing driven into hiding by the Embrace. Only the shuffling and splashing of rocks being pushed away and tossed into the lake breaks the silence. Finally, Isobel lets out a long sigh. Yeah. Thats what I thought. This isnt help, its an intervention, only with armed guards waiting to lock me up if I wont do things your way. Thanks, Ash, but I dont need it. If I still had Aulunla, we wouldnt need anything anymore, she says, blinking as a flood of tears breaks suddenly through her eyelids, but here we fucking are! Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Isobel, youre not Aisling mutters, then bites her lip and shakes her head. No, Im sure at least some part of this is you. My question wouldnt have sent me here if you didnt exist anymore. So you still know that if you wont explain what this is, what youre getting out of it, why its not what it looks like thats an answer too, right? There you are, Isobel says, but not in response. She abruptly turns around and takes a few strides away from Aisling, following the Harbingers shuddering arms down the shore to our left, where its flung aside a slab of mica leaning against the foot of a stump situated away from the grassy shoreline. I cant quite make out whats happening from this far away, but the long, inky fingers seem to have slithered into a cavity beneath the stump. After a moment, its hands draw back into her, depositing something dark and dusty at her feet. She picks it up, wipes it on her sleeves, and hugs it close to her chest, smiling as she stands again. Actually, nevermind what I said before. I have an idea. I can tell you guys just a little bit after all. Alright Aisling says slowly, eyeing the object in Isobels arms. Whats that? I already have a good idea. I cant see the front cover from here, but its the shape, size, and color of a very familiar book. Just what is it doing here of all places? She ignores Aisling and turns to stare at me again. Eyna, your name was? You missed one of these. You missed a couple of the first ones I made, actually, but I think this one traveled the farthest! Beneath wide eyes still red and swollen with tears, Isobel is grinning. The woman who found it hid it here before she drowned herself. My blood freezes in my veins, and the world with it. I dont want to die. I dont want anyone to die. Ever. But even if I can already do so much more than most people ever can, Im still just a weak little girl in all the ways that matter. I cant clap my hands and erase death from the world. I cant return the dead to life. I cant cure diseases or heal the injured. I cant help anyone. I can barely even help myself, and thats only by offloading my suffering onto everyone else. But above any of that, I just want to live, so I do what I have to. Still, the absolute least I could do to stand by my own dreams is not kill anyone. When I left Aulunlas book in its place, I knew what my plan would involve. I knew what Harbingers had to do to grow. I imagined it would hurt, yes, it would be a terrifying nightmare experience for everyone who stumbled into it, but then theyd get better and Id be alive. What a stupid thing to think, when Ive walked through the Soul Sanctuary and watched people gorge themselves to death on living clay and watched Mide cart that boy with no eyes away from Irakkias manifestation. No, its not that I was stupid. I just thought nothing. I thought around the costs of what I was doing, the same way I do when I drain dozens of peoples health at a time, feeding my bottomless need for stolen strength without ever even looking at my victims. Without ever seeing what Ive done to enough people that Ive lost count no, I never even tried to count. And if I had, I still couldnt say how much pain Ive caused, because I still have no idea what getting the life ripped out of their souls looks or feels like for them. Yeah, Isobel says, still smiling wide. I can only hope it hurts. I doubt itll hurt nearly as much as you hurt Aulunla every day of their life since the moment they met you, but its the best I can do for now. Aisling slowly backs away from her, side-stepping up the hill without taking her eyes off Isobel. Or the shadows gathered at her feet. Does it hurt? How much? Keeping that distance from my own actions, maintaining that willful ignorance I think its worked. Its the only thing keeping me standing right now. I know death all too well. I know that there was a person with her own life and dreams and friends and family and Aulunla ate her soul. But somehow, thats not enough to make it feel real. I never knew her and now I never will. I cant imagine how the world changes without her even less than I could when people I saw once or twice in the hospital disappeared forever, and those only ever hit me as reminders of my own fate. Isnt that disgusting? I shouldnt be okay. I shouldnt. No, its not that Im okay, but its wrong that this hasnt broken me into a thousand pieces. If I could do it over, I would do it differently. Of course I would. But if I had to do it again, just the same as before, I could. And I know I can live with that, because I would never let it all be for nothing. What does that say about me, about who I really am? That Im exactly the monster my magic keeps telling me I am. Eyna? Eyna, hey, uh whatever happened, its really not your fault. We cant save everyone, you know? Shona says through a nervous smile, and sets her free hand on my shoulder. It feels like an arrow spearing directly from where shes touched me into my heart. Instantly, reflexively, I smack it off. Aislings head shoots our way. I cant see her face anymore. My vision blurs. My eyes sting. My head swims and my chest tightens enough to squeeze the breath from my lungs and through it all, magic rushes through my veins, like its trying to replace the blood thats been killing me for as long as Ive lived. Isobels Harbinger says something in many soft voices, but not to me a susurrus just out of earshot. And a long, ropey limb tied into a noose slithers into being from nowhere, coils around Shonas leg, and tugs, tightening its grip over her ankle. She yelps in shock as it rears up, dragging her upside-down into the air, and cracks itself like a whip with her at the end, slamming her into the grass halfway down the hill. As the rope releases Shona, slinking back toward its unseen source, another presence slams into me in a nauseating wave, wrapping around me like a tackle-hug from a ghost that still smells of rotting garbage. Seryana whispers. Shut up, I hiss, my eyes frantically scanning over Shonas splayed out figure, searching for any sign shes okay. She sucks through her teeth, then lets out a long, aching groan. I want to rush over to help her, but something is holding me in place. she carries on. Her form twists into being right in front of me, and she traces a frayed, filmy hand along my cheek. Shut up. I push her away with all my feeble strength. She only laughs, swaying back with her whole upper body, doodling a beaming face with the scratchy black scrawls over her head. I take a few feeble steps away. Shona slowly pushes herself off the ground, staggering half-upright. FUCK! Mide! Aisling! Hey, behind us! Theres a THING! Mide has already started racing down the hill toward Shona. As she does, though, Isobels shadow-arms lash back out, converging on her in unison. She skids to a sudden halt just fast enough that when the hands rise from the ground and grasp at her legs, they only hold her in place rather than send her tripping over herself. She drops her spear, draws her sword, and begins slicing at the solid, twisting shadows as they rise around her. Shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP! Cold, corrosive power spills out through my skin in rolling waves. I gather up my fog and pour it into Seryana, shoving it into her body with all my will. Rather than melt into nothing as she has so many times now, Seryanas body unravels, peeling itself apart from its noose-ravel limbs into countless strands. Filaments of filthy hair and raw, sinewy red flesh unfurl and unfurl, reducing Seryanas shape to nothing in instants, but still they spread, wrapping around me and reweaving themselves into the shape of a world. Falling Ever Deeper 6-4 Aisling detects it right before she sees it, a soundless alarm piercing through the flow of her thoughts. Her gaze whips back toward the forests edge just in time to watch reality explode. Liadains Harbinger opens itself, turning inside-out into a raw and bloody hole in the world. In an instant, it expands, swallows her whole, and contracts into itself, leaving a tangled web of hair and ribbons of exposed skin spread out around a pulsing black core. A Wound in the most literal sense. Ah its not perfect, but itll have to do, Isobel sighs, though she watches Liadain vanish with a thin, vindictive smile that makes Aislings stomach churn. Theres no point in wondering what happened to her best friend, whats come over the girl Aisling trusted more than any other to make her this way. The culprit is clear as the burning sky. The two important questions, then, are: what does Isobels new Harbinger want with a dead keepsake of her last one, and how much of Isobel is left in there to save? As the distortion that swallowed Liadain settles in its place and begins to slowly contract into itself, Isobel clasps her hands together, lowers her gaze, and begins murmuring to herself as if in prayer. A white mask flickers into being over her face no, not quite over, but not quite translucent, either. Rather, Isobels head and this placid-faced stone mask somehow appear to occupy the same space at the same time. With three clean, rhythmic swipes of her blade, Mide carves through the wrists of the shadowy limbs gripping her ankles. She rips her legs away as if pulling herself out of an ivy thicket, stomps on the blunt end of the spear shed dropped to her feet in such a way that its launched spinning into the air, and takes a quick hop backwards as she notices the attacking silhouettes have already reformed C and one of them is lifting itself off the ground. A smoky, pitch black arm rises above the knights height and unfurls its long, branchlike fingers like blossoming flower petals. Its presence hums like a youth choir crooning in the distance. As the tips of the shadow-limbs six fingers abruptly tense like a claw and lance out sharply, extending with terrifying speed as if to skewer her, Mide catches her spear out of the air with her shield hand just in time to array it, her sword, and her heater shield in just the right places to deflect every vector of the attack. The diverted fingers clang off her armaments and shoot past the knight, stabbing into the ground behind her, and she cuts them away before rushing forward to chop down the risen shadow-limb. As fast as she is, the silhouette is quicker, ducking the arc of Mides next swing as it retreats flat against the ground. In the meantime, another shadow-limb has taken the chance to snake around the knight, lunging at her from behind to seize her ankles again. This time, though, shes ready, and easily evades with some quick footwork. With none of the shadow-limbs directly impeding her, Mide sheaths her sword, turns tail, and glides down to the patch of grass where Shona was smashed into the earth, all in one smooth motion. Three of the silhouettes slither after her at a leisurely pace, but three others retract, returning to their source. The very same moment Mide offers Shona a hand up, the silhouettes that had pulled back to Isobel all sprout up off from the ground, becoming too-tall, too-long arms of solid shadow just the same as the one that had risen to attack Mide. Her shadow is as solid as a puddle of black ink seeping out from under her shoes. And as they draw themselves up, stubbornly resisting the Suns burning light, black threads trailing away from each finger reach down into the pool of murk at their base. Each set of strings pulls a human-sized form up with them, as if reeling corpses out of a lake, but the ghoulish manikins they puppeteer are human only in their vague outline. They look to be made entirely of white stone, with expressionless masks in place of faces, and their bodies are stretched out like coils of clay. Nothing distinguishes one from the other but the tiny cracks in the stone. None move on their own power, simply lolling over and twitching as the hands holding their strings spasm in pain. Not only was Liadain the only person present who might be able to drive out the thing inside Isobel without killing her, Aisling has no way of knowing how much immediate danger that girl has gotten herself into, now. Danger from that Harbinger or herself? Unimportant. Nothing I can do about Liadains situation from out here. Focus on the things you can control first. Shona! You can break out of Wounds, right? Aisling calls out. Taking Mides hand, Shona stumbles dizzily to her feet, tossing aside her broken shades and brushing grass and bits of rock off her dress. After helping her friend up, Mide wastes no time turning back to the shadow limbs creeping closer behind her, passing her spear into her free hand, and chucking it into the centermost silhouette with so much force it buries itself a third of the way into the ground. The middle arm cringes like a living insect pinned in a specimen box, splitting itself down the middle as it rips itself away and reforms itself in short order. Mide strides forth as she draws her sword again, interposing herself between the silhouettes and Shona. Urghhh Shona collects herself, making sure Mide has the situation at least mostly in check before she gives Aisling her response. ..Y-yeah, when Ive tried! she confirms, her eyes leaping between the three silhouettes closing in on her and Mide, and the three manikins Isobel has called into being. Then, as if fed up with her own hesitation, Shonas wavering eyes take on a sudden anger. The violin scattered along the ground bursts into crimson light, and a new one materializes in her grip. She puts her bow to the instrument and races through a harsh threatening tune in presto, summoning a wall of red lightning bolts between her and the Harbingers shadow. The bolts, short-lived as they are, prove more than enough to scatter the spectral arms, which frantically retreat into the darkness beneath Isobel. With that, Shona jogs to Aislings side. Mide follows, side-stepping along with her shield and sword held at the ready against the limp statue-puppets. We cant fight this on two fronts. Can you get in there and pull Eyna out? I mean Shona bites her lip. Its not great to separate us, she says, wagging an elbow in Mides direction. Listen. These out here are just shadows cast by a Harbinger. Fragments of power its handed out. The two of us can handle these, and their creator isnt going to manifest during an Embrace. But I cant get into a Wound and pull someone out. Neither can Mide. You can, and youre fast. Just do it as quick as you can. Or if shes got things under control, you can leave her there and pop back out to help us. That work? Shona glances uncomfortably at Mide, who nods once. Kay. Be right back. Red lightning dances around Shonas feet as she kicks off and skates up the hill, charging straight into Seryanas Wound. Seryanas tear in the world, which had gradually been stitching itself shut, twists and expands once more to welcome the Screaming Hymn, opening into a narrow tunnel of flesh and sinew that shuts like a mouth in the world the moment Shona passes through. Isobel smirks, then kneels and reaches an arm deep into the darkness still pooled at her feet. The murk boils and writhes as she pulls another mask up from it, a white stone face dripping with blackness. For your trouble, you you creepy little freak, you, she says, and sets the mask down beside her. A new face for you to wear. With those words, the mask darts away, carried up the hill by a wisp of slithering blackness detached from the central pool. Mide thrusts her sword upright into the earth, then reaches out her newly freed hand towards her spear, whereupon the weapon bursts into embers and manifests instantly in her grip. She draws the javelin back, takes a running start, and hurls it at the stone face. The tip finds its mark, impacting the face with a harsh clatter. The mask jolts off course but quickly corrects itself, with only a chunk chipped off its left cheek to show for the strike, while the spear bounces away and disappears in a golden flare. For her part, Aisling simply tracks the new mask as it travels, narrowing her focus around it. Her Keeper senses have never been what she wished they were, but for this they should suffice. The mask is faintly feminine in shape and design even before the damage, it didnt quite match the featureless ones worn by Isobel and her puppets. Its still very much a living extension of the same demon behind them, though training her aura sight on it leaves Aisling with the distinct impression of a great tangle of threads, with the set on one side trailing back toward Isobel and the other dangling unused. A marionette bar with strings on either side, designed as if to be used by one puppet to direct another. Then the mask dives into Seryanas Wound, falling out of reach of Aislings senses. Seryana and Isobels passenger are colluding, then. Its even possible she tipped Isobel off before they showed up Isobel did know exactly who was there before she saw them, and while her Harbinger could simply have some other way of spying for her, the timing of Seryanas manifestation and whatever the puppeteer just offered her both suggest an accord between them. Did they have some prior arrangement? No, from the way Liadain described her, the most likely explanation is that Seryana saw an opportunity to pull her one and only true love away from other Keepers and took it. Still, Isobels Harbinger agreed to work with her. They could just be smart enough to communicate and accept an alliance of convenience, but offering her some tangible portion of its power seems like a step beyond that. Is there some deeper layer to its plan? Can Harbingers be witches? Can they be vessels? No, thats unimportant too. A theory question for later. The statue-puppets stir, pulled half-upright by Isobels spectral hands. Mide plucks her sword from the soil and steps forward with her shield thrust out, placing herself firmly between Aisling and Isobel. Isobel, are we really going to war before we even know what you want out of this? Aisling calls. Fine, you dont know the others, but are you that certain theres no way Id hear you out? She doubts itll work Isobels given every indication that what her new Harbinger wants is incompatible with anyone elses goals but its the only thing she can do. Shed need to know the puppeteer to have any way of hurting it, and its clearly not inclined to show itself here. Isobel crosses her arms, sighing through the corner of her mouth. Hey. Ash, hey. Im not treating you like an idiot all of a sudden, am I? Do you think you could do me the same courtesy? Theres nothing to talk out here, and if there was, I wouldnt do it while you and your squad are blatantly fishing for information. Mide looks over her shoulder, meeting Aislings widened eyes with an uneasy expression. But despite Isobels words, the puppets dont move. Aisling blinks away the tension in her expression, forcing herself to stay calm. Im not trying to interrogate you about your Harbingers weaknesses, okay? Were not starting a fight if you arent. Mhm. Only stalling for time while those two deal with the other one? Isobels hands clench around her arms. She taps a foot impatiently, trailing liquid shadow away from her shoe as it touches down in the dark beneath her. I just want to know what youre looking for here! We couldve helped if you didnt cut us all off as soon as you jumped into this! Maybe we still can! As if you wouldnt have just killed Aulunla and gotten me the help I needed like anyone else! Isobel takes a single long stride forward. Her distorted shadow dances out of the way as she stomps down, then slides easily back into place beneath her. I wouldnt have. Not until you or it gave me a reason to think there was a problem, Aisling says, doing her utmost to keep her frustration out of her low, level voice. For a moment, she simply watches Isobels face through her half-real mask, allowing her time to register what Aisling just said what Isobel knows she couldnt have lied about. Fine. Maybe Im just fucking stupid. Maybe if you hadnt picked out some problem, and all our friends stood by me when I told them Id made a pact with a Harbinger, wed have revolutionized our understanding of everything together. But Ash, thats not where we are anymore! Its dead! Its gone and Im doing my best to make things right and yes, theres no point in negotiating on what I need to do to make that happen. Were doing it. If you dont want to fight, great! All you have to do is leave us alone. Go help your new friends out. We wont stop you. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Doing what? Aisling presses. Make what right? Does she think she can resurrect it somehow? That might be possible, but Aisling cant imagine a way to do it without tearing Aulunlas remains out of Liadain and piecing them back together, and Isobel seemed happy enough to let Seryana take her. Lets leave the Harbinger out of it for a second. What are you, Isobel, trying to get out of this, and are you sure its the best way to get it? You keep asking the same stupid, obvious question! I just want to MATTER! And dont tell me there was some other way, some perfectly respectable path into this world for a normal nobody. If you believed that, you wouldnt have made the Promise! You hated magic you still do. You wanted nothing to do with it. So what made you a chosen hero and the rest of us your sidekicks, hm?! I dont know! Im doing my best to find out, and I thought we were doing that together! If you came to the club with this, and it really was like you say it was, wed have been the first to update our beliefs and you know it! We all wouldve been thrilled to learn if Aulunla was really different from every other Harbinger, so why didnt- DONT SAY THEIR NAME AS IF YOU CARE! Isobel snarls. Shes right. Aisling doesnt care, not about Aulunla. Maybe if shed been there, if Isobel would give her anything at all to demonstrate that she wasnt exactly like any other witch suffering from their Harbingers soul-rot. You never gave me a chance to care, Aisling says. Isobels face, still stained with tears, twists into a scowl. With no visible signal, her puppets jerk into action, pulled forward by the fingers of the hands sheltering them from the Sun, and Mide advances to meet them. Two statues throw themselves violently at Mide, warping and stretching at strange angles as if moving to wrap themselves entirely around her. With her shield and frantic footwork still enhanced by echoes of Shonas power, which turn a single step into an easy slide along the rough ground she holds them at a distance, taking careful, probing slices at the strings that move them between flurries of twisting motion. Isobel turns and stomps off down the shoreline, her shadow stretching out behind her to hold its place. Aisling rushes after her, but the third hand drags its puppet into her way. It doesnt restrain her, it doesnt even try, it simply stands there, staring at her with its placid smile and empty eye-sockets, blocking her path to Isobel however she moves. And thats all it would need to do, if Aisling had only her own power to rely on. But if Isobel honestly thought that was the case, she was selling Truths Lantern short, despite her claims to the contrary. Reaching gently inside the rightmost pocket of her peacoat-dress, Aisling pulls out a revolver, switching off its safety as she does. In a single swift, slick motion, she parts her legs in a firing stance, levels the gun in the center of the manikins face with both hands, and pulls the trigger. The muzzle flashes with an eerie teal light. The puppet crumples as a magic-infused bullet exits out the back of its head in a burst of that same strange blue-green radiance, which discolors even the glaring white of the Embrace around it. Without hesitating, Aisling fires again into her enemys chest, causing its gangly body to twirl as its flung backwards. She fires a third time, blasting off its right arm, which sails off wildly through the air and into Missing Lake. Aisling lowers the barrel as the manikin collapses, the shadowy arm that held the puppet aloft sagging to the ground along with it. The fissures spreading across the figures stone skin where Aisling hit home glow faintly teal then slowly but surely melt into a liquid state almost like magma. But there isnt even close to enough heat to render stone molten. Rather, the puppets flesh is festering in a way that shouldnt be possible for inorganic matter. This is far better than any unenhanced gun could ever hope to accomplish, but the bullets would have done even more damage, reduced the whole demented muppet right to slag, if they were freshly imbued. Its bad practice to go as long as Aisling has without getting the enchantment restored, but she rarely uses it anyway, and she loathes feeling indebted to the Church or its Keepers. Still, shes not about to pass up her prerogatives, and in this case, shes glad to have the weapon on hand. Isobel is still visible down the coast, her figure shrinking into the distance, her strides long as she begins to hurry her escape. Aisling has to move now. She cant let her friend C her best friend, her sister in every way that matters C get sucked any deeper into whatever pit this puppet-thing crawled out of. But just as she stomps over that puppet-thing and lifts her sole off it to break into a run, something snags hold of her boot, sending her toppling to the grass and her gun hurtling out of her grip. Aisling frantically rolls over, kicking at the creatures concrete grip on her, but its futile. It drags her back, pulls her under it, and straddles her. With its single remaining arm, it curls its rough fingers around her throat, though not quite viciously enough to crush it. Pinned down, Aisling can only gnash her teeth and glare up at the statues grinning, shattered face as the leftmost half of it begins to ooze off. If only she werent so weak. Shes seen so much, learned so much, but all that knowledge has done for Isobel is drive her into the arms of a nightmare. ~~~ Countless filthy tangles of blonde hair-rope wrap around me, like a hundred suffocatingly tight hugs at once. Warm, damp fingers trace formless patterns over my face as Im passed from embrace to painful, clinging embrace, bearing me down into the Wound. The rank, sour air makes me want to puke, but I cant. I cant do anything but fall, lost in the horrible sensations of the world being peeled away, becoming something else. The tunnel opens, setting me down gently on the ground. My legs give out and my gut churns and ice courses through my veins and my throat burns with dozens of tiny scratches as I hunch over and vomit up A mixture of noxious green fog and damp black feathers. I stare into the cloud as it seeps along the floor. It feels right, I realize. Truer than the more familiar pain of spitting up stomach acid. This is what I am now, inside and out. My own living curse. No point in thinking of myself as a person with human needs and frailties and feelings. People are supposed to break when they kill other people, arent they? Slowly, I stagger upright and search for Seryana through the pall of clinging, stinking miasma all around me. Her Wound is all I can see is a single cramped room, dark save for where pinpricks of light filter through the black curtains over the undersized windows. Each sheet of fabric is covered in tiny holes that shift and spin slowly, orbiting each other in pairs like tiny stars. The room, a little square space with off-yellow walls, is packed with a bizarre range of furniture two thin beds against the walls in opposite corners, stools and footrests scattered randomly about, and in the center, an overturned curio cabinet. Knots of wet hair are strewn all over every surface. The cabinets glass compartments are lit from the inside, though they do nothing to illuminate the room around them. Where the little windows arent completely covered in refuse, they look to be filled with framed photos with all the faces scratched out. Seryana whispers. Her voice comes from everywhere at once, with no sign of her actual form in sight. So I open my soul and fill the room with infectious mist, flooding the Wound with my own corruption. For good measure, I tap a bit of life, walk up to the curio cabinet, and start bashing its windows in with the heel of my boot. That gets her attention. The Harbinger scrawls herself into existence at my side. Her limbs are already starting to unravel, but all she does is set a disintegrating hand on my shoulder. Beneath the grey coils her body is woven from are thin strands of raw red, the color of exposed flesh. Seryana giggles and wails in two voices. The Harbinger reforms the moment shes finished wasting away, born again already falling apart and gurgling excitedly about it. She reaches to interlace her fingers with mine, holding my hand in a painfully tight grip when I try to snatch it away, but then she loses her strength, wastes away, and dies. She throws herself at me and hugs me tight, shrouding my face in her matted hair, and then she dies. Her voice warbles through obnoxious, tuneless songs as her disintegrating fingers run along my cheek above my mask, trailing dust and grime over my skin, and then she dies. Seryana begs. Her black-scrawl face twists into a small, desperate smile. But all the while, my sickness seeps and seeps into the world. The holes in the curtains slowly grow, the light beyond them flickering a pale sickly green. The beds fall to ruin, their mattresses collapsing through the middle as the slats supporting them decay. Only the damaged cabinets contents hold steady against my corruption. If this is all she has, Seryana shouldnt have brought me here. Shes not like Esonei, an infection of its own that could punish me for hurting it. She can survive my plague, yes, but her manifestations arent growing, arent changing. Maybe shes getting something from her constant deaths at my hand, but I dont think its what she needs. What she really wants is my pain, my love or hate or any feeling at all that might bind us together into an endless cord of mutual misery, and the only thing I can bring myself to feel about Seryana is the cold, creeping dread that maybe this is where I belong, a murderer imprisoned in a monster. But I wouldnt be here if ever I let what I should do slow me down. So hurt me if youre going to, but pain gives me power, too. Hold me here as long as you can, but it wont be forever. Stop me or Ill rot away this whole world around us, and then the world outside too. Someone stop me, because I dont think I can do it myself. A crack of thunder roars out, somewhere in the distance far above us. Another comes a few seconds later, much closer than the first. EYNAAAA! Shonas voice screams. A jolt of crimson lightning crashes through the ceiling, tearing chunks of it away, followed immediately by a deafening burst of thunder. On instinct, I pull my fog away from the jagged hole, gathering it around myself. Seryana whines, drawing back onto the bed in the furthest corner. FLARE IF YOU CAN HEAR ME! IM oh. Hey. Here I am. A few seconds later, Shona drops through the broken ceiling, landing easily on her feet, and suddenly lowers her unnatural volume when she spots me right beside her. I can barely hear her through the ringing in my ears. Wow, Shona huffs. This oh, ew, this is an extra shitty little place, isnt it? She shakes a grungy hair-knot off her shoe like a bit of trash on the sidewalk. What are you doing here? I murmur. I dragged Seryana into this. Shes mine to- Oh, fuck that with a rake! Shona snaps. She smashes her bow against the cabinet in emphasis, summoning a new one before the wood splinters have even landed. What? What does that mean? It means were in this together! Deal with it! I cant deal with it. I dont have that power. Im a disaster for everyone Im around and itll really, really be best if she just lets me be my own problem. You look a lot like youre being a dummy again, Shona pushes, folding her bow hand on her hip. Listen. Aisling said I could just let you handle this if you had it under control, but honestly I think thats pretty dumb! Theres four of us and one of your Harbinger. Lets just one thing at a time, okay? Youre gonna be okay, youre gonna get through this. I can get us outta here, Im pretty sure, so- Seryana wails suddenly, stirring from her corner to glower up at an unbroken section of the ceiling. A dark patch forms above her, seeping over the surface like a water stain. Within moments, it goes completely black, becoming a blotch of liquid shadow. Something lowers through the ceiling, a small object wrapped in strings of solid darkness a white stone mask, its chipped face pulled back into a faint sneer. And there it waits, hanging still. It feels like something else, the limb of a presence too high and cold and distant for me to read. Shona shoots me a sidelong glance, then points silently at the mask and mouths Huh? I shrug. For Seryanas part, once the mask settles in its place, she seems bizarrely captivated by the new intrusion. She twists around the hanging mask to examine it from all angles, tapping it gingerly with her fraying fingers. For the second time, she reminds me of a cat not sure how to react to a strange new toy. Shona, meanwhile, has no interest in waiting to find out where this goes. She readies her violin and starts to play, filling the little room with sharp, cacophonous notes and static buzzing through the air. she sighs. She takes it in her hands, yanks it free from the shadow-strings, and places it over her scribbled face. The strands of solid darkness still dripping from it reach around the back of her head and knot themselves in place. You wanted to leave? Lets leave, I hiss to Shona. I dont like this. Everything feels just as terrible, but before she and this new Harbinger-limb showed up, I understood what was going on. Even when I couldnt handle other Harbingers, I could see what they were, what they were trying to do. Now Im lost as Ive ever been I can barely begin to guess at whats happening and why Seryana isnt reacting as violently to it as she does to everything else but me. Shonas song cuts off abruptly. Eyna, she whispers weakly, eyes frozen wide open. Eyna, what the fuck is she doing here? I scan the room, but theres no one else around. Just Seryana, staring our way through her new mask. What? Its her Wound, I say. Seryana surges forward, crossing the room in a single space-defying twist of her whole body. She wraps both hands around Shonas head, glaring up at her with her masks empty eyes. Shonas eyes go wider than ever before. Her bow and violin slip through her fingers as she brings her palms to her ears. She opens her mouth, gawkingly at first, but soon a faint stream of hollow air, like a gasp turned inside out, begins to escape from the depths of her throat. Then, all at once, she closes her eyes and lets out an impossible, inhuman shriek. A harsh, discordant violin wail played with her own voice. I back away in a panicked rush, tripping over the legs of a sideways stool, as sparks arc all around her, crackling through the Wound. An indoor lightning storm rages through the tiny room, and it feels like a miracle that none of the bolts dancing over every surface strike me before they converge on Seryana. Falling Ever Deeper 6-5 Crimson lightning courses through Seryana, burning her rotting body to dust. Her howls of twisted delight fill the tiny Wound, a shrill chorus echoing behind Shonas unearthly wail. Bolts strike the Harbinger from every direction, three at a time, then four, then five, and past that point they cease to be bursts of lightning and become endless torrents of raw power. Shonas bolts tangle together and whip across the cramped room, flashing brighter than ever when they crackle against the walls and ceiling and floor. Wherever they touch, they leave behind charred black scar marks. STOP IT! I scream as I pick myself up from the filthy floor, ducking away from a flickering red coil of power. I can barely hear my own thin voice over the screeches and roars of static and thunder. Shona, stop! Youre feeding her! Neither Shona nor the Harbinger pay me any mind at all. Seryana drinks in Shonas rage eagerly, cackling through her screams as her body burns away. She dies with a pained giggle and a mocking smile fixed firmly on her new stone face, the last part of her to disintegrate. Even then, the storm doesnt stop. Lightning keeps dancing through the Wound, converging on the empty space where Seryana once stood. I killed her! Shona laughs. She sounds like her voice is being played through an old speaker, blasting it into the little room with a warbling, tinny echo. I killed her I killed her I killed h-her She chokes on the last word and trails off, muttering something unintelligible to herself. Finally, the storm contracts, drawing back into Shona. Filaments of crimson power wind along her limbs. Shona. Hey, I hiss. The lightning wrapped around Shonas arms shakes wildly, then seems to escape her grip, jolting into the ground around her. Im I killed her She slowly glances my way, blinking dark tears out of the corners of her eyes. No, not entirely tears water mixed with a thin trickle of blood leaking from her eyes trickles down her face. Still, she grins as she meets my gaze, smiling like shes afraid to let herself show any other emotion. Shona, Ive lost track of how many times Ive killed her. Its not over. Shell be back! Shona just stares at me, silent and bleary-eyed. What? But I just, she was how was she here? Why? WHY? A fresh wave of buzzing distortion slips into her voice with the last word. Shes a Harbinger in her Wound! Where else would she be? Listen. Whatevers happening here, its really really wrong. You said you could get us out of the Wound. Can you still do that? If you can, we need to leave right now. One more silent second passes before the odors of festering trash and burnt hair flood the room. Shonas forced smile twists into a rictus of terror as a single rope-arm reaches up from behind her, draping over her shoulder. Seryanas singed and decaying form materializes from nothing at her side. She leans into Shona in a half-embrace, whispering into her ear through her pristine stone mask: DONT FUCKING TOUCH ME! Shona shrieks, and the world breaks around her. Everything crackles and flickers as an explosion of uncontrolled power bursts out into the Wound. Five or six red bolts slam into Seryana, sending her crashing into the nearest wall, the wall opposite of the cabinet lying between the twin beds, with a violent thud. The other bolts scatter through the room, striking out seemingly at random and blackening bits of detritus all around us. The sheets on the bed to our right smolder with slowly growing flame. In the corner of my eye, Seryanas cabinet sits strangely intact behind us. The wall Seryana was blasted into collapses into a heap of thin plaster rubble. The dust falls away like a curtain to reveal another room: an almost exact replica of the one were all in, arranged just the same as when I first arrived. Another pair of thin beds hug opposite walls in parallel to the two beds beside us, while stools and footrests clutter the space beyond them, all of it totally intact. Pinpricks of pale light still stream in through the gaps in the curtains which cover the windows C a light I now know was shining from nowhere. Its all exactly as this room had been before Shona started blasting it to smithereens, but for two details: theres no curio cabinet in this next room over, and on the right side bed lies a figure. An effigy, like a man-sized straw doll. Except its not straw. Its a doll woven from Seryanas pale, dense hair. And on that effigys face is a framed photo of a face, almost like what youd see at a funeral wake. Between flickers of Shonas red lightning, I can just barely make out that face. Its the man I rescued from his own house C the victim Seryana was preying on when I first encountered her. Seryana gurgles, in a second voice untouched by her constant cries of pain. Shes speaking like she might to a baby. She picks herself up and limps forward on broken legs. Her eyeless sneer is fixed right on Shona. Shona says nothing. Still silently crying, she narrows her eyes, grinds her teeth, and digs her nails into her palms until blood drips from them. And screeches out the first notes of a song: a raucous, unsteady anthem of rage, sung with no words and played with no instrument but that electrified inhuman wail. A fresh crimson storm spills out from her soul, lashing out and out at everything in sight a seething tempest that wont be satisfied until the Wound and everything in it is reduced to ash. Bands of scarlet lightning arc directly between Shona and Seryana, forming a circuit, a jagged halo of ever-brightening radiance coruscating around them. I dart underneath the leftmost bed for cover, thanking the Goddess or Shona or blind freakish luck that no lightning strikes me before I curl into a ball and cover my ears. Magic running wild. Pain flooding into the world, taking its own shape and acting on its own will. Is this what Aulunla was terrified of when it looked at me, even as it grew so far out of control it nearly crushed me? Is this what everyone else sees in me? ~~~ Thick globlets of liquefying stone drip from the puppets shattered mask onto Aislings coat. Its cold grip around her throat doesnt weaken at all. She squirms and shoves and kicks and the thing the stone shadow, haloed in the glare of the Embrace above them barely acknowledges her, barely budges at her feeble impacts. It only looks into her eyes, smiling half a blank, empty-eyed smile as its face melts away, and tightens its grip just enough to make it a struggle to breathe without quite suffocating her. She goes completely limp, an animal playing dead right beneath a predators gaze, and turns her focus to maintaining the slow, narrow breaths she can manage through the pressure on her airways. The puppets fingers dont loosen their hold, nor does its attention waver from her, but it doesnt make anything worse. She made the wrong call. Shona couldve torn through these creatures. If it was right for any of them to rush to Liadains rescue before they knew how much force Isobels Harbinger could bring to bear, she should have done it herself. No, what good would she have done in there? It probably wouldve been best to face their problems one at a time. Push through the statues, restrain Isobel somehow then turn on Seryana as a group. The strategic calculus might feel wrong, but it wouldve been the best use of the resources she had. And now here she is, pinned down in the dirt. She couldnt quite bring herself to make that hard call, couldnt give up on the hope that there had to be some way to reach her best friend. Isobel is there, shes sure even now, just the more she sees and hears, the less it seems like shes at all in control. At most, she may hold enough influence over her patrons puppets to keep the one looming over Aisling from crushing her windpipe. Or Whether or not eldritch influence was involved, Isobel is clearly convinced that theres something she and her new Harbinger absolutely need to do. From the way she talks about that goal, she seems to believe theres no chance that their objective or its costs would be acceptable to her old best friend. Maybe shes right. Maybe, if Isobel was really as close with a living nightmare that made people drown themselves as Liadain thinks she was, Aisling simply doesnt understand her as well as she thought she did. None of that changes what shes here to do but it does severely limit her ability to do it. Now she cant even talk, not that thats accomplished anything not even goading Isobel into staying and fighting. When Aisling twists her head to the left as far as she can manage under the statues grip, she can still see Isobel hurrying along the coast beneath the blazing sun, her distended shadow trailing far behind her to support her marionettes. Then she turns and jogs up the hill, disappearing into the shelter of the treeline. From the constant sharp clangs of steel against stone, Mide is still locked in battle with the other two puppets. Holding her own, hopefully, but in no position to chase after Isobel. Just as she fades from sight, though, Isobels voice pricks at Aislings awareness. Its only faintly audible at this distance, and only thanks to what remains of her enhanced senses, but she feels the gravity in the words all too keenly: This vaulted sky is not the end. Weve climbed higher before. Well soar higher again. An incantation. An invocation. A prayer offered to a demon. Pressure spikes in Aislings head as a dark pinprick hole in the world opens beyond the veil of trees. Its clearly visible, not glimpsed through the foliage but on the other side of a trunk. A peephole cut in the fabric of reality, rendering everything that would otherwise conceal it see-through. A stain on the world itself thats layered itself above every other object, almost like a cataract in her eye. Its the opening to a second Wound, or the hesitant beginnings of one not the birth of a realm the Harbinger intends to claim, but a gateway into a place where, if it closes behind Isobel, none of them could follow. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Aisling flares, screaming a silent, wordless question out into the world with all her meager power. The puppet pinning her down gives no sign that it can hear. All she can do is hope Mide can. ~~~ The halo of manifest rage coursing between Shona and Seryana begins to lose its shape as she incinerates the Harbingers newest body. This time, though, the storm doesnt slow down at all. Shonas power surges through the Wound, spilling out around us and into the new mirrored room. Within seconds, I sense yet another Seryana coming into being, another tiny extension of her created to be destroyed. I cant see her right away, but I know shes there by the fetid stench of this place growing stronger. Then comes the impact of something landing on the bed above me. A curtain of filthy shower-drain hair spills over the side of the bed, obscuring my view. Seryana leans the upper half of her body over the edge, staring right at me. Her upside-down mask, framed by the tangled shroud of her grimy mane, is as unmarred as when she first put it on. she sings in her own souls voice, that desperate sigh I feel like hot breath and wet dust on my neck. Seryana swivels upright and hurls herself off the bed at Shona, not quite reaching her before the lightning finds her again. She screams and cheers and laughs all at the same time as Shonas crimson bolts sear her to nothing. Why did Shona have to barge in here? Why couldnt everyone just leave me alone and let me handle my own miserable life? This is the worst possible time to deal with this. I am the worst possible person to deal with this. But Im the only one there is. And while I hide under this bed and spiral into a chasm of my own self-pity and loathing, Seryana feasts. And the girl feeding her has never done anything but try, in her own stupid, happy way, to help me and be my friend. Ive hurt people, Ill keep hurting people, Ive let people die, I couldve killed her best friend, and still she keeps reaching out to me and standing up for me to her own partner, making whatever weak excuses she can come up with to the girl I nearly ate. And if I dont do something right now, both of us probably die. So what do I do? What can I do? What is even happening? I press my hands over my ears, blotting out the clamor of thunder and the rumble of flimsy plaster walls collapsing as best I can it doesnt help with either Shonas screech or Seryanas endless babbling, but its something and I think. I think I have enough to make a good guess, although thats still several steps off from knowing what I should do about it. Right before the first storm started, Shona asked me, with horror written clearly on her face, what she was doing here. Shes seen plenty of monsters before, so that only makes sense if shes seeing someone she recognizes. Someone other than the Harbinger she burst in to save me from. By the way Shonas reacting and the strange things Seryanas been saying, my best guess is that the Harbinger is wearing some kind of illusion only Shona can see, stealing the face and voice of a person she knows. How did she do that? Did she do that, or is she only borrowing some weird power from Isobels new Harbinger? What does this mean for whoever shes mimicking? But the details dont matter right now. All that matters is what I can do to make her stop, and there Im drawing a blank. I feel like Ive got more of a hook in Seryanas soul than I did when she dragged me in here, but I still dont know what Id need to do to actually kill her. Especially not while shes gorging herself on Shonas anger. My power works best when Im alone in a Wound, a whole world I can infect and fester through until nothing remains. Other people are just complications I have to worry about hurting. If I were much, much better at this, I might be able to somehow infect only and exactly the other Harbingers mask, breaking its power without putting Shona in danger, but Shonas already broken it over and over and nothings changed. Id need to understand this much more than I do to try and damage the magic itself in a way that matters. Maybe, if its possible to simply burst out of a wound the way Shona said she could, I could rot us a path out the way I made a trail through the forest, but I have a feeling that her way is quick and explosive and mine would be excruciatingly slow, if it works at all. Can I make Shona stop, then? How? Words arent reaching her I dont even know if she can hear me. I cant try to physically hold her back or come between her and Seryana, not while shes standing in the heart of a crimson squall of violent fury. Even huddling under a bed in this dark, damp corner of the Wound, I dont feel safe from her storm. What if I Oh, everything is terrible forever, but What if I did it anyway? I dont know Shona, not really, but I can tell shes not like me. She never wants to hurt anyone well, except maybe whoevers face Seryana is wearing, right now. But she certainly doesnt want to hurt me. If theres anything I can do to shake her out of her deadly frenzy, thats it. Itd just be a little more pain. How many times have I pushed myself forward with thoughts like those since I made the Promise? How often among those times have I said those exact words to myself? How many more times will I throw myself into the fire before I can just live? And I know my answer. As many as it takes. I deserve this and more, anyway. When I crawl out from under the bed, the Wound looks less like a hoarders dark nest and more like a condemned house in the middle of being demolished. More walls have come crashing down, exposing more almost-perfect duplicates of the cramped space we first found ourselves in, with more human effigies of woven hair laying on the beds. Of the original room, only the wall behind me is still standing. Shona still sways angrily in the rough center of the original room, wreathed in a blindingly brilliant crimson tempest that grows to fill the expanding space. Blood and tears still streaming down her face through her endless shriek, but the bleeding I saw earlier has intensified now. And through her inflamed tear ducts, something is growing thin, coarse strands of unwoven rope fiber, creeping out from her eye sockets like vines overgrowing an abandoned building. The circuit between her and Seryana is broken, but only because the storm has ceased to focus on any one target. Now it simply rampages through the Wound, burning everything but that single stubborn cabinet. The Harbinger herself appears again and again at Shonas side, reaching out for her with fraying fingers until the storm blasts her away and reduces her to cinders. Shona, stop it! Theres no one here but us and a Harbinger! I try one last time, though I can barely hear my own voice over the tumult of the Wound falling apart. Only a shrill cackle from Seryana and yet another deafening crack of thunder answers. Theres no other option, then. I have to do this. I breathe, slow and deep, circulating stolen life through my cursed blood. Im about to need a lot of it. Once its flowed all the way through my body, I stride into the storm all at once, before I can stop myself. As wild and random as the bolts arcing through the Wound look, enough of them pass within an inch of me that Im certain some part of Shona is steering them. I can only hope thats a good sign, another indication that her mind hasnt been completely swept away in the swelling tide of her power. Shona glances my way as I pass through the arcing tempest surrounding her, unharmed save for the painful heat in the air. A confused mix of painful emotions plays across her face as I pull my right glove off, take her hand, squeeze it, and- Crimson light swallows my world. A train crashes into the back of my head and the impact surges through me and breaks every bone in my body at once and a thousand syringes stab into me and replace my organs with molten lava and everything ~~~ Eyna! A voice echoes in the distance, calling through an expanse a thousand miles wide. Calling to me? A single massive red sunspot fills my vision, leaving only a dark, blurry outline of whatever world exists behind it. fuck fuck no fuck Im sorry Eyna Im sorry Hot tears drip onto my skin. They hurt as they trickle down my cheek, the way even the slightest pressure on sunburnt skin hurts. The blur beyond the blinding light resolves, forming a face? A vague impression of a familiar face, just above mine. Shonas face. Right. Were still in a Wound. I did a very stupid thing. Arms wrapped around my back hold me upright. The more I come back to myself, the more everything burns. The familiar cool, soothing sensation of digesting stolen life tangles with the pain of having been cooked from the inside out. The Harbinger. Wheres the Harbinger? That thought comes roaring through my mind. My eyes dart wildly around the room, looking for Seryana, and I find her. Looming on a bed, the masked clump of noose-limbed hair glares at us from afar, unmoving. No, not unmoving. Shes trembling. Quivering violently. She lets out a long, sad wail, too thin and shrill to belong to any living human, and black muck wells up in the eyes of the mask she wears, streaming down to spill off its chin and dirty her form even more. She begins to flail her woven-rope arms, beating them into the charred bedsheets beneath her, and her whine devolves into a tantrum of beastlike snarling too strange and incohesive to compare to a natural animal. Seryana whips her appendages to the floor, coiling them around one of her woven-hair effigies that had fallen during her struggle with Shona. She raises it above her head and then smashes it down against the bed frame, sending glass shards flying everywhere as the picture affixed to its face shatters. Then she does it again. In a frenzy, she raises the doll back up just to bring it down, bashing it against the bed frame again and again and again. What the what the entire fuck? Shona chokes out, eyes wide as she watches the Harbinger tear its own prop to shreds. Good question. I understand Seryanas language, yes, but I still have no idea what shes trying to say beyond the unbearably slimy way the words feel. When shes finally done, Seryana flings what remains of the effigy aside and begins pulsing across her figure as though heaving down gulps of air. Then, a haggard noise rasps from her shuddering body, sharpening into hoarse giggles that rattle through the air. Her masked face snaps back to look at Shona, then lunges across the room but stops just short of tackling her, hanging over her like a dusty veil spun from shed hair. Seryana growls into Shonas ear, and I hear her voice all too clearly through the hazy film between me and everything else. Shona flinches and freezes in place, glancing at the Harbinger through the corners of her eyes. Wha..? You were just Ignore her, I rasp. My throat aches the way it does when Ive tried to talk too loudly or for too long. This isnt real. Whatever you think youre seeing, its just A phrase drifts through my blurry thoughts, and I latch onto it. Its just her obnoxious cheaty shit. Thats how she described Irakkias world-twisting powers to Aislings club. Maybe it means something in her vocabulary that shell recognize through this. Save all this for whoever deserves it. So shes not I didnt I didnt kill her, Shona murmurs tonelessly, like whatever that means to her hasnt quite registered. And youre fuck, I mean, fuck, Im sorry, are you no, I mean, of course youre hurt, what a stupid fucking thing to ask! How. how can I help? What do I do? Just get us out of here. Right. Right, uh, yeah, just this is gonna be noisy. Sorry. Shona sets my limp body down on the damp, filthy floor. She stands, plays a bar of music I only hear as an aural blur of harsh, sharp noise. Thunder cracks through the music and the whole world rumbles as if in an earthquake. A great chunk of the floor near my legs falls away into nothingness. I cant muster enough strength to move, but before I can fall helplessly through the world, Shona scoops me up, hoists me over her shoulder, and jumps in for us both. Seryana whispers as we sink through the void. Those last words come without a cloying squeal, without even the slightest syrupy tinge. Seryana spits them like a curse, like an inescapable truth she resents more than anything. Then her presence fades into the distance, and we crash to the ground beneath the light of the Embrace, brighter and more painful than ever. Falling Ever Deeper 6-6 Isobels cataract hole in the world stretches up and up, bending reality around its edges until it appears, in Aislings view, to touch the horizon itself. There, it draws back, flinching away as it reaches too close to one of the swaying tendrils of celestial flame setting the sky ablaze. Only a matter of perspective, shes fairly sure if it had gone from peering uncertainly into the world to growing tall as the sky in seconds, the ache of its corruption in the back of her head would be splitting her mind open by now. Still, manifesting this way at all beneath an Embrace is bolder than any Harbinger ought to be. Damn everything. What has that girl gotten herself into? Aisling! Mide barks. Hold still! What? Theres a monster pinning her down by the throat, she couldnt move if she wanted to, and oh, right. Aisling picks up on Mides intent just in time. She presses herself to the ground and freezes. A second later, a golden spear slams into the statues back. The weapon bounces off its target with a violent clang, not quite piercing its stone skin, but the impact of it is enough to send the puppet lurching forward. Theres a painful pressure on Aislings neck as its weight shifts. Before the thing can collapse onto her, though, she summons a last desperate gasp of adrenaline-fueled strength and shoves it to the side with all her might. The strings of shadow directing the puppet draw taut to jerk it back into place, keeping it from tumbling off her entirely, but the moment when its cold-fingered grip on her neck loosens is all she needs to squirm out from beneath it. Aisling gulps down a lungful of air and crawls backward along the ground, right arm frantically groping through the grass until there. Her fingers close around the wooden grip of her revolver. Holding it tight, she scrambles to her feet. The statues strings drag it upright. It twists to face her again, its upper body bending impossibly before its legs follow. Trusting all the time shes burned practicing for this worst-case scenario to win out over her shaking arms, she brings the gun to bear and fires. Her first shot finds its mark in the puppets remaining arm, and just to be certain, she puts a fifth and final bullet into its left thigh. Teal light smolders through its body as two more of its limbs shatter off and melt away, leaving the puppeteers arm struggling to do more than hold its doll up on one leg. And leaving her lifeline with one shot in the barrel, for all the good a single bullet will do her. But for this moment, its done enough. The shadows wrapped around the puppets remains release it, leaving the broken statue to tumble lifeless down the slope leading to the lake. Its strings contract into the hand holding them, which then presses itself to the ground and darts through the trees to rejoin Isobels shadow. After a glance down at Mide still locked in a stalemate with the two surviving puppets, which seem unable to break her guard but unharmed by her attempts to slice away their strings Aisling chases the slithering shadow back into the woods. Isobel stands facing the Wound, hands clasped and head slightly bowed. The pool of shadows at her feet roils along the ground as a new pair of umbral arms crawls up from within it. They wrap their fingers around the tear in the worlds edges and tug it into its final shape. When they withdraw back into Isobels shadows, the Harbingers peephole has settled as an oval of blackness just big enough for a human to step through. And on the other side, bright shapes appear in the dark, like skyscrapers on an impossibly starless night. Tall, crooked white towers, shining with colorless inner light. Covered all over in faces, smiling stone masks, as if they were packed together from the twisted, elongated bodies of countless statue-puppets. You wont like whatll happen if you follow us, Isobel says without turning around. True, Aislings awareness of lies whispers to her. She cant tell if the unsteady quiver in Isobels nearly-toneless voice means she isnt completely confident in her threat or simply that she wouldnt like it either. Aisling doubts the Harbingers puppet wouldve spared her without Isobels influence. I know, Aisling says. Itd be suicide to run in there alone. She couldnt even handle one of this things puppets by herself. Whats the plan, then? Are you going to shoot me too? What? No. Isobel, Im just if theres anything at all you can say to suggest that I shouldnt be terrified for your safety and ours right now, Im begging you to do it already. Isobel breaks her prayerful stance, slowly raising a hand to drum her fingers along her cheek. You four started this, didnt you? she finally says, glancing back over her shoulder. We dont have any business with Keepers. You dont need us and we dont need you. Go away and thatll be that. And the rest of the city? All the people itll inevitably snatch up and turn into fuel for whatever its trying to do? Its not doing that. No ones with us who doesnt want to be there, Isobel insists. True. But meaningless. That doesnt tell me anything! Youre a fucking vessel now, and its hardly a stretch to think any Harbinger that can take a vessel and leave them at all functional can also change what people want. For all I know, its already done that to you. Maybe you havent noticed, maybe it left you thinking you were better off for it, but the way you are now Isobel, youve told me what you want out of this, but what youre doing to get it doesnt make sense. Maybe things really were different with the other one, but this isnt your power, your path to be a part of this world. Youre just throwing a Harbingers magic around. So how can I know if anything you say or do is coming from you or it? How can you know, if youre even aware enough to care? Theres a pause. Isobel glares down at the mass of shadow pooling at her feet. She lets out a long, soft sigh. Good speech, Ash. But maybe you just dont understand whats going on the way you think you do. Her mouth curls up into a knowing smirk. Here, lets say it so theres no ambiguity at all: I, Isobel, super do not care what the Harbinger riding around with me wants. True. Only Aisling has no earthly idea if that makes things better or worse. Im in this for myself. And my friend, if theres anything left of them. She takes the book held beneath her arm in one hand and runs her hand along its cover gingerly, as if petting a cat. From somewhere behind them, a wet tearing sound rips through the air. Isobel jolts upright with shock, eyes wide and white. Pinpricks of phantom pressure stab into the back of Aislings head, signaling a Harbingers presence, but not Isobels Harbinger Isobel simply jumps through her portal without another word. Her shadow climbs in after her, and two spectral hands pull the Wound shut as if they were drawing curtains. Only a thin slit of darkness remains, steadily fading from view entirely. Maybe a stronger Keeper could force it back open, but her stronger Keepers are Wait. What does this mean for them? Something happening with the other Harbinger means somethings changed on Liadain and Shonas front, for better or worse. She cant evaluate their options until she knows what that is. Aisling looks back at the crest of the hill, where Seryanas tiny lesion in reality still floats. She spots it just in time to watch a swelling mass of raw flesh, like the inside of a teratoma, break through its tight wrapping of hair. In a second, it expands from a tightly-packed black core into a great tangle of thin strands of skin, wreathed in matted clumps of blonde hair. The Wound stirs, someone or something breaking through its borders. Mide? Mide, up here if you can! Aisling scrambles up the slope to survey the basin. Mide is already racing her way. The two puppets she was locked in battle with, gashed all over from her blows, have fallen limp by the shore, abandoned by their controlling hands. Theyve begun to disintegrate in the Suns Embrace, charring and crumbling like overheated clay. Countless fragments of them flake off and blow away to nowhere on the wind. And seconds later, the bloody abscess in reality disgorges something from its depths. As if it were again a giant mouth in the world, but with the skin around it sliced into half a dozen rough sections and turned inside-out. Its hard to see the other Keepers clearly through the hair draped around them like curtains of wet seaweed, but bright crimson sparks of Shonas magic shine through the debris. As Seryanas Wound folds back up around itself, the Harbingers presence fades into background awareness. Its fleeing, too. Aisling spots Liadain in the other girls arms, held up in an over-the-shoulder-carry, and Shona lurches into the shelter of the trees to set her down. Maybe they didnt win, but they managed something close enough that theyre both still here. Maybe this can still work. They can still do it. Okay, everyone listen! Aisling yells. The other Harbinger is on the run. We can still catch it, we just have to Oh. No. No, none of that is happening. From a distance, it almost looks like Shonas sclerae have gone entirely red. Thats not it, but the truth is hardly better instead, her eyes are bloodshot, tear-streaked, and bleeding around the edges, where little frayed strands of unwoven rope wet with her blood cling to her skin. They look to have grown from the corners of her eyes, as if she cried them out herself. And Liadain its hard to tell what state shes in, beyond the deep burn-blisters covering her single exposed hand. That isnt the part Aislings worried about, though. Its not even that the white streaks winding through her hair are no longer streaks at all, leaving only a thin black stripe in her smoke-colored bangs. Its that while Seryana is definitely still alive, still fleeing at the edge of Aislings perception, a web of black veins in a sinuous, asymmetrical pattern which distinctly does not map to the places where her veins should be now runs all along Liadains exposed skin. ~~~ Everything hurts more than usual. I wrench my eyes shut as we come back into the world, the light of the burning Sun somehow even brighter than before. The cooling flow of stolen health anesthetizes the unpleasant tickling sensation of my own burned flesh slowly knitting itself back together, but cant completely block it out. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Shona takes a few long steps into the shade, I figure, since the sun pushing through my eyelids lets up then heaves me back over her shoulder, plops me down, and leans me against a tree. Rough bark digging into my back sets off a fresh wave of pain. Im not sure if I have wounds back there, exactly, just all my nerves have been literally fried. I cant find the energy to move yet, though, and Im not even sure what else would be more comfortable. A hollow, resonant voice rings through my ears. Hey. Hey, Eyna, howre you holding up? Do we needa rush you to a healer or something? Is that thing you can do gonna be enough for this? Shona asks. Her voice, heavy with urgent desperation, retains the electronic echo of her power. She doesnt sound bad, exactly, nothing like Irakkias sea of screaming noise, but it does make her louder even than usual. Um. Its bad. I dont think Im in any state to do anything. I did what I had to do to save our lives, but it doesnt change anything. I havent forgotten anything. But Im not going to die. Whew. Thats, uh, I mean thats not good and Im still really sorry, but yeah. S better than it could be Im Im glad. Shona, are you okay? What happened? Mides voice calls. A rush of footsteps come to a stop somewhere close by. I force myself to open my eyes and look around, then double-check with my magical senses. Nothing nasty seems to be happening, at least not anymore. Theres only the faint traces of Harbinger-stench being scoured away by the Embrace above. The other one feels more distant than Seryana, of course, but not too far gone to detect. Aisling stands just at the edge of my field of view, eyes darting between me and Shona with an unreadable expression. Shona angles her head away, squeezing a hand around her opposite upper arm. Listen, Im, its not that I dont wanna talk about it, just maybe not now, so can we wait, bwuh? She pauses, noticing the distortion still lingering in her voice for the first time, and taps her throat with a finger. That really shouldnt still be hmmmmMMMmmmm She lets out an experimental hum, a long note rising and falling unsteadily. That same echo copies and amplifies her sound. Well. Uh. If I can turn that off, Im not sure how, she says with a nervous, sharply reverberating laugh. Both of you? Oh, dear silent Goddess, absentee mother of us all, Aisling mutters to herself. Shona stiffens at that. She is not absent. Theres just a lot going on in the world, yknow? Both of them what? Mide presses. She slowly looks down, wincing at the sight of me. Aisling side-eyes her and raises a finger. Please give me a moment. So, to be certain, you two did not just kill that Harbinger, did you? Did our fucking best, Shona says. Aisling looks to me for confirmation and I shake my head. Aisling sighs, putting a hand to her forehead. Okay. Well. The missions over. Huh? Why? Shona objects. Did we miss everything? My cool magic voice box isnt gonna slow me down! If theres still shit to do, I can do it! Its OVER! Whatever happened in there to cause two concurrent cases of spontaneous Emergence, it is no longer safe for either of you to use to use any more magic than you absolutely must to survive, Aisling finishes with a quick glance at me. Oh. I, uh, wasnt sure if that was just a thing her magic did, Shona murmurs, sounding like she meant to speak more quietly than her new voice will allow. Spontaneous what? I ask. Yeah. It happens well, we arent certain exactly when it happens, Aisling admits, scowling at no one in particular. Most instances I know of involve Keepers losing control of their magic, or taking grievous injuries they wouldnt survive without immediate and instinctive use of it. Something breaks in you, or in your body, and magic floods in to fill the hole. You dont typically grow from it all that much, or not the way you do with Harbinger-induced Emergence, but you do change. In unpredictable ways, with uncertain effects. And when it happens, you absolutely do not rush into battle and keep pushing yourself. She crouches, perched on folded knees, and buries her face in her hands with a wordless groan. So thats it. Were done here. We arent in any more danger, both Harbingers are retreating, so well figure something else out. Later. You change. Okay, I say, very slowly. Then what, exactly, has changed in me that youre so worried about? Your veins, Aisling says after a moments pause. No, they dont quite match where your veins would be. But thats what it looks like. Its like theres lines on your hands, face all your skin that I can see. I raise my left hand, tug my sleeve down with my teeth, and look over my arm. Spidering black lines run all along its length, trailing further into the bunched-up cloth around my elbow. No, not quite black C more like pale grey strands of thread, on account of my complexion. When I look closely enough, there are tiny shimmering flecks of green flowing through them, and they shift just beneath my skin as I flex my hand. Everything suddenly feels colder. I cant tell if its the magic working to heal me or something else. I summon a card and will it to prick my wrist, focusing on the quick sharp pain Ive gotten so used to. Eyna, what are you doing? Mide snaps. Youre already hurt! Dont She trails off and takes a halting step back, covering her mouth with one gauntleted hand. As the water-thin, ink-black liquid trickling from my arm instantly changes form, congealing into a solid shape. Im bleeding feathers. Tiny black crows feathers, still slightly wet with the impossible ichor that formed them, fall from my pinprick wound and drift lazily down, slowing and then ceasing as the cut seals itself closed. Thats fucking awesome, Shona says, drawing uncomfortably close to stare at the little pile of feathers scattered over my lap. A hoarse, deranged giggle escapes my throat. It does fit, doesnt it? This is the way it should be. The way I should be. I should be happy! Im finally rid of the blood thats been trying to kill me every day of my life! Whatever this is, itd be stupid to keep calling it blood. This is my curse, my pain, my power, my constant companions all twisted together into a single thing. Maybe itll even change something for the better, for once who knows? Yes, its just my miserable story of always and never dying coursing through the veins I may not even have anymore instead of my useless blood but I cant deny that the story is better for me because I couldnt kill monsters and eat them with that blood and I certainly couldn''t couldn''t suck the life out of helpless people people who never did anything to me except except BE BORN LUCKIER THAN I WAS. Without this blood, I wouldnt have had the chance to let anyone die for my mistakes. It wont have made things worse for you, I dont think, Aisling offers. Different, maybe. But not worse. And, uhh Eyna, for what its worth, dude? I meant it! This new thing of yours is seriously the most metal shit Ive ever seen! Shona pumps both fists in emphasis. Silence. Aisling and Mide shoot her looks at nearly the same time. Its nearly the same look, too. Shona, what does that mean? I ask again. You know what, dont worry about it. You get it if you get it. Metal is a state of mind! Shona says with wide eyes and a visibly strained grin. Fine. Whatever. Im I was kind of expecting something like this sooner or later, anyway, I say. Dr. Cantillon all but predicted it. I should just you shouldnt have brought me along. Something like this happens every time. Im sorry. Maybe. Aisling taps her foot on the ground slowly. But I made some bad judgment calls too. We shouldve dealt with one Harbinger at a time, figured something out for Isobel, then hit Seryana all together. Sorry, Eyna, but that wouldve been the best move tactically. I shrug. Moving at all still feels strange, with these crawling sensations running through my body, but the pain has started to subside a little. I couldve handled her. My magic just works better alone. I mean, I guess its good we didnt think of a name for our big stupid not-a-team, Shona says. This whole thing woulda been extra embarrassing then, right? With the last word, her desperate grin wavers and her voice cracks, the sound magnified now with a sharp, tinny wail. I cant blame her. I cant even find this weird front shes trying to put up as creepy as I used to. Shes probably just doing her very best not to fall apart, same as me. Aisling, what happened with Isobel? I ask. Im best at not falling apart when I have something important to do. She and her Harbinger ran for it when we sensed you two coming out. Ducked into its Wound. I think theyre gone. Can I see where they went? I cant chase them like this, just I dont know. Maybe theres a trail I can catch, or something I can feel out about it. Something to keep this from being a total waste. Aisling looks me over skeptically. Can you walk yet? Maybe. I could with my cane, I mumble. What did we learn? She folds her arms, smiling slightly with half of her mouth. That I am a living death-curse walking around in a vestigial human suit, I say flatly. Aisling bites her lip, sighs through her nose, and offers me a hand up. Cmon. The opening was over here. After I spend a few halting steps leaning into Aisling, Mide loops her arm around my other shoulder. I meet her gaze and tilt my head. Still just trying to make this go the best I can, she says softly. Shona follows just behind us as I wobble through the woods, very slowly regaining something like the use of my legs. Here, Aisling eventually says, pointing to an empty patch of roughly-stable shade beneath a thick canopy of trees. I reach out with my senses, scrutinizing the lingering miasma as closely as I can. Its hard to pull anything clear from it, especially in my current state. Maybe its just this Harbingers distance from everything, that sense of being looked down upon from a castle in the stars, but Okay. I cant find where they went or anything. Im a lot better at feeling out what things are than where they are. But I also dont think it was ever even here, I say. Youre sure? Aisling asks. Sensing exactly whats going on with the more human vessels can get painfully complex. Or so Ive been told. I nod. Its hard to be certain, and I dont know what it did while I was in that Wound, but nothing here feels strong enough to have been a full Harbinger. Its like it was acting on things without being anywhere near here, the way Seryana usually does. It did seem really here when we were fighting it a minute ago, Mide says. No, that makes sense, Aisling insists. Like I said, those were fragments of it. Familiars it made. Well within the range of what we could expect from a vessel invested with some amount of power. What does that mean for Isobel? I ask. It could be that her arrangement with this thing is more complicated than it simply possessing her, which would line up with some things she said before she left. Aisling pauses, eyes to the ground, gnawing on her lower lip. Or maybe whatever her new Harbingers doing is bigger than just her. Im not sure yet. Ill look into it. If I still need help with wherever it goes, and all of you still want to give it, well, you all know where to find me. Eyna, theres contact info on my reef. Whether or not you get involved with anything like this again, I may have follow-up questions about your experiences with Isobel, so Id very much appreciate if you got in touch. Okay, I mutter. Is that everything we can do here? Probably, Aisling sighs. Hey, so like, all the mess aside, this kind of works out for us, doesnt it? Shona interjects. Does it? I ask. Mide, clearly just as confused, looks my way and nods. Well, yeah! You did that thing with Mide a while back, and now I almost blew you up, so like were cool now, right? Were even. Mide does a double-take at that. How do those things relate at all? More importantly, you did what? Shona why are you like this? Why are all of you but me like this? Aisling folds her arms and exhales conspicuously. Not you, Aisling. Youre, uh, youre fine, far as I know. Aisling answers with a self-satisfied little smirk. Shona shrugs, smiling in a way I think is meant to look sheepish. Uh, like I said. Tell you later. Anyway, you all get my point, right? Or like I dont know. The SPIRIT of my point. I really, really dont, I say. But Im fine if shes fine. For all it matters. For all it matters, Mide agrees softly. As long as were all on the same page about the team thing now. Fiiine. No big awesome team, Shona grumbles, sounding like a radio host exaggerating their letdown at an awkward phone-in through old speakers. So. Anyway. If theres nothing else, then since our method of transportation is currently not usable, Im going to call us a ride. Emergency transport, Aisling says. Eyna, Shona, you should both take the longest breaks you reasonably can from any active use of your power. Spend time with people you care about. Do things you like, as long as those things have nothing to do with magic. I dont have anything else to keep us here over. To my surprise, Ive got very mixed feelings about that. Its not that I want to spend any more time out in the Sun with these three, stewing in our failure, but the prospect of going home like this feels terrible. Nothing for it, though. Aisling was right about my ill-conceived plans to protect my privacy, anyway. I was already planning to tell at least Noirin about all this soon. It still wouldve been nice if I got to choose that for myself. All The Light Died With You 6-7 My new patron is nothing like Aulunla. It doesnt speak in voiceless words and abstract feelings even as it shares space in my mind, even when I call out to it and channel its power through my soul, it barely feels like its there at all. So when it tells me that two souls are leaving the other Wound, I just know it without knowing how. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Why havent I already left and slammed the door behind me? Aislings clearly made up her mind about what Im doing. Nothing I can say or do will get her to leave us alone, not while she can wave it away as a monster putting words in my mouth. Shes just been stalling for time, again, only this time I fell for it. Now. I have to leave now. Aisling wont come after me alone, but if whoever emerges from that disgusting hair-Harbingers ambush is in any shape to chase us, I wont be able to stop them. All I can do is hope the path closes too quickly for them to follow. NO STOP DONT And there it comes. Theres still a part of me that feels the same way about stepping through these portals as I would about diving into the sea. No matter how many times I make this journey, that silent scream of primal terror just wont shut up. I shove it back into the recesses of my mind, bite my lip, and take the step, squeezing Aulunlas book to my chest. As I cross the threshold between world and Wound, a single long, long stride stretches out over time and space. The ground falls away beneath my feet, followed swiftly by everything else, but rather than dropping into an endless pit, invisible strings wrap themselves around my arms and pull me endlessly upward, into the starless black behind the sky. Away from this grey, miserable earth. Away, I can only hope, from Aisling and her new murderer friend. Ash shouldnt have any part in this. I dont want her to get hurt, even after what she just pulled, but if she keeps shoving herself and everyone else she can rally into our business, I dont know if I can promise that. Somehow, as we rise above the world, thoughts of my old friends fall away, though the ones replacing them are just as nasty. Ive never felt more exposed than I do during these transitions. I cant help but feel like anything anything I can imagine, every nightmare Ive ever had could be watching here, hidden out in the dark. Is this the way things were for my ancient ancestors from the time before history? Is this blind horror some distant echo of what they felt when they looked out into the endless night? Or even then, were there people who saw more in the dark than others? Ones who spoke back to the wordless whispers in their dreams and found enough they shared to become something new together? There must have been. I cant be the one person to ever befriend a Harbinger. Im not that special. So what role did my predecessors play, in the blind darkness before known history? Honestly, now that I think of it with all Ive learned in mind, was it even as dark as Church dogma says? Humans are social creatures, and bonding with a Harbinger doesnt have to change that. What did those early pact-makers want to do with all their power? What better, stranger worlds might they have imagined into being? When Claiasya chose her favorite children and raised them up from the helpless herd, did the first Keepers build their world atop the bones of the first witches? I can never tell how long I spend soaring through this darkness, alone with my thoughts. Eventually, though, I come to a sudden stop, floating in the void. A thin-fingered shadow-hand, barely visible against the endless black, stretches up from behind me. Another reaches down to take it, my patron welcoming a shard of itself back into its realm, and as soon as the two hands clasp, the arm above tugs on its counterpart, dragging me along with it. I jolt further upward and the world goes marble-white, my body seeming to slither through tiny cracks in the tangle of statues that forms the ground of the Wound. It doesnt hurt, it never has, but the sensation of everything I am twisting, losing its substance, becoming just another once-human shape lost in the endless heap it still scares me. Im never sure how I manage to emerge intact on the other side. Im never sure if I will, no matter how many times it happens. But finally, I do. When things come back into focus, Im on my hands and knees beneath the Wounds starless black sky and it always feels bizarre to think of it as a sky with no stars, but what else could it be? just managing to hold myself up as strength and solidity return to my arms. I feel around frantically for Aulunlas book, snatching it up as soon as my fingers find it. Welcome, welcome home! a familiar voice calls. Half a dozen more follow, though not as a chorus in unison. just a burst of greetings, scattered applause, and one girls wordless, uncertain cheer. Yes, welcome back, Isobel! We knew youd be back here safe and successful soon enough, nasty weather aside! Ciaran greets in a softer voice, standing just above me. A round of applause, everyone! At the boys command, the crowd erupts with the sound of clapping and cheers, all for me. The clamor reverberates through the vastness of the Wound strangely, as if echoing inside a caverns depths. But, he hisses, raising a single finger, and everyone falls abruptly, instantly silent. Cant celebrate just yet. First we need to make sure of something. Our new gods first vessels bearing suddenly shifts. He hunches down, perched on folded knees, and glares right at me no, not at me. The great solid shadow looming behind him extends one of its many spectral arms beneath me, scoops me up, and sets me gently down maybe ten feet away. Two more limbs dip their fingers into a small dark gash in the Wound where I emerged. This worlds reflection of my portal, not quite closed behind me. I look up from the hole, following the Harbingers shape with my eyes as though marveling at an endless skyscraper. It resembles nothing so much as a tower thats also a tree, its branches a chaotic mix of jagged cathedral turrets jutting out in every direction mingled with countless spindly, stiff-jointed puppeteers arms, the shadows of them all blending together in ways that make it hard to see which is which. It stretches up farther than I can see, much farther if it has features above that, some crown or pinnacle to its form, I cant see them. You were watching? I ask. Ciaran glances over at me and smiles slightly. Obviously. Between the Embrace and the four Keepers turning up to hunt you down, I had every reason to worry about you. I nod once, stand, and back away, leaving Ciaran to his work. All his focus returns to the gap, and his ethereal mask twists into the shadowy ink-blot impression of a face, with empty holes for eyes and a mouth of crisscrossed lines approximating a teeth-baring grimace. We cant see anymore. Too fucking bright out there. Do you think theyre coming? Dont know. They want to, I think, but depends on how much the other Harbinger managed to do. Ciarans mask resolves back into its usual placid smile. Through the half-seen illusion of its black, empty sockets, his icy-white eyes light up. Right, right, her, yes! However all this sorts out, you brought us quite the prospect! Honestly, I wasnt entirely sure how it would turn out until we tried, but here we are oh, shed know, wouldnt she? Lets see if we can check in on her! The towering shadow standing guard over the hole in our world sprouts a single mask from one of its countless limbs. The mask stares off blank-faced into the dark sky, murmuring to itself in that language I still cant understand, and Ciaran leans in close, cupping his hands behind his ears to listen. The others watch on uncertainly from afar, until maybe a minute later Shes pretty confident that no ones coming after us. Not sure how much I trust her judgment yet, but given what weve seen from her, small and eccentric as she may be, I dont think theyre fit to chase us down, at least for now, Ciaran says. His masks eyes narrow, giving its frozen smile the appearance of a conspiratorial grin. And youll be happy to hear that the plague girl looked like she was having a pretty bad time of things. Ill tell you all about it, if you like. Not as happy as Id be if Id done it myself, but its something. Maybe later, I say. First first I want to know if all this did anything for us. Sure. All clear, everyone! he calls. The great shadow behind him shifts away it moves without visible motion, the way shadows do as the Sun moves around them, crawling between its towers as it makes its way deeper into the Wound. The darkness behind Ciaran never quite detaches from him, but it stretches out and grows lower to the ground until its only the thin outlined suggestion of something grander, trailing away toward its source like a long shadow beneath a high Sun. Ciaran scampers off deeper into the scattered forest of ruined glowing spires which constitute the Wounds primary topography. He starts off with a run, sprinting forward like a boy much younger than he is eager to enter a toy store or chase after a ball, then takes a high leap into the air. Spindly arms reach out from the depths of the shadow trailing behind him and catch him by the waist in mid-air. Six more limbs sprout from his shadows surface and press against the tangle of stone bodies that constitutes the ground at its side, lifting itself up. Except for its lengthy tail, which slithers backwards towards the looming figure of the Harbinger in the opposite direction like the silhouette of an umbilical cord, Ciarans shadow peels itself off the face-strewn floor and begins skittering forward on its six free limbs like a spider, leaving me behind as I follow at my regular pace. The whole display is honestly kind of cute. The childlike wonder I imagine is gleaming in the first vessels eyes behind that transparent stone mask of his makes the hole inside me where Aulunla once was ache all the more. Ciaran is already making the rounds through the group when I catch up, chatting happily with his followers. Today theres nine of them, not counting Ciaran and I, all gathered in their usual spot. In the remains of one of those shattered white towers, theyve made a circle of large rough stones, picking through the chunks of rubble until they found the ones most comfortable to sit on and entreating our Harbinger to rearrange the ones too heavy for us to carry. It almost looks like a big fire pit, only in the center, theres just a camping stove. And the faces embedded in the rocks, even the half-intact ones, like to track us with their empty eyes whenever they have company. They follow Ciaran and his distended shadow especially closely. A pot of water boils on the stove, and boxes are piled up beside it, filled with water jugs and whichever assorted snacks weve most recently hauled back from the city. Looking around the circle, lunch today is apparently instant noodles. I dont want to make myself sick here of all places, so I dig out an energy bar that looks and sort of tastes like a very dry vanilla shortbread. It isnt terrible. Ciaran must have had the same idea, since I watch him toss a foil wrapper to the ground just after I arrive. Before I can get something to wash it down with, though, a hand passes me a cup of water. A long, thin, marble-white hand, clothed in a winding shroud of shadows, beneath which it seems to stretch out far beyond the length of a human arm. Iiiisobel, the first voice I heard earlier whispers. I turn to meet the gaze of the masked face at my shoulder. His entire body is composed of the same stone and spectral material, and if theres still a human face behind that mask, I cant see it. I smile weakly. It missed you. Did you know how much it missed you? Could you taste the prayers it swallowed up and dedicated to your safe return? So many of its dreams rest on your shoulders, you know. It cant be complete we cant be complete while youre away, not anymore. Nice to see you too, Mairtin, Its not particularly, in fact, but hes harmless. To me, at least. Mairtin doesnt talk about himself much. I asked Ciaran once what was wrong with him, and he insisted that there was less wrong with Mairtin than anyone hed ever met. People came here looking for something they couldnt find out in the world, and Mairtin, for whatever unspoken reason apparently, he needed to not be himself anymore. To stop feeling the way he felt all the time. Hes accepted more of our patron into himself freely than anyone else, and in so doing, he got his wish. Good for him, I guess. As he slithers away, I catch my first clear snippet of conversation around the circle. Do we I mean, do we always eat here? And just leave stuff around? someone asks, pointing to an abandoned noodle cup. A mousy blonde girl in a well-worn big sweater dress, with frayed threads along its edges I dont think I recognize her, but I dont exactly bother with every new face who shows up here. This is our home. A whole world for just us. So why shouldnt we do whatever we want here? an older girl argues. I mean this is a Wound, she says, whispering the word as if shes afraid to say it. Sorry, just, it still feels all weird to Would it be more appropriate if we all acted like some Claiasyan sect of delusional island mystics? Ciaran whirls around to confront her, arms thrown wide, spitting the Goddesss name as a curse the way he always does. I wouldnt accept the enlightenment those guys are chasing if they offered to pour all their wasted lifetimes of useless insight into my soul in an instant, and neither would any of you if you knew what it meant! He points at her in exaggerated admonishment, then sweeps his hand through the air as though batting aside an annoying insect. To drift aimlessly through life, in harmony with the cosmos its only half a step away from existential self-mummification! And thats if Im being charitable! he says, offering the girl his open hand. No, we arent some airy-fairy ascetic cult. Were taking the perfectly practical steps we must to open the sky, escape this pointless world, and return to the stars. With each word, the fingers of his offered hand close in on themselves until theyve formed a firmly clenched fist. Everything else is just details. The girl just stares up at him in silent panic. Dalha the groups oldest member, a sharply-dressed woman in her thirties whose wavy black lob cut is no longer quite as carefully kept as when I first met her raises an open palm and shoots Ciaran a look that makes me think of a mother scolding her son. You do know how it sounds when you word it quite like that, dont you? Ciaran grins a little wider. And you know how Keepers talk about themselves all the time. I refuse to let them have all the fun with this. I cant argue with that. Dalha allows herself a small, almost reluctant smile. Still, no need to terrorize the poor girl. Ah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, Sorcha. And youre kinda right about the way it looks. Not pretty at all, Ciaran admits a moment later. The contorted stone faces closest to the fallen wrappers and empty noodle cups scattered around the circle shift. Long, jointless fingers crawl to the surface, wrap around the bits of trash, and drag them down into the cracks. Sorcha watches them go with wide, unblinking eyes. Whoa, she breathes, the word only audible in the silence left after Ciarans outburst. Come on, dont whoa at just that! Ciaran chuckles. That was a parlor trick. Soon enough, you yourself will be able to break that second-rate world beyond this sanctuary of ours in much more impressive ways. ~~~ So, Ciaran calls to me, once hes finished checking in with the group. Lets talk plans! Progress! A spectral hand rises up and closes around me, enveloping my whole world. I resign myself. My head drowns in a black sea of weightless vertigo, thrashing toward a surface that doesnt exist, until several seconds later, Im dropped onto another floor, sucking in air in short, desperate breaths. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Weve shifted into another familiar hub of the Wound. One of the taller towers, still intact enough to have something like a top floor it looks like there was more once, judging by the broken walls and the crumbling staircase to nowhere climbing out through one of the wide windows, but the loss of the rest of the building turned this space into a kind of atrium, lined with mostly-empty shelves. But not completely empty. My growing collection of little black books sits near the top of one. Do you really have to do that every time? I gasp. Yes, no stairs up here, I get it, but could you not make some? Probably? But then it wouldnt be as secure, if something goes wrong. Or as special. He gives me a hand up, and with his free arm, gestures out one of the windows at our sweeping view of the ruins. The Harbingers tower-shadow stands further in. There, in one roughly-open clearing, its swept away the stray bits of rubble and reached its lower arms down into the surface of the Wound. Its touch draws the stone figures which make up the ground, its puppets, out from their great heap. Slowly, they begin to untangle their limbs and crawl up from the turf, arranging themselves with perfect coordination to expand the growing foundations of a new tower, one grander in scope and scale than any of the others before it. Each body stacked upon the tower like a brick entwines itself with the body below it and begins to radiate a soft white light. Ive watched it work before. Ive watched it sculpt a new tower of living stone from start to finish or rather, Ive watched it build and build until the construction inevitably collapses in on itself. Somehow, it can only ever make it so far. What remains of the tower were standing in now is one of the tallest failures, but a failure nevertheless. I wonder if the new one will be any different. And I still cant see up to where our Harbinger ends from here. If it ever ends. The impenetrable darkness which cloaks the sky of the Wound like a ceiling obscures it. The dim light emitted by the Harbingers spires isnt strong enough to reach. Yeah yeah, that makes sense, I say. Things wouldnt have had to go too much worse for today to end with a squad of Keepers invading our world. Still. Im pretty sure one of those arms could just carry me up the usual way. Fiiine, fiiine. Ill keep that in mind for next time, Ciaran laughs. Anyway. Can we borrow the new book for a bit? Ill put it with the rest when Im done, of course oh, but first, does anything about it seem different to you? I hold the little black book in both hands for a while. I turn it over idly, run my fingers along its cover, and page through it, even through all the blank pages Aulunla never had a chance to fill in. Nothing at all happens. Nothing calls out to me the way it used to. Its just a book. Not really. Unless you find something else about this one, I think our best hope for one of them being different is if someone fully succeeded in the fifth step. I didnt feel anything like that happening while Aulunla was alive, but Im also not sure if I would have even if it did happen. The ritual was bound to shatter most peoples prisons so we could reach in and collect their pigment for safekeeping, but the ones who understood what Aulunla was trying to say should have been able to become like me, with the power and duty of painting a new world I dont know if its possible to survive it anymore Or how wed find them if they did. I sigh and pass it to Ciaran. Well do everything we can with it, he assures me. Worst case, its best that we gather all of their traces we possibly can before we try to improvise anything. Ciaran sits against a wall and opens the book to its first page, going over and over the short opening for minutes. Tiny puppeteers hands emerge from his shadow, touching its surface and exploring the texture of its pages in imitation of how I handled it. This part always feels like waiting for news I know will be bad. Like an update on a fading relative we all know doesnt have much longer. Eventually, without looking away from it, he speaks again: Actually, while were here, I have something for you. Mairtin brought it in late last night. Its on the floor right under us, if you want to check it out while I work with this. Oh. Thank you? What is it? A surprise! And dont thank me, thank Mairtin! He did all the hard work well, okay, the remodeling was a bit annoying, but really this is all him. It was even his idea! Remodeling? Okay, now Im curious. Lets see. Doubly so because I wasnt sure if Mairtin still had ideas. I start down the wide curved staircase circling along one of the rooms walls. Its much, much colder than anywhere else in the Wound, like stepping into a giant walk-in freezer. I look back at Ciaran, who just smiles and motions for me to go on. Well, fine. This is hardly the weirdest thing Ive done in the last couple weeks. Theres a constant low susurrus in the room below that reminds me at first of white noise, but not quite steady enough, and not at all soothing in the same way. When I listen closer, it becomes breathy, a choir of endless sighs too soft to be voiced. Looking over the glowing white walls, the source of the constant chill air issuing into the space, I realize thats exactly what they are. The space, which once had the same wide arched windows as the atrium above, has been remade into a sealed stone chamber. Unlike the ground outside, which is a disorganized tangle of masks and limbs, the uncountable masked figures composing the new walls are all neatly arranged so that their faces stare into the room, filling it with endless little streams of icy breath. And on one of several wide stone slabs in the center, all covered in their own faces, an older boys corpse is splayed out beneath a white sheet, covering all but his feet, arms, and head. His skin is blotchy and clammy, his lips almost colorless. Ciaran? I call. Mhmmm? Whaaat the fuck is this? What? You arent still squeamish about something like this, are you? No, its not that! Just why is it here? Yeah, I guess it does bear a little more explaining, doesnt it? Ciarans footsteps patter along the floor above, then down the stairs. He looks at the slabs, then at me, scratching the back of his head through his hood sheepishly. Sorry about that. So, the idea was that if there are these books, these remnants of Aulunla still in the world then maybe thered also be remnants in the people who communed with those books but didnt quite make it, right? Poor guy in there was one of the more recent suicides, recent enough that they hadnt put him out to sea yet. So Mairtin thought if we robbed the morgue and took him back here, maybe you or we could salvage something important out of him. Seemed worth a try to me, if youre up for it? He gives me a casual shrug, followed by an encouraging pat on the shoulder. Sure. I dont know if thats going to do anything, but might as well, at this point. I stuff my hands into my sleeves, hug my arms to myself for warmth, and start looking over the corpse. I dont treat it quite the same as I do Aulunlas books, because its not a book and there are frankly just sanitary concerns there, but I do inspect it thoroughly. More importantly, I let myself explore how it feels to be around it. When I said I wasnt squeamish about this, I meant it. Its strange that I meant it, though. Ive always found gross things just as gross as anyone else would. I didnt like horror movies or seek stuff like this out to desensitize myself. Now, though? Now, this is just a body, bereft of the potential of what it could have been. Its just meat, not even a person. A person is their soul, and his is gone. I guess at some point maybe when I accepted that Aulunla might have to kill people to protect us, maybe when I kept diving deeper and ended up here after they died the part of my mind that wouldve reflexively recoiled away from a fresh human corpse just stopped working. What does hurt is that it doesnt take much time at all to realize theres nothing here for us. Aulunla never lived in the bodies of the people who read their book. Bodies never mattered to them. They cared about words. Minds. Dreams. I used their power to change my body a little bit, but that was always just a stop-gap until I could become something more real. This guy is simply gone, and given what happened to Aulunla, hes gone for no reason at all. And thats sad, its a horrible waste, but thats all. Nothing there either. Hes just dead, I sigh. Urgh, and I dont suppose you couldve just preserved him with magic somehow? Lets go upstairs. We arent a true god yet, Isobel. Even if we were, theres no guarantee we could actually do something exactly like that. I mean, this cold is born of magic, so isnt it the same in the end? As we step back into the atrium, Ciaran raises an arm, pointing straight up to the black sky. Do you think the Sun could wave its tentacles and freeze a room full of corpses in time? He wiggles his arm in emphasis. Maybe? Sun-drying doesnt work so well in this part of the world, but its still one of the oldest known forms of food preservation. Ciaran tilts his head, and his mask mirrors his puzzled frown. Okay, fine, so maybe it could make people-raisins, if you want to count that as preserved. Probably a lot more likely it would make some sort of hideous Eyeless zombies, but either way, Im sure you get my point. Besides, given what were gathering them for, we thought it would be better to use as little magic as possible on them. Wouldnt want to bury any important residue under our own, yknow? Yeah yeah, I get it. Thats probably for the best. Im just complaining to complain. I didnt exactly think to bring my winter coat when I left home. Ask Dalha to put one on the shopping list? he suggests. No. No, Im sure she has more important stuff to do. Its not like Ill be spending a lot of time down there. Ciaran just shrugs agreeably and returns to leafing through the new book. Sorry that didnt work out. Maybe were all getting a little desperate about this thing, but well figure something out. What should I tell Mairtin, if he asks whether he should keep it up? Im pretty sure he can find something better to do. Ill leave it to you to decide how to let him down, if that sort of thing matters to him. Sure. Ill oh, hmm? He glances around the room, searching for something. His mask grins wide, strangely out of sync with his perplexed, focused expression. When nothing appears, he grabs the edge of one of the arched floor-length windows with both hands, grips its tightly, and leans all the way out of it, slowly panning around the Wound with his upper body. Isobel, did you hear that? Feel that? No is something wrong? Not at all, not at all! Our new recruit is at the door! Something shrieks in the distance. A shrill, whining burst of Harbinger-words resounds through the Wounds empty air. And in answer, Ciaran leaps from the window. As he falls, spectral limbs sprout from his shadow on the ground and reach up to catch him. Another scales the tower and offers itself to me as a platform. I take the hint, letting it bear me back to the ground with surprising gentleness. As soon as I touch down, Ciaran gives a messy goodbye salute, and his Harbingers arms carry him away to greet our hideous guest. ~~~ I leave Ciaran to whatever he wants to do with that thing and head back toward the gathering place. I dont quite make it there before Dalha, seated and idly swinging her legs on the broken wall of another tower, waves me down. Isobel, she greets simply. How are things looking? Any movement on your project? Not sure yet. Ciaran went to deal with our visitor before he finished with the new one uh, Mairtin brought us a corpse, though. Thats something new. Dalha blinks rapidly, though she maintains an impressively level expression. Oh. Okay, she says. Why? It was one of the suicides. I dont know, I guess he thought there might be some leftover Aulunla in it? Was there? That doesnt sound especially promising to me, but you and Ciaran are quite a bit better than I am with the, um, particulars of all this. No, Dalha. They were about minds. Souls. People, not bodies. Maybe if we could use it to somehow snatch the guy back from wherever the dead go, but we cant, I groan. Honestly, Im kind of worried Mairtin is going to scare someone away eventually, if he keeps going the way he has been. Not everyone who comes in here is quite as patient as you, or as inoculated to that sort of thing as I was, I say. Dalha scoffs, shrugging the idea away. Hell do no such thing. What makes you so sure? Scarier things than him happen out there all the time. Not scary in the same way, maybe, but whats more frightening: Mairtin, or the fact that the Lotus Bed once existed? Regular old humans dont need to lose their faces to be horrifying. Point taken. If anyone here didnt know about the Lotus Bed when they arrived, they do now. Its not that Ciaran likes to talk about them, but he is quick to bring up that disgusting, filthy, extremely Claiasyan pack of rapists in counterpoint to the idea that our group is a cult. Perish the thought. We, of course, are just some friends with a common purpose. For my part, I dont find the distinction important. I know what Im here for. What we call our Harbinger-cult doesnt really matter to me. And more importantly, no one ends up with us who doesnt need to be with us, Dalha adds. Theres that too, yeah. I dont know how Ciaran finds them, but everyone Ive met here bears that out so far. Anything you need before the next step? she asks. I think again about that coat, but quickly decide its pointless. I dont expect Ill be visiting Ciarans freezer much more, and Summer will be coming on soon enough. No, I dont think so. Although while were just waiting around, could I ask you something? Dalha looks up at the empty sky and smiles. If we cant speak freely here, then where? Thanks. Ive wondered about this for a while, just you know. Had a lot to do since I met Ciaran. So. I scratch at my wrist as I turn the question over in my mind, wondering just how to phrase something like this. So, I know what Im in this for, I finally start. I get the feral children, and Ciaran I can kind of guess. Something to do with all that stuff he says about cages and fireflies and caterpillars. But what about you? How does someone like you end up here? You dont have to say anything if thats too personal. I just if youre anything like Ciaran, if this is a philosophy for you, Id like to hear about it. Dalha quirks a single manicured eyebrow up. What about me? What makes you think Im any less deep and troubled than the rest of you? I just cant see any of them lasting out in the world as long as you did. Also, that is not a troubled smile. Fine, then, Dahla says. Her eyes harden, and she glares up at the darkened horizon where our world ends. If you must know on the last Embrace, the Sun came down and ate everyone I ever loved. Im smiling because Im thinking about how once we return to the stars, Im going to raise an army of starborne nightmares and snuff it out. It ate them, I echo. Dalha nods solemnly. Ate them all up. My husband, my friends, my hedgehog, all gone in a terrible burning flash. Is that seriously the best you could come up with? You just looked at the weather today and thought itd make a good sob story? Dalha titters at that, then bows her head and raises her hands, admitting defeat. Actually, my first idea was that rogue Keepers murdered my family. I thought it would be a funny switcheroo, considering where we are. I just figured that one might be She tents her hands and grits her teeth. Well, you know. So are you going to tell me the actual answer? Oh, no, its not that. Nothing to hide, nothing Im desperate not to talk about Ive just never brought it up because my storys not that impressive. Honestly, Id have thought it would be obvious to you, but I suppose youre still young. Maybe it didnt quite have time to sink into you the way it did for me. What didnt? I push. Its simple, really. Dalhas shadow stretches and writhes into a roiling pool of oily black power at her feet. Two of our Harbingers arms crawl out from beneath the world, and the statues beneath us squirm to life. Coaxing them into place in imitation of the towering sculptor deeper in the Wound, she begins to shape them into a little castle, with great walls surrounding a tiny, plain house, all covered in serenely smiling masks. Im here because reality is boring, Isobel. You dont need to survive some horrible tragedy to see that. Sometimes, all it takes is enough time spent carrying around a dream you know will never come true. Watching from the outside as everything truly important happens without you, because you just arent special enough to be allowed in. Suddenly, the spectral hands sweep in a circle, smashing the walls to rubble like a child destroying an unsatisfying sand castle. So I decided, if I ever found a way, Id break in. Or, if I couldnt manage that, to break out from this planets claustrophobic confines and search for somewhere better. Somewhere that wants something more from me than to keep the menial, meaningless details of the world in order for the people who actually matter. And then I found it. Thats all, she finishes, gazing off at nothing with a faintly nostalgic smile. Does that all follow? Yeah. Yeah, it does, I say softly. Looking back, Im sure if Id kept on the way I was, if Id never met Aulunla or Id given them to Aisling as soon as I did, after ten or twenty years of more of the same, Id have ended up in about the same place. Thanks for sharing. Anytime. I think Id like to be alone for a bit, if thats okay. I dont have much to do until Ciarans free to plan our next move. Have you eaten yet? Yeah, right after we came back. She nods, satisfied. Good, good. You know how to find me if you need anything else. ~~~ I sit alone at the edge of the Wound well, no, I dont know if it has an edge. The stone plains seem to stretch on forever, but most of the world is flat and featureless. Our little city of broken towers only fills a tiny portion of this isolated world. Sometimes I wonder why. I wonder what it says about Ciarans Harbinger that so much of its realm is simply empty, and that it has to fill it by trying and failing to build new marvels by hand. But not right now. Right now, seated on the ground, leaning against a section of shattered wall, I just want to put some distance between myself and the rest of this group. If its even right to think of the rest of them, if Im truly part of it. Because Im not like them, not really. Ciaran and Dalha are good friends, people who understand me and who I understand like I havent had since when Aisling and I used to be on even footing. I respect what theyre trying to do. I wish them all the best with it. But even now, even while a shard of it travels with me, Im not here for their god. I turn a shiny purple apple over in my hands, watching the Wounds eerie white light play off its shimmering skin. Maybe its just an apple. Maybe in another week or two, all that will remain of Aulunlas final gift is a handful of mold. But Ill never let it go. If that happens, Ill pick the seeds out from that pile of rot and plant them somewhere beautiful. Ill fill this miserable old world with sparkly star-apple orchards, so you can live in the dreams of everyone who eats them at once. And when I bring you back, whether we find that other, better world we were searching for or we have to make it ourselves, well grow forests of them there. And i?f they neve?r c?me back? The question circles and circles through my mind, no matter how hard I try to shove it away. I have no backup plans, no flimsy rationalizations or questionable promises, nothing of enough weight to bury it under. Ciarans only ever said that he saw something of Aulunla left in me, and he wanted to pull that lingering ember out and stoke it back to life if there was any way we could. The books Ive recovered, the time we spend poring over the couple dozen pages with anything written on them, that body Mairtin stole, theyre all just us gathering anything we can to improve our chances, without the slightest guarantee that what I want is even possible. If they never come back I look down at my arm, tracing a path with my eyes through the pale script-scars where words once flowed along my skin in rivers. It was only for a few days, but I was so much more. It didnt have to be like this. We couldve changed everything if theyd left us alone. Witches wouldnt have to be monsters if theyd just left us alone. If they never come back, this world and its self-important heroes deserve everything thats coming to them. I Dont Think Im A Good Person 7-1 The Solar Embrace bears down on Missing Lake like a rainshower of light, heavy curtains of white radiance spilling over the breadth of the clearing. The shoreline is vacant, only clefts in the disturbed soil and small, quickly dispersing piles of dust visible as signs a struggle had taken place. Hidden beneath that, however, is a wealth of clues imperceptible to a humans natural senses alone. Amidst the heavenly glare, a lone figure emerges from the treeline. Somehow, the uncanny brilliance of the scenery befits him, as though the world is a mural hes been painted into as its centerpiece. He strolls casually down the incline towards the shore, his long hair flowing behind him like threads of gold glimmering in the light. Scanning over the basin, he drinks everything in with an eager smile. Two Harbingers. One whose lingering presence is sticky and foul like the leavings of a slugs trail. The other is distant, yearning, unfinished, but catches in the eye like a speck you just cant rub out. Its easy to place where each had ripped into the world to open up passage to their Wounds, but both are long gone by now. Just as interesting are the echoes of Screaming Hymn and Big Sis. Out in the clearing where the grasses are trampled and deep gashes have been rent and gouged into the earth, Shonas presence is somewhat clear, but only somewhat, and nothing looks like its been charred or set on fire. All evidence points to Mide, then C not that she was all that noticeable on her own. But why was the sullen knight without the full impact of her chipper ward blaring in her wake? Probably had something to do with two Harbingers showing up at once and in the middle of an Embrace at that. It didnt ring as an unthinkable scenario by any means, but something unusual certainly must have happened. And the other presence obviously couldnt have been Big Sis, so that left someone using a weapon shed blessed. It was easy to narrow down a suspect given who was most likely to be working with Shona and Mide, though. Sure enough, with enough pointed concentration, he could detect the slightest trace of Truths Lantern. Were they okay? Nobody had flared in distress, but then, its not like anyone would have sensed it if they had already been drawn into one of the Wounds. A quick check of Lighthouse confirms Aisling hasnt posted an incident report yet. Hell send her and Shona a message in a bit to make sure they''re alright, but his gut feeling is that they are, if only because of the Embrace. Before that, there''s one last curiosity catching Rolands attention. A familiar aura is mingled with the rest. Not particularly fierce, but not as subtle as Aislings, either. A pretty, chilly, weepy little presence, like a cute little sister who keeps scraping her knee. Its sprinkled around in small, concentrated points across the basin, and fading in the scorching rays of the Sun nearly as quickly as the ashen remains of whatever one of the Harbingers had tossed into the world. Roland lets the tug of the nearest of those motes guide him to it. He looks down to find a black feather caught in the grass, singed at the edges by the Suns oppressive light. Extending a hand, he tacks a point of phantom mass to his palm and anchors it to the feather, causing the small black plume to flit off the ground and into his grasp. Holding it up to his face, his grin widens. He can use this. Hah, he chuckles to the empty clearing. Shona and Mide were holding out on him. Now who should he ask about what happened here first? Aisling would give more concise info, but Shona is more likely to blab Well, it doesn''t matter too much. Not long now. He and Ill Wind would be meeting very soon. Roland pockets the black feather and places his hand above his brow like a salute as he turns his ruby-red eyes directly to the Sun. Its blinding glare burnt others away like dry kindling, but he sees it differently. A great burning eye with a thousand-thousand lobes looking down on them all, its pupil, a long tear into utter blackness like a cats or a snakes, carved down its center and through every concentric layer. Tendrils of white and scarlet lightning crackle across its breadth, the sheer vastness of which the Stardust Seraph doesnt so much as consider. Whaddya think, big guy? Roland welcomes the Suns opinion. It doesnt deign to reply. Maybe did the pupil contract, just a sliver of an inch? Nah, hes kidding himself. Idly, he wonders if hes the only one who sees things this way. Perhaps not. Hes only ever seen one other person stare straight into the Sun as brazenly as he could and come out completely unscathed, but he has seen it happen. With Irida, of course. ~~~ As we ride toward the city proper in the back of an ambulance, Shona chatters noisily about nothing with wide eyes. Mide does her best to play along. Aisling furiously types notes into a page on her phone. And I, surrounded by the closest thing Ive found to friends since I checked into the seventh floor, think about loneliness. I havent always been alone. I havent always wanted to be alone. It took me longer than most people to find my first friend, given all the time I spent in and out of hospitals, but I did find her. Well, no, Grainne did most of the work of finding me, but still. We met at my reading spot among the wild cherry trees behind our school, on a day when I was spending much more time flicking pale white blossoms out of my hair than reading, and she decided we should be friends once I explained that no, I wasnt out there because I particularly liked the trees. (They make those big horrible messes every Summer, so I hate them. Cherries dont even taste that good! shed said.) So we did. We read some of the same books, she and her other friends taught me to play Champions, and I showed her what little I knew of tarot at the time. And at that age, while we were sharing something like the same life, that was enough. Maybe there were never the seeds of some lifelong bond there, but it was still my first time connecting with someone beyond my family or the rare kid near my age in the hospital. And now shes gone. Its not like she ever told me sorry, Liadain, youre just too depressing to be around. But her visits got rarer, and our conversations started being about less and less as she moved on into a stage of life Id never make it to. Eventually, she just stopped checking in, and I never bothered to reach out and ask her why. I already knew, and making her say it would just hurt us both. Eventually, everybody leaves me. They always have, they always will. Is that still true, in this new life full of new people, or do I just want it to be? Its easier to push everyone away before they can do the same to me, or before I accidentally eat them or they find out that Im even worse than they thought I was or some other awful thing I cant even think of yet happens. But I cant say anymore if its the best thing I can do. Things are different now. Im a different person now. People arent going to treat a Keeper the same way as a nobody with a few months to live. And yes, if Dad or Grainne or anyone else whod already decided Im not worth the trouble changes their mind now, Ill probably ignore them, but this is different. Im not going to get stuck up on some stupid question like whether these girls only want anything to do with me because I can break reality with my mind when I wouldnt know who any of them were if they couldnt. So why does letting them come so close still feel so much like letting someone point a knife at my heart? Eyna? Eyna, hey, you listening? You alive? Eeeeynaaa! Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Mmh? I mumble. Yeah, I was just asking if you needed anything before they dropped you off at the ho at home. Uh, that is where youre staying for now, right? Yes. And, um, I can heal myself, Ill be fine there, so I dont know. Not really. Unless you have a sweater big enough to hide all this under. I pinch a thin strand of smoke-white hair between my fingers and tug, not quite pulling it out. But why? Its so cool! Everyones gonna love Shona trails off, seeming to recognize that shes saying something dumb. Uh, right. EVERYONE is maybe an important word there for you, huh? Yeah, well, anyway I dont have one ON me, but we could probably figure that out! Wanna go shopping? I point out the back windows. Despite their dark tint, shafts of painfully bright light leak into the car. How? Same way we got those glasses on the way here, duh! Theres people sheltering in stores. If four Keepers come by while theyre there, thats nothing to worry about! Itll probably make their day, if anything! Mide squints out the window. We still dont want to be wandering around in that light. I nod in emphasis. Only a little shopping, then! First, closest place we can find! And I mean, which do you want LESS, Eyna: a little more sun or to show everyone your awesome metal blood-thing? Ugh. She has a point. The emergency responders ferrying us around might have other things to do, too, Aisling notes, not looking up from her phone or slowing her pace at all. Shona scowls, looking around the cabin until she spots the big red PUSH TO TALK button on the intercom in the back, and reaches past Mide to push it. Hey guys, big thanks again for the lift! So listen, is there any way we could make a real quick stop? One of us needs to pick something up on the way home. Probably? Where? the drivers voice crackles back. Uh, one second on that! Thanks! Shona folds her arms and grins, smug and self-satisfied as Ive ever seen anyone. See? Super easy. No trouble at all. Just let us just let Eyna have this, kay? Right, Eyna? Alright. Fine. We can do that, I say. I think I might still prefer to just go home and run to my room, but I dont know. Shona clearly needs something she can label a win in her mind. One other thing though. Um. How are you with things that need to be kept kind of quiet? I love secrets! Shona tries to whisper, but her new voice doesnt seem to have that option. It comes out like a stage-whisper on a show played through speakers turned up too high. Terrible. Whatever youre thinking, dont tell her, Mide says at the same time. Traitor. Shona gives her a playful shove, but pointedly doesnt argue with the warning. Its really not that big a deal, just Eynas not my name. Its not even a name I prefer. Im Liadain. Its nothing I wanted to hide from you like I told Aisling earlier, I just didnt want my dad to hear about a Keeper with my name and get ideas. So. Sorry. Mide shrugs. Why are you apologizing for that? Its your business, I think. Only thing it changes is that everyone will know in a few weeks, now. No they WONT! Shona protests. I flinch at her volume. Aisling glares over her phone, but quickly shakes it off and gets back to work. Uh. Yeah, sorry about that, still getting used to yeah, Shona mutters. But Im Im really seriously not gonna spill something like that if its important to you, you know? Thanks. Dont worry about it so much? I wouldnt have said anything if this was some huge problem that could ruin my life. I want Dad to leave me alone, thats all. That doesnt mean its not important! Look, Ey Liadain, youre right, thats a cooler name. I get you there. If it matters to you, Im gonna make sure I dont fuck it up for you. Parents sure were a fucking mistake, huh? All at once, a few things start making sense to me. What Shona saw that I couldnt back in Seryanas Wound. What the Harbinger was talking about, in that voice and those words that didnt sound at all like her usual ramblings. Why Shona reacted the way she did, and why she seems so desperate now for any other note to end the day on. Probably, I say. Claiasya should just come up and lay people-eggs on the shore every few years. Shona grins and nods, as if shes just solved some hard problem with that plan. That does sound more convenient, I lie. Aisling glances up, one eyebrow twitching. Im sure shes already come up with ten gaping holes in this idea. But Im equally sure shes a lot better at reading rooms than I am, so its no surprise when she bites her lip and gets back to her work. ~~~ So Shona searches up a place where some of the stores are still open, reads the address into the intercom, and a few minutes later, we disembark in the middle of an Embrace to go look for oversized sweaters in a mostly-abandoned mall. This is what my life has become. Aisling stays in the ambulance, still working on whatever shes writing. Im not at all used to buying clothes in person. Im not sure if I can remember the last time I did, actually. I know the brands I like on the Sea and the sizes they come in, and thats been enough for a long time. I dont really know how to just browse, and nothing I see here feels as me as my usual clothes. Not that it should matter at all. Im just here for something to throw over my bizarre veins while I walk through the seventh floor common room, and there are two first responders outside wasting their time while I durdle through the aisles, Hey, hey, how about this one? A few minutes into the second place we visit, Shona offers me an oversized black hoodie. It reads, printed in bold white text, Tummy Ache Survivor. Between the words, a little crying cartoon stomach clutches its stomach? Its midsection. Really? I ask. Yeah, you really didnt think this one through, Mide says. Shona, undeterred, holds it up to her shoulders and does a lazy little wiggle-dance. Come on, you know thats funny! If you hate it so much, why are you smiling? Huh? Because my body is a traitor and I cant wait until its all replaced with inky nightmare ichor. I cant wait. Shona blinks. Mide stares at me with a confounded expression. Even the clerk watching us looks like he has some serious questions for me, but thinks better of asking them. Finally, Shona laughs. She squeezes her sides and clutches the sweater to her stomach and laughs and laughs and laughs, never seeming to run out of breaths, her electronic echo blasting her cackles through the whole store and out into the concourse. I dont know what shes laughing at. Im not I didnt think I was joking. Im still not sure how Im so okay with all this, but I am. I really dont care what becomes of the body Im stuck in, as long as Im immortal at the end of it. See? See, that right there, that was a great bit, right? Sometimes you just gotta stare down the horrible shit in your life and laugh! Shona drapes the sweater over her arm and, in emphasis, shoots me with a single finger gun. Mide buries her face in her hands and lets out a muffled wail. What am I doing here? she asks. You know what? Fine. Weve already spent way too long here, so that ones fine, I sigh. Give it to me and lets go. Perfect. Amazing. The best. Shona pumps a fist and starts toward the register. Here, let me get it. My treat. I hope every time you wear it, you think of what an awesome time we had today and forget the part where I blew you up. I dont think I can do that. But thanks, I guess. ~~~ The ambulance drops me off first. It still feels strange, having other people come so near to this part of my world, but that secrets already out anyway. Get in touch when you can. Ill keep you updated on the situation, and I might have important stuff for you before then. Aisling waves goodbye with one hand while she types with the other. And well see you when we see you, I guess. Sorry this didnt go better, Mide says with a halfhearted smile. Shona rubs the back of her head sheepishly. Yeah. Sorry again about the, uh, that whole thing on my end. Punch that grimy little shit in the face for me, if shes still following you around. But do it LATER, Aisling insists. Tomorrow at the earliest. If theres an emergency well, contact me if you can, use your own judgment if not. Youve survived enough mistakes to start learning from them, I should hope. Right, I mumble. I should rest, then. Bye, everyone. Mide, hey, before we get moving again can I stay at your place for a while? Shona asks. Thats the last thing I hear before Aisling pulls the cabin doors shut. I raise my hood, pull the strings tight, and start into the hospital, hurrying through the lobby and into the elevator. Staff at the desks should just see me hurrying out of the Embrace. But right as the elevator lurches into motion, I look down at myself and wince. Wait. What was I thinking? Why did I go along with this? Fine, maybe I can watch myself bleed ink and tiny feathers, tell myself that every step away from being human is a step further from dying as a helpless little girl, and somehow manage to smile about it, but I live in a hospice. Surrounded by people who are very likely not going to survive their tummy aches. I dont know, maybe its different when its a horrible joke coming from one of us, but no, I cant wear this here. Fuck. So what now? Im not going to just show off everything thats happened to me. I guess I cant hide anymore, really, but not now. Not yet. I tug the sweater off, flip it inside out, and tuck stray strands of hair into my hood until the seventh floor bell chimes. I Dont Think Im A Good Person 7-2 Its getting late by the time I make it home, not that you could tell from looking out through the glass elevator at the painful glare over the flower fields. I fix the laces on my hood, drawing them tight as they can go, and peek out at the seventh floor. I was expecting the place to be deserted, with everyone hiding in their closets the way I always used to spend Embraces, but there is a small crowd gathered in the common room, where theyve covered the windows with heavy white shutters that only allow the smallest possible slivers of radiance in through the sides. Even those thin shafts of light twist and shift strangely along the edges of the room, like an octopus searching for a way out of its tank. Nevertheless, the patients huddled in the central space look like theyre doing their best to treat this as any other day, only most are wearing sunglasses indoors. A few of the more familiar faces look my way and wave. Liadain! There you are! Banva calls from the front desk. I look at her through the corner of my eye, afraid to give her too close a look at my weird face. Are you alright? I know youve, mmh, been out a lot lately, just She purses her lips, no doubt running through all those questions the nurses havent brought themselves to ask me. Well, Im just glad you made it back safe, she finishes. Im fine, yes. I was I cut myself off as yet another question occurs to me: if I was sheltering through the Embrace somewhere else, hence why I took so long to make it back what am I doing back here before nightfall? Augh, I should have just stayed with the other Keepers until night came. It didnt cross my mind because Ive just had too much on it to leave any room. Whatever. Who am I fooling anymore? She knows why Ive been out a lot. Everyone who pays any attention to me probably knows. Me too, is all I say. And, ah, I think your sweaters on inside out, she adds after a moment. I look sheepishly down at my clothing, then glance over my shoulder to examine my reflection in the window right across from the nurses station. Um. Thanks. Ill fix it in a minute, I mumble. At least I had that much foresight. And I look back over the small crowd. I cant hide this much longer, not to anyone well, maybe to Dad if he never shows up here again so it really shouldnt matter who I talk to first, but it just does. And I dont see the person Im looking for anywhere. Do you know where Noirin is? I ask. Banva says nothing. When I look back at her, shes pursed her lips and clenched one hand around the other. What is it? I press. The words come out of my dry mouth as a strained croak. Stupid, pointless, Im sure I already know what, but how bad is it? Noirins Banva blinks and her grip tightens a little more as she sees my face head-on. She takes a breath, visibly steadying herself, but thats all. She wasnt doing so well this morning. Shes in treatment now. I could check when theyre expected to finish, if you want, but well, she may just need her rest. Of course. Now of all times, of course she is. Was she already suffering when I ran off this morning? Would I already know this if I paid attention to anything but myself? Would it matter? Liadain? Are you listen, if its important, I could take a message, or just pass along that youre looking to talk when shes available No. No, thats fine, just its nothing urgent. Ill leave her alone. Shed probably be happy to know you were thinking of her, Banva says softly. At her age, youre happy to hear from your kids about most anything. All the more at a time like this. She has a kid, though? Im not him. Banva smiles to herself. Mm, I suppose not. Even so. Ill pass the word along, unless youd really rather I didnt. Fine. If you think itll help. I guess Ill try and rest myself, for now. Thats a good idea. Take care, Banva calls after me as I hurry through the main room. ~~~ I do no such thing. Back in my room, I grab my Harbinger journal, make a little tent with my bed covers and headboard, and sit there in my inside-out sweater with Pearl hugged under one arm, staring at the mostly-blank pages meant for Isobels new Harbinger. Mostly, I think about Noirin. I dont think I couldve done anything to help her with my magic, but Im not certain. I ripped the disease which laid at Yurfalns heart out at the root, and I still have it stored in one of my cards, but thats not at all like trying to heal a human sickness without ripping out their soul. It does at least raise a question to my vague impression that my magic just doesnt work to heal other people. More importantly, Ive never even tried to be there for Noirin, or any of the others who dont deserve to live any less just because I dont know them. Ive only barely considered it. I could make up some nice-sounding reason why I didnt, maybe even one that I believed when I first dismissed the idea. Dr. Cantillon did say treating diseases with magic was especially hard. Really, though, I think it was just fear. Not even my desperate rush to save my own life, but fear of not of getting someones hopes up and disappointing them, although Im sure I would. Im just terrified of knowing beyond a doubt that my power is that I am a selfish, greedy monster whose magic will only ever be good for keeping me clinging to the edge of life, a few more stolen days at a time. But it came from me. From a miserable wreck of a girl whos never cared about anything more than not dying. Why would it be anything else? Why would I ever be able to help people? I hide from the Sun in my muggy tent, thinking in useless circles, until the light abruptly dims, night advancing over a minute at most rather than hours. Its finally ending, then. I flop out of bed and peek through the curtains at the sky. There, the Sun has mostly curled back into itself, with thin tendrils of white flame trailing behind it as it races off over the horizon, as if it has somewhere to be. As if smothering our world in burning light, searing our eyes from their sockets, and scorching our souls to ashen husks are all just its way of procrastinating. But the halo of its passing dims from stark white to ever darkening red as it plunges beneath the horizon, finally drawing the Embrace to a close. Its coming to an end now, off to be some other worlds problem. Taking whatever deadly answers it promises to the Eyeless with it, at least until morning. In a few seconds more, the Sun dips fully out of view. The sky goes momentarily black before other stars flicker into being in its wake, lighting the night sky with their own shifting radiance, softer and stranger than that of the king who lords over them during the day. After its timing today, I wouldnt mind if it never came back. ~~~ By the time I find the nerve to go look for Noirin again, things are back to normal outside. The shutters have risen and the lounge is quiet, now mostly emptied out for the night. Theres no answer when I knock on her door, so I head for the front desk. Maybe Banvas heard something by now. Liadain? I was just about to check in on you, the nurse greets, still at her station. Her expression suggests that maybe, for once, its not terrible news. About what? Noirin will be in observation for a little while longer, but the doctors say her conditions improving. Shes cleared to have visitors with the normal precautions, and Im sure shed be happy if you want to check in on her. She was glad to hear from you earlier. Oh, I sigh, letting go of a knot of tension in my gut Id been doing my best to ignore. Good. Thats great. As for talking to her right now, while shes suffering and wed have no privacy, maybe instead I should no. Ive made enough excuses, put enough hard conversations off for too long, and whether or not shes fine for the moment, this happening at all is a harsh reminder that normal people cant steal more time from everyone else. I nod. I think Ill do that. Where is she now? In the Banva freezes. Her mouth hangs wide open as she stares no, not at me. Something behind me, just over my shoulder. I twist my waist and crane my neck to see what shes seen, and thats when I hear it. a hot, stale breath whispers into my ear. No. No. Not here, not now, she of all things cannot be what tears away the last of my transparent human disguise Theres nothing behind me. All thats there to meet me is my own transparent reflection in the window right across from the nurses station. A breath escapes my throat as though crushed from my lungs and my body remains tense. In the vague impression reflecting off the glass pane, I see Banvas mirror image beside my own, behind the desk of the nurses station. And beside and behind Banva, a silhouette so deep its as though the windows glass is tarnishing before my very eyes rises and wraps a limb around her neck. I hear Banvas stifled cry as I whip myself back around to face her and the nightmare I already know is waiting for me. Standing atop the desk of the nurse station is Seryana, her woven figure of sullied blonde hair contorted into the lax outline of a too-thin woman as always, but somehow, she seems even more disheveled and ruined than ever. One of her braided arms has reached down and tightened around Banvas neck like a noose, lifting the woman up off the ground. Even seeing them from afar, Seryanas swirling-scribble eyes no longer look as empty as they did during our last encounter. Or maybe its just easier to see the shifting of those scratchy animated circles outside the gloom of her Wound. Tears stream down Banvas face as she gazes behind the Harbingers new mask, trapped there in gibbering, petrified horror as her thoughts are swallowed by its leer. No, youre not cant youre, nhght, ckgh Banva chokes out rough, wet denials as her throat is slowly crushed. As if those smothered cries were music, Seryana begins to chant in tune. The sinuous limb holding Banva up is severed in an instant. The card I sent spinning through the air slices clean through it at the midpoint before whirling back around for me to catch it. Seryana reels back and shrieks in agonized delight as her form crumbles away into thin air, leaving behind only her noose-hand clutching Banvas throat as she collapses to the floor. I rush into the nurses station and fall to my knees at Banvas side, using the edge of my conjured card to quickly but carefully cut through the rope of grimy hair wrapped around her neck. The illness the card dyed itself with when it made contact with Seryana makes quick work of the lingering strands, and when I throw the weave away, it doesnt even manage to touch the ground before its already decayed into nothing. Banva is bigger than me, but I burn some of my stored health without even thinking about it to be able to turn her over. Physically, the only damage I can see is the red and purple bruising around her neck, but her eyes are wide open and bloodshot, and her whole body is rigid with mute horror. Banva, Banva! Can you hear me?! Are you okay? Please, please say something! I plead while cradling her head. Theres no response, except for the trembling breaths passing between her lips. Seryana must have been attacking her mind as well, when she was looking into her eyes. My cheeks burn. A few tears trickle down my face and on to the nurses. The nurse who learned to play shogi from a lonely patient just so hed have someone to talk to and share it with, whod bring me meals to order when I woke up in the middle of the night and vomited my stomach out, whos only ever worried for me and done her best to help me. A single frayed finger, already rotting and burning away at the ends in tiny embers of cold green fire, reaches from behind me and wipes the stream of my tears gently away. Then, as I look back, Seryana lifts up her new mask to put that damp coil of rope into her scrawled mouth, as if to clean her fingers after a meal, and bites down, gnawing furiously on her own form. she wails through the sounds of tearing sinew and, inexplicably, crunching bones. I duck beneath the semicircular desk of the nurses station, but not to hide. I need to make sure Banva gets help before I get out of here and take Seryana with me. At least, she should follow me, but if she doesnt, Ill stay. Ill make sure she cant hurt anyone. I frantically scan the counters underside. In every hospital, theres always a chance that an angry or unstable patient, a distraught family member, or an intruder might cause an incident, and thats to say nothing of Harbingers. For emergencies like those, its common for nurses stations to have panic buttons hidden under the desk, and Ive been in and out of hospitals more than long enough to know about them. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. My eyes finally land on a plastic module with a toggle switch on the side and a pair of circular buttons, one red and the other purple. Theres two buttons to distinguish between incidents involving people and disasters involving Harbingers; if I had to guess what the switch did, it toggles the alarm between a silent and a loud, but I cant be sure. Im not even sure which of the buttons on this one applies to humans or Harbingers, so I just press down both. A little red light on the module begins to blink wildly in response, and thats good enough for me. Im sure Seryana can feel my terror at the idea of her staying put and choosing my home as her battleground. Im sure shed do that if she could. Im just betting whats left of my life on the idea that she cant, that shes as tethered to me as she says. Everything I know about how she works tells me that she works through me. Theyll be safe when Im gone. I wont be back until shes dead, and after that Ill deal with what comes after that when I get there. And sure enough, when the elevator door slides open and my reflection in the dark glass comes into view, Seryana still stands behind me, the same looming, distorted mass as before. she whines. I fish my phone out of my pocket, doing my best to ignore her, and search for truths lantern. Aislings reef is the first result. I blur through its pages until I find her details, buried halfway down the staff page, and call her. I jump as a fraying fist slams on the glass beside my head, nearly fumbling my phone. Hello? Yes its me I know what you said about using magic but I have to, I babble. Seryana. She followed me home and stormed into a hospice full of normal people, shes hurt someone I know, and Im going to kill her. Eugh, Aisling winces. Now I know how that sounds through a phone alright. Please slow down and tell me what you need from me. Um. Sorry. Given the thing you were warning us about, exactly what is not safe about me using magic right now? If I need to, which I do, what do I need to know to do it the safest way possible? Call for backup and let someone else handle this one, Aisling says without hesitation. Which I assume you dont consider an option. Seryanas rotting fingers reach out and slink along my hand. I bat her away, tightening my grip on my phone. That depends. Will using magic kill me? Or drag me into some fate worse than death? No, but bear with me a moment. I know youre in a hurry, but the risks involved in spontaneous Emergence are metaphysically complex. Of course they are, Aisling admits as a tinge of frustration creeps into her tone. You wont die, but if something goes wrong, you might lose control over aspects of yourself, is the simplest way to put it. Of your power, your faculties, your actions. Of what youre becoming. Think of it as Emergence that isnt part of the normal growth process, isnt especially likely to empower you, and may not align with what youd actually want for yourself. I know you werent too distraught about what happened earlier, so for some necessary context as to how bad this can get, I believe Niavh Fianata did what she did during one of these episodes. Oh. I wasnt convinced until that last part. Okay, that does sound serious. Im going to avoid that at all costs, but theres still a Harbinger in my home who Im really sure I can kill. What triggers spontaneous Emergence? What makes it worse? Tell me how to do what I need to do, not what I should do instead. Yeah, thats about what I figured youd say, Aisling mutters. How urgent is the situation there? You clearly arent fighting her while we have this conversation. Are you? No. Just trying to lead her away from home. It looks like shes still attached to me. Good. In that case, as I understand it, youre most at risk for spontaneous Emergence when youre reaching with your magic. Trying to do something youve never done before, or on a scale thats new to you. Magic isnt a muscle, you cant wear it out or strain it just doing what you normally do the danger comes when your soul is shifting to accommodate something new. How confident are you that you can handle this one with your usual toolkit? As confident as I can be of anything about Harbingers? Seryana gained something, some sort of power beyond what she usually had since she put on the other Harbingers mask, but Ive already seen it in action. I know how it works, and its not a problem for me. Fine. Then just do your best to do that. And give me a minute. I might have something more specific for you. She abruptly ends the call, leaving me alone with Seryana as the elevator opens on the ground floor. I run for the closest back exit. Coarse fingers squirm along my shoulder and squeeze. A spectral anchor trailing behind me, but not one heavy enough to actually hold me back. I glance around the garden-lined walkways behind the hospital, transforming as soon as I confirm theres no one else around. Somethings changed this time, though. As wisps of light and shadow wrap around me, two entwine themselves into a long, thin shape floating at my side. Instinctively, I reach out for it, and it solidifies into a walking cane, carved from some ink-black wood, but constructed with a perfectly practical derby handle and flat rubber tip. Not a weapon, no more than the rest of my regalia. Its just a new tool my magics offered me, perhaps responding to my acceptance that I do need it, at least for now, and Im not hiding my health or my power from anyone perceptive. Ill take it. I lead Seryana as far from the hospital as I can, pushing along through the sickening tugs and pressures of her presence, until my phone chimes. Liadain? Holding up alright? Aisling asks. I guess? Shes still following me, I say. Seryana screeches, ripping out thick clumps of her hair as long as I am tall. Which was the goal, right? Good. Aislings a little quieter when she speaks again, probably holding her phone at a distance. Seryana keeps on wailing and thrashing. Since Im holding a cane, I dont have a hand free to plug my uncovered ear, so instead I press it to my shoulder while my phone covers the other. It does almost nothing to keep out the kind of noise a Harbinger makes. Ill keep this quick as I can: theres a local Keeper who checks recent crimes and deaths for signs of Harbinger involvement wildly out of character actions, lingering impressions at the scene of the event or on any survivors, et cetera and flags them as suspicious or all-too-human. You described Seryana as somehow elusive, manifesting without really being there. If youre still having trouble getting to her core, finding where she came from and going there might help bait her out or pin her down. Locations like that are important to Cluster As sometimes. Makes sense. So what? Did you find her there? As Aisling speaks, Seryana picks herself up and continues trailing off me. She doesnt seem to have the strength or speed to tear my phone away, only to wrap her decaying hands around my limbs and tug, forcing me to shake her away over and over. she babbles all the while. Possibly. I have three cases that look like potential matches for your stalker, Aisling says through the noise. A double suicide in the Weald, souls either taken or transmigrated before anyone could test for corruption. A man who committed suicide in his home, after which his wife vanished without a trace. A domestic murder-suicide where the killer left a note about saving her from the things under the floor. Routine check found traces of Harbinger influence around the death sites for those last two. Nothing conclusive, couldve even been unrelated entities passing through, but theyre the best matches Ive got. Im sending you the forest landmark and the two addresses. Okay. Thank you. I can use this. Its not like I had a destination beyond far away from home in mind. Honestly, if any one of these is where I need to go, and she found it in the last few minutes based on what little shes seen and my vague description of what Seryana was like, thats ridiculously impressive. Be careful. Check in when youre done, or if you need anything else, Aisling says, and ends the call. Alright, I murmur to myself. I flick Seryanas fingers away as she tries to pull my hood down. Lets take the worst walk ever. ~~~ It takes all my willpower, bolstered by my memory of shoots of rope growing from Shonas bleeding eyes, not to kill Seryana ten times over the next hour. My only breaks from her constant putrid whirlwind of affection and animosity come when we pass other night walkers. Theyre a little rarer than usual today, but Seryana giggles and cheers every time I yell at someone to get out of the way. Then, inevitably, shell try to hug me, or squeeze my hand, swing our arms happily, and attempt to lead us off in some other random direction, and the cycle begins again when she interprets my refusal to follow along as proof that I hate her and want to abandon her. Of Aislings destinations, the murder house is closest, so thats where we head first. Its locked and deserted, save for the FOR SALE sign in the front lawn. I can feel faint traces of the presence that was here it smells like opening a book and finding maggots nesting between the pages. Its nothing like Seryana, and she pays it no mind, so I head for the next house. If I have to take her to the Weald, I dont know what I can do except walk all night or call Shona for a ride. I dont know which idea is worse. But I dont. Seryana goes strangely quiet as we approach our second destination or what remains of it. At the address Aisling sent me to, theres just an overgrown lawn in front of the wreckage of a freshly-demolished house. The construction equipment still parked beside it hasnt yet had time to clear away the ruins, it seems. If there was anything to come back to here, its gone now. But the remains do still feel distantly like Seryana. The Harbinger herself shifts around what once would have been the front facade, looking whats left of her birthplace over. she asks after a long pause. Her masks blank smile spreads into a grin. Okay. Here I am. What is it? I turn on the Harbinger, glaring into the wild dancing lines of her eyes behind the slots of that stone mask, the only part of her not yet ragged with the corrosion of my ever-progressing scourge. If she wants to talk, fine. Ill take anything I can use to break her once and for all. Seryana sighs. Her mask tilts upwards as she looks up to the stars, and the locks of braided hair that make up her hands press together as though in mocking imitation of prayer. Yet Seryanas posture of fervent hope slackens as the living effigy of woven hair she uses to represent herself slumps over despondently, then begins to convulse in distress that quickly warps into fury. Seryana jolts forward, squeezing my shoulders in both hands and wrapping a third arm, sprouted suddenly from her thick fall of hair, around my waist. She stretches out with me as I take a shuddering step back, reflexively jabbing my cane into what should be her chest where it finds no purchase, only digging into a tangle of hair like a pole planted in a swamp. She plays along, though, wailing in agony and throwing herself back as violently as if Id been a car crashing into her. she whimpers. Patches of the dark scribbles that form her face drip down her mask like black, sludgy tears. That really doesnt tell me much. Does she want to go somewhere else? Become something else? Go somewhere with me, unite with me somehow, or get rid of me so she can be free of my weight around her ankle? This is the first time shes mentioned anything about these other worlds is that something she heard from Isobels Harbinger? Its not like a Harbinger to take on someone elses obsession as their own, just like that. The more I think about it, the more I think even she isnt sure what she wants. An idea comes to me. A wild, pointless idea, but one I dont think it hurts me to try. Theres a way we can do that. Right now, I say. This would be a lot easier if she could understand anything I said. I put a hand to my chest, reach out to her as if to help her up, then bring it to the other, cupping them over my heart. Give me your heart. We dont have to go through this whole thing. You dont have to do this anymore. And she wouldnt be the first. Yurfalns offering was more symbolic than anything, a choice made when it had no other, but Seryanas already asked for this. Haphazardly, alongside other contradictory things, and no doubt with her own idea of what it would mean and how it should go, but still. Seryana squeaks wordlessly, like shes trying and failing to choke something out through her tears. She twitches her head to one side and stands, staggering this way and that And laughs. She hugs herself, twisting her limbs into knots, and cackles endlessly into the night. I already know covering my ears wont do a thing to blot out the noise. Finally, she falls silent. She takes a few slow, lurching steps forward, glowering down at me with wide eyes half-covered by thick strands of hair. Those scribbled tears keep falling in streams. she says, her voice low and cold and flat as its ever been. Her hands all scratch desperately at the others, peeling her limbs apart from the fingers up the way I might pick at a cracked cuticle. And Seryana tears herself apart, ripping her own body into an inside-out knot of splayed hair and raw flesh, all emanating from a gaping hole in the world that pants out humid waves of putrid breath. Fall into me of your own free will, she says without saying. Fall and fall and never come out. And what happens then, in her mind? Where do we go? Do either of us ever leave that pit? I remember what Seryana named herself. What she first said to me. I dont think I could ever forget anything spoken in that language. You cannot be happy. I cannot be happy. No end goal, no way out. Seryana is fundamentally not like the other Harbingers Ive killed. They had dreams. Goals bigger than the world they were doing everything they could to bring into being. I still dont understand Irakkia, but I felt enough of its desperate yearning to be anywhere but where it was to include it among them. And the ones I fully absorbed Yurfalns dream was insane, yes, but it was clear what it wanted and why. Theres even ways I can imagine it growing into something that kind of made sense, if it hadnt seen suffering as a goal in itself. Maybe a person with its outlook couldve developed some sort of palliative care magic, which I never wouldve liked, but ending death or even disease for everyone are dreams so wild Id have no idea where to start with them. As long as there are humans getting sick and dying, someone needs to ease their pain as best they can. And Aulunla there was nothing wrong with what Aulunla and Isobel wanted for themselves except the price they were willing to make others pay for it. Given what Ive done to people and let them do, I hardly have the high ground there. The only difference between us isnt much of one at all my feeling bad about it changes nothing for the people Ive hurt. Or the woman I left to die without ever knowing she existed. What does Seryana want? What would a world where she won look like? A perfect match where she and one other victim torture each other in just the right ways for eternity? This nightmare she lives in, this play shes acted out over and over its all she has. All she is. Its sad, its pathetic, but in one strange, sick way, its for the best. Because this time, everyone will be happier when Seryana is gone. Even Seryana. I Dont Think Im A Good Person 7-3 The way into Seryanas Wound is clearer this time. Those wet, grasping strands of her hair lining the gaping hole in the world have mostly rotted away, leaving lesions in the walls where green embers burrow into necrotic flesh. The remaining strands of living residue are weak and withered enough that they snap away the moment they curl around me and try to grip. This time, when the tunnel opens up, I touch down on the floor with only a few clumpy strands of dry, dead hair trailing off my sleeves to show for the fall. There are no grasping limbs of twine to set me down gently, but my cane steadies me through the impact. Seryana stands just ahead, hunched over the curio cabinet in the center of the room. Shes reached through its still-broken windows and picked out a single filthy photo. Her voice has a wet scratchiness to it, as if shes forcing out every sound through a terrible cough. She traces one frayed finger gingerly over the photo frame then hurls it at me with all her might. I flinch as it whizzes just past my head, crashing into the wall behind me. she wails. A shiver wracks her body as a coil of rope, the third arm she sprouted earlier, drops off her and hits the ground with a sick wet plop. She pushes off the cabinet and wobbles upright, her masks eyes seeming to widen as she stares at me. While she rambles, I take stock of my surroundings. This is the same room Shona nearly burned down, and it hasnt changed much since then. All that remains of the original rooms walls are its four corners holding up the ceiling like pillars. Beyond that, its just as ruined and more the steady, creeping rot of my magic still spreads through everything, eating away at the walls and furniture of the surrounding rooms. A window in the next room over is frosted over with black mist. Off to the right, the jagged hole in the floor we last escaped through is still there. Seryanas made a token effort to fence it off, with three sideways chairs arranged unevenly around its edges, but if I wanted to leave, I wouldnt even need to step over them. Theres a gap in the fence I could easily squeeze through. Following my gaze, Seryana glances between me and the hole. She lets out a short, sharp shriek, like the strings of a hundred instruments snapping at once, and slams a balled fist into one of her cabinets intact windows, embedding bits of glass between the knots of her fingers. As she cracks open frame after frame and rips apart the pictures inside, the Wound tears around us. The walls of the surrounding rooms are ripped horizontally across their middle like tissue paper as their shared floors and ceilings twist in opposite directions. The whole Wound flips on to its side in a sudden and violent rotation, flinging me, beds, stools, footrests, and woven-hair dolls into the air. The furniture plummets into the rift thats been split in the walls, falling into a familiar void of that vague, dingy impression of light coming from somewhere else; the same dim glow I saw in the gaps between Seryanas hair-covered windows. I burn some of my health on reflex and thrust out a hand to grab hold of some of the filthy hair strewn across the rotting wooden floors. It tears in my grip, but gives me just enough leverage for just enough time that I can manage to control my trajectory. I roll my body along the quickly steepening slope of the floor and fall into a V-shaped crook: the base of one of the original rooms corners, now all that remains of its walls. Seryana begins to furiously ball up the scraps of the shredded photographs into a single chaotic wad, and everything bends and deforms, the world folding over us into a new arrangement one where the space I landed in no longer exists. I pick myself up as the notch I managed to catch myself on blurs into a newly shaped floor. When the distortion settles, the rooms have stretched over each other, merging into a single endless tunnel that somehow looks like more of a disaster than even the blasted, broken room we were in a moment ago. Its cluttered with too much random furniture to traverse without stepping over or onto it. Footrests with all the stuffing torn out and replaced with matted blonde hair. A two-legged table with a huge chunk of its surface simply disappeared from the side with the legs. Beds with half-rotten chairs spliced impossibly through the middle of their frames. On one of those, the chair impales the hair-effigy lying on it in two places. she laughs, throwing her arms wide. Why? I ask. Id guess she reacted to me looking at the hole Shona had blown through the floor, but I just got here. I came in on my own. Im not going to run away when neither of us had done anything. Seryana says nothing, only twirling and laughing like shes playing in the snow. Theres so many of those hair-dolls, scattered through the opened Wound. Maybe a dozen in sight from here, counting the one whose photo-face she smashed during her tantrum right before Shona and I left this place. How long has she been doing this? How many one and only true loves had she been through before I found her? And if this is how she acts when something doesnt go to plan how did she even last this long? Seryana snarls. Her body melts, then bubbles back up from the floor right in front of me. Scrawled tears and black gunk ooze through her mask. She clutches my cheek in one ragged hand before I can dart away, squeezing painfully, and as she meets my gaze again, the same dark gunk creeps over the corners of my eyes, as if its leaking out from my own skull ~~~ A hand slams into my cheek with enough force to knock me over. My wrist twists as I try and fail to break my fall, crumpling to the ground like a discarded doll. Sometimes that feels like all I am, on days like this, but its okay. Its just how it is. Sometimes he just gets upset. If this is what he needs, I can handle it. Those same rough hands pull me up by my hair, screaming into my face. I can live with the pain, for him. The words, those are the worst part, and worse than ever today. They feel like knives tearing tiny bits of my soul away, sliver by sliver. Flecks of spittle pour out of him with every word, his voice a storm of rage and pain spoken in a distorted blur of noise, like Im hearing them underwater. It still sounds familiar, though. It sounds like my fathers? The outline of the man holding me up matches the one who left me on the seventh floor, but everything is so wet and blurry, and his face its scratched out of reality, hidden behind a scribbly black veil. Finally, he drops me again. I collapse uselessly to my knees as he backs away. He stares down at whats left of me. Time falls away from us, but when he finally speaks again, its different. Quieter. He apologizes. He tells me hes no good. He says he shouldnt be here anymore. He storms off upstairs without another word. I dont want that, though. Hes a complicated person, yes, but thats just how he is. I still love him. All of him. And if he didnt have me, how much worse would it be? For him, for me, for everyone? And hes all I have. So I go to him. To hold him, to tell him so, to pull the misery out of him so we can carry it together. No one person can carry all the weight inside them, after all. And I find him his empty shell, hanging from the ceiling blood on his fingers, clawmarks on his neck, scratching, scratching and everything I am leaks out like blood through the wounds he left me with. Only through it all, beneath the weight of the end of everything, another voice whispers. My voice. None of this matches, she says. None of it makes sense. The events, the feelings behind them, none of them fit the version of Dad in my mind. That version is hes hardly really there. Hes barely ever given me this much attention at all. And in the times he did, the only reason it hurt was because I knew I would have to ration out that little mote of love for who knows how long until the next. Why him? Why is he here? Because hes just the closest thing she can find when she looks into me. Because this pain is not mine. This life is not mine. None of it matters to me. Theres no reason for me to drown in it, no reason to feel it at all. So I vomit it up like I have so much pollution before. ~~~ I return to the Wound, to myself, on my knees over a fresh puddle of dark ichor, wreathed in cold mist like breaths on a winter day. Seryana stands over me, her face buried in her hands, weeping in rough, choked sobs. And in her tears, her desperation as she throws every horrible thing she can think of at me, I see the answer to my own question. It makes sense how she did what she did. The same way its taken me so long to get this far. She hid, slowly gnawing away on one person at a time until they couldnt take it anymore and who could? I doubt I could live through an endless torrent of this, if I didnt already know she was dying. When she finished her meal, shed vanish, find a new anchor, and repeat the cycle somewhere completely different, doing it all through disposable effigies of herself meant to be broken and destroyed over and over. In exchange for rendering Seryana practically untouchable in a direct confrontation, the effigies couldnt actually do anything impressive on their own, couldnt even move away from the anchor, but they didnt take much investment. Seryana could eat up her anchors aggression without a care in the world, certain she was getting more than she lost. Her effigies had probably even been swallowing up my plague, only to be amputated before the infection could be transferred to Seryanas whole C at least enough for it to stick. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. For a normal human, or even Shona blindly blasting Seryanas sock-puppets away, there was nothing at all they could do. In truth, though, she probably wasnt any stronger than Irakkia or Esonei were, given how similar their tricks were; maybe weaker, even. I was probably just the first Keeper to smell her out and get her attention, and I spent days coming at her the wrong way. Playing the game she set me up to play. That was her gimmick all along. But here, where the real Seryana lives she overextended this afternoon when she first dragged me into her heart, allowing my infection into her sanctum. Now shes done it again, and I can already see her world falling apart with no new effort from me. I cant pretend to understand why she would expose herself like that in the first place, but maybe its simply the common sense of a demon who feeds on hurting others until they hurt her back as hard as possible. To Seryana, thats what love is, and for her, love is everything. Suddenly, she straightens up, beaming through her oozing tears, and sweeps a rotting hand over the chamber. A new curio cabinet falls abruptly through the ceiling, crashing to the floor a few feet away from us. It rattles unsteadily as it touches down, until Seryana runs to it and hugs it, holding it desperately in place. she gurgles. You know what? Fine. It cant be any worse than that blood-blending machine Yurfaln made for me. Strangely enough, I actually feel nearly as calm as that sentiment sounds. Im still on edge, of course, still ready for any last surprises Seryana throws at me, but now that Ive begun to unravel her, I feel more confident than against any Harbinger Ive ever faced. As the Wound continues to crack and peel around me, deep inside, I know this is already over. My rot is already closing in on her heart, so I can tell: whatever special something let Aulunla pour everything it was and could ever be into one last frenzied struggle Seryana just doesnt have. This cabinet Seryana is so eager to show me looks brighter and cleaner than the others, at a glance, but thats just because theres no thick film of old hair caked around it. Only rings of wet locks of hair decorated with little black feathers around each window. And the framed pictures inside are all of me. Me rescuing Seryanas last victim, rotting her to nothing in the process. Me in his house, dangling from the edge of a room that no longer existed. Me in the shower with Seryana draping herself around me from behind, me at Missing Lake screaming while she needled me about the woman I left to die, me in her Wound jumping into Shonas lightning. She opens a window near the bottom and pulls out the photo inside, sighing happily as she stares at it. Through the fraying thumb of her rope-hand, she traces over it, I can make it out: this one is of me holding Banva on the floor. She giggles at her words, and while theres a faint undercurrent of nervous energy to the sound its enough to make me want to take that picture and smash it over her head. To smash all of them before I waste her away to nothing. But Banvas alive. Shes lived through a nightmare and its all my fault, but she did live. Shell recover. Because, from the start, Seryana really was that weak, and could only lash out against the people around me so much. It wouldnt change anything to give Seryana what she clearly wants. And if thats the best she has left, were finished here. I dont care, I say, laughing to myself. Seryana says. She freezes, photo frame still in hand, her voice drained of its sickly-sweet affect. I dont care what else you have to show me. Theres nothing I even need to do here anymore, and I dont think you can make me stay. Shes already dying. All I have to do is let her. Experimentally, I sink a burst of death into the filthy floor beside us. My power gnaws through the layer of grime and into the surface beneath, a hundred years of rot eating into the wooden boards in a span of seconds. Soon, theres a yawning black pit in the ground, big enough for me to slip through and still steadily expanding. Seryana seethes. Just another tantrum. She throws the photo away and grabs my shoulders, staring at me through her mask with eyes caked in dark ooze, but thats all. Ive seen what she can do now, what she wanted so badly to shove into my mind. Its only a little harder to keep her out than it is to shield myself from everyday diseases. Because for everything broken and horrible about me, all the damage Ive done, Im nothing like her. I dont have to exist the way she does, circling around in a prison of my own pain, and Ive already done everything I need to here. Im done with her, and very soon, whatevers left of her will help me along my own way. Seryana scratches frantically at her own arms, moving as if to peel herself open the way she did when she opened her Wound. Do it. Ill wait. And I hop through my hole, dropping back into the void between Wound and world. ~~~ I step out into the night. A cool breeze passes by, rushing through my newly whitened hair. Behind me, Seryana slaps the earth with her too-long arms of woven blonde hair, gibbering out a chain of shrill curses that stopped making any sense some time ago. I ignore her. Instead, I take note of my surroundings. Were still in front of that demolished house with the overgrown lawn Aislings information led me to, but looking at it now, its in a bit of a strange place for it to be. This isnt exactly a residential area, but more of a city block, with businesses closed at this hour surrounding the torn down house on all sides. On the opposite side of the street, theres a wall of high-rise buildings lined up next to each other; theyre far from skyscrapers, but theyre more than tall enough to cast a long shadow over the remnants of what was once someones home. The place where Seryana was born might have been a holdover from pre-war Claris that just hadnt been removed yet. Thats probably why it was torn down so quickly. My walk to get here might have taken longer than I thought, because everything around us is surprisingly vacant, but thats for the best when a Keeper is facing down a Harbinger in its death throes. Everything is bundled in an air of stillness and silence C all except for Seryana, wailing into the void. And thats when a cold sweat trickles down my spine. The atmosphere becomes heavy, as if Ive suddenly been thrust to the bottom of the sea. Theres a pressure so intense that it sends tremors through my body. My stomach drops. The hairs on my neck rise. My heart quakes in my chest. And its not because of a Harbinger. Even Seryanas voice deadens in the air as I turn back from the demolished house to face her. Shes raised one of her braided arms as if to lash out and strike me, but in the moment that new presence crashes over us like a tidal wave dragging us into its depths, she hesitates for just an instant, as if overwhelmed by panic too quickly for her to comprehend. Theres no time for either of us to react. A flash of scarlet. A shaft made of red light cuts through the air above Seryana. Its glare against the windows of the high-rise building behind her looks almost like a timelapse of the twilight sun falling beneath the horizon. The spear touches down, skewering straight through Seryana C not piercing through her other end and into the ground, but instead seeming to imbed itself deep within her. The Harbingers shriek of agony rings out through the night, raking against my eardrums. The spear of light sheds its crimson glow, dispelling the shadows which pool at the foot of the tower blocks. I expect Seryanas form to crumble away and reappear elsewhere, but she doesnt. She simply writhes and flails in place like an insect thats been pinned alive. For some reason, she cant escape. Up above, a floating figure appears out of thin air and gradually descends from on high. As if emerging from nowhere, his body seems to come into tangible focus bit by bit the nearer he draws to the spears light, starting from his greaved boots and quickly working up to the sharp, angular visor of his mask, until I can see him in his entirety. Hooded in a studded white mantle trimmed with red, a thin layer of metallic plating armoring his torso and limbs. His almost priestlike coat flutters gently as he hovers downward. Well now. Fancy meeting you out here, Ill Wind. Its none other than the Stardust Seraph in the flesh, addressing me directly. Points of light appear all around him and begin to swiftly swirl through the air, swarming in a formation like two tornadoes sprouting from his back. Those cinder-spark motes mold themselves into the shape of feathers, and as they spiral around in twin vortexes, they begin to arrange themselves into a pattern and stick together, soon creating two great wings formed entirely from crimson light, spreading brilliantly at the Seraphs sides. They shine off the windows of the building behind him, haloing him in their radiance. Given the sheer force of his aura, at first I thought he was flaring, but now I realize this oppressive sensation is concentrated entirely on the spot. Theres nothing about his presence that resounds beyond the immediate area, its just blaring down on me and Seryana without a care. When a giant walks, their footfalls shake the earth by default. See, I sensed something nasty tugging on my feathers, so I came to investigate, he says, his mask tilting from me to Seryana. As if on cue, the Harbinger howls, glaring up at him with all her fury. For a moment, he freezes, hanging in mid-air. I almost move to intervene, but then I hear the echo of his tongue clicking in his mask. So thats your deal, huh? Bad move, though. The only thing shoving a dead person in my face is going to do A gleam kindles a third of the way down the length of the spear Seryana is impaled upon. Its glow diffuses in opposite directions, intersecting horizontally through the red lance to form a crucifix of light. Im not entirely sure whats happening just by looking, but the Seraph is concentrating his magic at that point and matching it to Seryana somehow, similar to how he first pinned her in place. is piss me off. A pathetic choking gasp escapes from Seryanas body, then a strangled snarl, followed by a screech of pure agony as shes forcibly pried open. Its just like every time she tried to swallow me into her Wound, but this time, she never stops opening. Flesh begins to regurgitate out of the hole that is Seryana like a frog heaving out its entire gut. Everything within is being forced outside. Black ooze gushes from the eyeholes of her mask. Just like every time before now, this Seryana was just another effigy but every effigy Ive encountered was connected to the same source, the same heart. The Seraphs spear has punctured through the effigy and all the way into her Wound, so now she cant just cast off the effigy like a lizard discarding its tail and escape. Pieces of rotten furniture C chair legs, torn pillows, and shredded bed frames C all begin to spew out from inside Seryana as shes ripped asunder and folded inside out. They spill all around her flailing, gurgling body in a heap of gradually accumulating debris, until at long last, she coughs up one final, lone intact object: A curio cabinet, of course. Its launched through the air and lands with a clatter in the middle of the street between the Seraph and me. Our eyes follow its trajectory, drawn to it the moment we see it. A collection of photos is strewn about inside, but all the faces are scribbled out. Theres only one photo with a frame, and it has two people in, a man and a woman standing on a pier before a beautiful sunset, holding each other close. The womans face has a wide, strained smile scribbled on in a way that looks just like Seryanas own. The mans face is cut out of the photo entirely. I dont know if its been the same cabinet Ive always seen whenever I entered Seryanas Wound, since the form and contents have been slightly different each time, but it doesnt matter. Both the Seraph and I know what this is just by looking. And as Seryana whimpers pleadingly, stretching out one desperately grasping arm of braided hair towards the curio cabinet, the Seraph holds one hand up, spreading out his fingers, and then slowly lowers it, inch by inch. As he does, the curio cabinet begins to rattle against the street. Not a second later, cracks rive across its glass windows, first in long, singular streaks, then in an all-encompassing web of fractures. The cabinet seems to blur as if enveloped in a heat haze, and then fluidly flattens against the ground as though made of rubber. The distortion disappears, and all at once, the cabinet collapses in on itself as if it were being crushed beneath an invisible hydraulic press. Wood splinters against the ground down to mulch. Glass crumbles from the sheer force until its nothing but dust. The particles are pressed through the photos, which practically liquify from the strain. And it all happens in an instant. With the slightest of motions, the cabinet is utterly destroyed. Seryanas arm freezes in the air, then goes limp along with the rest of her mangled form. Her mask cracks down the middle, then falls to the ground and shatters into chunks of stone. Where Seryanas scribbled-on face once was, theres nothing that remains. The crucifix of red light dissipates with a sharp, hollow pop, and Seryanas carcass topples to the cold street. Her entire body and the rubble wreathing it is soon enveloped in grey and crumbles away in clumps of ash. Only one thing rises from the dust as it fades from our reality and into nothingness: an orb of musculature like two hearts packed together into a rough sphere, glowing with sourceless black light. The Stardust Seraph touches down on the pavement across the street. Seryanas heart floats between us, considerably closer to him than me. Its a pleasure to finally meet you, Eyna. If thats even your name. I Dont Think Im A Good Person 7-4 The last traces of Seryanas corpse dissolve into grime and dust, leaving her heart floating terrifyingly close to another Keeper. The Stardust Seraph crashed into us out of nowhere like lightning from a clear sky, turning all my plans to ash along with the nightmare Ive spent so long hunting. What just happened? How? Why? What is he doing here? How long has he been there? Was he following her or me? What does he want? All questions I have no way to answer. I shove them from my racing thoughts right now, the answers wouldnt matter even if I had them. Right now, all that matters is that Seryana is mine. No. Thats a useless thought, too. How badly I need this doesnt change the situation at all. If I dont figure this out, Ill just end up adding another stupid, horrible mistake to the pile before anyone even knows who I am. Besides, between what he just did to Seryana and the palpable sense of weight still pressing in on my soul, I think Id only hurt myself if I attacked him. So what, then? What can I do that wont ruin everything? Well? What are you waiting for? the Seraph calls out with his hands on his hips before I can come up with an answer. What? I cant tell how long weve been standing here, but he hasnt moved at all. He seems to be watching me rather than the heart, but his masks sharp visor completely obscures his face. Go ahead. Take it. Youve earned it. He raises an open, gloved palm and gestures magnanimously to the heart. Part of me wants to race to Seryanas remains and swallow her without another word, but I dont know yet if that would be right. Without some idea of what he wants from me, I have no idea how to navigate this. Just like that? You dont want it? This isnt a trick? I ask. Eh? The Seraph gives a barely-perceptible tilt of his head. Could you, uh, not know who I am, maybe? Im the Stardust Seraph. Yknow When a cry for justice rings through the heavens, the Stardust Seraph answers! He raises his right arm, pointing to the night sky, then traces his finger through the air to his left side, before sweeping his open palm back across to his right, striking a dramatic pose. He then casually returns to a neutral stance, the wings of light at his back stretching and fluttering a bit as though relaxing. I can do the whole song and dance if you want. I just figured it wouldnt be your thing, he finishes with a broad shrug. Besides, what kind of trick? If I really wanted to sneak up on you, Ive missed my chance, dontya think? I made the Promise a month ago! I dont know how vulnerable we are while were eating hearts, what I should be worried about, what you can do, whats even possible! And if you dropped out of the sky and obliterated my Harbinger because you just wanted to talk, why would you introduce yourself with some weird reference to my name? Pfft hahahahaha! After a moments tense silence, the Seraph first chokes down a chuckle, then bursts into hearty laughter. Suspicious to a fault, I see well thats probably for the best. Youve just gotta learn to hide it better but no. Of course Im not here to steal from you. Dont be ridiculous. That Harbinger was already in tatters. All I did was hasten the inevitable. In fact I swear this on my name as the Stardust Seraph: I will not by any means interrupt your consumption of that Harbingers heart, unless it is to protect you from what you yourself would consider imminent danger, if privy to my perspective. The ambient power in the air shifts. It doesnt exactly withdraw from me, but theres a strange current in the intangible energy flowing around us. It gathers around the Seraphs words, lending them an unnatural weight a gravity, fixing them into place in the world. Those words are true. The promise behind them is inviolable. I know that in the same way I know what my own magic can do. Understanding that feels a little like processing Harbinger-speech, but in one way, the effect here is even more pronounced: I dont think its possible to lie in that language, but it also doesnt seem like every word spoken in it is a binding oath. A Harbinger can say something and change their mind later. The Stardust Seraph no longer can. There, he says. That work for you? I run through his words in my mind. They did seem airtight, as far as I can tell, and the one out he included isnt anything weird like that Sanctuary contracts phrase about lasting for as long as there are lights in the night sky. It is a little weird that he included it at all, though. Why the last part? Were two Keepers and a dead Harbinger. What danger am I going to be in? I ask. Just in case, of course. Wouldnt wanna watch you die if some freak incident happens and Im sworn to stay out of it. Fair enough. Its a pretty specific situation, and the way his promise resolves it is completely in my favor. Even so this wording doesnt quite leave me perfectly safe. And what about after Im done? The Seraph tilts his head to one side farther than last time. What about it? The whole point of this is to let you finish off priority one before we worry about anything else. But what if you set up something to do to me immediately after Im finished? Some big ritual that takes time to prepare, which you could do because it wouldnt interrupt me, and that I wouldnt notice until you spring it on me the second the Harbingers gone? He places his palm to his forehead as though in consideration. I guess that would work. Im not gonna do that, though. If I were planning to, Id have done it by now or, again, before I blew the element of surprise on that Harbinger. Theres sensible suspicion and theres this. Will you promise that too? I press. The Seraph stifles a laugh, letting it trail off into a long sigh, and throws up his hands. Fine. Anything to get this over with before the heart sprouts legs and runs off or something. Nor will I prepare to take any hostile action against you while you consume that heart, from when you begin to when you finish. Is everything to your satisfaction now, princess? Princess? Is it? Id feel better about this if he would tell me what he is here for, make assurances as to what hes planning once Seryanas remains are dealt with but I dont think I should push any harder, at least not yet. Whatever comes next, whatever he actually wants with me, it doesnt change that I need that heart. I nod to the Seraph, steady myself on my cane, and approach Seryanas remains. As my focus narrows on the tightly-packed knot of heart muscle and blackness, it shudders, then squirms and beats through the air to drift into my open hand. I squeeze it to my chest, suppressing a gag at the shroud of nauseating stench it still carries, and drink Seryanas soul. ~~~ I dont Im not a good person, XXXXX. Get away from me while you still can. Those words could be ones of simple admission. Resignation. Regret, even. But spoken sincerely they say so much more, dont they? They are an incantation. A spell to summon a cage around your soul, to spare the world the poison you carry. But beneath that, more than that, they are a wish. A hope that you could be any other way. A cry for help to the one person who might drain the venom from your wounds and see you as you could be. That is what I believed, when you spoke them. And even as you stormed away, I wanted more than anything to reach through your thorned prison, take your hand in my torn, bloodied fingers, and leave you no longer alone. When I reached back out for you, though you were already gone. An abandoned husk, hanging by the rope that stole your last breaths. I couldnt do anything. I never could. And despite everything I died with you. My heart still beat, but I did not live. But when I collapsed there beneath you, and the weight of all the misery and terror and exhaustion finally dragged me screaming to sleep oh, I had such a beautiful dream. If only you could have been there to see it. In my dream, a star took me into its embrace a binary star, cradling one another in ethereal ribbons like a perfect web of rainbows, the only two lights in a black, endless sky. I was a guest in the court of the two who made themselves one. The one who wove constellations together with their love. They spoke to me, in glances, in casts of light, in the gentle caress of radiation on my bare skin. They promised me my love had been beautiful, it had been true, it could still be true, if I would only hold it in my soul above all other things for the rest of eternity. I could do that. I did, for all the time we had together. I loved you. All of you, complicated as you were. You were the only thing I had. So I tore myself out of my own dead-and-beating heart. I became me. But dearest, I needed to be more than a monument. You deserved so much more than that. You see from the moment I looked upon those stars, I wanted to be them. I wanted us to be them. Their bond, their synchrony, the gentle gleaming their luminosity lent everything else, the way they looked at each other like nothing else in the world had ever mattered anyone who saw it would want to be them. But you were gone, lost even to my new reach, and how could I be them alone? I set out to find you again, wherever you had gone. I searched for you in memories, in gaping wounds where once had stood something beautiful, in echoes of despair that felt so much like you I could convince myself you were truly beside me again. But when I claimed my first, I heard a whisper on the night wind. A voice I already knew, a message carried down from the void for me alone. And those two words carried a curse. Not a curse like the thing that flows through you only a truth I knew I would never be able to bury. You have never loved anybody, they said without saying. And nobody will ever love you. I had made my love a lie. I was alone. I have always been alone. Even now, at the end of everything, I am alone. Youre not him. Of course youre not. None of them were. He isnt here, he isnt in the stars, he isnt anywhere. Hes been dead and drowned since before I was born. But you still you HAD to be. If he was gone, then one of you had to bring him to me. To become him. If you couldnt, if I couldnt, then what does anything else matter? Who cares about tomorrow? Who cares about ???????? Who cares what all this could become if through it all, I will only ever be alone? If they filled the world with so much love, then WHERE IS MINE? Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ~~~ Shes gone before I can say anything. Can whatevers left of them hear me in there? Aulunla could, at least for a moment, but I guess it doesnt matter. I dont know what Id say to her anyway. Tears that are not mine blur my vision. No no, some of them are probably mine. I still wouldnt say I understand Seryana, and I dont regret her death at all it really was putting her out of inescapable misery, as horrible as Id find that thought in any other scenario. But I think its impossible to take in anothers essence, everything that made them what they were, and not find something in them to empathize with. The one thing Seryana wanted with all her heart was something she couldnt have, something some power or law beyond either of our ken insisted she shouldnt have, and that much I understand all too well. But the heady haze of eating a soul soon fades, and I dont have time to think through what the disturbing details of her story might mean. Shes left me with a much more pressing problem. Whew! the Stardust Seraph huffs, his voice a hollow echo behind his mask. Good riddance. Now. That out of the way time for a chat. I close my eyes and stretch my senses over the ruins, taking in the motes of life around us. The nearest souls are a comfortable distance away, a few people scattered through the closed buildings around us. Maybe some of them saw the Seraph fall from the sky like a scarlet meteor, but if they did, theyve had the good sense to stay away from a violent display of power at night. At the very least, we dont have an audience. That hardly makes me feel better. I dont want to talk to him, in private or anywhere else. But hes not going away, I have no chance of outrunning someone who can fly, and well, and if I think about this from his perspective, I guess he hasnt done anything bad to me except say something weird about my name. He didnt steal my Harbinger. He couldve been flying by, thought I was really in trouble, and only figured out who I was after he jumped in to help. I dont think he did, but he couldve. And if I want to stop making horrible messes everywhere I go, I should really try not to panic until I have some idea of what he wants. Okay. About what? I ask. Stupid question. Theres only one reason the citys golden boy would be seeking me out well, one big tangled pile of reasons. Still, lets hear it from him first. Well, first off, why dont we start with you giving me a proper introduction? the Seraph replies. Unless youd prefer I keep calling you princess, that is. As it stands, you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. Do I? The first thing he said to me was about my name. He obviously knows who hes talking to well, whatever. He can have what everyone else has, and if he wants to push me on it, thats his problem. Im Eyna. Ill Wind if you prefer. I dont have a pose or a speech, sorry. So thats really your name, huh? he presses, crossing his arms as his visor stares relentlessly through me. I narrow my eyes back at him, biting my lip beneath my mask. It feels weirder than usual, trying to make eye contact with a completely hidden face. Worse, I have no idea why hes so pushy about this. Eyna isnt my actual name, of course, but unless Shona has spilled her guts to everyone in the last few hours, theres no way for him to know that, is there? Thats a really weird question. Its not like its a special name. But yes. Ah, I see, I see. He nods his head in understanding. Thats so weird, then. I didnt find anyone like you when I checked through the public records for girls with that name. Must be a nickname or something, huh? What? I tighten my grip on my cane with both hands, suppressing a shiver at the phantom sensation of being watched from afar, of prying eyes on my back. There goes any hope that he wasnt following me. Why would he be digging around for my personal identity, anyway? Would he have dropped out of the sky and into my home if he could have? Arent Keepers personal lives not meant to be dragged into all this? What about it? Do you know how creepy you sound right now? I was really trying to be fair here. I know you probably couldve just robbed me if you wanted. But I still have no idea what you want and youre just just standing there, dropping hints about how youve been stalking me? Why? Whats that accomplish except tell me that if my nickname were something else, Id have made the right call in using it? hah? At that, the Stardust Seraph leans forward with his crossed arms, tilting his head for a third time, this time in the opposite direction. The wings of light at his back stretch out like a hawks ready to swoop down on its prey. Are you for real right now? Can you imagine what all the people you preyed on would have to say about you trying to play the victim? His voice was incredulous. Of course. Of course thats it. I let out a barely-audible croak, the smothered remnant of some worthless word or panicked laugh. How? I havent told anyone except Aisling. Would she? No. No. Shona said once that the Seraph could sniff out a Harbinger from miles away. Im sure he could just as easily sniff out a girl whose horrible power feels like a Harbinger tearing out a chunk of your life, especially when I used to steal from tens of people at a time. I cant even count them. Id given up on counting them within my first week. But it doesnt matter. Hes right. Neither my new plan or my feeling bad while hurting them change anything for those people. Yes! I shriek. Maybe, I dont know, some of them could come up with better horrible things to call me, but Im already thinking those things about myself every day! So thats why thats why Im not doing that anymore, I say. Its only been I have a better plan, but I only figured it out last night. You can believe that or not, I guess. It was this morning, but Im not dragging Aislings name into this. It might help. I dont care. Im not doing that to her. The Seraph corrects his posture, returning his hands to his hips. Thats good to hear, then. Im glad you understand that wont fly in this city, he says, gentler than before. I dont want to have to treat a fellow Keeper like a crook if I can help it, but youre not exactly making it easy. Actually, Im here because I want to help you. He really couldve said that in the first place. But you know what, fine. Its fine if he means it, if he doesnt have some terrible idea of what help is here. From a distance, I cant exactly blame someone for looking at my actions and thinking Im the new Tara. I take a set of long, slow breaths, loosening my grip on my cane. Okay. Help me how? That depends, he replies, cupping the chin of his mask between his index finger and thumb as though in consideration. Theres plenty of arrangements that could be made with willing participants, depending on what youre actually trying to accomplish. But first, why dont you tell me about this better plan youve come up with? I grimace. Hes doing it again with that thing about willing participants. That has to be some intentional impression hes trying to make, but until he actually says hes here to arrest me for magic crimes or something fine. Is Aislings plan a secret hes prying into? I dont think it is. Getting health donations would obviously have to be a public project. Volunteers, I say. I have to do what Ive been doing to make my horrible power work, but I dont have to do it that way. It was a bad idea I stumbled into when I was new. But if I drain from people who agree to it in exchange for pictures or autographs or whatever people want from Keepers, and then they know whats going on and have doctors keeping an eye on them, that still works. Great! the Seraph exclaims eagerly, catching his fist in the open palm of his other hand. Were on the same page, then! Thats perfect. And with me on your side, youll have no problems at all getting that off the ground! Hold on. When did that happen? I didnt ask, he didnt even offer, just declared it. Invited himself into the messiest, most difficult part of managing my new life. Maybe thats not the worst thing ever? It is a problem. I still dont know where to start with fixing it. Maybe Aisling does, but she doesnt seem much happier with the public-figure side of all this than I am. We can also get you some training at the Church so nothing like that thing that went down with Mide ever happens again. Oh, and dont worry about the Fianatas. Ill handle them, if anything comes up. I stiffen up again as the Seraph carries on, casually taking charge of everything wrong with me. Dont. Dont break now. Dont blow up on him while he could still just be trying to help, just because hes doing it in that pushy, overeager way Ive never been able to stand from anyone. Hey, let me walk you home. We can talk about everything on the way. I wasnt! I snap, then sigh, forcibly evening my voice out. Worried about the Fianatas, that is. Not anymore. I know, Ill say sorry to Tetha if I ever find an occasion to do it that isnt incredibly weird, but if I needed help really, if I need help with any of this Ill ask Niavh. Shes already offered. But thanks. He pauses for a moment, letting the silence between us settle in the cold night air before he continues. whend you meet Niavh? A week and some ago, I say, and swallow. Why? Has he talked to her since then? About me? I met her before Tetha I guess I dont know if that offer still stands, really. All I have is a vague idea that Niavh mustve said something in my defense. I have no other way to explain how quiet her sister seems to have been. So, uh Lemme get this straight. You met Niavh a week and some ago and then you just kept draining people? And you only came up with this new idea just last night? Yes, I say through gritted teeth. Ive had a lot to deal with and not a lot of time. I didnt have a better plan. Now I do. I dont know what else you want from me. Not sure you realize how youre making things sound, but Im gonna give you an easy out to this, princess, he says calmly. Do you know Niavhs phone number? Youre right. I dont know how it sounds. And no. She said she was easy to find if I needed anything. I assume the Chancel or somewhere has her number. Im also I dont really see the point of this whole question. A minute ago when you were all cheery and excited, all I said was that Id contact her if I needed help sorting this out. Which I will, because Id rather work with someone who has some idea of what its like. So if you mean something by this, please just say what it is already. I say, straining to keep my voice level. Is it that I shouldve stopped draining people and asked for help making a better plan a week ago? Yes. I know. But I cant go back and do that now. So you havent actually spoken with Niavh about this, he restates, giving a nod. That checks out, considering shes not due back in New Claris for a day or two more Anyway, its in everyones best interest if we put that new plan of yours into action as soon as possible. If youre serious about this, I can make it happen tomorrow. Niavh can pick up where I left off the moment shes back, if you really cant stand me that much. Yes. Thats next on my list of things to do, now that shes not stalking me anymore. I wave my free hand back at the ruins of Seryanas house. Ill talk to her as soon as shes available, and I guess if you want to check in with her about it, you probably have that power. He lets out a sigh, which echoes huskily behind his mask. Alright. You doing any more hunting tonight? I shake my head. Im tired. That one took a few days. It was a nightmare. Is that it? Is this actually working? Ah, yeah, it did look pretty nasty, he chuckles. In that case, at least let me see to it that you make it back home safe and sound. I swallow again. Of course nothing could be that easy. I think through the worst-case scenario what happens if the Stardust Seraph knows where I live? He knows all about my medical history, which Ive ripped that bandage off twice before now. Id share it if I thought it would help, if I thought it would change anything about where we stand, but at this point, it doesnt seem like it would. More important, then, is that hed know where I live. He could drop in on the seventh floor and make a mess of everyones lives whenever. Hed have the easiest possible route to keep appointing himself my minder and new best friend. I try not to bring Keeper business home, I say. Sometimes it follows me anyway, but you know. Personal stuff. Private stuff. My family doesnt know and I dont plan to tell them, I say. All true. If you need to find me again for some reason, look around the university on most nights. I could always just fly off when we get within view, you know. I dont have a problem with dismissing my regalia and just walking the whole way, either. Nobody would see a thing. People wont recognize you any less that way! I came dangerously close to meeting one of the Seraphs fans a couple weeks ago. I know what theyre like. The last thing I need is for one of them to take a picture of me walking with their idol and decide I need to die. Listen, if you just want to know where I am, I told you. Not that you seem to have any trouble finding me. Well, I tried, he throws up his hands in a shrug before letting them casually drop back to his sides. One last thing, then, and Ill let you go. Could you lend me one of your feathers? My feathers, I echo. My blood. The black, shimmering nothing running through my veins as of this afternoon. How closely has he been following me? For how long? What he wants it for is less of a question Ive read enough to know that blood has a kind of abstract weight to it. A connection to its source, in some symbolic sense that Im sure is important to certain Keepers magic. I cant see most of the things youd use taken blood for being good for that source, and thats before I even get into whatevers happening with my blood. Youd have to cut me open and rip them out. So no. Goodnight, I say flatly, and start down the street. Huh? The hell do you mean by that? Wait, he says, his voice drawing further away with each step I take I said wait. until hes suddenly right in front of me, his body and wings shifting into view in a flash of scarlet motion. My mouth goes dry and my heart hammers wildly as he blurs into my space. I clamp down on my first instinct, letting only a thin, leaking hiss of frigid green mist escape through my clenched teeth. Instead, I surge life through my legs and run, frantically hoping for a windy road or an alley to duck into or something, anything to get him away from me. But before I make it even a block, two cars parked on either side of the road before me abruptly slide across the ground as though dragged by an invisible force. They skid until they come to a stop nearly bumper to bumper right in front of me, forming a barricade. I. Said. Wait. I Dont Think Im A Good Person 7-5 I jolt back as two cars screech into my way, stopping abruptly within inches of a crash. My heart slams against my chest. The only thing keeping me standing is the health I tapped by reflex a moment before. A few more feet in my direction and the cars wouldve rammed into me, too. Pulped my useless body in half and left my soul to crawl out of its broken remains, unfurl its wings, and and do what? I dont know. Maybe I ravage the city for enough life to sew myself back together. Maybe I become something much worse. Maybe thats not how it works and I just die. Footsteps clacking on the road behind me shake me from my morbid delusion. The Seraph draws closer, his visor glaring down fiercely, judgmentally. I turn around slowly, anxiously. My downcast eyes flick upwards to catch glimpses of the one whos come to punish me for my sins, only to dart away when I find his light too blinding to bear. Youre not as slick as you think you are, princess. The pressure of his aura intensifies with each step he takes, like the dawn surmounting the horizon to envelop the sky. I cant just let you go. Not the way things are. So youll run me over instead? Thats fine? Thats the way things should be? I glance down at nothing, squinting to shield my watering eyes from the Seraphs radiance, shoving thoughts of my own mangled corpse into the background every time they push back into my mind. I have plenty of reason to drag you back to the Soul Sanctuary whether you like it or not, until were sure youre not another ticking timebomb like Tara or Niavh just waiting to blow and take innocent lives. Like you almost did to Mide. Like you could have done to Tetha. I blink away my tears as the Seraph relentlessly piles on his condemnations. You dont I rasp, trailing off as my worthless words die in my throat. He doesnt know me, he doesnt know my life. He doesnt know anything about But you know what? He leans forward and raises his arms outward as if to present everything around us to me, his wings of red light stretching along with his gesture. I get it. Its hard out here. Its real hard. So Ive tried to be considerate. Ive given you every chance to meet me halfway, to show me youre actually willing to cooperate and not just pretending to. no, of course he does. Of course hes treating me like some monster he needs to hunt down and lock away. Thats exactly what hed have seen while he was following my trail for however long, smelling me out from my first victims to where we stand now. Its certainly what Tetha saw. But even if he knows, could someone like him, who has everything, ever actually understand? But fact is, I cant trust you. His arms fall back to his sides as he straightens his back. Youve already hurt people. You claim you met Niavh, yet you continued to hurt people. So what if youre just lying to me right now so you can get away? he shrugs questioningly. Im not going to let you just run off with nothing but a promise to do better. Thats not good enough. Not when, if you really wanted to, we could settle this tonight, he points to the ground between us, then throws his arms up, yet youre still here deflecting like youve got something to hide. Im tired. Im so tired. This was already the longest day of my life before the Seraph stormed into it. I cannot possibly settle anything tonight and of all the things I do need to take care of, the things Im trying my worthless best to make better and do better, not one has anything to do with him. What would his hand around my throat do for anyone? So fine. Im a monster. He knows it. I know it. And next to all the horrible things Ive done, both the ones I had to do and the ones I did for no good reason, not turning my life over to the first person who demands it doesnt even make the list. You already know my territory. Even if you didnt, you can smell me out well enough that youve had no trouble stalking me all around the city for however long! I spit. All Im hiding is exactly where I live. If youre mad that I dont want you watching me sleep or barging in on people who have nothing to do with this why? Territory? Move to Rima if you want to fight over territory. We dont do that here. And stalking you? the Seraph exclaims as though its the most absurd thing hes ever heard. You hurt people like a Harbinger would, and Im the bad guy for tracking you down and telling you whats what? You think just cause everyones been looking the other way til now, the moment somebody holds you accountable, youre the victim? Wake up, princess. If you werent a Keeper, youd be a criminal, and since the moment this conversation began, youre the one whos been acting real guilty for someone who wants to be treated like shes innocent. Innocent? I stifle a hoarse laugh and look back up to face him with tear-blurred eyes. Wheres that coming from? Ive done awful things. Im an awful Keeper. An awful person. I know. Im trying to fix it. I just dont need you breathing down my neck to do that! Hes quiet for a moment, his visor simply regarding me silently. If youre really remorseful, if you really want to make amends, youre not an awful person, he says, his voice gentler than before. You have a hard to control power, clearly. I do too. But you can use it to accomplish extraordinary things. Like when you defeated that Harbinger on the eastern fringes of the city. You know that was me and youre still acting like you cant just find me whenever you want? Every Keeper and their mom felt it when that Harbinger flared, he explains. His tone has lost the edge it had before. Of course Ive been looking into it. But I only found you just now. Thats why Im trying to talk with you. I want your side of the story. Do you? A minute ago, it was I cant trust you unless I have your home address and your blood. If all you wanted was my story, you could have it, it sounds like you already do, but what good would that be if you arent going to believe anything I say? I push back. Okay, wait a sec, he holds up a hand as if to halt me. Your blood? Yes. My blood. The feathers you knew enough to I bite back my words before I can finish the thought. How much does he know? He must have followed us to the lake earlier, theres no other way he could have seen them, but if hed actually been there to watch me bleed them out, why wouldnt he have barged in on us right then? I dont have blood anymore, I say. I bleed those. So you see why thats a very weird thing to ask me for? Ohhh. His head tilts back in realization. Weird blood, huh? Same, he nods as though it were nothing surprising. See, how was I supposed to know that? I just found some of them lying around Missing Lake. Right. Well, now you know. Why does he need another, in that case? Doesnt really matter. Maybe the Embrace was bad for them, maybe they just dont last. What does matter What did you want them for, anyway? Theyre pretty, he says plainly. I flinch almost as if Ive been struck. Wha? I mumble as I feel my cheeks heating up and the thrum of my heartbeat tumble between different but equally strange and uncomfortable feelings so fast it makes me dizzy. He thinks theyre pretty? A boy looked at anything about me and thought I was pretty? And that boy was the Stardust Seraph at that? Is whats happening to me even real? and I narrow my slowly drying eyes, because those thoughts racing through my mind all end up in the same place, throwing themselves off a cliff into a bottomless pit. I know better than anyone that things like that dont happen to me although, if they were going to, I guess it makes sense for my weird nightmare blood to be the one appealing thing about me. What is he really thinking? Is this his idea of a joke? So you got all scary because I wouldnt give you a souvenir? Seriously? What do you actually want them for? Well, they are, he insists as he crosses his arms, but I could also use one to find you again if necessary. Since you wont let me walk you home, it was a good fallback option so I could just let you go. And Id have a cute little memento in case everything turned out fine. But then you flipped out and started stomping off without even listening You were in absolutely zero danger right then, by the way. Fine. Maybe I wasnt. But how am I supposed to know what another Keeper can or cant do with my blood? You can already find me. Obviously. So what would you need it for if its not something to hold over me? I ask, trying to brush off that weird thing about how cute my blood is. If you had it now, would you leave me alone? Because you were just saying you needed to drag me to the Sanctuary, and I dont see how that changes unless you can do something dangerous with it. I dont want to be trapped in another glorified cell when I only remembered what freedom felt like a couple months ago. His shoulders slouch. Just dragging you to the Soul Sanctuary and calling it a day is what Ive been trying to avoid this whole time, if I can help it, he says. I cant just find you at the drop of a hat, but if I knew where to look or had one of your feathers, itd mean I could if I needed to, and thatd mean just seeing how things turn out would be fine. Well, not like I want your feathers now that I know itd hurt you, but yeah, I would leave you alone if I had one. Alright, I breathe, wrapping my arms around myself. Let me think. How bad would that be? Theres so much I dont know how long do these feathers last once I bleed them? What could they be used for other than stalking me? How closely does the Seraph plan on watching me once he has one, and what would he do to me and my life if he decides Ive crossed some other line? But if thats it, if thats all it would take for this nightmare day to finally be over If I do this, if can you promise youll leave my home alone? And that neither you or any of your friends have any weird blood-magic rituals they could target me with if they get mad at me? Of course, he agrees outright, a spark of enthusiasm in his voice. I dont plan on showing it off to anybody else anyway. Showing it off fine, nevermind. Can you swear that? I swear it. Only theres no weight behind those words, no subtle shifting in the air. Is he playing dumb? Did he think I wouldnt be able to feel the difference? Im certainly not good enough with people to tell, but benefit of the doubt. Just for now. The way you did it before, please, I say, keeping my voice as level as I can. The binding way. If you want assurances, fine. Thats fair. I think its also fair if I want to make sure Im not baring my throat by giving them. Oh. His response is flat. After a brief pause, he lets out a long sigh as he strokes the back of his hood. I dont think thats a good idea. Its not that simple. Why not? I ask, shifting a hand to the cane at my side. Like, I just casually did that before, but thats because it was a simple and clean situation that got sorted out then and there. I dont know exactly how things are going to play out from here, so making a binding pledge just like that could be really dangerous. You cant take them lightly. I suck down a long, slow breath through my mask. Fine, I say. Committing to something complicated for the rest of forever is a big deal. I can see that. We can make it more specific, then. Hows this? Tonight, Ill give you my blood. Tomorrow morning or as soon as shes available, Ill talk to Niavh about all this. Whats been going on with me, what just went on with you, what Im thinking about how to stop being so terrible. Maybe she hates me after what I did to her sister. I dont know. If she does, at least shed have the right to judge me. And Ill tell her if you ask, she should feel free to share anything about that conversation she thinks is important and say so if she thinks Im still a problem. If she doesnt, you destroy the feathers. If she does do whatever you want, I guess. I can agree to all that, but that doesnt need me to seal a binding pledge, he argues. Theres so many conditions to consider, like what if Niavh never gets back? And I just dont feel comfortable making an oath like this. I did it before out of courtesy, but its just not a good idea here. Not unless we, say, go to the Soul Sanctuary and have Scolai draft out a contract for us or something. Right, then I sigh harshly, clench both hands tightly around my cane, and push myself upright. Things are complicated. Magic is complicated. I understand that. Which is why I dont feel comfortable giving up something that could end up being out there as a weight over my head forever. So rather than leaning on magic, why dont you just call Niavh right now and confirm everything yourself? Shes not available. No one can contact her right now, he says. Stolen story; please report. Why? I press. He strokes the chin of his mask for a moment. I guess this was part of the press releases, so its not exactly private. Shes undergoing an evaluation at Alelsia. You know, as part of her rehabilitation. And she doesnt have her phone on her? The frustration is raw in my voice. You can see why it didnt add up when you mentioned her before he trails off. Just my luck. I cant even reach the one person who offered to help me who might truly understand what Im going through in the moment I need her the most. My mind races through alternatives as I grind the bottom of my cane into the pavement. What about the one Keeper I did explain my problems to? Does she count for anything? Itd feel bad to drag Aisling into this. She has nothing to do with my mistakes. This isnt her problem, Im not her responsibility, and I really dont want to give anyone a reason to think otherwise if this blows up into some awful public spectacle. But if I do bring her up, I can prove that I was already talking to someone about my horrible power and how to use it better. Theres a real chance that makes my case enough for him to back off a little. Even if it doesnt, whats the worst-case scenario for her? Im certain us having talked without her immediately calling the Church on me wouldnt make her somehow culpable for my actions, and I dont think shed care if the Seraphs fans hear the story from him and decide they hate her. The only thing is, Aisling knows where I live. If the Seraph cant get from me that the only place I can possibly live is a hospital, could he get it from her instead? Maybe shes not so happy with me after I messed everything up when we went to find Isobel. Maybe she wont risk herself for my sake by refusing if someone from the Church demands she tells them everything she knows about me. No. I cant think that way. I trusted her enough to tell her. Shes helped me even more than Niavh has in the first place. Even if she thinks everything Ive done is stupid, she was still willing to trust and accept me. The least I can do is return the favor. Okay, then how about Aisling Waite, Truths Lantern. Ill call her instead. Shell vouch for me. You mean, like, using her power? he asks, doubt creeping into his tone. No. We know each other. I talked to her earlier today about my plans. She can confirm everything Ive told you about what I want to do. Right, I suppose she was also at Missing Lake He crosses his arms. Why didnt you just say this before? He sounds annoyed. That makes two of us. I just I didnt want to drag her down into my mess! It hurts to say it out loud. Is that good enough for you? The Seraph flexes his glowing wings silently, seemingly in thought. No. Just because she trusts you, doesnt mean I should, he finally concludes. What? My fingers tighten around the top of my cane like its the Seraphs throat C or my own. Why?! I get you cant trust me, but why not Aisling? She literally cant lie, and she knows if anyone lies to her. Everything she says is guaranteed trustworthy by magic itself! Her ability is incredible, but flawed in all sorts of ways. Theres ways to fool it. And as smart as Truths Lantern is, that doesnt mean shes the best judge of character around, or that her judgment is completely unclouded, he contends. I mean, you only actually thought about this last night, didnt you? he tilts his head again. Casually, cutely. Like a bird examining a curiosity in its nest. Old habits die hard, and you just now decided to quit this one. Id feel safer with some actual insurance in place. Thats ridiculous, I say. I wont just slip and accidentally steal someones health again. Were talking about peoples lives, not biting my nails. And that stopped you before? he says like a knife slid between my ribs. You mean you didnt just slip and accidentally steal Mides health after all? I did that in a Wound, with a pillar of garbage speared through my stomach! Id be dead if I hadnt. Thats not at all the same as thinking Im going to accidentally eat someone on the way home, I snap. Then show me how strong your resolve to change is. He offers me an outstretched hand. Prove to me youre committed. I shrink away from his gesture, feeling ever more cornered against the vehicles he used to block my way. Ive already tried, but its apparently not good enough! You said you wanted to help me, but compared to everybody else, how I feel doesnt matter to you at all. Itd be different if you actually wanted my help, he says, calmer than ever. But the people of New Claris need it. When it comes to magic, they dont have a voice unless a Keeper gives them theirs. Theyre more vulnerable than anyone, so shouldnt we prioritize their safety? Youre right, I say slowly. About one thing. I dont want your help. I dont see how you can call what youre doing right now helping. Hes just shoving everything Im trying to do and everyone whos actually helping out of the way because they arent good enough for him, and at this point, Im too tired to care whats good enough for him. And since you can obviously find me well enough to follow me around and see exactly what Ive been through today, I really dont think its a problem for you if I go sleep off the longest day of my life. A click of his tongue echoes huskily behind his mask. Like I said before, I cant just hunt you down like that, and I cant leave things as is without some insurance. You know, all the people youve used your magic on up ''til now werent exactly comfortable with it either, princess. Im giving you plenty of leeway as it is. I know they werent, I hiss. But the only thing I can do about it is do better. Proving myself to your standards right this second wont change anything for them. So Im going home. Ill reach out to Niavh when I can. I dont need some deal for that to be the right thing. Thats not the only thing you can do and you know it Hey, he calls out. Where do you think youre going? Ive already filled my legs with a little health, turned around, and leapt up onto the hood of one of the cars the Seraph used to block my way. Away. Dont follow me. Im done talking in circles. I hop off the other side of his makeshift blockade and start marching back to the seventh floor. If he doesnt get the hint and keeps tailing me Ill figure something out. Maybe Ill call Aisling for help after all. And thats when a shimmering blur like a mirage spreads out across the street beneath me, forming a puddle of agitated air. When it passes over my boots, their color seems to smear through the air. I can barely tear their soles from the ground. My footfalls become heavy, and I stumble slightly at the sudden resistance to every stride I take. It reminds me of Seryanas grip hanging off my body, weighing me down. My shadow on the road in front of me lengthens as its slowly haloed by a deepening crimson light. I force my neck to turn, glancing behind me to see the Seraph has risen into the air, his wings of sculpted radiance unfurled. With a wave of his hand, the two car barricade parts and the vehicles return to where they were parked before, lifting off the ground in the process just enough to avoid their tires skidding against the pavement. Were still not done here, princess. I gulp through gritted teeth. A few minutes ago, he seemed fine with me going on my way, but he stopped me then, too. Was he trying to mislead me back then? Why is he so persistent? My knuckles go white from the strain of my grip on my cane. I want to take it and thwack him over the head with it. I try to think of something, anything I could say to make him understand, but the words wont come. Every idea just crashes against the feeling that I dont want to do this anymore. I dont want to keep talking. I dont want to be looked at by judging eyes. I dont want to be confined again. I dont want to keep burning my retinas on the glare of his wings. I just want this to be over. I just want to go home. I know its my own fault. I earned this suspicion, this contempt. I knew this could happen. I knew all my mistakes could catch up to me one day. I expected them to, even. But the part of me thats so scared of everything it causes me to corner myself again and again just wont let me turn around and give him a feather. And as much as fear strums against my nerves, another emotion has been heating up inside me every second this conversation has gone on. A scorching feeling that, even when I have something I can actually aim it towards other than myself and my farce of a life, always ends up burning me to cinders in the process. I hate this feeling, but that just makes it even stronger. Im done here, I say, concentrating that feeling between the tips of my fingers as I conceal them close to my chest. I test my legs against the force of the glassy haze holding me to the street. The blur only reaches a little above my ankles, and the space it covers is not much bigger than a puddle left behind after a light rain. If youre gonna act like youre free to do whatever you want, then Ill do the same, he shoots back. I dont bother to find out exactly what he means. I just act. I swivel on my hips and fling the tarot card in my hand at the Seraph behind me. Whoa! he shouts as he turns aside in midair to dodge my surprise attack. In the moment hes caught off guard, I flood my frail legs with life and force them above the shimmering air that was weighing me down with a leap. Like I thought, the moment Im outside the area of that mirage, my movement returns to normal. When my feet touch down on the street beyond, I make a break for it, dashing away as fast as my strides will carry me. Aw, come on, princess, he calls out in lament. Why we gotta do this the hard way? Maybe Im just making everything worse for myself like usual, but if the only options hes giving me are bad ones, whats even the difference? If I just give in, Ill have no choice but to go along with whatever he wants. Hes bigger than me in every way; at the end of the day, hes the one with the final word. If I escape, theres at least a chance things will go my way. If he catches me, hell just do whatever he planned to do from the start, so I might as well try. All I need to do, then, is figure out how to get away from someone who can fly, and who seems to be unbelievably faster than I am. Which sounds like a terrible plan, but what else can I do? Ill just need to hide somehow. If he wasnt lying about having trouble finding me without one of my blood-feathers, then maybe he wont be able to sense me if I dismiss my regalia. And then what? Sorry, Aisling. I may have to drag you into this after all. She should still be awake? She might still be waiting for me to call her back with an update on the Seryana situation, and she doesnt look like she sleeps all that much anyway. Maybe if I can meet up with another Keeper, the Seraph will stand down for now. With that in mind, I shift my attention back to my pursuer. I feel him getting farther away with every step I take, but his presence remains, looming at my back, though not nearly so oppressively as when we were face to face. I turn around to see what hes up to, and I find a vacant street, stretching past the rubble Seryana was born from. I look ahead to make sure the Seraph hasnt zipped in front of me like the last time I tried to get away from him. Since I started running, Ive been planning to double back and wind down the side streets when he does it again but hes not moved to cut me off, either. In fact, the red glow of his wings is no longer flooding the streets with its radiance from anywhere. Still, just to be sure, I look up. Nothing but tall buildings and the night sky. I skid to a halt and look back behind myself a second time. The Stardust Seraph has disappeared into thin air. But I can still sense traces of him lingering in the background like the distant hum of traffic beyond my seventh floor window. I dont know where hes gone, but I dont let my guard down. Its never that easy. I focus on his aura amidst the chorus of everything around it. It pulses through me as though alive. I think back to Seryanas death, the way he appeared from nowhere when I first saw him. I know youre there! I call into the night. Go away already! Wow, your senses really are good, huh? his disembodied voice casually replies. Above and before me, the air contorts in the shape of a silhouette. As if it were painted on to the world, the scenery of the streetway I see peels away to reveal the form of the Seraph float there, now wingless. Hes taken a lounging posture in the air, laying on his side while propping his head up with his hand. Well, I should have expected. This usually only works when they dont know Im around. Ive never been sure if my magical senses are only unusually good at sniffing out Harbingers. Im still not. But for a trick like that, at least, theyre enough. My soul sees so much more than my eyes. Was hoping youd think I didnt have the guts to fight another Keeper and gave up after a little show of force. But in a way, Im glad you hold me to a higher standard, he says, flipping over in mid-air as he corrects his hovering posture. I didnt come here wanting to be your enemy, you know, but youre not really giving me much of a choice. Then just leave me alone! I cry out, my voice trembling from the strain of everything Ive gone through today. He lets out a sigh of frustration. I cant just let you leave when you might be a threat to public safety. He says, sweeping a flattened hand from his chest outwards. With just that gesture, feathers of red light blink into being all around him and quickly spiral back into the shape of his wings. Which, by the way, is looking even more likely now that you just went and attacked me. I cant afford to give you the benefit of the doubt. Not when someone else might be the one who pays the price. I glower up at the Seraph, fling another empty card at him, and move to bolt down the nearest alley. Before I even get there, however, a roll-off dumpster lined up against one of the buildings that make up its sides skids out to cram the entire pathway. I keep running forward, preparing to try and vault over the latest obstacle the Seraph has put in my way, but before I can, the dumpsters top flings open and stands at attention, becoming too tall for me to reasonably clear with a natural jump. Not unless I feel like getting mixed in with all the other garbage. Where are you gonna go, anyway? he questions. You cant get rid of me. Anyone who sees us will understand the situation if I just explain who you are. This wouldve been so much easier if you just let me walk you home like were pals. We can still do that, you know. I can be discreet. Yeah, youve really shown off your talent for that, you My thoughts race in circles as I do my best to catch the horrible feelings racing through me and put them to words. You dick! You walnut! Where did that come from? Whatever. Im too exasperated to even be embarrassed. He floats there silently, bobbing up and down as though suspended by wires, seeming at a loss for words. This moment of grace ends all too soon. You know, I cant even get mad when its your voice squeaking it out. I really, really want to take my cane and thwack him over the head with it. Look, we can make this a fight if you really want, he continues, or I can just forget you lashing out those last two times, escort you home, and well call it even. Last chance. Hes right. I could just let him walk me home. Hes a well known and trusted Keeper. His reputation is one of the best in the entire city. Just going by that alone, theres no reason to distrust him. But hes an asshole, so I do anyway. I summon my tarot spread to answer his proposal. In an instant, a procession of twenty-two cards emerges from behind me and spirals around my body until it meets its end at my back, forming a ring. The Stardust Seraph reacts immediately, putting distance between us. When he moves, hes abruptly dragged backwards as though by an invisible rope around his waist. Unlike the last two cards Ive called out, four of this volley are already poisoned, drawn from the pool of cards Ive infected preemptively in case I happen to get into trouble. Although Ive been storing a full deck of cards filled with my plague on hand just so theyre ready to go when I need them to be, I didnt want to have to use them on one of the biggest Keepers in the city if I could help it. If we really are going to fight, though, then I cant hold back. Yet Aislings words from earlier in the day still echo through my mind. Eyna, Shona, you should both take the longest breaks you reasonably can from any active use of your power. Spend time with people you care about. Do things you like, as long as those things have nothing to do with magic. A pit forms in my stomach where all my hopes for the future go to die. Well, you asked for it, the Seraph says. Sure, we can play a little bit. All at once, every card in my orbit is torn from its place, ripped right out from around me. I wanted to see what you could do anyway. This is as good a chance as any. I Dont Think Im A Good Person 7-6 My cards are drawn as if magnetized to a spot between the Seraph and I, level with his position but a fair distance to his right. They form a haphazard stuck-together pile rotating around in the air. Before I have a chance to process whats going on, a flash of red light blinds my left eye for less than a second. A sharp whistling sound starts low and rises in an instant to a fever pitch before dying on the wind as it sails past my ear, nicking its edge. I stagger as my hand reaches to my earlobe and closes around a burst of tiny downy feathers. I flood them with magic and feel them rot away to nothing in my grip, just to make sure the Seraph cant have them. I look behind to see what just sped past my face. Embedded in the pavement is one of the Seraphs sculpted-light feathers, shedding its crimson glow. Seeing one of them up close, I notice the feathers edges look thin and razor sharp. Its tip was keen enough to lodge it into concrete. Theres a sting like a paper cut where the Seraphs feather just barely grazed my ear. It could have jabbed my eye out instead. The feather bursts into sparks which blink away without a sound, and I turn back to face its origin. The Seraph looms with his hand outstretched towards me once again. Rather than an open palm, its as if hed flung one of his feathers like a dart. Like how I would fling one of my cards. The Seraphs wings must be his implement, his version of my orbiting cards. Has he been on guard with his weapon poised against me this entire time, and hes just been pretending otherwise? What are you doing? The words spill out of my mouth. Are you actually trying to kill me?! Hey, you started it, he calls back, as if my cards even had a chance of hitting their mark, let alone scratching him. He pays the tarot pile he swiped from me a short glance, and the cards cease their rotation and straighten themselves neatly into a deck, remaining suspended in the air. If you really wanna get dangerous, we can get dangerous. But youre crazy if you think you can beat me. Its pointless to even try. So just come along quietly and we can get this sorted out. Youll thank me later. It sounds like hes discarded walking me home and is just going to drag me wherever he pleases. Youre the crazy one if you think Ill go with you after you nearly stabbed me in the eye! Good thing I wasnt aiming for your eye, then, the Seraph answers matter-of-factly. Theres no way that would have happened. How do you know? I never miss my mark. Thats just how it is, he says with flawless confidence. Now, what do you say? I can only glare up at him in reply. He seems to be waiting for me to answer his latest demand, as if theres anything more to say. I take stock of the situation while hes giving me the chance. I can sense the point in the air where the Seraph has collected the cards I summoned its a concentration of his magic, similar to when he crucified Seryana and started turning her inside out. I guess this time its attuned to me in some way. Hopefully he cant pull my guts out just like that, but something tells me that if he could just drag me around however he wanted, he wouldnt have to go to so much trouble trying to convince me to go with him while finding ways to pin me down in the meantime. Maybe theres some condition he has to meet before he can affect me directly, like how thoroughly Ive got to contaminate a Harbinger before I can drain its health. I can still feel my cards at the point theyve been gathered mostly the same as usual, too. Its a little like my fight with Tetha, when she managed to capture one of my cards in a sphere of water. My will still reaches my cards from afar, but they feel heavy. Incredibly heavy, weighed down to that spot. The pressure on them is constant, and its difficult to get them to budge. Almost like hes grabbed me by the wrist and has me held there, and all I can do is struggle against his strength. Whats worse is that despite disarming me, hes keeping his distance from the cards as if he already knows what the infected ones can do. If he had them close by, then I might be able to catch him off guard by detonating them, but theres no point in releasing my scourge if hes too far away to be engulfed by the resulting plague-mist. Where he is now, hes just far enough to make escaping on reaction easy. Does he somehow already know enough about my magic to prepare against it, or is it something else? Even if he does know how I fight, though, theres something hes overlooked. Without sparing another word, I immerse my body in my stored health and sprint to the left of the Seraph C opposite of where hes gathered my deck C and start putting distance between us again. Oh? Gotta tucker yourself out some more? he mocks, turning his neck to follow my movement before his entire body revolves smoothly in the air to face me again. I dont wait for him to react. The moment Ive found a decent angle, I simply dismiss all my cards and resummon them around me. They vanish from the point hes drawn them to and reappear back in my orbit. But the invisible force drawing them to that single point the Seraph anchored in the world hasnt yet disappeared. I figured as much. Thats why the moment my tarot cards manifest around me again, I launch them all at once. The only outside force acting on my cards is sending them towards that one specific spot the Seraph has chosen, so before they reach it, I have little trouble moving them in any other direction I choose, so long as theyre also still moving towards it. And since my cards are constantly being drawn toward a specific spot, I can guide their path to pass through where the Stardust Seraph currently is by putting myself between him and that point. I can hit him even as hes tearing my cards away. In fact, the force thats pulling them makes their flight towards their target even faster. As though tossed into the sky and blown away on a passing gale, the deck scatters at my command. Some of the cards dart straight through the air at whatever angle Ive managed to direct them to, while others twirl on their sides like spinning blades as I spread them further from my main volley, causing them to fly in more of an arc than a straight line. I try to hold some of my cards back against the pull of the Seraphs anchor with my will, and while I cant entirely stop them from being sucked in, I do manage to delay their travel, slowing how fast they go compared to the other cards. Some cards I hold back harder than others, so theyll arrive at different times rather than all at once. Riding on the same blinding speed he disarmed me with before, I barrage the Seraph from every angle. He folds his arms behind his back as one card races towards him, then casually turns aside to evade its path. In the same movement, he slides backwards through the air into what looks like a wide gap in the wave of tarot cards Ive unleashed and right into the blast zone of one of the four blighted cards Id conjured with this deck. I dont know what Tethas condition was after I afflicted her, but I know shes still alive, and right now, thats good enough for me. If Tetha could survive this, then Im sure the Stardust Seraph can. I just hope its enough to even slow him down. Right as I will that diseased card to detonate, though, the Seraph suddenly shoots in the direction opposite of it at incredible speed, like a crimson comet traced across the sky. He escapes the cloud of noxious fog that bursts forth, twirling once as he moves to deflect a blank card his path happens to cross off one of his wings. Hes too slippery. Im not done yet, though. The Seraphs course takes him safely outside the range of two of my other blighted cards, but Ive held back the fourth and last one as long as I could, saving it for the end. Its now arcing through the air, about to draw close to the Seraphs current position. Its not as close as he was to the last card I burst, but if he keeps moving in the direction he is right now, hell fly right into the plague-cloud that blooms from it. I time the explosion perfectly, but at the very last second, the Seraph bounces upwards off empty air, skirting the edge of the cloud of illness for a moment before completely escaping its reach. He passes behind the point where hes once again gathered all the cards I flung at him, then comes to a sudden halt. That wont work, princess! he calls out to me. He sounds like hes enjoying himself. But hes also right where I want him, finally close enough to the anchor point that I just might catch him. Yet, before I have the chance to use the next two infected cards, both of them slide out of the floating deck and hit the street below like a pair of falling rocks. He made a second anchor point on the streets right below the original one. I can feel it. The only difference is, this one only draws my corrupted cards towards it, dividing them from the blank cards. Hes already figured me out. I grit my teeth. As the toxic mist from the previous two bursts gradually swells outwards, forming a curtain of smog between me and the Seraph thats slowly drawing closed, I detonate the two remaining blighted cards to speed up the process. Emerald haze rises up, joining the two disparate clouds and engulfing the street. Before he and the red glow that halos him disappear behind the encroaching wall of infectious fog, the Seraph falls back and folds his wings around his body as if to shield himself. I whirl around and start running on my aching legs, filling my lungs with rough, ragged breaths each stride I take. My sweat runs cold in the chill night air. My eyes flit from one side of the street to the other. This brief moment could be my only chance to escape. Itll take a second for the Seraph to rise over the miasma, which could give me just enough time to duck into an alley and find a place to hide. If I dismiss my regalia, he might lose track of me. That might at least give me enough time to call Aisling. But Ive barely gone half the length of a street before a crimson shimmer cuts through the shroud of my fog, flashing against the vapors like lightning in an overcast sky. I turn back to see the wall of smog Id created collapsing into itself, shrinking towards a single point as though vacuumed out of the air. Just floating there is a black speck, a pinprick hole in the world all my plague-mist is spiraling into like water down a drain. Once more revealed from behind the curtain of my fog, the Seraph is pointing ahead of himself, twirling his outstretched index finger in the shape of a spiral. The miasma is cleared from the streets, and the little black speck it vanished into blinks out of being in a flicker of red. The Seraph reclines backwards in the air and crosses his legs as though taking a seat, wavering slightly as if perched on a swing. He glides toward me in that relaxed pose. The point where hes captured all my cards moves in tandem with him, always maintaining the same safe distance. Man, youre so dramatic, princess. If you were actually that tired, youd think youd just give in. Why are you doing all this, really? Some weird sense of pride? Youre completely Mary-ing out on me right now, you know? I can only stare up at the Keeper who just completely evaded my attack without a single scratch and did it all as if it were easy. I dont have any thoughts to spare for whatever nonsense hes asking me right now. Everything I have is dedicated to keeping my knees from buckling under my own weight. He seems to pick up on my loss for words. So, hows that offer from before sound about now? Worse the harder you push it. The Seraph sighs. Cute. Right then. He raises his arm and flicks up his wrist. With that motion alone, the world around him answers to his call. In front of a streetside restaurant, a section of the sidewalk and road has been cordoned off and arranged with plastic tables and chairs under the shade of parasols to make a modest seating area. On the other side of the street, theres a construction project similar to the one that tore down the house Seryana was born from C it even looks like the same company. From both these places, dozens of objects lift up off the ground and zip straight to positions arrayed around the Seraph, where they begin rolling in place almost like debris in a storm. Tables and chairs and empty flower pots join traffic cones, construction barrels, and a caution easel or two, all revolving in the air. Lets make a wager, he says, surrounded on all sides by his jumble of whatever happened to be nearby. If you can actually beat me, Ill let you go. If I can get you to give up, then youll come along with me. Whoever gives up first gives in, no arguments. And hows that different from just making me go by force? I shoot back, however pointlessly. Theres a pause for just a moment before he gives his deadpan reply. Huh, I wonder? He swats his hand out as though batting away a fly, and thats all it takes for the medley of junk hes beckoned to launch at me all at once. A plastic table big enough for me to use as a bed flies straight at me, barreling down the street like a speeding car. I hardly have any time to dodge, and even if I did, I would just be stumbling into whatever else hes hurled my way. All I can think to do in the moment is fall backwards, scrunch myself into a ball, and hope Im conscious after it crashes over me. A second passes. Then another. The impact never comes. I peek my head out from between my arms to find the table frozen in the air, completely still. Hah. Made you flinch, he says like its all just a schoolyard prank. A-are you actually insane? I choke out between panicked gasps. How much of your time as a big fancy hero do you spend torturing people for fun? His shoulders slouch at my words. I didnt even hit you, princess, he answers coldly. And I doubt Id be having a fun time if you managed to hit me, either, if Tetha is anything to go by. Rather than simply running me over, all the objects in the Seraphs onslaught have spread out to surround me at a distance, forming a ring thats boxing me in from every angle. They begin to swirl around me slowly, almost like Im in the center of a merry-go-round, every impromptu projectile continuing to roll through the air as it moves along with the flow. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I know to watch out when it comes to you. You stopped that flaring Harbingers ritual, after all. Still, that doesnt mean Im going to blow up another Keeper just cause. Im trying to show you what youre up against. If you dont like what you see, then yield. Otherwise, square up. I dont respond immediately, simply wiping away the tears I dont have time for. If I just sit here for a bit, hell probably give me a moment to think, secure knowing hes got me right where he wants me. But Im not mulling over whether to surrender or not, like Im sure he hopes. The only thing on my mind is how to get out of this. I clutch my chest and steady my breathing as I try to consider everything I have at my disposal. Come on, Liadain. Dont panic. Think. Ive been in much worse situations than fighting this guy, whos supposedly not even trying to kill me. There has to be something, anything I can do right now to catch him off guard and turn the tables. Yurfalns power-from-pain wont help me much. It puts more strain on my body than any other magic I have to my name. I certainly cant rely on it the way I did against Aulunla; if I push myself any farther over the edge than I already have today, Ill be overwhelmed by Emergence in more ways I cant control, just as Aisling warned. I would be so much faster, stronger, better if I walked the tightrope between life and death Yurfaln lived on, though. Im not sure I would be an actual match for the Stardust Seraph even then, but it would certainly make this more of a fight, rather than something like a tomcat batting around a mouse between his paws. It would have made it easy to dodge through his entire barrage from before. I just would have done it, just by willing myself to. Given I could resist the pull he has on my cards to some extent already, Im sure I could actually seize my cards from his grip, too, at least with how much force the anchor point is currently exerting on them. But Im certain that if I embraced Yurfalns ideal right now, something would happen to me that there would be no coming back from. Ive never felt less human than when I was in that state. What I gained from Aulunlas heart doesnt give me much to work with, either. Theres something deeper to its curse than simply understanding Harbingers better, something intrinsic to its nature, but I havent had the time to explore how to use it. I certainly dont now. The magical perception Irakkias morsels earned me doesnt seem especially suited to the situation. Transferring the vision from one of my eyes into a card and controlling it remotely seems good for scouting, but it would disorient me more than it helps. I dont even know if it could help at all, not while the Seraph has control of where all my cards end up anyway. Maybe the key to that lies in figuring out the rules and limits behind whatever power hes using to control my cards in the first place. The Seraphs powers seem completely overwhelming to me C fast, impossible to challenge, and capable of overcoming anything I throw at them but even though he seems to have the power to fling anything around him however he wants with only his thoughts, how come he never just picks me up and holds me in place? That would end this instantly. The answer is simple: he cant do that. Just like I cant just drain a Harbinger of its health like I can a normal person. Its hard to directly interfere with other beings of magic when theyre resisting you. You have to dig your claws into them somehow first. What does that say about Mide, then, who I can drain as easily as I can any normal person? I dont have any time to spare thinking about that. Which leaves the latest heart Ive swallowed. Does Seryana have anything for me? When I search inside myself, feeling the shape of Seryanas soul and the dying thoughts she left with me, I get an abstract sense of the new way my power has grown through hers. And when I do, everything clicks into place. I may have missed my chance to swallow the entirety of Irakkias heart when I split it with Mide, but it did start my magic down a particular path. A path Seryanas heart is all too eager to lead me down. Id thought that Seryana and Irakkia had similar tricks before, even if Seryana couldnt twist perception as freely as Irakkia until later. She could intrude into my dreams, and even inflict nightmares in the waking world after she donned that mask, similar to Irakkias mental attacks Im not sure I understand how much the two of them truly shared, beyond their desperate rejection of the cruel reality in which they found themselves trapped, but where Irakkias lost and broken truth once ended within me like a road into a chasm, Seryanas connects and continues on, their hearts building on one another with my magic as the foundation. This could be it. This could be my key to victory. Its something the Seraph would never expect. Could using this new expression of my magic be doing exactly what Aisling warned me against? Maybe, but if Im careful and keep things small, theres no way itll affect me the way betting everything on Yurfalns power would. The only problem is that whether the Stardust Seraph expects something or not doesnt seem to actually matter. He might only have been doing this for a couple years, but thats an eternity next to my couple of months. Hes much more experienced than me. Hes clearly prepared for any sneak attack I might muster. Hes had no trouble seeing through every last attack Ive made so far. Well? the Seraph asks, his patience finally starting to wear thin. I conjure my cane, pick myself up on wobbling limbs, and look up through the jumble of floating debris to stare daggers at him. Burning an inner candle of the stolen life that got me into this mess in the first place, I spread my legs out and raise my free arm defensively to show him this isnt over yet. I dont think theres any point in trying to get him to lower his guard by pretending to surrender. Out of all the bad things I can say about the Seraph right now, the one thing he definitely isnt is stupid. Still, hes playing around like this is some game, and that means hes not fighting like his life depends on it. Like mine does. He lets out a chuckle and simply says, Alright then, before flicking a finger at the empty air. A cold shock jolts up my spine. Faintly, I feel his magic lashing out at me from behind. I duck down and fall to my knees, and immediately watch as a construction barrel hurtles overhead before passing back into the ring of churning debris. W-what? If I had been a second slower, that heavy drum would have bashed me over the head and planted my face into the pavement. Just the realization it came so close to hitting me makes my black blood turn to ice in my veins. No matter how I look at it, I would have died. This fragile body of mine would have broken into pieces and Id have died. The image of my corpse lying sprawled out against the street, a great raven of plague and hunger and malice ripping out from within before being crushed beneath the Seraphs power flashes through my mind. The only reason that premonition died as nothing but a nightmare in my thoughts is because I sensed the Seraphs attack and dodged at the very last moment. I turn widened eyes back up to the Seraph. The impenetrable tint of his vizor gives nothing away. Were all his words just lies? I thought he was just going to try to wear me down until I couldnt fight anymore. Ive done terrible things to people, but I dont deserve to be treated like the latest incarnation of Sofia the Deathless, do I? Unless they were a real menace, a clear and present danger to everyone around them, killing a Keeper would be a disaster even for the Seraph, wouldnt it? Maybe not. Maybe hes gotten away with this before. After all, all the violence connected to Mary Hyland was buried until nothing remained but conspiracy tracts on the Coral Sea. If the Church would go that far to protect some random new Keeper, how much further would they go to protect their golden boy? Another gesture from the Seraph draws six chairs from the rings swirling flow and into the air above me. I spring back to my feet and dodge frantically as the chairs rain down one after another towards my position, clacking harshly against the street with each impact. My constant drip feed of health keeps me nimble despite how tired I am. Next come three dusty traffic cones thrusting towards me like torpedoes, all disappearing back into the ring once Ive avoided them. He immediately launches six more, this time coming at me from every angle. Half of them seem to speed by harmlessly, just orange blurs coursing through the air to confuse me; I lunge behind one of the chairs hes left inside the ring to escape the rest, guessing he wont have aimed his attacks towards something that would cut them off mid-flight. Im right, and the three traffic cones sail past me. Before I can congratulate myself, however, the chair shifts to the side, making way for a seventh traffic cone. I push upright on my cane just in time for the cones tip to slam into my stomach. All the air is forced out of my lungs from the blow. The cone just keeps traveling forward as I fall away. Im knocked backwards and skid across the road. A piercing, tender ache spreads out across my belly. It starts dull and then becomes searing. My throat chokes on the pain and smothers the cries I couldnt have made anyway on account of my lungs being empty. But theres no time to dwell on any of that, because even with my eyes blurring with another round of agonized tears, I can still sense a point of the Seraphs magic shifting just above me. I roll to the side as another plastic chair slams down, probably trying to pin me underneath its legs. My entire body winces with pain each time my belly touches the ground. I quickly salve the hurt with a fresh injection of stored health. Despite everything, there arent so many wounds for my stolen strength to wipe away no gaping hole in my gut; no cold gnawing agony of my own magic eating me from the inside out; not even the inescapable nauseous misery of infusion days. Not enough to stop me from scrambling through the onslaught and doing the only thing I can do: think. Between waves of chairs, traffic cones, flower pots, construction barrels, and more, I consider what I actually know for a fact about what the Stardust Seraph can do. Everyone knows he has power over light and can fly. Thats obvious just from those obnoxious glowing wings of his. But just like with Aislings ability to ask the world questions, its not like theres any public information about how he does those things. He can clearly do much more than control light and levitate himself. The power the Seraph is using to force my cards to a specific place is the same one hes using to fling all this junk at me. Each of the projectiles the Seraph is tossing around right now is affected by a separate point, invisible to everything but my magical senses, thats pulling them towards a particular spot. The Seraph isnt moving the objects themselves, but the points theyve been bound to, and the objects just happen to move along with them. I can almost sense these points in motion if I focus, predicting what direction hes attacking from but its a rough, vague, sense; an eerie chill creeping up the back of my neck that warns me where not to dodge as Im pelted from every angle. Its hard to focus on it while Im gathering my thoughts. Whatever hes doing here might be how he can fly, too but its not just levitation. He can make things heavier and even crush them. Unlike when hes moving objects from one place to a point hes chosen, when hes used his magic to weigh things down, its spread out as a field of hazed-over air, shimmering like a twilight mirage. As a plastic drum and several empty flower pots whirl past me as though caught in a windstorm, I start to wonder. Maybe making things float and forcing them against the ground are just two sides of the same coin, and this field is something he got from a Harbinger, building off his original magic the same way the hearts Ive eaten have built off mine. Maybe the only thing hes doing is changing how heavy things are but in different directions. The invisible points formed from his magic are like anchors that draw objects to them, after all. What if light isnt what hes about at all? It could just be one expression of his power, the same way I just happen to be able to control my cards. From everything Ive seen tonight, could what hes actually controlling be gravity? My thoughts racing, I duck under an upended table as it spins overhead like a giant frisbee. Throughout the endless days Ive spent in hospital beds, one of the only things I had to pass my remaining time was read. Across the countless pages Ive turned, I know Ive had gravity explained to me at least once. I still dont really get it. But I do know its the law that says everything that goes up is destined to fall back to the earth; a law the Seraph defies whenever he seems to feel like it. Can you control light with gravity to sculpt it into feathers? Does it matter if you can when it comes to magic? Maybe its something he can just do like I can just summon my cards. I dont know. The Seraphs onslaught is becoming more intense. The improvised armory of random junk he picked up off the side of the road catapults at and around me in organized patterns. First he draws out half the plastic chairs from the swirling junk ring surrounding me and lines them up in a row on one side of it, their legs hovering just a millimeter off the street; with a swipe of his hand, the chairs all rush forward, raking across the breadth of the ring. I rush towards the attack myself, leaping onto the seat of one of the chairs and using it as a stepping stone to vault over its back and right into the path of an oncoming construction barrel. I throw my arms in front of my face before Im bunted out of the air by a dull, hollow impact. I land hard on my back for the second time since this ordeal began, and stagger up with my cane twice as quickly. Im not going to give the Stardust Seraph the slightest hint that I might be slowing down, that what hes doing is working. And its good that Im quick on the recovery, because the line of chairs he sent my way before is now coming right back at me, moving in reverse. I rush towards the throng once again and, right as theyre about to run me down, I dig the end of my cane into the pavement and use its leverage to force my light body into the air. I lift my cane off the ground as well just as the backs of the chairs pass under me before finally landing safely on the other side. The sound of clapping rings out through the night. Well done, princess. Finally getting into the groove? Maybe. Im sure Im getting better at squirming through his debris, if only thanks to him pushing me this far. Thanks to all the strength Ive stolen, all the pain Ive caused thats now going to waste humoring the Seraph. So I say nothing. I just dart my eyes around the ring, ready to deal with whatever the Seraph sends at me next, and find the various types of plastic objects that make it up have been arranged into different circles, each a separate layer in the overall ring. Even the height and speed each circle is revolving at is different. Chairs, traffic cones, pots, and construction barrels have all been divided into their own orbits, with the outermost layer composed of the eight tables he picked up from the restaurant, their foldable legs curled into their bottoms. Above it all, the two caution easels rotate in a windmill spin, their frames splayed out like open flip books. The Seraph drifts lazily beyond, lounging against one of his wings as he hangs in the air. I cant see his face through his mask, but his visor is trained directly on me and the arena hes boxed me into. He must have been organizing the objects with each attack he made, and I simply didnt notice until now. The sight of this chaotic surge of shabby, grit-encrusted rubbish having shifted into an orderly waltz while I wasnt paying attention is so absurd it almost breaks my concentration. This has to be something hes practiced doing before. Its just too coordinated not to be. Unlike in the Wounds, the world around us isnt malleable. Both of our powers are more limited in what they can achieve here. If I can infest a Wound with my plague and rot it from the inside out, Shona can engulf them in a storm, and the Seraph is already able to bend gravity to his whim like this, I can only imagine what he can do in the patchwork world of a Harbinger. If his power really is based on gravity, he seems to be able to target whatever he chooses individually. But how is he able to distinguish between those targets? Maybe he can do it by sight but he could also distinguish my blighted cards from my blank cards and separate them that way. Back when he crucified Seryana, it seemed like he was concentrating his magic at that point and tuning it to her somehow. It was the same way with how he gathered up all my cards It was probably the same way when he vacuumed up my wall of plague-mist. After all, its not like I felt any breeze rushing past me and into that hole hed poked in the world. There was no suction on the air. The only thing affected was the fog. Shona told me before that the Seraph can sense Harbingers from miles away. When it came to dealing with magic, like when he tore open Seryana and stole my cards, maybe the way hes attuning these points of gravity to his targets is based on the auras he senses? That would even explain how he was able to divide my tarot deck between blank and blighted cards, creating specific anchor points for each; my blighted cards are more strongly concentrated with me. Of course. If his senses are really that good, its no wonder he could tell which of my cards were imbued with my blight and get out of their way before they were a threat. He was just teasing me back then, intentionally drawing right into their range and then leaping out of the way before they could even graze him. It must be even easier for him than it is for me to sense the points where his magic is most concentrated. Just like I could sense Rolands presence even when he was invisible and hard to pinpoint, he should be able to sense attacks with my cards before they happen. If thats the case, then no matter what angle I come at him from, hell be able to anticipate that direction and react accordingly. Even if I attack from multiple angles at once, its hopeless. He can buzz around however he wants and dodge or deflect anything I throw at him on reaction. But that also means that his focus is trained on keeping track of me and my magic. If an aura feels especially different from mine, Im sure hed pick up on it, but maybe he wont notice it immediately. So rather than cards filled to the brim with my illness, bursting with my unique flavor of curse, what if I instead used one filled with something else entirely? A scourge extracted from the corpse of a demon. A card Ive been holding in reserve since the first time I struggled for my life in this world of magic and nightmares. The disease I ripped from Yurfaln, the purpose behind its being. I Dont Think Im A Good Person 7-7 My dad took me to a museum for my birthday once. Before my illness truly started to take its toll. Before I truly understood what it meant to die. Back when I still had friends. Even though it couldnt have been more than a few years ago, it feels like such a long time has passed since then. But then, a few years ago could cover an entire third of my life. The museum was dedicated to the studio behind a particular animated movie I was obsessed with back then. The movie was about a group of secondary school girls from different walks of life coming together to join an expedition headed to the Freezing Sea. Each had their own reasons for coming along, but they all shared the same determination. The main character was just a normal teenage girl a little older than I am now, but she was convinced she wasnt living her life to the fullest, so she wanted to make the most of her youth by getting involved with something big and going on an adventure. At this museum, there was a weird little toy they had on display. They called it a zoetrope. There were eight cylinders mounted on top of each other like a wedding cake, each narrower than the one below it, and perched on top of each was a series of sculptures arranged in a circle. The sculptures were all of characters from the famous movies the studio had made. Each circle was dedicated to a different character, and only that character, each sculpture of them within their circle posed slightly different than the one beside it. The whole arrangement began to spin. Faster, faster, until it was all nothing but a blur. Then, the lights started to flicker, and something strange happened. It looked like all the sculptures, each and every one, had come to life. It was like how pictures in a flip book showed a drawing of the same thing on each page, but in just a slightly different pose or place, so when you flipped through, it looked like the image was really moving. These werent just pictures, though. They were really there, right in front of me. The flickering lights made the characters motions stick in the eye for just a moment, giving the sense they were standing in place, while each sculpture was rapidly replacing the last one, making them appear to be moving on their own. It was mesmerizing. I remember that day vividly. I remember how warm my dads hand felt in mine. I remember my friends staring at the display, just as fascinated as I was. Its one of my happiest memories. So of course I ruin that memory by recalling it now, as the Seraphs crimson glow above and the dim light of the lamps lining the street dance off the shapes of the junk thats come to revolve around me. Its all like one big zoetrope, and Im the centerpiece. The first and lowest layer is the traffic cones, floating only an imperceptible sliver of space off the ground. Theyre followed by the construction barrels behind and above them, forming a sort of wall. Then comes the plastic chairs, and between those and the tables they were originally arranged around are a few empty flower pots of different shapes and sizes. There I stand, in the gaps in time the Stardust Seraph has spared me between hunks of plastic zooming through the air to barrel me over, processing what exactly Im about to resort to. Im planning to infect another Keeper with the corpse-rot of a Harbinger. I killed Yurfaln by slurping the illness it was born from into my own veins. The next morning, when I realized it was still eroding me away inside, I squeezed it from my body like I was draining an abscess and soaked up the corruption that spewed out with one of my cards. Even months later, the disgusting sensation of when I dragged my first Harbingers remnants to the surface of my soul still lingers in my mind. I still have its disease stored away, waiting harmlessly within its card in some corner of my soul. I had planned on using it against Aulunla when it ran rampant in its final moments, but I ended up not needing to. Now, I have practically nothing to resort to but it. Between the curse left on Yurfalns dying breaths and the twisted blessing Seryanas heart granted me, could that be enough to overcome the Seraph somehow, someway, without risking spontaneous Emergence? Its not pushing myself. Its not plumbing new depths of my magic. Its just using something I have left over. After snaking through the latest wave of obstacles the Seraph has sent whirling my way, however, I notice something bad. The Seraphs layered rings of assorted clutter are slowly closing in on me. With each new volley that returns to its matching ring, the objects composing its layers press closer to the center C to me, trimming away what precious little space I have to maneuver. If I dont act on everything Ive been thinking about soon, I might never get the chance. In the panic that follows that realization, one of the eight plastic tables in the outermost ring shoots towards me, clamoring as it knocks aside all the other floating objects separating us. I move to give the latest giant disk as wide a berth as possible, but thats when I stumble, one of my feet cemented firmly to the ground. I only notice the glint of agitated air thats spread out across the pavement beneath me like an oil slick far too late. Just like the first time the Seraph caught me with this trick of his, I jerk forward, planting my free foot onto the street and the hazy puddle of his distortion. The blur is spread out over only a thin layer across the ground, but the force behind it is far more intense than the last time he tried to weigh me down. Im stuck like a bug caught in fly paper, and the Seraph is bringing his swatter down on me. I dont know if its a trick of my own mind as it hopelessly watches disaster draw closer with each moment, or something the Seraph is making happen, but the table coming at me seems to slow down, if only by a margin. Its about level with my waist, and its legs are folded into its bottom just like the Seraph has done with the others. Even with my movements restrained like this, I could easily duck under the table C Ive done it several times already. If I do that now, though, Ill be right where the Seraph wants me. If my hands touch the ground at any point, theyll be glued to the street the same as my feet. Im not exactly the picture of dexterity on my best days, and if I try just to crouch while my boots are fixed awkwardly in place, I risk losing my balance and touching the ground with even more of my body anyway. Even if I pulled it off, Id still be left with no way to protect myself against whatever the Seraph tries to hit me with next while Im trying to stand back up. In the first place, he could always just stop the table over my head and lower it down on me until I was forced to touch the ground and there would be nothing I could do. So I cant duck. Itll all be over if I do. But if I let the table hit me, Ill be knocked flat against the street anyway, and I can only hope the distortion or my boots have enough give that my ankles dont shatter in the process. Theres no way out. The Seraph is trying to checkmate me here. Is that why the table seemed to slow down, because Ive already fallen into his trap? But theres something different about this distortion from the last one the Seraph used to weigh me down. Theres no uncomfortable sensation of my toes being scrunched against the footbed of my boots. Right. The blur seems stretched flat over the street like a plastic film. Maybe lessening how much space the distortion covered is why its so intense compared to last time, and allowed the Seraph to unfold it under me more quickly? Whatever the case, I can still move my feet just fine. Its only my boots that are fixed in place at the soles. And my boots are just a part of my regalia, something I can conjure or dismiss as I please. Right as the spinning table is about to slam into my stomach, I lunge forward in the very same instant I will my boots to disappear. In the next moment, my face smacks the slightly dusty white surface and I feel myself begin to revolve. I made it. Im splayed out across the table now, however precariously. Hanging on for dear life, I raise my eyes and force down the nausea that comes with watching the world swirl past me in a blur. Flooding my limbs with yet another injection of stolen life, I pull myself to my knees and try to get my bearings. No matter where my eyes land as the table spins and spins, theres only one direction where the wall of the Seraphs rubbish-zoetrope seems to be getting closer. But my escape hasnt gone unnoticed. I feel the table begin to tilt to one side as if to spill me off, causing the shaky platform Ive made of it to become more unstable than ever before. Right as the table is about to flip completely on its side and send me tumbling to the pavement, I time my jump and leap off its surface into the Seraphs rings of junk, using the height the table gives me to bound over the rings first hurdle, the traffic cones. As I pass over them, the cones all shoot straight upwards as one to try and catch me. Gah, damn! the Seraph yells out from behind as the first ring misses its mark. I touch a foot down on top of one of the construction barrels on the next layer over and immediately jump forward again, but the moving drum is no steady foothold. My immediate jump is more like a planned toppling off its side, sending me hurtling toward the concrete below. Ive fallen hard and fast like this before. The first time was in Yurfalns Wound, the second was in Aulunlas. Both times, I landed on my wrist at a bad angle, spraining it. Not this time. As if by reflex, I instead try and twist in the air like a cat so that I land on my feet, resummoning my boots in the process. Without Yurfalns power guiding me, its not a perfect landing, but I still manage to catch myself upright before stumbling forward and rolling into the fall. The moment my soles touch the asphalt again, I disregard the throbbing jolt that shoots up my legs to nest in my knees and just keep rushing forward, sucking in deep, ragged breaths my dwindling supply of health just cant seem to suppress. Behind me, the clatter of every plastic chair in the entire third layer slamming down at once resounds, too late to catch me. In front of me, the seven tables remaining in the outermost ring, all rolling through the air on their sides like a procession of wheels, begin to descend in tandem, but I slip through their line just before they manage to entrap me. Beyond lies a blissfully vacant street. I dash into it with a desperate burst of speed. With each footfall, I summon tarot card after tarot card, all uncorrupted by my sickness. I let the intangible anchor point of gravity the Seraph has been using to disarm me drag each of them in. One after another, the cards slip away, darting backwards and through the gaps between the jumble of debris I just escaped to join the rest of the cards Ive conjured Until one finally doesnt. Its hard for me to judge exactly how far Ive managed to get away from the Seraph and the intangible point thats stealing my cards, but Ive run at least as far as when he tried to pull his invisibility stunt on me. At this distance, however, my cards are no longer being torn from my grasp. After all, when he caught up to me after vacuuming up my plague-mists, why did he bring the point my cards are drawn to along with him? Id think it would be safest for him to direct the cards as far away from himself as possible, so that whenever I try to snipe at him from the ground, my attacks fly wildly off-course. But what if that was as far as he could reasonably place the point away from me? Could there be a range limit? Thats what I thought, or at least dared to hope might be the case. I can feel the point my cards have been magnetized to and it hasnt changed in intensity since it appeared, but that doesnt necessarily mean he cant strengthen it if he wants. Maybe he just doesnt feel the need? No matter how lethal some of his attacks have seemed, hes still been toying with me this whole time, trying to cow me into giving in. As infuriating as it is to admit it, the fact he thinks this is hopeless for me might be the only reason I have any chance of winning at all. But thats exactly why Im going to take every inch of leeway his smug attitude has gotten me and shove it straight down his throat. Thats when I feel a sharp tug on the latest card Ive spawned between my fingers. Its immediately torn from my grip and flits back in the Seraphs direction, as though snagged in the winds of a hurricane. I turn back to see the card swallowed up by the Seraphs ring of junk, now having risen up like a wave C a great wall of debris floating through the streetway, gradually advancing towards me. Though his body is obscured, the red light of the Keeper himself shines forth beyond. Its obvious hes brought the anchor point snatching up all my cards with him. Or points, I should say, given he made a second one to split apart my blank and blighted cards. I run in the opposite direction, putting enough distance between me and the first anchor point that I can call my cards again without fear of having them ripped out of my grasp. I need them to be free at first. My plan is a gamble, and itll take everything Ive gained up until now to do it. Even then, Im not sure itll work, but I at least have to try. Suddenly, the familiar sensation of cold lightning whips up my spine. One of the Seraphs points anchored to the objects hes levitating is darting towards me at frightening speed. I sidestep as I continue to run, and a traffic cone flies straight past me and down the length of the street like a javelin, missing me by inches. Of course he wouldnt just leave me alone to do whatever I pleased One, two, then three more points launch out from Seraphs wall of improvised ammunition, and I run in a jagged zigzag to evade the plastic junk they carry with them, pushing myself to go faster, harder to make up for the ground Im losing by curving my path. Two more cones shoot by, vague blurs in the night, followed shortly by one of the chairs. This last round the Seraph fires off is different, however; after the chair passes me by, it halts some distance away from me, hanging in the air on its back as if someone had pushed it over and it decided it would rather float there than hit the ground. With no more warning than that, the chair lunges, sweeping towards me with its legs poised to rake me backwards like a claw. Im ready for it, though, and narrowly manage to slither past its course. My head swims. I must have run almost a block since the Seraph first started chasing me, maybe more. But his anchor point feels a bit farther away to my senses than when I was outside its range. Its now or never. I summon fourteen of my eighteen remaining blighted cards while I keep on running. I shut my left eye, giving its sight to one of them C the Hanged Man. Its image is of a vaguely human figure suspended in the sky, staring down in horror at an endless expanse of bizarre nonsense shapes. The darkness occluding half my vision is flooded once more with the dim illumination of the streets as Irakkias power divides my perspective between two different views. Before I can get disoriented, I beckon the Hanged Man to float right in front of my closed eye, letting me see almost normally for the moment, then stack the remaining thirteen blighted cards behind its back. I come to a stop and nearly keel over. My body is slick with sweat and my lungs are screaming for more air than my puny gasps seem able to provide. Im so tired. I just want to be home. But because the Stardust Seraph decided to be a bastard tonight, Ive got to do this. Ive got to keep going. And because hes put me through this, I dont care what I have to do C or what I have to put him through C to end it. I turn around and duck as another cone shoots my way, barely missing me. Its square-shaped base catches on my hood and pulls it back as it goes. My hair flutters in the whoosh of air that follows its wake. Ahead of me, the Seraphs advancing wall of junk looks just as if hed unraveled the ring hed trapped me inside and started pushing it forward. Theres a high-rise to my left; I part the Hanged Man from my eyelid and send the fourteen card pile it leads to scale up its side. The Hanged Mans viewpoint is pressed nearly up against the buildings windows when I will the cards to climb, showing me a glimpse of each floors office space with every story it passes. Once they get high enough, they should be outside the range of the Seraphs gravity. Hell almost certainly still be able to sense them coming, gorged on my plague as they are, but thats fine. Its best if he does. But itll all be for nothing if the cards end up back in his anchor points range before I want them to, so I give the Seraph a reason to stop in his tracks. I turn to face him. This entire confrontation, Ive just been running away over and over again, trying to put distance between us. It was right of me to. Im not meant to fight face-to-face. Ive realized that obvious truth by now. Its not in my nature to be physical, or to attack head on. My body, my illness, my life all reject it at every moment. I hate it. I hate the throbbing aches wracking through my body with every step I take. I hate how the cold night air needles against my raw throat. I hate the disgusting way my regalia feels sticking to my skin from all the sweat. I hate the inexplicable taste of blood in my mouth on my rough, dry tongue. I hate the sound of my own heart drumming relentlessly in my ears. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. If I get out of this alive, Im never going to let myself fight like this ever again. But right now, with my back against the wall, theres no other option. And despite everything else, it is my nature to push myself too hard. So taking one deep, final breath, I charge. The Seraphs wall of junk halts in place. The tips of the traffic cones on the frontmost layer all point at me like a phalanx lowering their spears. One of them launches directly at me; I weave to the side to dodge. Then another comes, and another, and I dodge and I weave and I stumble over my own feet, but no matter what I just keep running forward. In the meantime, the Hanged Man reaches the roof of the building. Its a strange, awkward experience looking at two entirely different places at once: the sight in front of me, and the sight of the Hanged Man floating above. Sacrificing half my vision to do it doesnt help. But I can feel how far my cards are away from me, and with Irakkias power showing me their surroundings, I can direct them with precision from a distance. I will the Hanged Man and the cards it leads to move over the Stardust Seraphs position and then devote the rest of my concentration to surviving the Seraphs next assault. Just in time, too, as the Seraph catapults half of his gathered construction barrels at me all at once in a scattershot barrage. Rather than try to vault over one of the drums roll-bouncing close to the ground, I shield my face and try to ram past one of the higher-flying ones. Im instantly knocked off my feet. Even with all my stolen strength, even with a hollow object like that barrel, my body is just too small, too light to ever take on something that big headfirst. But ignoring the throb in my arms from the impact, I bet on the slightness of my body and lean into the collision. I roll backwards and catch myself, returning to my feet in one rough motion, then immediately keep rushing forward. My elbows sting after scraping against the street during the act, and I can see black feathers peeking out from tears in my sleeves, but I dont have the stored health to spare on soothing them right now. Ive been burning my supply at an exhausting rate thats only gotten faster the longer this has gone on. Im close now. I can feel the fringes of Rolands intense aura bearing down on me again. Just a bit further. I need to position myself so hes sandwiched between me and the anchor point where hes drawing all my blank cards, like I did the last time I attacked him. Theres a pause in the movement of the anchor points the Seraph is using to direct the plastic objects, but only for a moment before I sense his next ploy. Hes calling back the construction barrels he just volleyed at me. I look over my shoulder to see the drums being arranged in two rows, one stacked atop the other, forming a wall that then immediately begins rushing towards me. Its the same trick as when he sent that chair while I was running away, then called it back to try to drag me in with it. The blockade of gathered debris the Seraph has erected in front of me isnt without gaps, but its already begun to lurch forward to wrap around me in a ring once again. Its just like him to cut off every route of escape. But the Hanged Man is already in position, hauling on its back a stockpile of thirteen more tainted cards, looming above the Seraph the same way hes loomed above me from the start. I turn the Hanged Mans face to look at my enemy and find the visor of his mask already looking back. He unravels his folded arms and gives my cards a friendly wave. His audacity is unreal. Im going to make him pay for it. The half-deck of blighted cards scatters above the Seraph, moving to angles that put him between them and the second anchor point C the one he used to separate my blank cards from those instilled with my scourge. Its situated on the street directly below the first point, poised to drag all my blighted cards to the ground. That means the only way my blighted cards can reach the Seraph is by attacking from above. At my command, four of those cards slip into that second anchor points range, raining down on the Seraph. I detonate them one after another C one below and behind him to his left, one above and behind him to his right, one below and before him to his left, and the last above and before him to his right. The emerald clouds expand outwards in every direction until their vapors merge, enshrouding the Seraph from every angle. Simply detonating my cards doesnt push me nearly enough to threaten spontaneous Emergence, either; they were already created with my magic some time ago, and thats where most of the effort was spent. In the brief moment the Seraph is distracted, I dive through a gap in his oncoming wave of debris, slipping between a cluster of rubbery traffic cones and coming out the other end. I hear the stacked wall of construction barrels that was chasing me join the pile with a crash. The blaring sensation of my enemys presence falls over me. Looking up, I watch as one side of the giant veil of plague-mist implodes in on itself, tearing a massive rift in its surface. There the Seraph floats, twirling his pointer finger as he beckons the same sort of pinprick hole-in-the-world he used to clear out my fog last time. He cranes his neck to look at me with wings outstretched, but seems to hesitate, calling out to me instead. Wait, your hair! I dont hear him. I just act. I call down another one of the ten remaining cards I arranged above him, drawing it into his second anchor points range from an angle thats sure to pass directly through his current position. Noticing my attack, the Seraph lets out a harsh sigh as he dismisses the black dot and rushes directly at me, his mask drawing close as if to make me flinch. I was already prepared for him to do that, though. Before I get the chance to conjure one of the four blighted cards I still have in store so I can detonate it right in his face at point blank range, however, the Seraph has already bounded backwards and away from me. But I do it anyway; I spawn in another tainted card and unleash the incarnated disease inside before it can be dragged away, if only to put another obstacle between him and me. Just the same, I trigger the card I beckoned from above to detonate as he passes below it, but hes too quick for it to catch him. A shocking chill down my back warns me of one of his attacks, and I skip backwards just in time to dodge another plastic chair lashing out from his wall of road-junk, its shape darting out from the depths of the murk and fading back into it as it passes. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Evading yet another of the Seraphs salvos of plastic, I call down my blighted cards from overhead in sequence. As they explode in turn, I watch from both my own free eye and the eye Ive given to the Hanged Man as the Seraph streaks through the air like a ribbon of red light, avoiding the resulting masses of infectious smog. I plan each of my cards courses and detonations so that theyre both a threat to my enemy and cut off as much of the space he has to maneuver as possible. Hes had his fun forcing me to dance: now its my turn to overwhelm him. The street is becoming engulfed in my fog, obscuring the light of the streetlamps, the Seraphs wings, and the great quilt of stars above. But my enemy and I dont need light to see. The senses of our souls pierce through the choking mist and darkness, telling us where the other is, and more importantly, where were attacking from. As staggering as the Seraphs aura is, almost an assault on my awareness entirely on its own, right now I can see its bare fury for the disadvantage it is. I know exactly where he is and can direct my overhead cards accordingly. Even lacking clear sight of my surroundings, the vague impression his anchor points provide is enough warning to dodge them whenever he sends them at me. All the same, Im little better. Despite not being able to see me, he can certainly sense me well enough to direct his attacks through the pall of my plague-mists. The lack of visibility doesnt seem to be doing his aim any favors, though. Small blessings. Four more cards and four more clouds of condensed blight crowding his airspace is enough for the Seraph to decide hes fed up with my tactics. He soars upwards, above the murk now flooding the streets and beyond the pull of his second anchor point, the one attuned to my blighted cards; its the first time hes dared to leave its safety. I immediately will the five cards I still have above to home in on him, the Hanged Man leading the charge. My cards burn green in the night sky, painting emerald streams in their wake as they pursue the Seraphs spiraling trail of red, almost matching his speed. Outside the area controlled by the second anchor point, my cards are free to move however I will them, especially with the viewpoint that Irakkias power grants me. The Seraph tries to break my fix on him with swift and jagged maneuvers, but my cards splinter off from each other and pursue him from different angles, flying to cut him off at where he will be while the Hanged Man remains hot on his tail. Hes as slippery as ever, though, and I only have so many cards to work with, so he always seems to find an avenue of escape. After a steep climb skyward, the Seraph suddenly dives down into a glide right above the edge of his second anchor points range, my cards right on his heels. At a glance, his movement seems inefficient, allowing my cards to close in on him, but I already have an idea of what hes up to. Ive been expecting it all this time. So I command my cards to break off their pursuit and ascend even before I sense his second anchor point leap up from its position on the street and swiftly shoot straight upwards, the span of its range moving with it. But in the same moment, another cold jolt crackles up my spine. A construction barrel flies out from the depths of the fog. I sense it coming, but I stand there and let it slam into me. The impact sends my small body skidding across the street, but I dont care. The Seraph wants to distract me, disrupt my concentration on whats really important, but I wont let him. My focus remains completely trained on directing my cards beyond the range of his gravity. I dont need this frail little shell to do that. The Seraph is trying to capture my remaining cards using himself as bait, goading me to waste them in a futile chase. But the fact he can move any of his anchor points however he wants isnt news to me. In fact, I expected him to do it earlier, but instead he risked himself on a ruse like this. After all, its what Ive been waiting for. While my cards in the air continue to ascend and spread out along the edge of his gravity, the Seraph lets himself fall down through a gap in the plague-mist pervading the streets, back into the range covered by the second anchor point. It now once again overlaps with the first, where a deck of my blank cards remains floating uselessly. His leg rests across the knee of his other, and his arms are casually folded behind his hooded head as he plunges into safety. He seems vulnerable. I pick my tattered body off the street and rush up beneath him. Is now the time? Should I use it early? No. Not yet. Hell have more than enough time to sense it and dodge out of the way, and then Ill have tipped my hand. The fact he has room to taunt me right now means hes still in control. Stick to the plan. I summon one of the last three blighted cards I still have stored, flinging it up at the Seraph. The spot where all my blighted cards will rush to has changed, but the Seraph has still carefully positioned himself to be level with the anchor point and a distance away from its center. My card almost immediately goes off course with no chance of hitting him, so I detonate it below him, stealing away just a little more space before my next move C the one that will decide everything. Because at the same time, Ive called down all five of the cards in the Hanged Mans retinue remaining above, each entering the range of the anchor point one at a time, with the ones entering from higher above going first. The first of these cards comes at him directly from above. Like the attack I made from below just now, its doomed to be dragged into the anchor point the Seraph has attuned to my cards and go wildly off-course, so I simply detonate it, sandwiching my enemy in the middle of these two clouds. In tandem with the plague-mist on all sides from my numerous prior detonations, hes completely surrounded by my scourge now. Unfortunately, even as more of my cards race into the enclosed space my ever-present fog has trapped the Seraph within, I already know he has an answer at the ready. Like I said before, this doesnt work! he declares with every bit of bravado hes had since this struggle began. Like silent bursts of crimson lightning, six flashes flicker against the poisonous clouds above me where the Seraph hides, prefacing his inevitable escape. All around me, my plague-mist is rapidly sucked towards my enemys location. Hes purging the area of the fog in the same way hes done it before. Every moment, the prevailing mist grows thinner. All of my effort to lower this shroud will be canceled out seconds from now. Whats more, I sense the next two cards I sent the Seraphs way being halted in place before they reach their target. I detonate them anyway. The Hanged Mans retinue has only two cards remaining, including its leader. Both of them have already entered the range of the Seraphs anchor point and are racing towards him, the Hanged Man having taken the leap first. The two cards pass through the veil of smog into a gap the Seraph has carved into the mist for himself, a bubble amidst the gloom that grows larger with each second. He floats there at the center, surrounded by six miniscule holes in space which inhale funnels of the plague-mist closing in on him from every direction. Four of the black dots are arrayed in a square-shaped formation with him at the center, while the other two are placed above and below him, sheltering him completely. He revolves his right arm in a spiral with his index finger extended, pointing to the sky; a gesture that seems necessary for him to maintain the black dots. By contrast, his left arm was already midway through the motion of flinging one of his feathers at the Hanged Man the very moment it entered the bubble. My final card enters the Seraphs shelter amidst the noxious tempest upside down. Its the last thing the Hanged Man sees: the Hermit inverted; a girl in filthy rags falling from the twin peaks of an upside-down mountain, grasping desperately for a formless point of light just out of her reach. I shift the perception of my left eye to the Hermit in the instant before the Hanged Man is skewered by the Seraphs feather of light, avoiding the sharp pain of my left eye being stabbed that would likely follow. My split vision twists and swims in nauseating, nonsensical loops as my perception jumps between the cards. The Hermits first sight is the Hanged Man stuck in place, anchored to the spot where it was hit; this must have been the fate of the two cards that entered this bubble before now. I detonate the Hanged Man, but its expanding burst of plague-mist is immediately torn between the two nearest black dots and stifled without any hope of reaching the Seraph. Past the Hanged Mans dying wisps, the Hermit rushes forth, still drawn on the pull of the Seraphs own anchor point. The Seraph sends another scarlet feather to meet it. I detonate it first, causing the Seraphs feather to pass harmlessly through the fog. But my left eyes vision remains amid the vapors. The Seraph evades backwards as the Hermits plague-mist expands, forced ever nearer to the murky limits of his shelter; even now, he continues the swirling motion of his right arm. Instead, the Hermits plague-mist abruptly compresses into itself, almost as if sucked back into the card it sprung from to begin with. The compacted vapors sculpt themselves into an upside-down human shape. My shape, but just a little twisted. The other me wears a lusterless, pitch black mourning dress. Her feathery white hair cascades down her form in a long, shaggy mane damp with a liquid like greenish-black ink. Her pale flesh is as translucent as a jellyfishs, showing off the silhouette of her bones. She only has one eye C my left one C but it glows a poison-green brighter even than my own. Seryana hunted by attaching herself to anchors and tormenting them through disposable effigies of herself. The power her heart granted me was to use instances of my magic as a channel, allowing me to act through them. This plague-self effigy is an expression of that. My second self floats there upside-down, hovering as though buoyed by the wind. After all, I, my second self, am as mist or disease on the breeze. I, my second self, drift before the Seraph and summon one of the last two tainted cards I have in store, casting it at once at my enemy, who still floats between me and the anchor point hes used to snatch them away time after time. I detonate it. The Seraph throws his arms in front of his visor and folds his wings around himself as he rapidly descends. The black dots arranged throughout the bubble shift to follow, the entire central square formation diving alongside him to encircle the black dot that was previously at the bottom; these four outer dots begin to spin around this central dot, and together they all sink down, clearing away the plague-mist below as though drilling straight through it. He was stopping my cards with his feathers the moment they entered the mist-bubble so that his little holes in the world could lap them up before the fog they created could box him in any further. Without those black dots dissipating the incoming plague-clouds as they come, theres not enough room in here for him to easily dodge a blighted card going off at such close range, so his best bet was to make more as quickly as possible. That bet pays off, leaving a wedge of newly-cleared space below the latest detonation for him to hide in. I can sense his obnoxious aura as it draws closer to my first self, still on the ground beneath. It wont be long now. In the next second, the Seraph calls down the black dot that was above the other five to descend into the latest cloud, siphoning it away. At the same time, my second self lunges through the remaining murk. Once she gets close, Ill have her conjure my very last blighted card and detonate it so close hell have no chance of escaping. The Seraphs left wing detaches from his back and comes apart into a tight whirl of glowing red feathers. They bundle and compress together in an instant to form a spear of crimson light. He thrusts his palm out in the direction of my doppelganger and the spear shoots forward, cutting through the mists and impaling her straight through the stomach. I feel a phantom echo of my doubles pain, but while the agonizing sensation of my intestines being skewered and my spine being severed forces me to falter, its different from when Seryana destroyed the card I was seeing through a couple days ago. This pain lasts only for a moment before I cut the connection to my second self and sweep the pain out of my way. In the same moment, the Seraphs black dots break through the veil of smog up above, revealing his shining figure once more. I summon the Three of Swords: three thin blades like long, straight fangs, stabbed through a heart of mottled grey-brown clay and wrapped in blood-red tubes. The card I quarantined Yurfalns disease within when this all began, when I first fought a Harbinger two months ago. Theres no pull on it. Like I thought, the Seraphs gravity isnt affecting this card because its aura isnt precisely the same as mine. My effigys form collapses around the Seraphs spear like a picture made of smoke. The Seraph clenches his outstretched palm into a fist, and the spear compresses into a shining orb that quickly shrinks into nothing; in its place is another pinprick hole in the world, which immediately sucks up my plague-selfs remains before vanishing itself. The Seraph must have felt my doppelganger coming. But because his attention has focused entirely on countering me based on the motions of my magic this whole time, he notices the Three of Swords just a second too late. Ive only fought one other Keeper before, but I was able to catch her off guard, even though it seemed like she could still sense my attacks coming. In the end, this is the same way I beat her: I had to misdirect and conceal my real attack from the other Keeper to finally catch them off-guard. The Seraph is an entirely different beast from Tetha, though. Trying the same thing over and over again would never work against him. Even trying a single new trick on him at once wasnt liable to touch him. Even if hes toying with me, its like he told me before: hes still watching out. Hes still ready for anything I throw at him. I would need to surprise him at least twice to actually catch him unawares. Even that might not work, given the incredible talent hes supposed to have. So I prepared three surprises. Without delaying a single moment, I fling the Three of Swords at the Seraph with every bit of force my thin arm can muster. In the same moment, the Seraph turns in the air to face my direction, his remaining wing outstretched. With one great flap, his right wing unleashes a hailstorm of feathers. The Three of Swords sails past them as they rain down on me quicker than my eyes can follow. The feathers pierce through the fabric of my dress and drag me back, forcing me to the ground and pinning me there. They surround me like flowers in a meadow. The air around them shimmers with a familiar tightness that makes my entire body heavy, restraining me from any movement. Hes caught me and theres no escape. My panicked gaze turns upwards. I see the Seraph floating above, the Three of Swords embedded in his armor. The corner of the card is lodged into his chestpiece. In the milliseconds which make up this seemingly endless moment, I watch him tilt his head down to regard it as if in slow motion. Before I even trigger it to detonate, entirely on its own, as if by its own will, the Three of Swords bursts like a tumorous growth. A smog-like mass so thick it looks like a floating globule of deep grey sludge spills forth into the world. The viscous essence presses itself to the Seraphs armor in an embrace, seeping into every crevice until its completely soaked up. A ripple pulses through the air, causing everything to go still. The smell of living death radiates outward. What, what is gaugh, ghk, aaaugh! His aura recoils. All of his black spots collapse into nothing. The anchor points holding up the wall of objects he collected off the road all vanish at once, causing the rubbish that made it up to collapse to the street in a heap. The feathers of light pinning me to the street all pop into sparkling particles which wink out in an instant. The Seraph''s remaining scarlet wing explodes and scatters into a bevy of sparks just the same. I surge upright as I watch the chaos unfold. The Seraph floats there with his arms curled around himself, shivering, vibrating. With a fearful yell, his body is suddenly flung through the air, shifting wildly from one direction to the next. First hes yanked to the side, then flipped upwards through a thin puff of lingering plague-mist, until finally his path spirals completely out of control and he plummets like a comet torn from the heavens. With a sound like a hammer shattering against a boulder, he slams into the ground in the blink of an eye, as fast as Ive ever seen him move, as if he was shot out of a cannon directly into the street. The Seraph is splayed out across the pavement. He lies there motionless, like a dead bird. The tinted glass of his vizor is broken on one side. Is he? No. No no no he cant be I couldnt have. Hes a Keeper, hes so much stronger than me and his soul is still there, hes just His fingers twitch. Suddenly, his aura crashes back over me at full force, then fades, then howls outward again, flickering in and out like a dying lightbulb burning itself out. A powerful gust howls out from his fallen form, blasting through my hair and chasing away my emerald fog. You His voice rasps out, causing the air to tremble. A new fear coils around my heart like a vice. I race to stand before he does. The Seraph picks himself up with his left arm alone. His right hangs limply at his side as he rises. Theres a pearly white bone sticking jaggedly out from the torn sleeve of his regalia. Little floating beads of red spill out from the wound, reflecting the light of the streetlamps in their oily, pearlescent luster. The shattered limb quivers. The floating red droplets race through the air to return to the Seraphs body. I hear him snarling with pain, followed by the sick cracking sound of the exposed bone snapping back into its proper place. His right arm remains slack and powerless. He sucks in harsh, agonized breaths as he swipes away his hood and tears off his headgear. A long curtain of hair spills out in a flutter of silken strands, glimmering gold in the dim street lights as the helmet that contained it clatters to the road. Ive seen his face before, in advertisements and on the Churchs reef, but never like this. Standing here is like a moment frozen in time. I cant look away. Past long eyelashes, a single red eye, as deep and brilliant as a ruby, glares out from behind his locks. Its utter loathing pierces me to my core, but its beauty draws me in, forcing me to drink in every detail as though Im in a trance. I want to run, but my legs wont move. Hes bleeding from his forehead, a red mass oozing from his brow and clinging there as though suspended in space. His skin looks pale, ashen, and although it might be only a trick of what little light surrounds us, with each moment his complexion seems to grow greyer. You what did, you grrgh aurgh! He grips his stomach with his good hand and bends over with his mouth wrenched open as if to scream, but no sound follows. Only a stream of clay mingled with seaweed and crawling with overgrown centipedes. The many-legged vermin spill across the ground in a wild, writhing swarm, scattering in every direction. Behind each and every one of their monstrous fangs is a too-long, too-wide grin of shiny white human teeth. The Seraphs heave ends with a gagging wail of disgust and horror. He spits frantically, and as he does, his whimpers transform into a laugh I cant comprehend. Heheh heheheh hahahahah! He looks up again. I can see the traces of a strained smile hinted at behind his hair. Past grey tears murky with dust, his gaze stabs through my skull like a shard of glass. The glass vibrates a message into my brain, telling me to run. But theres nowhere to go. Heheh, hahahahahah Whether the Seraphs laughter is born from his own feelings or those Yurfalns sickness imposed on him, I cant begin to know. His sludgy tears drip off his chin in thick wads. They dry in midair as they fall. When they hit the street, they sprout little insect legs and start scuttling around aimlessly, beeping shrilly as they rot into dirt and crumple away. Ill kill you It seems so obvious now. You were in absolutely zero danger right then, by the way. I never miss my mark. Thats just how it is. Hah. Made you flinch. Even when he couldnt see me through my plague-fog, his feathers didnt directly hit me. Throughout this entire fight, the Stardust Seraph never once tried to kill me. Because until this moment, I didnt understand what it would feel like if he had really wanted to. A memory flashes through my mind. The scene of two boys standing over a grasshopper with each and every one of its legs torn off, until it was nothing more than a sad little pellet that could do nothing but wait to die. Ill kill you! Youre going to die alone! The Seraphs will envelops everything. The world around me deforms into a mess of bleary shapes. My knees hit the ground immediately. The ridges and bumps of the street dig past my stockings and into my skin. My shoulders slump. Heavy. Theres something heavy on every part of my body. Everything in my body is heavy too. And then the heaviness vanishes, flickers out as the Seraphs power briefly wanes. A moment of relief, as the Seraph lurches back and then Im crushed again, harder than ever. I can feel the blood in my veins racing to the tips of my fingers and the place where my legs touch the pavement. The beating of my heart strains against the weight. Cant breathe. The air in my lungs is heavy. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. The blur vanishes. I suck in a desperate gasp of air, only to have it slammed out of me an instant later. A traffic cone rams into my stomach, sending me backwards. I land on a plastic table with its legs folded in thats been slid behind me without my noticing. It lifts into the air with incredible speed, carrying me with it, before all the force hoisting it upwards abruptly vanishes. The table begins to plummet. I fall as well. From my vantage in the sky, I see the Seraph holding his golden locks back as he pukes another river of clay and seaweed and happy little centipedes. I blink, and hes gone. In the next instant, Im torn from the sky by my neck. Before I can process whats going on, Im slammed against a window thats several stories off the ground. The building is the very same highrise I willed the Hanged Man to climb before. The talons around my throat are the Seraphs, of course. He has me in a stranglehold with his one good hand. He tilts his head to the side, looking more like a hungry hawk than ever. Cracks have formed across his leaden skin. Bits of his face have begun to peel off. The manic glare in his bloodshot eyes peeking out between the matted veil of his hair looks into me with a rage so cold it burns. Bad move. How is he still going, despite everything? How is he still so strong? This should be worse in every way than what I did to Tetha and yet he still wont stop. Gravity falls sideways, crushing my body against the glass. My limbs splay out helplessly. The force is so intense that I can hear the window cracking from the strain. I try to shriek, but my voice is smothered. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Cant breathe. Can''t breathe. Hes going to kill me. Hes going to kill me. Hes going to kill me. Hes going to kill me. Hes going to kill me. Hes going to kill me. Hes going to kill me. Hes going to kill me. Hes going to kill me. Hes going t No he wont. I wont let him. I still remember my promise to myself, even now. Especially now, when this useless shell of mine fails me time after time. Death is just a nightmare I woke up from a long time ago. In this moment, I can feel the Seraphs incredible life right next to mine like the heat of a sputtering torch struggling against a storm, waxing and waning, howling and groaning in equal measure. Im at my limit. Everything I did to get the Seraph to this point has pushed me to the very edge as well. One more step and Ill fall. I know I will. I know if I do this, Ill change. Ill change, and I wont be able to control it. But I dont care. I will never die. Glimmering tendrils of emerald mist snake from my broken body with relish, lunging right at the SeraphC That. Wont. Work. Princess. only to be wrenched backwards in the very next moment, never having reached their prey. One of the Seraphs anchor points has formed behind me, in the office past the glass of the window, dragging my intangible feeding-limbs into its grasp. My heart falls down the pit in my stomach C the very same where all my hopes for the future go to die. My tendrils of emerald mist vanish with it. Its over. The crushing pressure on my body slackens, allowing me to inhale a desperate gasp of breath, but I remain stuck to the window, unable to escape. The Seraph unhands my throat and lifts up his good arm. Behind him, a sparkle of light glimmers into being and extends into the shape of a long, glowing, blood red needle, like a small replica of the spear of light he used to end Seryana. You must have known how this would end. Yet you did it anyway. And here we are. I can only whimper out one thing. I dont want to die. Warm tears stream down my face. I cant contain them. I dont want to die. I dont want to die I just wheeze it out weekly again and again, over and over. I dont want to die I dont want to die I dont want to die! My voice is a faint, eerie echo of itself, like a whisper trying to carry from too far away. The Seraph goes still. His single ruby eye just stares into mine while I babble uselessly. Seconds go by. The Seraph does nothing. My choked cry repeats into the night. The Seraphs good arm wavers at the shoulder. His fingers start to slouch. Suddenly, he reels, bringing his hand to his mouth, but he cant hold it. He pukes again, another stream of gunk and centipedes exiting his throat and falling to the ground far below us. My repeated pleas end on a yelp of surprise as the floating needle of light pops out of existence. He floats there in front of me, gripping his chest piece. The only sounds that remain between us are our tortured breaths. Then, in the distance, I feel something approaching us. Another presence. An intangible sense of smallness, of being regarded from on high as a tiny piece in a great design. A piece that doesnt belong. The Seraph seems to notice it too. The sliver of his lips I can see through his long hair twists into a scowl. What a mess. All at once, I feel the force pinning me to the window dissipate. I let out a shriek of terror as I begin to fall, but even my scream is a muted whisper. I throw my hands up in front of my face and shut my eyes tight before the quickly advancing sidewalk, but the sensation of my body splattering against concrete never comes. I blink, and see Im once again enveloped in a shimmer of distorted air. This time, though, its causing me to descend softly, gradually. The Seraph descends with me. Once weve nearly reached the ground. He grabs me by the wrist and yanks me from the pillar of haze, throwing me to the ground behind him like a limp doll. I whine at the rough treatment, but looking past him, I can see that he was pulling me out of the way of the puddle of regurgitated clay I was about to land in. The unfamiliar presence from before is drawing nearer. You know who that is? he asks. I shake my head, still in shock. He smiles bitterly from cheek to cheek with sly, narrowed eyes. Even that nasty expression, rotting with Yurfalns curse, is strangely beautiful in the subtle red glow of his eye. Thats Irida. His voice is a frayed, vacant murmur. If you think Im bad just think of what the one Keeper above me will do if she finds you. He holds out his good arm and forms a feather of light in his palm. Like hell Ill allow that. He clenches the scarlet feather in his fist, its sharp edges digging into his flesh. Globules of floating blood which gleam strangely in the dim lighting rise up from between his fingers as the feather dissipates. Okay. You win, he says, falling on his knees in front of me. So Ill give you a parting gift. No thanks necessary. He grabs me by the shoulder, pulls me in, and presses his bloodied fingers to my cheek, smearing something on my face. Something in me screams to push him away, but somehow I cant find the strength. A red glow outlines my body for a moment, then fades away. My body already feels lighter somehow. Theeeere we go he says, patting my cheek. That should make getting back home easy. Now get out of here. I just sit there in a daze, not entirely sure whats happening. I dont know what to do. Whats happening right now? Am I really free to go? Didnt he want to take me in? No, something changed. Because that other presence is coming I wobble back to my feet on unsteady legs, but the motion itself is easy. Even as tired as I am, it feels like not even my own exhaustion is restraining me. I look to the Seraph. Go. With no other option, I race off into the night. I Dont Think Im A Good Person 7-8 I sprint aimlessly through the city, as lost as I was during my escape from the forest Harbingers realm. Away is the only direction that matters to me, so I race down the streets, putting all the distance I can between me and the Seraph, faster than I ever thought I could. Every stride floats almost effortlessly into the next. The last thing he did to me left me feeling not quite weightless, not a spirit sailing through the night with no useless, broken body to hold her down and trip her over her own legs, but close. What exactly did he do? I havent looked back, but could he still be following me? Tracking me through the wisp of his power bearing me along? I dont feel him moving, but Not long into my flight, a bright crimson burst illuminates the night from somewhere behind me. I glance over my shoulder, almost expecting another ambush, but find only a flash of fading light as the Seraphs presence blinks abruptly out of being. I pause for a moment, making absolutely sure theres no trace of him hiding among the faint auras of life in the city. And as far as I can sense, hes finally gone. The presence he said was the Silver General remains, but shes heading for the scene of our brawl, not me. Shes not my problem. Unless the world has made me its new favorite chew toy, this fucking day is finally No. Not quite over. There was still another Harbinger attack in the hospital before I left. I called for help, no one shouldve been hurt more than they already were, but theyve probably been on high alert since, waiting for someone to explain what was going on. Okay. Whatever. Thats not how I wanted to give up my secret, but what does it matter anymore? Making this day a little longer is the very least of my problems, now. I dont even know if theyll let me stay when word of all the things Ive done reaches them, and what am I supposed to do then? Go live with Dad and hope I dont still have health issues the hospital could actually help with? Live on the streets, feeding myself with life stolen from anyone who walks by? Can I even do that? Run off into the forest where I belong? Maybe itll count for something if they know me as the girl who killed both of the seventh floors recent Harbingers before they hear about how I turned the Stardust Seraphs guts into centipedes. Even if Im the one who brought Seryana there in the first place. Even if its a bad joke to think someone like me could help anyone but myself. But I cant stay out here forever, so Ill just have to deal with any disasters that follow me home as they come. I fish out my phone, ask it for a route to the hospital, and start running again. Five blocks out, I stop on an empty street corner to isolate the Seraphs enchantment and dunk it in rot until it disintegrates. I dont think hes following me, he should have more urgent things to deal with, but just in case he can use this to trace my path somehow, no reason to make it easy for him. But if I ignore the tight pain lingering in my throat and the thick, crawling dread of knowing more clearly with every moments distance from fighting for my life that Ive ruined everything again it was kind of fun while it lasted. Much nicer than Shonas travel spell. And the moment it fades, my legs buckle beneath me. Numb tingling gnaws through my muscles. I summon my cane, and frantically fumble to catch myself with it, but my arms cant manage even that much. It slips from my shaky grasp, clattering away as I land on my elbows with a new thud of pain and a tiny breathless yelp. Of course thats how this would go. Fine. Fine. After a moment to catch my breath, I reach inside to prop myself up with my well of health. Nothing changes. Theres nothing there. I somehow didnt notice until I tried to use it, but all the life I stole, all the people I hurt its almost all gone. Im back down to the thinnest sliver of stolen essence after the Seraph burned my well no, after I took all those unwilling sacrifices and threw them away for nothing. I did all the horrible things Ive done just to end up back in that place where I cant even walk somewhere without feeling like my bones will collapse and my body will disintegrate into a puddle of nothing-that-hurts. I cant find the strength to move, to scream, to do anything more than collapse here and cry. I wonder if Im crying ink or black ichor or something. I scrape my face with the back of my glove, then lick it I don''t know what I expected to be able to tell, but it doesn''t taste weird. Theres that, at least. Finally pushed along by the idea that even this late, someone will eventually find me like this and ask questions I reach for my cane, gather the energy to shove my pain down, drag myself up on shivering limbs, and start the last stretch of the walk home. I dismiss my transformation after another block, leaving only my new cane, and pay no real mind to who might see me do it. Im pretty far past the point where that matters. ~~~ I manage not to fall over myself again before I reach the hospital, but I still need to clean things up there. And hope Seryana didnt hurt anyone else. In the circular driveway out front, an ambulance and police car are parked in front of the entrance with their lights blaring. I sigh, steady myself, and approach the paramedic standing watch at a healthy distance from the front doors. Excuse me! Theres a potential emergency here that hasnt been cleared yet. Well have to ask you to leave until oh. He looks me over and cuts himself off. Are you the Keeper we called to sweep this place? I tense up for a second before I realize they wouldnt send paramedics to answer a call about a dangerous rogue Keeper. No, but you can cancel it anyway. Im the one who pushed the alarm. The Harbingers dead. The medic draws a little closer and crouches to around my level. Im sorry, miss, could you speak up a little? Hm? Okay. I said Paying more attention to myself, I only hear a faint ghost of the sound I meant to make. I said Im My voice has never carried well, but I am speaking up, or at least doing what Ive always done to make it louder. Its just not working. Did the Seraph hurt my throat more than I thought? No, thats absurd. I live in a ward full of people whose sicknesses leave their voice weak and hoarse. They dont sound anything like the distant, creepy almost-whispers coming from me now, no matter how hard I try to raise my voice. Emergence that isnt part of the normal growth process, isnt especially likely to empower you, and may not align with what youd actually want for yourself. It makes sense, at least. I cant say its some horrifying freakish mutation. Whats the point of being heard if no one listens to me anyway? I laugh to myself at that, though I can hardly hear it over even the dim ambient noise of the city, and brush away a few new tears. Is something wrong? the medic asks through an uneasy grimace. No, sorry, I just Emergence. Wasnt expecting it. Sorry, I say. Can you hear me alright like this? He nods. Okay. I live here. The hospice ward on the top floor. A Harbinger I was hunting stalked me home sort of, but but how she worked isn''t really important here and attacked a nurse I know. Um, that woman, do you know how shes doing? The Sanctuarys keeping her overnight, but her vitals were stable when we found her. Good. Alright, I sigh. Theres something that could be worse. If Id actually gotten someone whos never been anything but kind to me killed doesnt matter. I didnt. I dont need to think about if. Anyway. The Harbinger did it to get my attention. To provoke me. So I led her out, went somewhere empty, and killed her there. Shes gone now, and she didnt hurt anyone else here. I think if she did, shed have made sure I knew it. ...I see. From his expression, I really dont think he does, but thats fine. I cant be bothered explaining to a normal person how Harbingers talk to me. Or how well I seem to understand them. Thats all good to know. While we have you here, could I ask you to search the vicinity and confirm that? Not to question your judgment its just procedure for incidents like this. No traces of her inside. If she had any other victims, theyre somewhere else. The medic glances back at the hospital, then shoots me an odd look. I think he was expecting me to actually go in and search for Harbinger traces. My senses are pretty good, I say flatly. Well alright, then. If youre certain, well go give the all-clear. Thank you for your service. I blink. What are you thanking me for? I didnt do it for you. Ive never done anything for anyone but me. I dont say that, of course. I just watch him on his way back to his van, then head inside. Its normal for the hospital to be quiet at night, but not for it to be deserted. Every desk and station thats supposed to be staffed at all hours is left unattended. The long hallways Id normally see someone cleaning are empty. I probably shouldve expected this. At the scene of a Harbinger attack with no Keeper around to explain whats going on, it makes perfect sense to evacuate everyone who can safely leave, even if thats obviously more complicated than most places in a hospital. I wonder how the seventh floors doing. I wonder how all the patients with nowhere else to go, no one to take them there, or no way to leave without causing a health crisis have managed while I was away. I guess Ill see soon enough. I make my way through the silent halls to the elevator, glaring at my reflection in the glass wall as it rises. My last wisp of black hair has gone white right, thinking on it now, the Seraph did say something about that. Did he actually care? Would anything have changed if I''d told him Im at risk of spontaneous Emergence, can we reschedule our fight for a week from today? rather than just kept fighting as hard as I could? Not like it matters now. The elevator pings, and I step out into the seventh floor entryway. Its just as quiet as the rest of the hospital and almost as empty theres an old man sleeping in front of the TV and one younger nurse looking after him. Liadain, there you are! she calls softly. She freezes for a second, no doubt taking in the grey veins winding over my face, then collects herself and waves me over. Im glad youre alright. Does this mean theyre bringing people back in now? Hi, I say, as clearly as I still can. And I think so? I dont know where anyone else who left went, but Is there any point in playing things off as if they just let me back in, as if I had nothing to do with the alarm and this wasnt all my fault? No, not really. The responders outside were getting ready to leave, at least, I say simply. Actually, whatre you still doing here? She smiles a bit nervously. Someone has to be on call, dont they? A lot of our patients cant just leave, and they obviously dont want people coming through to pick them up at times like this. So one of us stays behind, just in case. I volunteered. ...Thanks, I murmur. If anyone deserves thanks for all this, its her. All I did was bring Seryana home in the first place. She sat here, knowing thered be nothing she could do if a monster came back through, and looked out for these people anyway. And Ive never noticed her at all before. I dont even know her name I cant see her tag from here. Im glad they werent alone. And, um Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. I pause, tripping over my own thoughts this time. Do I actually want to know what Im about to ask her? What if I dont like the answer? I dont know how much more misery I can take today. But my only alternative is to go hide under the covers, wait for the next terrible day to come and find me, and probably not sleep for worrying about it anyway. So here I go. Um, before I earlier, I was looking for Noirin, but she was having a bad health day. Do you know how shes doing? Is she around? Oh! Yes, she came back up not too long ago. She should be in her room. Im sure shed appreciate it if you wanted to check in on her. Its a relief that shes okay, of course, but Im not so sure about that. Do I even still want to talk to her? I guess Id already done plenty of horrible things when I was planning to earlier. Nothings changed on that front except how likely my sins are to break down my door and drag me away. But if even she wants nothing to do with me once I tell her how Ive spent the last month, at least Ill be sure I deserve it. ~~~ Its unlocked! Come in! Noirins voice calls at my knock on her door. As I step inside, Noirin smiles, waves weakly from her bed, and sets the book she was reading down in her lap. Its Demystifying the Tarot, one of the first guidebooks every tarot person reads. Oh, have you gone all the way with the hair? I like it! That color really does suit you, she says. If she has anything to say about the veins, she keeps it to herself. Im thank you, I mumble. Hows the book? Its interesting! I picked up a copy for my son, too I always thought it was a bit of a shame when he gave up on this stuff just because it wasnt the same as getting real magic. Have you read it? Mhm. Thats one of the good ones, although there is something to say for reading the bad ones too and deciding which is which. You can borrow my others, if you want. Ive already read them all. Hmm. I think Ill take you up on that, she nods. Your room is nice. This is my first time visiting anyone elses room here. Noirins looks a lot like mine, of course, only hers is decorated all over with glazed bowls and jars products of the pottery class she teaches, probably. An arrangement of blue flowers sits in a thin handmade vase on her nightstand. Its not so special. You should see how Sabina down the halls managed to decorate hers. But thank you. Oh, and your shirts on inside out, she notes. Oops. I never ended up taking it off. I know, I say. Noirin tilts her head a little. Someone a friend found it for me earlier, but I realized on the way home I shouldnt wear it here. Its fine. Why not? Who said there was a dress code in my bedroom, of all places? No one, it just felt like kind of a mean joke. Noirin rolls her eyes. Liadain, there are not a lot of perks to being here. The most important one is that theres nothing keeping you from doing whatever you want. If you like it, you should wear it. I insist. I hesitate for a moment, biting my lip, before I grumble out a Sure! Here! and pull the sweater off. I shake my hair out and flip the sweater over before I put it back on. See what I mean now? Noirin looks down, squinting. Tummy ache she mutters to herself, then snorts out a cheery laugh. What? I attempt to wail. Nothing! she says through her dry cackles. Nothing at all, because thats funny! Despite the rasps, she can''t seem to stop giggling. "Oh, honey Its your problem. Were all going through this together. Were allowed to have fun with it if we want! Here, its like this they sent me in for oxygen therapy earlier. The technician who set me up in that pressure chamber they have asked me if I had any respiratory issues. Just, you know, going down the list the way they do. Do you know what I told him? Oh, just the cancer! And despite my exhaustion, despite the throbbing pain aching across my entire body, despite what amounts to my life hanging by a thread, despite everything I come the closest I still can to bursting out laughing. I wouldnt have thought I had the energy left to laugh, nevermind everything else. I cant even bring myself to feel bad about the faint, eerie, echo of laughter Im filling the room with. Noirin, for her part, only grins back at me. Say, I dont think I ever told you this not too long after I had my son, I had uterine cancer. Had an easy recovery from that one, but, well, lightning always strikes twice, doesnt it? No, Im didnt know. Im sorry, I wheeze, forcibly collecting myself. I can barely imagine recovering from the thing thats plagued me all my life just to die of some other horrible sickness. Dont be. The damn thing had already done its job when they took it out. I was just happy to be rid of it! I only bring it up because for a good while after that, my great joy in life was giving every nurse who asked me about my last period a hard time. Have you talked to a doctor about that? Is there any chance you could be pregnant? I got that last one for years after the fact! That baby was really taking its time! A fresh fit of creepy giggles escapes my throat. Years? Seriously? Noirin raises two open palms, shakes her head, and sighs dramatically. I know! Is it really that much work to read my chart? Ah, but now Im just rambling about myself glad to see youve gotten something out of it, though. How have you been doing? I heard I missed quite a day down in the oxygen chamber. Thats it was a long day. A long story, I sigh. Can I start a while before that? Noirin shrugs. I wasnt doing anything important. Alright. I take a seat in the chair next to her bed, steady myself, and spend a long, silent while gathering my thoughts. Noirin only watches and waits patiently. So around a month ago, when we had that Harbinger here I made the Promise. I chased it when it left. I killed it. And that was about the only thing Ive done right since. Oh, Noirin says. I was starting to wonder if you just didnt want to talk about that at all. What? I croak. Noirin chuckles to herself. Please dont take this the wrong way. Im flattered you were willing to tell me, and this isnt exactly the easiest place to keep a big secret. Im sure you were doing your best. But if youd told me after the first change, I think I may have been a little more surprised than I was when my son introduced me to his first boyfriend. I mean was that a surprise? I ask dumbly. Hed never quite struck me as that type, thats all, she shrugs. Nice man, though. Theyre married now. After my first transplant, before it was clear just how badly things had gone, there was a short while where I tried to hide how much pain I was in from my friends. I didnt say anything about my health, and when Grainne asked how I was doing, I did my best to brush it off I didnt want anyone to see some huge gap growing between our lives and leave me behind. At the time, I thought I was putting up a pretty good front. But what you don''t say about yourself can say just as much, and the subjects I''ve been avoiding are so far from the only hint someone could look at me and find its absurd. Does everyone already know? I ask. I dont know if theyre gossiping about you or anything like that. Maybe some of them dont want to draw conclusions if they arent sure. But the ones who pay attention to other people? Probably. And more importantly congratulations! No one here will be anything but happy for you, if thats what you were worrying about. No. Thats not it. They wont. You wont. Itd be great if I could believe that, but I bite my lip and start to cry again. Liadain? Its alright, Noirin says gently. Its really really really not. Im, its I mean, yes. At first that was all it was. I didnt want the attention. I didnt want to rub it in peoples faces that only I get to break the world to maybe fix myself just because Im thirteen. But Im also just I didnt know what an awful person I was until I had the power to be as awful as I wanted, I trail off. Noirin sighs out a deep breath, filling the uncomfortable silence. I hope this comes off the way I mean it to, but it never sat right with me. The way some people look at Keepers as these incredible saints standing above the world. You can do incredible things, yes, and youre the only thing keeping us all safe, but youre still kids. Well, you arent kids forever, I dont think anybody would describe Iona Fianata that way, but you understand. And kids make mistakes! Kids, if youll pardon my saying, do stupid things! That doesnt change just because the things you can do are so much bigger than anything I could. So, I can believe that youve made mistakes or done bad things in the last month. I dont think they make you a monster who can never do better. ...You wouldnt say that if you knew. Noirin folds her hands over her book. Try me. Fine! I snap. I have disease magic. Powers that work by taking everything wrong with me and forcing it on someone else instead. Ive been keeping myself standing by stealing health from other random people, so many of them Ive lost count! All those rashes of weird sickness around the city? Those were me! One of them was a Keeper I was fighting with, and she was the first of three other Keepers Ive hurt! The one tonight started a fight so he could stop me from eating people, and the girl before that was just trying to kill a Harbinger I was protecting! So I could see what would happen if I let it grow before I ate it! And Im still not even sure if killing that Harbinger was the right thing to do! I spit, finally stopping to catch my breath. Even speaking that much feels like an effort now, like forcing the words into the right shapes and sounds is its own new act of will. Noirin sits quietly through all this, listening, nodding along, and as I rant, a slight frown mars her face. Whatever shes thinking, whatever she said before, I just dont believe any normal, decent person could see what I am and group me with normal kids getting into fights on the playground. Do you do hugs? she finally asks, opening her arms a little. ...Huh? Why? Just an offer. Up to you. I dont, really. Not unless Pearl counts. Not since I had friends. Ive never wanted pity hugs. Ive never needed affection from someone who just wants to feel like theyre being nice to a cute little dying girl. But right now from one of the only people in my life whos never talked down to me I pull my chair a little closer, scoot into Noirins arms, and cry silently. Ill be honest I only caught so much of that, Noirin says. It sounds like youve had a very long day, though, and its not really my help you need. Im not sure whose it is, but I dont know much about the world you live in now. All I can do is listen. And for whatever its worth, Ive never known any truly awful people who spend their time sitting and thinking about what theyve done wrong, let alone talking about it. A friends gentle voice in my ear. A hand on my back as thin and frail as my own. It isnt much. It doesnt change anything, not really. But its nice. So I wont say everythings going to be okay. Id love it if I could, but I dont know that, and I do know how you feel about platitudes. But youre a smart girl. I think you can figure something out, even if it takes some help. And I think, right now, you just need someone to listen, and then some rest. The world wont end if you dont solve whatever youre facing right this moment. Will it? she asks. It doesnt sound like a serious question, but I cant quite be sure. I dont think so, I whisper back. Good to know, she nods. Why dont you see how you feel about all this in the morning, then? ...Sure. And thanks. Any time. I lean into my cane, shuffle to my feet, and head for the door. Oh, I wasnt sure if I should mention it when you came in, but that cane is new too, isnt it? she calls after me. Did you make it yourself? Is that how it works? I did. I answer. Well, its much nicer than the ones they hand out here. Matches your outfits well. Thats all I wanted to say. ...Thanks. Night, Noirin. Back in my room, Pearls smiling face waiting on my pillow gives me just enough strength to keep from flopping into bed and skipping my nightly routine. Maybe Im wrong. Maybe the world will end tomorrow. Maybe the Stardust Seraph or someone worse will come crashing through my window while I sleep. But I cant do anything about that. I can only do what I can to keep tomorrow from being any worse. And if nothing else, Pearl still gives good hugs too. ~~~ Our Callings 8-1 Shona practically skipped out of the ambulance, twirled around as she landed on one foot, and gave a wide wave before she finally touched down on both legs. THANKS AGAIN FOR THE RIDE, GUYS! she yelled to the drivers. And see you tomorrow, Aisling! No! Get some rest! Aisling shot back. She gave a sidelong glance, but kept right up with frantically typing on her phone. Mide scooted past Aisling and climbed out of the car without fanfare. When was the last time you got any rest? she asked. Im not at risk of exploding if I dont take a good nap, Aisling deflected. So dont worry about me. I know how to pace myself. When did that girl last take a nap, anyway? Shonad never figured out how literal she was about the whole never sleep again thing when they first met. Truths Lantern couldnt lie, sure, but how abstract could she get with that? Were figures of speech off-limits too? Whatever. Mide froze in mid-climb, holding one foot just off the ground. Hold on, exploding? Im is that a thing we need to watch out for? Probably not. But you get my point, dont you? And why shouldnt she see you tomorrow, anyway? We go to the same school, Mide pressed. Aisling leaned down, putting a hand to her forehead. Sorry, right, yes. Lots on my mind. Still putting in reports, making sure Im not missing any info anyone has on Isobels Harbinger. I suppose theres no harm in going to school if thats what you really want to do, Shona. I recommend, though, that you do whichever mundane things make you particularly happy, and I dont expect that school is at the top of your list. Feel free to correct me if Im wrong. Nah, sure, you got my number alright, Shona admitted. So I guess Ill see you whenever! And Im sorry again about your friend. Well be on call whenever you know what to do next er, and when Im better, she said, cutting off the objection she knew was coming otherwise. Thank you. Ill keep you updated. Now go take care of yourself. With that, Aisling pulled the ambulance doors shut. The van drove off, leaving them alone in front of Mides house. Whew, Shona huffed. WheeeEEEeew, she sighed again, playing with the whistles and crackling distortions of her new voice. That was a lot, huh? That was a fucking lot. Mm, Mide grunted, still watching the ambulance go. Thisll be fun, though, yeah? Like old times, only nobody can tell us when the partys over! Yeah. Eventually, she turned around, wearing the sort of strained smile she put on when she didnt want to show anyone what she was feeling. Shona, is it time yet to talk about whatever happened back there? Its fine if not, but its just us now, and And if Mide never asked how she was feeling, shed probably stuff it in the closet and keep pouring it out through her power until everyone could hear. Yeah. Theyd been there before. Just never with something something so The dam broke. Scenes from the Wound stabbed through her minds eye. That face staring through her in the last place it belonged. That voice, exactly like the one shed spent so long running just to make it to a place where shed never have to listen to anything it said ever again. Her skin charred off her bones by Shonas power over and over and over and never enough to get away Mide wrapped her arms around her just before she started screaming into the night, her hoarse cries amplified into unearthly shrieks of noise-music distortion. ~~~ Oh, and heres some good news! Ive booked you another interview! Her producer C a broad, slightly pudgy man C looked all too pleased with himself. Great, Shona said tonelessly, not trying at all to hide how she felt about his good news. Shona, Mom hissed through her plastered-on smile. Thats wonderful news. Thank you, Mr. Burke. At least this time, she kept the rest of the speech on how important it was to keep your name out there to herself. If Shona knew that the exit strategy they had in mind when she got too old to play a Keeper on a dumb kids show was dumb kids talk show host, of all the fucking things, shed have thrown herself and her name into the sea years ago. Hey, and if you hear me out, I think youll be excited about this one, he said, spreading his hands wide. The guest is Irida Deveraux. Shonad already started rolling her eyes before the name left his mouth. But when she heard it, the whole world froze. You wait, okay, Im just how? she croaked. Irida was the unchallenged King of New Claris. Shed climbed much too high to spend her time talking to any old idiot with a microphone. So why? What did she have to say to her of all people that she hadnt said a hundred times before? I wish I knew! Honestly, I wasnt expecting much when the team reached out to her, but you miss every shot you dont take, right? Oh, I always knew you were too bright to ever burn out! Mom cheered. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, never quite falling. Did you ever imagine, Shona? Isnt that incredible? Shona couldnt even get herself to argue on principle. ~~~ Her heart-bursting excitement faded a little when they got to the interview ground rules. Iridas modest list of forbidden subjects wasnt a problem, but the showrunners same as last time, they pretty much wanted her to act like she was interviewing a guest-star Magical Guardian instead of an actual real-life Keeper. Nothing too heavy. Nothing too real. Nothing that would pop the shows bubble-world where magic was all about punching your friends bad feelings away, then helping them feel better over a nice meal. Just ask her about shogi and her favorite things to do with magic, something like that. Plenty of people in the scene have talked to the Silver King. We want your audience to feel like they can talk to her too. Keep it on their level. Show them whats fun about being her, alright? Mr. Burke had said. Bleh. Well, it was more than most people ever got to talk to Irida about. It sucked to come so close and know that Irida wouldnt be talking to her in return, but she should really be happy with this much. Theyd decided to open the interview with a game. The producer thought it would be fun to teach everyone how the Silver Kings favorite game worked. That worked for Shona, whod already decided without telling anyone that if she couldnt actually ask or talk about Keeper stuff, shed just let Irida guide that side of the conversation. Sadly, Shona was not very good at shogi at the best of times, and in front of a live audience and maybe the whole world with the best, coolest Keeper in the city really didnt feel like her best of times. She squinted, leaned over the shogi board, and pointed to the piece with the most complicated squiggly characters. Uh, sorry, hows this guy move again? Beneath the table, she wiped her free hand on Magical Guardian Camellias flouncy pink skirt, desperately hoping the cameras wouldnt catch her brushing off the sweat. Today, Irida sat in an ordinary wheelchair rather than the palanquin she rode into battle, not that she looked any less majestic for it. Dressed in her Keeper outfit, the elaborate azure uniform of a general fighting for the sole cause of Fashion well, if generals wore skirts and ribbons and tiny white gloves and hairpin insignias. Skin inhumanly pale and smooth as porcelain, silver-blue hair worn in an elaborate braid that trailed over one shoulder while leaving a few locks free on the other side she seemed to have styled it differently every time Shona saw her. Sapphire-colored eyes twinkling with light and life. Literally twinkling they were solid blue, with no whites whatsoever, and in place of pupils and irises they each had five flecks of light twirling around a tiny sun-pupil in an endless synchronized dance. Irida lowered her teacup and passed it to the soldier at her side, still holding the teapot hed poured it from he was an odd half-real specter, a humanlike shape clad in something that seemed to waver mistily between being a stiff military uniform and old plate armor, his face covered by a thin cloth veil bearing a swirly glyph not quite like the ones on the shogi pieces. One square, forward or any diagonal direction, Irida said. Right. Thanks! Shona scooted the squiggly guy up to protect her knight. Are you sure you want to do that? Irida asked. Her softly smiling face gave away nothing. Lets see Shona gave the board a quick glance. If she was missing something big, she didnt see it. Yep! Thats the move! She remembered how the knights moved from playing chess with Dad. Shogi knights werent as good, but their move was still the coolest. If she lost them, shed miss her favorite little guys too much to focus on the rest of the game, so it only made sense to look out for them no matter what! Alright, then. Irida picked up her bishop, slipped it through a gap in Shonas wall left by the squiggly guy, and captured her king. Uh. Oh. Oops, Shona stammered. Hey, hold on, you can do that? You dont have to say thats no good, your kings in trouble now! or whatever? I dont! I usually would with a beginner, but, well. You did ask me not to go the least bit easy. Ah, thats okay, Shona shrugged. I resign! We all knew how this would go. But this is just the first time! Im sure theres a long way to go to catch up, but I wont stop running til I reach you! Maybe someday, Irida said with a patient smile. Someday! For sure! You just wait and see. Shona aimed a finger-gun her way and winked. Maybe so! Until then well, in your position, I wouldve accepted the handicap. Nobody dives into anything as complex as shogi and conquers it in a day. Theres no shame in approaching something new as a beginner, taking your time to learn it properly. Yeah, youre absolutely right! Big things, like people, always start small. Its okay to work within your limits starting out! Shona nodded along eagerly. Theyd love that backstage. It felt a bit like one of those end-of-episode morals, but it still sounded like Irida. If anyone could find a way to make this cool, she could. That in mind, anything you want to tell us about the right way to learn? Howd you pick up the game? I dont think there was much of a shogi scene here until you came along, so what made you choose it over chess or something? What kind of monster would choose to play chess? Irida asked, scowling in a way that didnt quite reach her eyes. Shona laughed, several voices in the audience joining her. Irida only grinned and sipped her tea. Now and then, if you poked her just the right way, Irida would go off on a passionate rant about the game design failures of chess. Everyone loved those screeds, even the ones who had no idea what she was talking about. It was just fun to see the citys unflinchingly kind and polite hero taking something so silly so seriously. No, no, thats not it well, it is, of course, but Ill answer the question you were actually asking, too, Irida said, prompting the noise to die back down. A local community helps, of course, but we all have the Sea. Really, shogi just called to me in a way those other games didnt. The pieces in shogi are unique, but theyre all part of a single complete system. They only make sense when you look at them in context, in terms of how they come together with the others. And the way the game works means that they never just go away. Their circumstances change, they become part of something different, their entire perfect arrangement falls apart in the face of a confrontation that only grows more complex As she spoke, Irida swiftly arranged the pieces on both sides of the board, staging an elaborate endgame showdown between them. Fluid and graceful, she held the pieces deftly between the sides of her index and ring fingers as she moved them, as a professional of her standing would. Every movement ended in her placing a piece with that satisfying wooden clack Shona never managed to do quite right. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. until someone pushes through all the chaos and finds the way to organize them, just so. I dont see life in it or anything so cliche, mind you. No one game can contain the world. But I do see what I see when I look at the world. My place in all this, my strengths, my limitations and how I work around them. It isnt my only calling in life, certainly not my highest, but its become a big enough part of how I think to shape my magic around it. She gestured over her shoulder with her free hand, nodding to the two ghostly soldiers beside and directly behind her. What if someone else had chess magic? Would they have to be your rival? Or is chess just not cool enough to give someone powers? Shona prodded. Shogi didnt give me powers, Irida chuckled. But no, I dont see any reason why another Keeper couldnt use chess as their implement, if they saw things through it the way I do through my game. Theyd just have very poor taste, she finished to a few more scattered laughs. Well, there you go! And Im sure youd beat them at their game as badly as you just beat me! Shona pumped one fist in a quiet cheer. Oh, I dont know about that. Irida lowered her head and set her now-empty cup aside, where the teapot-soldier picked it up and stored it away somewhere. Just because I dont think something is worth doing doesnt make me good at it. I dont even know if Ill ever be the best player at my game, you know? Wait a sec, you arent the best player? Shona gawked at her, playing up her disbelief. Who do I need to run from if I ever meet them? As of last month, Im the second-best Clarish player. If youre watching, Glaisne, congratulations again! Irida turned and waved to the camera. When she looked back at Shona, her smile seemed a bit wistful. I know. Ironic, isnt it? Huh. Shonad never thought about that. Shed already been Iridas fan, everyone was, but she didnt know enough shogi to follow her in the rankings or anything. But you were one of those super prodigy kids, right? What changed? Well, its the same way with people who are the very best at anything, isnt it? You cant just be good. You have to take every opportunity to improve yourself. The top players all eat, sleep, and breathe shogi, and I cant do that anymore. Ive taken other opportunities. Which I dont regret at all, mind you! You dont need to be the best at something to keep appreciating it. Sorry if Im a little stuck on this, just whats a normal person have to do to be better than someone with literal shogi magic? Not at all! Its interesting to think about, not to mention a bit uplifting for everyone who isnt a Keeper. More tea? Oh, sure. Thanks. Irida flicked her eyes at the soldier to their side, who immediately retrieved her cup and teapot from the same mystery space hed been holding them in and topped them off. She inclined her head in thanks and took a long sip before she spoke again. Its like this. Shogi doesnt exactly have a city its from islander ascetics developed it, thats why the pieces are all labeled in that old classical Thalassic script but its most popular in Rima. There, nearly all of the best players have been studying with experts since they were children. They even have a maximum age to join the professional players guild: if you havent made it by the time you turn 21, youre no longer qualified. I dont know if I quite agree with that rule, there are exceptions in everything, but there is a certain logic to it. If youre approaching the game as an art, it does make sense to focus on nurturing the people called to it, players whove loved it more than anything all their lives. Thats where most of the masters whove elevated the game came from. Right. Thanks, Shona said slowly. Youve mentioned things calling to people a few times now. Could you tell us what you mean by that? Iridas eyes literally lit up, the tiny stars inside them brightening. Their endless dance seemed to move a little faster. I can! I think some careers are more like callings. The people who take them up do it because they need to. Because its what they were made for, or where they feel like they belong, or the only way to achieve what they want the most. Thats not to say Im only speaking of the biggest, grandest things anyone can do! There are callings great and small, from shogi professionals to airship pilots to Sanctuary workers to city council members. We need them all well, maybe we dont need shogi in quite the same way we need those other things, but you understand and theyre done best when theyre done by people who, for their own reasons, have to do them. Careful, Shona. This could get a bit out of bounds, someones voice said through her earpiece. Thanks. Is Shona stopped herself, chewing on her words for a few long seconds. Blurgh, of course theyd cut her off here, right when it seemed like shed found something the Silver King actually wanted to talk about. She knew why they didnt want to hear it, obviously. Camellia would have missed it. Shed say something about how cool it was that anyone who really committed to what they love could be the best at it one day and move right along. But Shona didnt. Shona wasnt too blind to tell when someone was talking about two things at once. Well, fuck what Camellia would do. She wasnt going to be the girl who had the coolest Keeper in the city on just to ignore everything she had to say. Do you think being a Keeper is one of those? Shona asked. Forcing the words out felt like trying to make herself touch a hot stove, but there they were. I do, Irida said, mildly but without hesitation. What are you DOING? the voice in her ear snapped at the same time. That was the first thing on our no-go list. Okay. Fine. See if we can bring it back to Shona wasnt listening. Her mouth went dry. Even if she had any idea what to say, the words would shrivel up and die on their way out. Could Irida hear them prompting her? Obviously, it would be weirder if the Silver King didnt have any kind of super-hearing power by now. Oh Goddess, shed hate her, shed never want anything to do with some pathetic little puppet again- Irida shifted in her chair, looking directly into the nearest camera. Her eyes narrowed into the faintest beginning of a stern glare. The earpiece cut off abruptly. Okay, Shona said, glancing nervously around the stage. The voice never came back. No one in the audience looked too confused or distraught. Lets talk a little more about that, then, she said experimentally, expecting all the while to be dragged off the stage or struck by lightning or something. For everyone who doesnt know what they want to do yet, how do you find your callings? Howd you know you were meant to be a shogi genius, or a Keeper? I guess maybe that last ones for the Messengers to say, but was there a point when you were sure youd do it if you could?" Hmmm. Irida hummed to herself for a few seconds, tapping her fingers on her wheelchairs armrest. The lightning strike never came. Finally, the Silver Kings calm smile widened into what Shona could only see as a conspiratorial grin. This wasnt exactly the kind of interview I was told to prepare for, but it is starting to look like the kind I prefer. Alright, Camellia! Lets speak a little more freely, shall we? Shona pumped her fists. She couldnt help it. This was going to be too cool to care whod yell at her when it was over. So, to be honest: yes, some of this is up to the Messengers, Irida began. I dont know what makes someone a Keeper. I wouldnt trust anyone who claims to know. I felt that this was where I needed to be for a long time before I met Yune, so it cant be a simple matter of desire or passion like other callings. Instead, Id like to talk a bit about the kinds of people I believe should be Keepers. To my mind, thats the same as talking about who should want to be Keepers. Its a difficult, dangerous, frightening role, and it will become the most important part of your life. Theres no avoiding that. If theres something else you were passionate about, you shouldnt expect that being a Keeper and having powers connected to that passion will be like doing what you loved, but more. If that lightning was going to strike, now was its last chance. No, it had probably missed its window. No one could stop the Silver King from popping that bubble now. Shona doubted anyone could even bring themselves to try. Like I said before, though, theres some things that cant be done any other way. Every Keeper I know has something like that, some change theyre determined to make. Every great Keeper is someone whos looked at the world and found something they want, more than anything, to change for the better. When people ask me about my favorite Keepers, Im really never thinking about whos the coolest or most popular right now. I think of the Saints, who devoted everything they had to making a better world for all of us. And I also think it doesnt always take magic to change the world. Certainly not to change someones world. The audience was silent. Shona was silent. It was a lot to take in, even for her especially for her and for all that shed invited this, she wasnt sure how to follow it up. When does it not take magic? she finally asked. Almost none of the people who connected every city to the Sea were Keepers, and who could say what any of this would look like without their work? Irida answered immediately. We protect what all of you build, but it doesnt turn around us. Were just pieces on the board. Major pieces, yes, but I wouldnt be much of anything on my own. Without all the people who help me, I couldnt accomplish anything. And without the people I fight for, nothing I accomplish would matter. So please, whatever you take from this, remember that magic or no, everything you do matters. And to all of you who do make the Promise someday, I trust you to do better than Flowers Fangs! she finished with a wink to the audience. That got a few laughs. A few more uneasy ones. Honestly, I trust all of you who dont to do that as well. Im not asking a lot there. Lets not digress too much, though! A little earlier, you asked me when I knew what I was meant to do ~~~ Well, I think our time is about actually, our time was up a few minutes ago, Irida finally said, glancing off at a clock on the wall. I guess nobody wanted to interrupt us! Sorry if Ive caused any trouble behind the scenes! So, much as Id love to continue, I wouldnt want to make things any harder for the rest of the shows on your schedule. Yeah, Id lost track of it myself thanks for catching me there! She really hadnt been paying attention, but honestly, shed be happy to dump all those shows for more of this and so would everyone else. Thank you again for having me on, Camellia! This has been a lovely time. Oh, no, thank you! But I really am coming for you, yknow! When you see me again, youll be the third-best Clarish player! Irida laughed, and Shona joined her. Ill look forward to it. And to everyone else watching, whether or not youll ever be a Keeper, whether or not you want to, I think its good for us all to look around, take in the world, and think: is this right? Should that be the way it is? If you find something that isnt, try to change it! And if you try and try and find that you just cant well, maybe youll meet the Messengers one day after all. Thank you all for listening. Irida bowed her head, waved to the crowd, and gestured to the soldiers at her back. The tea-server vanished, and his comrade began to wheel the Silver General away. And thank you for watching, everyone! Ill be seeing you again real soon! Shona called into the audience with an excited wave, then dashed away. It had been a great interview. Maybe good enough to justify this dumb meta side-show thing all on its own. Shona wanted to hug whoeverd gotten Irida to agree to it. Sure, some of the geeks in charge of the shows branding or whatever were probably fuming, but everyone else would love it and then the whole thing would blow over. Backstage, she was greeted by a roomful of wordless glares. What the fuck was that? Mr. Burke was first to break the chilly silence. She was a little taller than him, now, but looking down at that tired, dead-eyed scowl didnt feel any different. Shona flinched, waiting for Moms sharp Language! to crack through the air as if shed said it herself. But Mom only stared at her. Look, itll thisll be fine, okay? Shona muttered. How many years have we been doing this? Audiences, they grow up with the things they like, yeah? Itll be good good for them to Shed had it all planned out. It all sounded great in her head. But no one here cared what she had to say. They just wanted her to quit ruining everything and go back to being cute. You really had to do this the one time theres no way we can redo it or throw it out, didnt you? Mr. Burke sighed. If youre trying to fuck us all over, I really wish youd just say youre done already. Thats not it at all. Please give us a minute, Mom said. She grabbed Shonas arm and dragged her out into the halls. Mom let Shonas arm slip through her fingers once they were away from prying eyes, but didnt turn around to face her. There was a silence as she stared off in the opposite direction, looking down the corridor at a poster with her daughters face on it spread across the far wall. Shona tried to speak up, to explain herself to the one person who she could trust to understand. She had really done something this time. For once, she had made something wonderful entirely on her own. Mom, I Do you really hate me that much? she asked, swiveling on her heel. Her whole body shook, and her eyes, already red and watery, had started to well up again. Her makeup ran in messy streams down the side of her face, the kind shed always rush to fix the moment she noticed them. What? Shona mumbled. I just cant understand why else youd be like this! We worked so hard to get you this role. We were all so happy for you when you booked it. Her voice trembled and croaked. So proud. So why are you doing everything you can to ruin it now? Shona wrapped a strand of hair around her finger and tugged, trying her best to steady herself. Im look, Im sorry, its nothing to do with you, okay? Maybe I just dont want to be someone else for the rest of my life. What do you mean someone else? Mom forced out through a heaving sob. Is that how you think about our lifes work now? Were only here because you asked to be! You wanted to do what I did, didnt you? And youre an idol now! The whole world loves you! What do you have to be so nasty about? Yeah, cause you made acting sound really fun when I was six! There was a kid my age in class who wanted to be a bear when he grew up! I didnt think I was promising to do it forever! I changed! I grew up! Grew up? Mom whispered. Thats is that all you think of Her voice trailed away. A second later, she burst into a wailing weeping, fit. The door cracked open behind them. Oh, FUCK OFF ALREADY! Shona roared, and stormed away before she could even see who was coming. Mom could deal with it if it was so fucking important to her that she couldnt live without deciding how she had to live. What were they doing back in there, anyway? Worrying about her interview crushing some poor kids dreams? They really shouldnt be. If Shona hadnt already been desperate to be a real Keeper and quit playing a fake one, she was now. Shed just have to find something she wanted to change more than herself. Until then, Mide would listen. If nobody else in the world ever looked at her and saw anything but Camellia, shed still have one place of shelter. ~~~ Shona spent the rest of the week at Mides house. They went to school once, but Aisling really did have her figured out. It wasnt that she didnt have the energy, or she had any problem with how everyone reacted to her awesome metal voice, she just being around all those people, she couldnt help but wonder if all the changes would ever be enough for them to see her as her. So she stayed home after that, and Mide stayed with her. They spent the days walking around the city out-of-uniform, the nights watching movies and concerts and, on one night Mide blocked out ahead of time, a stream of the yearly fencing championship in Horizon. Shona didnt quite know enough to follow what was happening, but the sheer energy of Mides commentary on the event was enough to make it fun, like listening to Irida argue about board games. It was a good week, despite everything. It really was. Mides family was happy enough to have her around that they treated every night as deserving of a big fancy meal for a guest, and while she wouldnt say no to good food with people who actually liked her, she couldnt help but feel like she was imposing. She couldnt exactly ask them to keep her around forever. So finally, that Sunday night, she headed home to face the masked monster who haunted her in her sleep. Our Callings 8-2 Are you sure you dont want me to come in? Mide asks. Yup. I need to see how it goes when its just us. But if you said we should ditch this and go fight with sticks in the park or something instead, I wouldnt complain, yknow? Sticks? Theres a throwback. Mide smiles a bit wistfully. Id like to take you up on that. I dont want to throw you back into the tigers den. But you did ask me to give you a push if you needed it. So after, okay? Fiiine. Yeah, okay, youre right. Im gonna go, then. Mide nods once and squeezes Shonas hand. Alright. If anything goes wrong, Ill be waiting on the road until you give me the go-ahead to leave. Thanks. Thanks again. Shona takes a deep breath ooh, it whistles electronically even on the way down, thats kinda fun strides up her driveway, and unlocks the door. Benen? Youre back a little early, Moms voice calls. Shona grits her teeth, holding back a shudder at the sound, then slams the door behind her. Oh, now youre slamming the door too? Hasnt the poor thing suffered enough? Deeper inside, theres the rustle of a magazine being hastily put away, then footsteps from the den tapping her way. As Mom steps into the front hall, Shona smiles and waves. Mide said it would probably be best if people saw her before they heard her. Oh, finally! There you are! Mom races down the hall, throwing herself into an embrace that makes Shonas entire body seize up. She closes her eyes and focuses on the familiar scent of that amber resin perfume Mom loves. Its not a nice smell, or at least not one that makes her think of nice things, but nothing at all like the Harbingers rotten-trash stink. Her mask couldnt hide that part. I didnt know youd be back so soon. How are you doing? All better now, I hope? She takes a half-step back, resting her hands on Shonas shoulders. And why didnt you answer my calls? Mrs. Lachlan kept me updated, yes, but if you were under the weather, its my job to well, do momly things! Worry about you, make you soup, all of that! And if Id known youd be back, I wouldve gotten dinner ready! Under the weather, huh. Yep. Thats exactly what it was. Sorry. Didnt want to freak you out, Shona says, keeping her voice as low as she can. Mom gasps and jerks back as if struck. Her eyes glisten like glass as they go wide with Shona cant tell with what. Fear? Disgust? Yeah. See what I mean now? she asks through a bitter smile. Oh, sweetie, no, no Mom takes a few seconds to collect herself, then wraps her arms around Shona, squeezing a lot tighter this time. Im sorry. You couldve told me. I know things like this are going to happen sometimes. She buries her face in Shonas shoulder, wiping tears on her sleeve and stifling the pain in her voice. So please dont worry about making me worry, alright? All I want is to be there for you however I can. Im only sorry I cant have your back the way I used to. Shona bites her lip at that last part, but nods and returns the hug, patting her moms back. Thats fine. Thanks. And, uh. Sorry it took so long to check in with you. Mom looks up and grins through her tears. Then keep me in the loop next time! The least you can do is let me fret over you! Im sure. Ill try, Shona warbles. Anyway! Go ahead and get comfy! Do you need anything? Id just bought some of those frozen fruit bars you like before your, mm, accident. They should still be good, if Dad didnt eat them all while you were away Mom hurries off into the kitchen in search of snacks to throw at her. Shona cant help but smile a little. For a while, a few years ago, Shona had been close with Ailsa, the girl who played Camellias best friend. They didnt have a ton in common, at first, but what they did have obviously ate up a pretty big chunk of their lives. Ailsa was always twiggy and tiny for her age. When Shona panicked over her first signs of puberty, what it would mean for the only life she knew, if anyone would ever like her again, Ailsa taught her all the tricks her mom had showed her to hold back time. Mom was one of the first people to notice. Shed insisted on getting Shona help, made every effort to make sure she was eating right, and did everything short of start a public feud with Ailsas mother she still didnt want to torch the show, after all. At the time, Shonad hated Mom for it the way she hated Mom managing anything about her life, but it was the right thing to do. If she hadnt seen that then, she did by the time Ailsa quit acting and went into treatment, speeding the show along into its downward spiral. As a Keeper, Shona pretty much didnt have to worry about nourishment or nutrition as long as she ate enough to live. Immortal bodies running more on magic than anything else apparently took care of that for you, so if shed still had that problem, she wouldnt anymore. But Mom never quite kicked her habits from those days, when shed taken every opportunity to find or cook things Shona was willing to eat. Her phone buzzes. Theres a message from Mide, reading simply: ? so far so good, Shona shoots back. Mom is trying. This couldve gone a whole lot worse. Nowadays, the food thing is even kind of nice. And its really, really not her fault that Liadains disgusting monster stalker stole her face. Even if it is her fault that she gave Seryana so much to say. So many old wounds to stick her grimy fingers into. But not raw wounds, no matter how noisily some extra gross Harbinger screams about them. Theyre all just shit that happened years ago. They have nothing to do with her new life. No one can tell her what to do, and she has literally forever for everyone to forget she used to be in a trashy bullshit kids show. This is fine. Itll be fine. Well, he did eat a lot of them. Not the lemon ones, though. That okay? Mom asks, smiling over her shoulder. Guess Ill have to forgive him. The lemon bars have always been her favorite. So, Mom asks while Shona munches away on her glorified popsicle. Whatve you been up to? Keeping busy, it sounds like. Huh? Oh, yeah. Keeper stuff is yknow. Its a lot sometimes. Anything youd like to talk about? Shona fidgets with a piece of lemon ice on her tongue while she sorts through her thoughts, throwing all the ones she very much would not like to talk about into a dusty corner. Finally, she swallows and forces a casual smile. I made, uh, a work-friend? she offers in the same way she used to talk about girls like Ailsa. Maybe. I think so. Or if not, Im gonna be her friend whether she likes it or not. Oh, Mom says, straight-faced. Theres an odd pause before she continues: Oh, thats great! Anyone I would know? Shona shrugs. Doubt it. If you did, Id be really impressed and shed be really freaked out. One of those low-profile types. Hm. Well, Im sure Ill have a chance to meet her sooner or later. You always were great at bringing people out of their shells, Mom says, nodding a little too earnestly. Yep. Sure you will, Shona snorts. Howd you find this mystery girl, then? I mean, Keeper stuff? Howd you think? Mide and I, uh, showed her the ropes, then she helped me out when I was in trouble. Took a bullet for me was the first phrasing to come to mind, but it wouldnt help either of them to get Mom thinking about how dangerous life as a Keeper could actually be. Or how Shona fired that bullet herself. I see, Mom nods. I see. So, about that. Stop me if Im pestering. You dont need to tell me everything about how you got hurt if you dont want to. But have you been to you know they have doctors for children in your situation, right? Shona tilts her head, stuffing her remaining half-popsicle into her cheek.Yeah. And? Im doing okay now. Why would I waste their time? Well, I just thought it might be nice to get a professionals idea about recovery, wouldnt it? Maybe theyll know about how long it should take for you to get better. Shona cant help it. She bursts into a fit of distorted laughter. What? Mom says, scowling. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Sorry, sorry, I just wouldve taken you for one of those parents whod dive the Sea and learn every possible thing about what happens when your kid makes the Promise, yknow? I did, and I really dont see whats so funny! I mean, youre talking about MAGIC like I strained my voice singing or something! Shona cackles. How am I supposed to talk about it when you havent told me anything? Youre clearly still hurt, arent you? Did one of those monsters do this to you? I cant protect you from everything anymore, I know that, but I still need to make sure youre staying healthy! Whatever that means now! Oooooohhh, Shona says, the sound coming out as a low whistle. Now I got it. Im not hurt, Mom. Its Emergence. Same as my cool new eyes. Its not going away, but its not a problem. Im not in pain or anything. Mom glances down, wringing her hands. Oh. What? You dont like it? I Mom purses her lips very pointedly. Cause I do. I think its great. So you dont need to get all weepy and worry about comforting me. Im fine. But, uh, thanks. It was a nice thought, Shona adds, the best peace offering she can think of in a hurry. Im are you saying you did this yourself? I mean, Its not like I went and got a tattoo. I didnt plan it out or anything. Stuff like this just happens to us over time. And its really, super not a big deal, okay? Shona fidgets with her popsicle stick between her fingers, holding back the urge to snap it or burn it to dust or do anything but stand here and drown in the shame on Moms face. Mom smiles beneath wet eyes and reaches out to run a hand along Shonas arm, gently. It feels like a hot iron pressed into her skin. But your real voice has always been so lovely. Everyone loves talking to you. What are they going to think now? she says, visibly fighting back tears all the while. Her voice breaks on the last word. Theyll think wow, there goes one of Claiasyas chosen heroes! Listen to her awesome metal voice, I wish I could sound like that! And if they dont, why should I give half a shit what they think? Shona growls. Shona! Mom gasps, aghast as always but all she does about it is sigh and shake her head. What about what you think? This is it doesnt sound healthy, Shona. You know I wouldnt fret like this if things were really okay, but is this really how you want things to be for the rest of your life? Is that how you want to sound on your wedding day? Hey. Hey, Mom? Do you know, like, what a Keeper IS? Were you thinking thered be some point where I retire and go back to normal boring everyday life? Shona lets out another dry, crackling laugh. And yeah! If theres one thing I know about you, its that you''d never, not EVER, pick out some random shit you dont like me doing and decide its the worst thing thats ever happened to anyone! Like, my wedding day? For real, thats the best youve got? Dyou think Faolan Fianata spent a lot of time whining about how chilly it was to kiss Lady Iona? If youre losing it again just because Im never gonna grow up to be you, fucking save us some time and say that already, okay? FINE! Youre right! Im sorry, Shona! Im sorry that the only thing Ive ever done is hurt you! Mom wails. She collapses forward, thumping a fist limply into Shonas arm. Shona takes a frantic step back, pushing her away. Its the least, gentlest thing she can possibly do. Im sorry Im not happy to see my sweet little girl dragged out of the life we worked so hard to build and sent off to fight monsters! Im sorry Im not CELEBRATING when you come home hurt! Im sorry you dont have a GOOD mother whod wave goodbye with a smile and save a nice spot on the mantle for your ashes! That snarling, tear-streaked face used to tower over Shona. That voice used to fill her nightmares. It has again, since Seryana, only now she sees it scarred, broken, burning. That perfect mask Mom wears until someone pushes her just a little too hard, reduced to piles of lightning-charred flesh over and over and over And Shona laughs. She throws back her head and laughs and laughs and laughs. Mom stares silently up at her. Her face is twisted, but not in the same old sneering, shameful way. She looks more like shes backing away from an armed intruder. What? You do you like that? I-is that all you need me for now? she sputters. It doesnt matter, Shona says. What? Mom repeats. Yeah! It really doesnt! I dont have to deal with this shit anymore. I thank the Goddess for that every night. Shona steps away, grinning like an idiot, and heads for the door. So Im gonna go. Bye. No you dont! Youre staying right here until we- Moms hand clamps around her wrist and tugs. Dont you fucking touch me. The words reverberate pleasantly through the room not shouted, only amplified, not some burst of force to shove her away. But they do their job. Moms grip loosens. Stumbling footsteps back along the tile floor. Shona doesnt bother looking back. Cool. Have a nice life. She smashes the door violently into its frame on her way out, wipes her eyes, then turns and bolts to the road. Mide, waiting on a bench in the front yard, rushes to join her. Shona, hey, are you she starts to ask. Her face falls as soon as their eyes meet. Oh, no. Whatd she do this time? She says if I want to keep running away from the awesome life she built for me to fight monsters, shell save a nice spot for my ashes. She chokes on the last words. Thats pretty much a quote. Mide is silent. Her eyes widen, then quickly narrow as she glances around Shona. Her fists clench at her sides until she sighs, loosens up, and wraps Shona in a gentle hug. Hey. Fuck her, Mide says, quietly but hard-edged. With with a pommel or something horrible, whateverd make you happiest. I dont care! She doesnt fucking matter! Shona yells. Mide flinches at the sudden burst of noise in her ear, but only a little. She nods and squeezes a little tighter. Alright. Youve got places, okay? Places and people. You dont need to go back there. Im not. Maybe ever. I dont wanna just crash with you guys forever, thats not really fair, so. I dunno. Ill sign up for Church housing, I guess? Not sure why I didnt do that earlier. Sure. Yeah. We can figure that out, and youre still welcome for as long as it takes. Seriously, sometimes I think my parents just want to adopt you. Thanks. I, uh, dont think I could really ask them that, but its nice to know, Shona sniffles. I dont wanna go back just yet, though. Lets go fight something. Mide tenses up. Hey. Buddy. I get it. I was right there when Aisling said all that stuff. Youre looking out for me. Really, thanks. But Ive taken the longest break I reasonably can, kay? Now I need to do something that matters. I dont know if we should right now. Listen. Right now, if I dont find something at least as awful as that complete raving bitch and smash it, I think Im gonna have to blow up my house with her inside instead. And Im not quite sure if Dad deserves that. So. Enne? Hey, do you think thats okay? Mide, please dont make this a whole thing, alright? Im really not in the mood. Almost instantly, a fluffy pink cloud-seal dives up from beneath the driveway as if it were the surface of the ocean, does an awkward little wiggle-twirl in midair, and plops into the grass on his stomach. Hellooo, really not in the mood! Im Enne! Huh? Shona mumbles. What? I am! See? The Messenger silently thumps a flipper-paw to his chest in emphasis. Mide folds her arms, smiling wearily. Whered the dad joke come from? Do you guys even have a dad? she asks. I mean, no, but I know lots of kids who do! One of my other friends always laughs when I do those, and its real hard getting her to laugh! He shakes himself out and balances on his stubby tail, proudly puffing up his fur. Can I help you two with anything? Advice? Cuddles? Think were good, thanks, Shona answers. Shonas spontaneous Emergence thing, Mide says at the same time. Is it safe for her to get back to Keeper stuff yet? Enne hop-scoots up to Shona, bonking his nose into her foot. Ohhhh yeah! Hows that been? Howre you feeling, Shona? Shona meets his bright, beady eyes with a sideways smile. I mean. Magic-wise? Pretty much fine. Its been like a week, I havent done anything active, I feel pretty much the same. Not that I really felt different in the first place. Mhm, mhm! Enne nods eagerly. You usually dont when it goes like that, I think! So, is there like, a test? Something she can do or you can do to see if shes back where she needs to be yet? Mmmmmmh. He flops to the ground, doing a few little rolls back and forth with a flipper pressed to the chin he doesnt have. Okay. Heres what we do. Shona, I need you to put me on your head, alright? Can I even actually pick you up? We go through this every time. Its fine, its fine! Just take it slow! With a shrug, Shona scoops Enne up and doesnt so much lift him as wave him upward. It feels more like directing a puff of warm air than holding an animal. It takes a bit, but soon hes settled on top of her. He crawls through her hair and down her back, poking and mouthing her at random, making little noises like a kitten excited for dinner between ethereal, tickly touches, then squirms around her side and into her arms, spreading his flippers wide as if asking for a hug. Uh, so what exactly was that for? Nothing, really! I just wanted cuddles! He giggles, nuzzling into her. I tricked yooou! Shona snorts out a low, gritty, involuntary laugh. See? Seeeee? I got you! I could see you werent feeling so great, so I had to get you! Clap clap clap for me! Enne moves to give himself a round of applause, but his tiny flippers dont quite reach each other. Sure. Good job, lil guy. Mide shoots them both an uncertain look. So, uh Oh, the test? I dont think thats a thing. Sorry, Mide! Enne admits with a sheepish scratch of his cheek. But if it helps, I think you should be fine! That whole thing is mostly just about when things get weird with your power, you dont wanna jump RIGHT into it and push it to get weirder, yknow? I mean, unless that is what you want to do, thats fine too! But for my kids it usually isnt! So as long as youve had some time to calm down, some distance from the thing that stretched it out in the first place, you get a clean bill of health from Dr. Enne! Shona grins. Good doggie. See, Mide? Enne wriggles in mock protest. Im not a doggie! Im an Enne! Well. Alright, then, Mide says with a shrug, smiling at the little guy despite herself. If hes sure, and you think thats whatll help most you know I have your back, Shona. Thanks, Shona says, as gently as she can. And thanks, Enne. Were gonna go blow up a Harbinger, kay? Good luuuck! Enne cheers. He hops out of Shonas arms, waves once more in midair, then pops out of being before he hits the ground. So, Shona says, throwing an arm around Mides shoulder. Wanna see if you can find anything interesting? I know Im dragging you along, so you get first pick. Sure. When you pick it usually turns out like the bathroom ghost incident or something, anyway. Mide pulls her phone from a skirt pocket and starts tapping away. Listen, how was I supposed to know how that would turn out? Did you guess what was going on there? Would any sane person? Of fucking course they wouldnt! Shona throws a playful kick at Mides leg. Without looking up, Mide easily parries with the sole of her shoe. Okay, lets see oh. Whoa. Hmmm? Shona cranes down to peek at Mides screen. I didnt even make it to Flow. Theres a Lighthouse alert. Someone on the west edge of town found, uh, a hole in the planet filled with crawling, limbless things. Thats what it says. Who? Is this a call for backup? Doesnt say. Just some guy. They found him screaming about it not too far from the place its supposed to be. And he SAW it and just ran off? Lucky guy. Seriously. So, that sound alright? Shona pounds a fist into an open palm. Look, all I want right now is to find some big, horrible thing and blast it. That sounds perfect. And if someone else shows up for the alert, awesome! Cant be any more of a mess than our last team-up! So off they go, leaving Shonas once-home behind. Good riddance. Before too long, they put the map away, instead simply following the tuneless alien song pricking at Shonas ears in the distance. Our Callings 8-3 Shonas always thought that the best way to understand someone is to listen to their music. Is it violent? Does it scream out against something? Music is meant to share some idea or emotion thats too big to fit into words. If you know which songs speak to someone the most, you can get a really good feel for what theyre thinking and how theyll act. So of course, where so many other Keepers feel magic as something separate from the world and their bodys senses, Shona hears it. Irida is a grand marching tune keeping time for a perfectly synchronized army. Roland is a rock-orchestra that shifts instruments and tones, from mellow and subtle to an epic wall of sound, to match the moment. Aisling is a symphony missing a few key notes to be the way it should. Liadain is a doleful dirge so quiet that it somehow feels like it wouldnt exist at all if it wasnt making someone listen. Actually, a lot of souls feel like theyre missing something, which kinda makes sense. Magic grants wishes that cant come true any other way, right? Not her magic, of course. All Shona wanted from the Promise was the new life she already has. Anything else is just a cool bonus. When Shona first hears this Harbingers voice, the only comparison she can think of is to a dark, soppy cave. Drops of water falling like unsteady drumbeats in a dank, echoing chamber. As she follows it back toward its source, the sound is occasionally interrupted by strange atonal pulses of unidentifiable noise. Some are brief bloops or insect-y chitters, others long and low, like synthesized, electronic perversions of whalesong. That last idea is the one that sticks in Shonas mind especially when, as they come closer to the sounds source, she starts to hear it in the distance from every direction at once. It makes her think of giant space-creatures screaming mismatched phrases of song through the dark, calling out for others like themselves, but finding nothing. But she found it, and shell feel a lot better after she shuts it up. ~~~ By the time they arrive, emergency alerts have gone out to everyone in the area, and first responders have already started evacuating the surroundings. Shona and Mide have plenty of experience navigating through that kind of chaos in the opposite direction, though. The alien song leads to a parking garage at the edge of the northern business district, of all places. Just outside its entrance, Shona halts herself and restores friction to her shoes, Mide skidding to a stop right behind her. She listens through the flood of chaotic noise for any signs of other Keepers, but theres nothing to accompany the Harbingers deep, murmuring ambience. Either its just her and Mide here with their enemy, or whoever got here first is already inside. Does it say if theres anyone else incoming? Shona asks. Irida knows, Mide says immediately. Shell be here soon as she can. Whoa. Big guns, huh? Guess this is pretty close to her neck of the woods hold on, how do you know that already? Mide shoots her a blank-faced look. I checked? Dude, were you on Lighthouse while we raced here? Texting and zoomings super dangerous, yknow. Shona leans over to elbow Mides side, but her arm thunks harmlessly into the shorter girls breastplate. Mide grins wryly up at her. Yeah, well, Ive had a lot of practice. Gotta stay sharp with the one thing Im better at than you. Its not the only thing, dummy. You could suplex me into the dirt any day. I mean you know what I mean. Mide looks away, back through the garages entrance. Its dark in there, save for the dim twilight sun flooding in from outside. So. Unless you want to wait for backup and I dont think we could do much to help Irida should we check the place out? Yeah. Imagine if we steal her thunder for once, wouldnt that be awesome? Mide glances back over her shoulder, smiling uncertainly. Just dont go too crazy, okay? Sure, sure. If we get a few good hits in and THEN she saves the day, I can live with that. So Mide raises her shield, takes the lead, and in they go, following the sound into the underground section of the parking garage, its basement. The Harbingers nesting ground. Or they would, if there was still a basement. Instead, the ramp down gives way to a massive gaping pit with no bottom in sight. Inside the hole, theres no pavement or earth around the huge chunk of the world its dug through only a massive web of thin white roots, a mesh cylinder growing along where the pits walls should be, but behind them is only darkness. The roots climb out of the pit, gripping the pavement around its edges. Every so often, quivering pulses run through them like veins carrying blood, and with those waves of steady motion, they crawl forward, covering a little more of the ground in a halo of shining white fuzz. Whew. They, uh, meant a hole in the planet literally, huh? Is that even surprising at this point? Mide says, her voice iced over in a way that tells Shona shes put her guard up. The knight takes a few measured steps toward the edge, craning her neck for a better view. More importantly, how has this place not collapsed? This looks like it shouldve eaten through the foundations. And where are those crawling things? Shona shrugs. Inside? Mide doesnt take her eyes off the pit, but shakes her head just enough for Shona to see it. Then howd the guy who got away see them? Uh oh. Good point. Shona looks around again, listening for anything out of place other than the giant screaming hole in the world, but finds nothing. Shit. You didnt see anything weird on the way here, did you? If I did, Id have stopped and zapped em. Wanna go sweep the place again? Not really. It looked like theyve been clearing this place out for a while. If something was out here that normal people could see, Im sure its run off by now too. Mide chews her lower lip thoughtfully. I just have a bit of a bad feeling. Could you stand guard for a second? Sure. Mide unsummons her weapons, backs off, and starts tapping on her phone. Despite being plate armor rather than a fancy outfit or cool cloak, Mides regalia still has the typical magic pockets a little tactical pouch thats bigger on the inside strapped to her right hip. So cool. Experimentally, Shona conjures a violin bow and hucks it into the pit, where it vanishes into the dark without a sound. No surprise there. So, what kinda feeling? she asks her partner. I was just thinking about the survivor and those limbless things he mentioned. Theres no monsters out here, no monsters anyone on Lighthouse is reporting yet. So what if he was in the Wound? Shona frowns. Then hed still be in there, yeah? Doesnt look like the sort of place a normal guy could just walk out of. Yeah, Mide agrees. Unless the Harbinger let him out for some reason. Oh, shit, Shona mutters. Like what? Dont know. Its only a feeling. Could be nothing. Maybe the monsters just scattered and hid somewhere. But I asked them to make sure hes in a safe part of the Sanctuary, just in case. Mide tucks her phone away. Her shield shimmers back into being. Huh. Yeah, good call! Mide talked all the time as if she wasnt useful just because her magic wasnt that flashy. But that didnt mean it wasnt cool or wasnt good, and more than that, she thought of stuff that Shona just didnt. Got it all taken care of? As much as I can, yeah. Wanna see whats down there? Yup yup! Heres to no witches, no bullshit head games, just some big fucking monster the city needs saving from! Woo! Shona cheers. Mide raises a gauntleted fist, smiling in wordless agreement. She calls her spear into her free hand, holds her breath, and leaps into the hole. Shona hops in after her with a twirl, spinning and spinning in place as she falls. ~~~ A few seconds into the fall, the darkness behind the world is entirely enveloped by the overgrowth of those shimmering roots. An endless tunnel formed from massive tangled clumps of creeping white rope, like a well made of spiderwebs all smushed up into building material. The pair ready themselves for any sudden movements. A Harbinger usually noticed when others entered their home, and it wasnt that unusual for them to set up a trap or lash out in attack the instant the invader arrived. But nothing like that happens when they reach the bottom. Shona spots dim lights mingling in the dark below, the web-roots give way again to darkness, and then the pit dumps them out into the void. Shona touches down weightlessly on a vast, rugged surface of dark grey stone. Solid earth like the face of a barren mountain stretches out in every direction. Mide has already found her footing, taken up a defensive stance, and started looking around. There is only dust and pebbles and boulders littered amidst the jagged, parched landscape, which curves slightly downward at its far edges the way the distant ocean appears to melt into the horizon. The sky, though the black sky above is filled with more stars than the brightest night, all twirling and dancing through the dark. They trail rainbows of phosphorescent stardust behind them and gather into groups as they move, orbiting tightly around each other until they start to seem less like stars and more like giant clouds of light filtered through a haze of twinkling dust. They remind Shona of a time she went camping overnight with Mides family. There was a great celestial cloud in the sky that night, growing ever larger as if it was descending to the earth. Weird stellar displays on that scale were rare, but some people, including Mides dad, liked to go out and hold viewing parties, watching whatever strange things theyd do through telescopes and waiting for the way they always ended the solar flare that cut through the night, casting the world in a sudden blinding flash of daylight for just a few seconds. The Sun smote the would-be invader and moved on as quickly as it appeared, leaving its remains to burn through the sky like a shower of divine fireworks. It was beautiful. If they were anywhere else, if a hundred voices werent still screaming their tuneless, desynchronized songs from beneath the earth, this sky might be, too. Then Shona watches one rip itself apart, suddenly and violently enough that the stars composing it splinter into smaller, mangled points of light, and limp off into the void, seeking new partners to begin the dance all over again. What is this? Mide whispers, eyes wide. A giant rock just floating its way through the stars. Is that, like, a thing? I mean, maybe? Could be something our guy here dreamed up. Yknow. A symbolic rock. Symbolic of what, Shona? Buddy, if you wanted to know that, we shoulda brought Aisling again. I just blow stuff up. Speaking of, judging by the noise, it seems like the things underneath us. Inside the rock, in a cave or burrow or something. Wanna go find a way down or should I just break stuff until it comes out? Uh, Mide mumbles. If we smash this thing badly enough that theres no ground left, Im not sure how Id navigate through whatever this is. This night sky knock-off. She jumps in place experimentally, maybe testing if theres some weird trait of the Wound that would let her propel herself through the sky, but only reaches a little more than her normal height. Yeah. Lets try the first way. Suit yourself. Lead on, then! Shona summons her violin and begins to play, filling the Wound with her power. Red lightning courses through the sky overhead, not quite reaching the celestial scenery above. Mide scouts ahead, steadily and carefully as ever, always staying close enough that she could leap back to protect Shona in an instant. Hey, look here, Mide calls, maybe a minutes walk from where they started. Its not all rock. She scrapes at the ground with her foot, exposing a cluster of those white roots just below the surface. Theyd be hard to see if it werent for the pale light they gave off. Shona lowers her violin and leans down to inspect the roots at a healthy distance. Huh. Its not doing anything weird, is it? Mide readies her spear, pointing it straight at the cluster. Then she scuffs it a few more times, raises her leg, and gives it a hefty stomp for good measure. Nothing seems to happen. Not unless youre hearing anything weird, she says. No weirder than before. Still just the same shitty noise. Well, it does sort of trail away from here. Maybe it goes somewhere important? Sure, lets see. Everything around us just looks like more rocks. They follow the roots for a few more minutes. Its slow going, with Mide stopping to scrape away more of the rocks covering them every few steps, and at no point does anything else about the Wound change. If it werent for the Harbingers voice, theyd just be drifting through the sky on a big weird rock. But thats fine with Shona. Static hangs heavy in the air around her, eager as its ever been to spring to life and push back those discordant voices with her own brand of noise. The longer and louder she plays uninterrupted, the worse itll be for this thing when it finally decides to show itself. Eventually, the ground ahead of them slopes down and opens up, forming the mouth of an underground tunnel. The root-lights trail off into the dark, like a path through a cave system marked in fluorescent paint. Hm. Dont like that, Shona says, thinking of those fish with the spooky lantern lures. Yeah, me neither, Mide sighs. But its a lead. Unless you wanna just keep exploring the rock. Nah. We can handle it. Mide nods and raises her shield. Just stay on guard in case anything jumpscares us, okay? It looks narrow enough for me to hold, but you never know how space will work in these things. The knight starts into the tunnel, spear at the ready, and Shona follows. Theres a confusing odor in the underground, not quite like anything Shonas smelled before. Wet, earthy, musty, but also vaguely organic? Its unpleasant, but not exactly offensive, not the way shed expect a Harbinger to smell. Especially after Seryana. Nothing jumpscares them while they descend, though kind of the opposite, actually. Eventually, the tunnel starts to flatten out, and in the distance, its mouth opens into a larger, slightly brighter cavern. Mide stops abruptly, takes a long step back, and elbows Shona. There, she says softly, pointing to something. Shona lowers her violin bow and squints into the cave. Just ahead, barely visible in the light of the pale strands running through the ground around it, theres something squirming along. A plump, squirmy worm with flesh the toxic, washed-out green-on-grey of coughed-up phlegm. Its head is split into a messy tangle of thin, meaty branches. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. It probably already heard us on the way down, Shona says as quietly as she can. If it did, it doesnt seem to care. Sure enough, its not crawling toward them, not even looking their way with the eyes it doesnt have. Its just sort of blorping along. Weird. Want me to blast it? Be ready for that, but not yet. Lets see how far we can make it doing this the quiet way. Mide draws her right arm back, steadying her spear for a javelin throw. Then, in the same motion, she lunges forward and hurls it at the worms head, impaling it to the rocky ground. Its lower body wriggles uselessly for a few beats, the last of its strength slowly fading, then falls still. Shona suppresses an urge to whistle. Mide beckons her forward, summons a sword in her weapon hand, and strides into the cavern, scooting around the worms corpse and keeping close to the caves walls. It certainly isnt bright in here, but it is surprisingly well-lit. Less like an underground tomb should look, more like the night beneath a full moon. Some of that comes from the roots running all through the ground, but as the caves walls stretch up and up with no end in sight, Shona follows them to the ceiling, where the many-colored stars of a bizarre sky just like the one outside dance, gather, and destroy themselves in the exact same pattern. And in the cavern itself a rocky grove spotted with all kinds of unrecognizable plants and strangely-colored mushrooms there writhes too many shapeless, wriggling monsters to count. Formless oozes; fleshy flowers using their wide, flat petals as limbs; airborne living balloons floating along like jellyfish with shining white roots trailing from their lower halves; things like wobbly sea urchins with dozens of tentacles but no bodies all of these incomprehensible things, not a single one of which looks like it should live, let alone move, crawling about wherever they please. For a second, all Shona can do is stare. When she comes to her senses, Mide is already surveying the terrain. We can fight them out here if it comes to that. Normally Id go for the chokepoint, but I still dont trust the walls here, and we should be faster, she whispers. Gotcha. Any ideas what I should worry about, if we start blasting here? Shonas yet to see two of these monsters that look exactly alike, but those split-headed eel-worms seem to be the most common, basic type. Most of them are gathered in the center of the chamber, climbing over what looks like the half-rotted remains of a giant tree or possibly a few trees, wrapped in a funeral cloth of moss and mold. Maybe that big clump over there? Seems good. Nothing else looks important yet. Mide approaches the tree-mound, step by careful step. Shona watches her back, ready to pick up her song and bring on a raging storm at a seconds notice. Until a limb shoots out from under a patch of fungus, wraps around Mides leg, and squeezes, clinging to her with all its might. She yelps in shock and turns on it, first trying to kick through its grip, then swiping at it with her sword, severing it in one clean cut. It has more of a shape than the oozy tentacles all around them it looks like a human arm, only theres no blood or bone at its stump, only a torn mess of white roots. The thing it was attached to staggers upright. Its roughly human-shaped, but with one extra arm growing from its side and one formless stalk across from that arm, like a plant in the middle of sprouting. Its corpse-grey skin is mostly covered in tiny flat mushrooms like scales, and its head its head and chest are split in two places, as if its skin was just a bag tearing open to expose its insides. One fissure tears straight down its face, splitting its head into two flaps loosely connected by stringy white threads, while another runs from one side of its neck all the way down its torso. Its bright, bulging eyes swivel toward the halves of its severed arm, moving separately to stare at both the stump of its shoulder and its fallen limb. Then, without any warning, it lunges for Mide again. The way it moves makes no sense its like its not moving on its own power, if it even could, but being pushed along by something inside it, something straining to get out. Mide checks it with her shield, meeting its strike with full-body force and bashing it back into the growth it rose from. Shona raises her violin and puts her bow to its bridge, filling the cavern with music. Lightning arcs through the air around her, dyeing the gloom in sweet magenta light. But just before she wills her storm to incinerate the monster, theres a voice. From the throat of the twisted figure in front of her emerges a low, wet rasp, less like a voice and more like the sound a pile of wet leaves makes when you fall in it. WaIt, nnO, hurrts, wheres whaat aarre hhweee? it groans. Shona stops playing. Its speaking Clarish, she realizes with a pit in her stomach. Mide sees it too. She holds her sword still, its tip hovering right over the place where the things ribs would be, then banishes it, clapping her hand over her mouth. She looks like shes about to puke. Shona, these I think this is it was, a person, she croaks. Can you I mean, can you feel them? Hear them? Is there anything left in there?! Shona listens, straining her souls ears as hard as she can. There are Keepers who can sense normal people with their power, but shes never been one of them. She only hears magic, and right now, all she can hear is the thudding of her own heart and the endless low wails of the Harbingers distant voices. Shona shakes her head slowly. N-no, no Im sorry. I cant Theres rustling in the plants. Writhing monsters crawling toward them, drawn by the commotion. And more human shapes lurching through the dark like Sofia the Deathlesss walking corpses. At least three of them. Mide balls her free hand into a tight fist, then unclenches it and recalls her sword. Fine. Thats fine, okay, well just we dont need to take care of them right now. Keep moving, be careful with them. We kill the Harbinger, and if theyre real people, theyll be outside when the Wound collapses. Okay? Yeah. Lets fucking go. That thing in the middle. Mide inclines her head at the dead-tree mound. Think thats it? Want to fry it? From this distance, the broken trunks seem to form the rough shape of a big, stocky animals corpse, with the shattered remains of broad arms spiked with sharpened branches and a flat, mold-coated faceplate. The worms crawling along it almost look like theyre in the middle of performing some disgusting operation, using their tentacles like wire cutters to slice chunks of rotted wood away and clear space for some slimy blob to crawl in and nest in the cavities. Do I. Shona plays a bar of sharp, shrieking noise, a sound even she could hardly call music. The ambient power clinging to her gathers itself into a storm of righteous rage, rips through the Wound, and crashes into the tree-thing with a satisfying peal of thunder that drowns out the Harbingers cries, if only for a moment. The first strikes incinerate dozens of crawling worms at once. A second round tears into the rotting heap, burning away huge chunks of its moldy shroud and setting the wood ablaze. As the first fire catches, the tree-creature answers Shonas noise with a wet, gurgling parody of a fierce bestial roar C one that sounds as much like a strangled scream of impossible pain as a battle cry. It lurches to life, the things oozing through it serving both as muscles and glue, straining to hold its broken body together. Fungal stalks bulge through cracks in the flattish stretch of wood that seems to be its face, sprouting at their ends into lidless white eyes. Its arms dig into the ground, each impact sending the Wound shuddering like a tiny earthquake, and drag it clumsily along, carrying it forward as fast as they can. Beneath the mold, it has no lower body at all its torso simply trails away into a stringy white mass strewn with bits of gravel and dead wood. And all around them, following its lead, the smaller mold-things begin to slowly swarm, some gathering around the tree while others rush straight at the invaders. Mide races ahead to block the trees advance. Trailing right behind her, Shona begins a new song, channeling its power into her guardian knight. Mides shield and sword crackle as she meets the Harbingers charge head-on, deflecting its first blow with a clanging sweep of her shield that sends its arm flailing back so hard and fast it looks like it should have been pulled from its socket. Shona removes the friction from her feet and darts away from Mide this rough, messy surface isnt at all ideal, but thats only a small obstacle. She skates on the sea; a few rocks and twisty roots wont stop her. She gathers a ring of lightning around herself and glides through the gathering horde, cutting a burning swathe through worms and slimes and bodiless starfish well before they can come to the trees aid. Her waltz of death through the monsters swarming pets spans a few laps through the wound. Her bow dances across the strings of her violin along with her, gathering ever more power in her storm, never troubled enough by the monstrosities throwing themselves at her to miss a note. Finally, she turns back to Mide, still holding her own against the tree-Harbinger in the center of the cavern, and expels her gathered storm into its flank in a furious burrage of spiraling bolts. The strike bowls the great decayed beast over with the force of a burning truck, and Mide is quick to follow up, carving a parting slash through one of its limbs, but a fresh group of monsters lunges at her before she can press the attack. No these ones arent monsters, not completely. Theyre the other victims, each split and broken and deformed in their own horrible way. They shouldnt hurt her not the way theyre fighting now, not by hurling themselves at Mide over and over like human shields. But the time she spends fending them off, shoving them away without hurting them any more than theyve already been hurt thats a problem. The Harbinger rights itself. Between a blocked blow and a hastily dodged tackle, it lashes out at Mide with a surprising burst of speed. Its limb slams into her, sending her skidding violently through the rocks. She picks herself up, wipes the blood from her scraped face, and holds her shield against the victims rushing to drag her back down, but that clearly hurt. Shonas fingers clench around her bow, squeezing it tightly enough that it feels like it should splinter beneath her grasp. This is exactly what shes here for. Some gross, awful beast she can turn to dust, high-five Mide over, and feel like shed done something real. Like the world was better for having her in it. Maybe thinking of the monsters victims should sour that, and it does, kind of. But mostly, it just spurs her on to crush this fucking abomination. And right now, as she fixes her grip and pours her fury into her music, flooding this horrible world with storm and song, she couldnt wipe the manic grin from her face if she tried. Crimson lightning falls from the caverns indoor stars, forks of it dancing in the dark and converging on the Harbinger from all directions. The lightning doesnt fade when it strikes C each bolt stabs into its body and stays there, channeling the wrath of the heavens straight into its core. Twisting snakes of crackling radiance set its insides aflame like a broken lantern and cook the mold-creatures inhabiting it from the inside out. Slimy limbs bubble up through cracks in its dead bark, which start to splinter and pop off until the monster practically bursts. All around the Wound, the remaining eyeless faces and the people, to Shonas relief turn to stare at its burnt husk, as if they arent quite sure what to do next. And a bulbous egg-sac orb of white flesh falls from the tree-things shattered torso, pulsing on the inside with points of familiar black light. Its heart. That really was the Harbinger, then. Got you! We got you, you absolute fuck! Shona cackles, skating to Mides side. Mide, Mide, hey! You alright? Im yeah. Ill be okay. She winces as she smiles, but holds the expression anyway. Shona, that was awesome. I KNOW! You were pretty great too! So go on, eat up! Youve earned it! She claps a hand on Mides back, gently as she can when shes so excited. Mide fixes her gaze on the heart and wrinkles her nose. Do I have to? I mean, no. I could do it. But I want you to have it. Alright, Mide sighs. I guess this is probably the grossest theyll ever get, at least. Dude. Thats what we call tempting fate. Just eat it already. Ugh, youre right. Yeah, fine, here I go. But this is my limit. If we do find a worse one, youre doing it. Mide limps forward, uninterrupted, and puts a hand to the heart. Her face twists up as its power starts to flow into her, then relaxes into the heady haze of taking in a Harbingers soul. As the dark lights in the heart fade, it deflates, leaving behind an empty sack of translucent skin. Eww. But when its gone, the Harbingers many songs in the distance carry right on. Huh? How? Mide. Hey. That wasnt it, Shona hisses. Huh? Mide shakes herself out of her absorption trance at Shonas urging. What do you mean? It was the heart, its gone now, and yeah, why is all this still here? I dunno. Thats never happened. Its not supposed to happen. What the fuck is this thing? In answer, those screaming, singing voices speak as if right into her ears. Too many voices to count, but out of sync with each other to the point where they sound more like the nonsense noise of a shouting crowd than a unified chorus. The Harbingers attention falls on her like the weight of the sky. Rough, lumpy faces sprout from the fungal growths all along the walls, staring straight down at her with bulging blue-white orbs. Moving as one in a blur too fast to follow, too many hair-thin white strands to count rise from the Wound, encircle Shona, and bore into her skin. Searing, screaming, tearing pain sets her world on fire as they burrow through her eyes, growing into her flesh as shes dragged down, down, down, splitting, SPLITTING, filling her everything with ITC In seconds, nothing else remains. But she still feels. Only the agony, those seconds of torture stretching and stretching on forever, but still she feels without skin. Theres still a her to feel it. Theres still a her to see without eyes. Theres still a her. Theres still a her. Theres still a her. Shona sees her own body, stuffed like a skin-sack full of reeds and eaten from inside out by fungal roots. Mides panicked, tear-streaked face as she hacks away at the cocoon, its threads shifting and regrowing to replace themselves in instants. Not that theres anything left of her in there. But her magic isnt part of her body. Its her. And as long as theres a her, she can keep fighting. She looks inside and sees her power, her desperate rage, a flickering ember drowned at the bottom of a sea of impossible pain. She shuts the Wound and the agony and everything out, focusing only on that single, beautiful ember. And she screams, making a song of that endless, breathless shriek, pouring everything shes ever thought and felt and been into the sound. It burns and burns until it boils the whole sea around her away and keeps burning. It pours out into the Wound, destroying whats left of her cocooned corpse, turning every squirming little monster to ash at once, striking back at the stars themselves. She lashes out at everything, pushing to disintegrate the Wound and its master and everything it is. Theres nothing left to hold her back, nothing that could hold back a living storm of boundless fury, a tempest of pure power who can write whatever she wants into the world in flame. No theres still one thing. Still Mide, staring up at her as she rises. She sends a bolt of herself back to the surface and slices through the Wound itself, burning away a circle of everything around Mide and leaving her a tiny severed island to fall back to reality on. Im sorry I was such an idiot. Thanks for going along with me, she tries to say. But she doesnt know how anymore. Through all the devastation, something unreal stares down at her. A shapeless grey ink-blot of a face among the stars. It changes itself as her new senses take it in, becoming a half-formed outline of her own features. it says, in her voice and so many more. Its roots rise and shift at an impossible angle, digging into her once again, and then it swallows her soul, too. ~~~ Mide collapses on hard, paved ground and springs to her feet, glancing in a frantic circle. Shes back outside the Wound, the pit right behind her. What happened? That scarlet storm-angel did something to her, flooded her whole world with blinding red light, and by the time the spots faded from her eyes, she was here. Not important. Shonas still in there. She needs to get back. She raises her sword and whered it go? Whatever. Shell just summon a new one. Nothing happens. What? she gasps, looking down at her hand. Her armors gone too. All she sees is her own scratched skin and torn sleeve. She reaches out for her magic, calls to it, screams in her mind that they need to transform again right now. But theres nothing. Her power, for whatever it was worth, is gone from her reach. How? Why? WHY NOW? Shona! SHONA! she wails into the dark. Is anyone here yet? Help! Fucking HELP US! No one answers. No one comes. Tears sting the cuts on her cheek. And as she stares back into the hole, struggling to find the will to move, to find help, to do anything but stand here and be pulled back into the dark, to go where Shona is something reaches a nubby, oozing limb out from the mouth of the pit. Something like a starfish with no central body, just a fanged, tentacled halo mottled with colors that dont exist. Mide stumbles back, her breath catching in her throat. What can she do? What has she ever been able to do? Nothing. Shes fucking useless. Always so useless, no matter what any of them said. The thing crawls out of the hole, dragging itself toward her. It wraps a leg around her ankle, draws itself up, and narrows its mouthless ring of teeth around her. Until a tiny glint of steel slices through the air, as if swung from nowhere by an invisible wielder swinging an invisible weapon, even, with only the smallest triangle-point of metal visible and then that disappears too. In its passing, the starfish collapses into two halves, cut down the middle at an odd angle, and becomes nothing but two tangles of dead flesh at her feet. Mide whirls around, glancing over her shoulder just in time to see someone grab her arm. A tall, slender-necked girl in a sleek grey suit, her face entirely covered by a single plate of metal. In her free hand, she brandishes a little orange box cutter. Cmon! the girl commands, tugging Mide back. And before she can protest, shes dragged out of the garage in a single long, long, long stride, compressed into a half-second of motion. ~~~ Shona floats through an endless abyss. Theres nothing but distant stars and pain, pain, the memory of pain so hot and bright it refuses to leave her even now. She couldnt say how long shes been there. Part of her wonders if theres ever been anything else. But eventually, something happens. Shapes form in the darkness. Faces the vague forms of faces, some almost human and some unthinkably other, but none with enough visible features to be called an actual face. All are shaped from colorful blooms of mold like unfinished clay sculptures. What? What is this? Where is she? What does that mean? Pain makes way for other memories, other feelings. Regret and longing and the raw animal terror of being devoured alive. The sadness in its voices feels familiar. It feels like something Shona cant help but understand. Is she still her? How would she know? Her thoughts spin and spin and find only one anchor, one reminder that there was a world before this. Mide isnt here. Mide will be safe. She has to be. She didnt drag her into this just to get her killed. Memories spill out from whats left of her mind and float through the void as if they were real things, keepsakes spilling from her grip. Days spent together in the deep woods, or wandering the quiet corners of the city. Sparring with sticks in the park just because. Mide always won, but she never stopped smiling at the thought that someone might recognize her and see her like that. The Promise they made together. Or the one she made for Mide. Thats probably how it always was. She probably always knew, somewhere deep down. Nothing Hurts 9-1 Demystifying the Tarot, Chapter 5: The Major Arcana The Undreaming XV The most traditional version of this card depicts a twilight lake in a colorful ethereal landscape. A vast dark hole has opened in the water, around which the world twists and spins as if being pulled down through a drain. A single human figure swirls an arm at the waters edge, and from the center of the darkness, the shadowed form of the Undreaming C a dark figure on a dark background, only her eyes of violet fire clearly visible C reaches out to take their hand. The Goddesss wayward daughter, who loved the world too much to cope with all the sorrow in it, calls to those of us who stand at the brink of losing ourselves to despair. In Tarot, we view the Undreaming not as an external force whose nightmares invade our hearts, but as a reflection of our own inner darkness. When this card appears in your readings, it carries an urgent warning which must be interpreted with courage and candor. You need to search your own inner world and consider what dark thoughts or self-destructive patterns may be pulling you down. Harbingers are often said to be drawn into the world by our emotions and mental states. While we cannot control them, we can come to understand ourselves and overcome our pain for its own sake. Returning to the cards image, we see that the Undreaming is entirely confined to the void, trapped within her own pain, and beyond her reach, the beauty in the world stands unchanged. The Sun will shine again tomorrow, even over the darkest places. As always, despite its ominous connotations, It bears mentioning that no Tarot card is purely sinister. Positive aspects of the Undreaming may include becoming aware that you have a problem, the first step in seeking help, or a suggestion to take a deeper look at someone we consider to be wicked. They may simply be in pain, or perhaps the traits we most hate in others might cast a light on our own flaws, serving as a mirror to show us where we need to improve. When inverted, we may imagine the scene flowing in the opposite direction, banishing the hungry blackness, but inversions are rarely so simple. Rather than pure inner peace, the Undreaming inverted may represent overcoming trauma or recognizing and escaping from abuse or self-sabotage. By the same token, it may indicate denial of a painful emotion, or perhaps a dark impulse or dangerous tendency you may be resisting or burying from conscious awareness. While this is perhaps the card most feared by amateurs and querents, it almost never refers directly to Harbingers or their activity in any sense beyond lingering trauma caused by an attack. It is unethical and dangerous for a Tarot reader to predict Harbinger incidents. Keywords: Upright: Nightmares, mental illness, regret, hopelessness and helplessness, lost causes, self-destruction Inverted: (+)Confronting inner demons, near escapes from tragedy, positive thinking (-)Denial, refusal to face a problem, intrusive thoughts, suppressed desires ~~~ The too-familiar sensation of my joints trying to eat themselves gnaws me awake just before sunrise. I wince and bury my face in Pearls side, hiding from the light. It hurts to move it hurts anyway, moving just makes it hurt more. Its like tiny bits of muscle and tissue inside me have frozen into shards, snapping under the pressure if I try to move at all. Of course its today, too. Of course. Ive gotten too used to being able to ignore a bad health day if I just throw enough stolen life at it. Its only natural that everything would go wrong today, now that the wells run dry and I have no idea how long itll take me to set up some less awful method of getting more. If thats still possible. If it was ever more than a stupid fantasy to imagine that random people would just hand me enough of themselves to keep me on my feet. But no one burst through my window and killed me in my sleep. Yet. So I guess thats something nice. I almost want to go back to sleep, to pause the start of the next terrible day for just a little longer, but I almost never can sleep on mornings like this and I certainly couldnt after last night. Instead, I force myself to sit up, wincing at every tiny adjustment, and transform still mostly under the covers, which Im sure would mortify everyone who thinks Keepers need weird poses and catchphrases. Thats kind of a nice thought, too. If I had magic back when I wrote that gratitude journal where I thanked my skin for keeping my organs in place and my organs for doing their best against my bloods constant onslaught, that project might have lasted for more than a day. So while Im searching for any reasons not to dissolve into a puddle of pain and panic, lets take stock of what I got from the longest, most exhausting day of my life. So far. I cant exactly count decent relationships with other Keepers after the last thing, but Seryana is absolutely dead. Ive only touched the blessed curse she left me on instinct, in a moment of desperate inspiration. What can it actually do? I fill a card with a roughly me-sized wisp of death-mist and float it across the room. I transfer my vision into it both eyes this time, just to make sure I can then will it to burst, quickly shaping its fumes into a new doppelganger. Peering out through a ragged curtain of ink-stained white hair that parts just enough for me to see, I peer into the dresser mirror at the twisted echo of myself, a little thinner, a little more see-through than the last. I raise one skeletal hand, clenching and unclenching its translucent skin. It hurts a little, the way pushing through the cold, numb pain of doing anything on a bad health day always does, but not enough to stop me from doing it. With a bit of effort, I can make this me at least solid enough to walk around and touch surfaces rather than simply drift like foul air, but I cant quite find the strength to crack the window open, and the pain of trying overlays itself with my real bodys sharp pangs in a confusing double-vision way. Still, this could do a lot for me Ill need to check if I can throw doppelgangers into Wounds while my actual body hides at a safe distance, or if theres some limit to how far they can wander from me before problems come up. Later, though. I really dont want people to see horrifying plague-clones walking around my home in broad daylight and send someone to investigate. Ugh. I really am an idiot. I couldve solved so many problems before I knew they existed if I found some way to tell everyone dont mind the horrifying plague Keeper, she probably wont hurt you too much before I buggified the Stardust Seraphs insides. Maybe it wouldnt matter, maybe no one would accept my existence anyway, but its not like it couldve made things much worse than they are now. For now, I pull my awareness back into myself with a sickening lurch, let the double melt into mist and finally dissipate, and end my transformation, crawling back into bed with Pearl. I stay there until the light filtering through my curtains forces me to acknowledge that Ive spent the last hour and some shivering in pain with my eyes wrenched shut, chasing sleep but never catching it. I shouldve just started a book or something, but then its not like I can focus on anything except how much everything hurts on mornings like this. Finally, the Sun forces me out of my nest. As I squirm to keep it out of my eyes, I cant help but imagine it speaking, asking me over and over if Ive given any more thought to the idea of burning out my eyes and setting my soul on fire so that whatevers left of me can know all that can be known. At least today, it shouldnt be shining through every window at once. I stagger out of bed, summon my cane, and head out to find somewhere darker. I cant be bothered changing today, though. Im joining the pajama cult. Sorry, Noirin. ~~~ As it turns out, no matter how hard I try to just keep things quiet, ride out the pain, and think on what options I have left, everything reminds me of yesterday. The floors patients and nurses are all gathered in tighter-than-usual groups, gripped by the same sort of quiet unease as after Yurfaln only more so this time, it seems like. Of course people are going to be on edge about having two unrelated monster incidents within a few weeks. Even in a place like this, full of people youd think of as pretty high-risk if theres anything to those stupid videos about warding off Harbingers with good mental health, thats weird and worrying. But this time, now that everyone with working eyes has decided how I fit into those incidents, there doesnt seem to be any uncertainty or unease around me. Several strangers at once look up to wave at me as I limp to my usual table. Everyone who glances my way does it with a smile, with a knowing sort of admiration. The morning charge nurse stops by to tell me that Banva will be out for a little while longer, but shes healing up well, and I suppress a flinch when she thanks me for getting her help so quickly. By the time Ive settled in to search the Sea for some distraction, the pall of fear over the room seems to have mostly lifted. I hate this. I dont want it. I dont deserve it. But I cant tell them that, since if Im somehow making things better by sitting here and brooding, the absolute least I can do is let these people imagine that Im some reason to be relieved. For at least a little longer, I can let them dream. They dont have much else. So fine. I guess this is my life now. No point in pretending I can have normal, quiet days and secrets that arent obvious to anyone who looks at me. Pain aside, everything is on fire, and waiting around for the chance that my health will improve soonish can only hurt me more. I should be looking for some way to make things better. Just how? I dont have the strength to go find more health, let alone to hunt. Even if I did, I dont think I should. If the whole world turns on me and Im left with no choice but to sustain myself the way I had been or die, Id do it. Im not a good enough person to die for anyone or anything, let alone the good of a lot of random people Ill never meet. Still, I dont want to run around hurting and terrifying those people, and even if Im pretty sure that I have, I dont know yet if Ive burned all the bridges that might let me find some better way to do things. So I glance around the room to see if anyone might hear me from here, then realize that theyd probably need to be sitting at the table or leaning right over my back to overhear me now. I shrug, scroll through my phones history, and call Aisling. She answers almost immediately: One moment, please. Im in school. Quick footsteps and the sound of a door slamming behind her break the silence on her end, then Okay. There you are. Hows your Harbinger situation looking? Oh. I did say Id call you back, didnt I? Sorry. I can wait if Im interrupting something. Nope, I get a couple of these calls pretty much every school day. Teachers know how it is. Im just glad youre alive. Now spill! Um. Right. That would have been a legitimate question, wouldnt it? Sorry again I left you wondering. It was just a really terrible night. But shes dead. One of the cases you pointed me to was her, so thank you for that. Glad I could help. Id ask you to come report on her for our files, but you sound exhausted, she notes, no doubt noticing the change Emergence has brought to my voice. Some other time, maybe. I think thats just how Im going to sound from now on. Which feels appropriate. Oh. Aisling is quiet for a moment. Any other changes? None worth mentioning. And I dont quite understand it yet, but her power seems pretty good. Then considering the circumstances, I think you got off pretty easy. As for the power, you know where we meet. If youve got a weird magic thing youre trying to figure out, either what it is or how to use it, thats pretty much all we do, Aisling offers. Thanks. Maybe. I pause. That isnt exactly why I called, though. Hm. Im still glad youre alive. What was? Does she not know? It doesnt sound like it, but she did hold things back to see what Id say yesterday. My foot taps nervously on the floor. It hurts, but I cant quite get it to stop. Well, shes already heard me out and taken my horrible history about as well as I could hope for. If she hates me now, I probably deserve it. I look around again, finding no incredibly stealthy eavesdroppers. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I didnt think to call you last night because because after everything with Seryana, the Stardust Seraph showed up and attacked me because I wouldnt give him any of my weird blood. No, thats not fair, probably we both kind of started the fight, and we both kind of lost, and now I have no idea what- Hey. Slow down. I have no idea what youre saying and it doesnt sound like youre breathing, she says flatly. I suck down a whoosh of air too unnaturally quiet to be conspicuous. Okay. Now, start at the beginning. What happened? I dont know! He doesnt make any sense! He dropped out of the sky and crucified my Harbinger, then stood back while I ate her, then declared himself in charge of making sure I wasnt doing anything else wrong. He wanted to follow me home or steal one of my feathers, said it just wouldnt be safe to leave me alone without being able to track me down whenever he wanted, and he wouldnt take hey, youre incredibly creepy, could I call Aisling or Niavh or someone and bring them in on this? for an answer. So I tried to leave or get to someone else, he tried to restrain me, I tried to stop him from doing that, it got really bad. Id hurt him a lot and thought he was about to kill me when we both felt someone else coming, and then he just stopped. He said it was Irida and I didnt want to know how shed handle me if I thought he was nasty, then sent me on my way. Even made me faster before he left. I take another long breath and silently sigh it out. And I have no idea what happens next. He obviously isnt dead, especially if you hadnt heard anything about this until now. Probably flew off and got whatever emergency care he needed. But I cant imagine hes just going to leave this alone and I dont know what to do now. Ive spent all morning trying not to panic about magic police or something storming my hospice. On the other end, theres the sound of something soft but heavy thunking against a wall. Well, then, Aisling says tonelessly. Thats a fucking lot. Im afraid I cant say whats coming either. I dont know Roland well enough to predict how hell react to something like this. I dont exactly have examples to work off. Shes still there. It doesnt sound like she hates me. If she thinks Im an absolute idiot everyone should avoid for their own safety, shes keeping it to herself. What about Tara? I ask. He was still kind of new during that whole thing. Tara was mostly Iridas problem. Oh. Okay. About that, actually I swallow. What happens to Keepers in, um, cases like this? What do they do about it? Aisling snorts. That depends entirely on what the local Keepers have the will and ability to do about it when it happens. Youre not in any meaningful legal trouble, if thats what youre asking. Im not? Ive assaulted so many people I lost count of them and never stopped to figure out what I was even doing to them. I still dont know. Ive fought and severely injured two Keepers. One time it was to actively protect a Harbinger. Im the sort of menace you only ever hear about in horror stories about things going really wrong in other cities. Why not? How? I spurt. Good question! Aisling says with a single bitter laugh. Heres my answer: say the council makes laws targeting a group of temperamental children who can upend reality at will. While depending on those same children, who very often do not appreciate being told what to do, to keep living psychological terrors from eating their souls. How do you propose they enforce any regulations on what Keepers can or cant do? Get older, stronger Keepers to do it? I try. Sure. Then they need enough of those Keepers who agree with their laws and how violations of them should be addressed to make a whole magic legal system, and there just arent that many of us, period. So I suppose they decided it was easier to skip the step where they write a bunch of rules that arent worth the time it took to type them out thats if they even manage to write them in a way that keeps Iona or someone from coming out against them and shutting the whole process down and hope well handle magic problems our way. Wherever or whoever they come from. Um. Okay. Fair enough, that sounds about right, I mutter. Yeah. There are laws written specifically for us, with for being the operative word. At least in this city, theyre all to our benefit, things like the Keeper emancipation policy. As for the rest, theres nothing that says Keepers are above the law, but youll literally never find one being charged with a normal crime in a normal court. Unless youre the next Sofia, I think the worst you get is Church Keepers keeping a closer eye on you and offering you mentorship a little more emphatically than usual. How does that work? Does it work? Tara and I cant just be the only Keepers whove ever done bad things, can we? Youre very much not. Its not a great system. Probably a good thing for you right now, though. You dont sound very happy about it. Im not. Its not about you, though, I just want the world and society to make some kind of sense. Your whole thing sounds pretty bad, yeah, but we had the same terrible day yesterday, only it sounds like yours got a lot worse. I can believe youre trying and Roland just had incredibly bad timing. And youve helped us out. I dont want this to be any worse for you than it already is. I do still want to help if I can, I say. Isobels my problem too. It just, um, might be hard. Im out of health and everything hurts and I dont expect people are going to have a lot to spare for the girl who beat up a Fianata and made the Stardust Seraph puke centipedes. Centipedes, Aisling says. It doesnt quite sound like a question. No, fine, I probably dont need the details there. Look, I hadnt heard about this one way or the other until you brought it up. That means something. If youre lucky, it means whatever Roland wants out of you now, hes trying to handle it in that sweep-it-under-the-rug way the Church likes to handle Keeper problems. Ill see what I hear when Ive got more time, poke you if anything comes up. Please dont start eating people again, if you really want to work this out civilly. Not planning to, I grumble back. Great. And if theres anyone else you think itd help to get ahead of this with, maybe do that as soon as possible. Alright. Sorry again to drop this on you so early. And, um, thanks. I let her go. Okay. That couldve been a lot worse. While Im slogging through this anyway, is there anyone else? I dont expect Shona will react much differently to this than she did when I almost ate Mide. She seems like she just wants to be friends with everyone forever, no matter how little sense it makes for the people involved to share space. Yesterday, she even tried to pitch calling the Seraph in to fight Isobels Harbinger, which is kind of strange, especially given that it sounded like he was looking for me for more than a day. Actually, Mide did say something about someone catching up with me, which feels very specific, in retrospect. Did they know? Was Shona hoping we could just work it all out while we were at it? I guess that couldnt have been any worse than what ended up happening. Still, I think the three of us are just not very compatible, in the end. They can think what they want when this reaches them. That only leaves one other person. PD? I ask my phone. A shiny eye with a dark, squiggly cuttlefish pupil blinks open beneath the clock display, coming into view as if its part of a body thats still mostly camouflaged with the gently shifting sea-surface background on the screen behind it. Find Niavh Fianatas contact information and call her for me. Thats Niavh Fianata the Clarish Keeper, if theres somehow more than one. I normally just use manual searches for this sort of thing drives always seem prone to making mistakes no person would unless youre annoyingly specific with them but right now, my fingers arent up for it. The eye blinks at me, makes a little bloop of acknowledgement, then closes and disappears. Thanks, I say. My phone starts browsing the Sea on its own, while I think about just what Im going to say to her. Ill have to leave a message, if shes still out of reach, which is easier in some ways, but leaving messages always makes me feel weird about talking into the void at nobody. I didnt want anyones help, when I made the Promise. I didnt want to bring any strangers into my problems. I still dont, really I only offered to reach back out to Niavh last night because if it had to be someone, Id much rather it be her than the Seraph, but doing things exactly how I want to hasnt been going the best for me, and she has been through this before. She might still understand. She might even know what to do. Several seconds later, my phone chimes, then clicks. Hey. Whos this? Niavhs voice asks. Um, hello, I mumble, losing track of the message I was rehearsing. Its Eyna? We met a little while ago. Sorry, I wasnt expecting to reach anyone. Oh, hi! Why not? Wait. I didnt think about it at the time, but why not? Id just heard you were away and I couldnt contact you. I guess that was last night, though? I try. Hm. Well, Im in Alelsia right now and will be for a bit longer, but I still have my drives here. Obviously. And if I didnt at this very moment, Id check my messages as soon as I could. So what you heard was mistaken, Im happy to say. Anyway, how have you been? The Seraph sounded pretty sure when he said no one could reach Niavh, but now that Im thinking about it, thatd only make sense if her evaluation involves some kind of nightmare soul-surgery that leaves her out of commission for days, or its one of those Sanctuary inpatient things intense enough that they isolate you from the rest of the world until its done. Was he mistaken? Why would he lie about that? Id just started to make sense of what he mightve been thinking, if Keepers policing each other is really the whole of the law, but now Ive lost it again. Eyna? Niavh prompts. Terrible. Im terrible at this. Ive been in fights with two Keepers for probably no good reasons, my magic is evil, and I dont think I can live without using it to do awful things to people. I probably shouldve asked for help a while ago, but Im terrible at that too. So, um, if your offers still open after what I did to your sister, I think I need it. Ah, she says slowly. I dont know if I was expecting to hear from you again, after you met Tetha, but I did hope I might. Right. I guess you already knew that, didnt you. Of course it was stupid to think I ever had any secrets from anyone. Shes from a family of Keepers heavily involved in running the city she could look into me and put pieces together if she wanted to, and she obviously did. Well, your presence does very much leave a certain impression about your power. I may have looked around and made some informed guesses. The second fight is news to me, though. May I ask what happened there? Stardust Seraph. Found out what Id been doing and decided to try and bring me to justice on the worst day of my life. Ah, she repeats. Theres a long, terrifying silence. Yes, I think we should probably meet. Im not certain just yet when Ill be home, but Ill talk to some people before then, alright? Ill see if I can reach Roland or his sister right now shes a good friend of mine. Until then, please try to stay calm. Well figure something out for you. Im not sure what to say. For a long moment, I just cant find any words. Part of me cant help but look for traps, search Niavhs freely-offered assurances for some terrible thing she actually means. But theres none I can find, no threat that makes more sense than the idea that another Keeper whos been through and done awful things might just want to keep me from ending up where she did. Really? Just like that? Yes. And if theres anything you think I can do to improve your situation before then, please ask, she says. Not unless you can find a lot of people who wouldnt mind donating chunks of their health to a Keeper in need very quickly. But thank you. That may be more of a project, but if its something you need to function, Ill see if anyone has ideas. Anything else? Um. There is a thing I was wondering about that you might know I just talked to someone else about this. I was worried I was, you know, in trouble, on top of everything else, but she said laws pretty much didnt apply to Keepers. Is that right? Have they really just given up on keeping us from being complete disasters? Oh, that I can answer. Its simpler than you might think. Niavhs voice sounds different, now. Almost amused. No ones given up. Thats just the best way for things to work, for us and everyone else its to leave every possible opportunity open for Keepers whove done wrong to change. No one is beyond redemption. No one should be treated as if they are. Ive wondered myself about whether its fair, if thats what youre thinking, but, well. I think its a necessity of restorative justice when the cost of losing any one of us, to death or a life gone wrong, is so great. Right. That also makes a kind of sense. I dont know enough about the world or history or politics to say whether I think she or Aisling has the truth of it. Then I guess thats all for now. Thank you, I say, quieter than usual. Of course. Ill go see what else I can do. With that, she hangs up. Maybe everything isnt over. Maybe my life isnt on fire. Maybe its not such a bad thing if people are happy that Im here. But it does still hurt too much to think. ~~~ A few more long, painful days pass like that. My health never improves, but to my surprise, it doesnt deteriorate, either. I read books through the day, experiment with my plague-doubles at night which really do seem incredibly useful, and the only major issue Ive found with them is that they arent good conduits for my magic senses and check in occasionally with Aisling and Niavh. Apparently, the public side of my incident with the Seraph is going just like my fight with Tetha did, which is to say that Aisling still hasnt heard anything public about it at all. Meanwhile, Niavh assures me that while Roland wasnt in good shape after he left me, hell be just fine because his sister is the greatest healer in at least New Claris, if not the world. Im not quite sure. Niavhs praise of her got pretty effusive. On the fifth day, a knock on the door interrupts my morning suffering, followed by a nurses careful footsteps. Liadain? Good morning. Howre you feeling? I groan wordlessly into my pillow. Im sorry. I hate to make things any worse, but it is your infusion day do you think youll be alright for that?" I dont regret agreeing to the infusions. Suffering through them was the right call when I didnt have anything else. For all I know, they mightve even helped. If I thought there was any chance they might still, Id shrug, grit my teeth, and tell her to get on with it. Today, though, I roll over, pull back my sleeve, and point to a cluster of shifting, shimmering veins. Im not sure if thats going to work. O-oh. The nurse leans closer to inspect me. She sets two fingers on my wrist and waits, visibly paling. Liadain, I cant feel your pulse at all. Whats wrong? How long has this been happening? Head to toe, how are you feeling? Sorry, um, I dont think you need to worry, I say. My blood is just black and turns into feathers when it leaves my body now. I think. Im not quite sure how that works under the skin. They dont typically draw blood from us on the seventh floor, other than the occasional test to figure out whats hurting someone or check to see if my medicines working. This would be my first encounter with a needle since the last round of Emergence. Oh. She stands there for a long beat of silence. Im sorry, I wasnt exactly Ill call Dr. Hines, okay? Tell him Dr. Cantillon might want to hear about this. Uh, yes. Ill do that. ~~~ I dont hear anything else about the infusion. Makes sense. They probably arent used to testing to figure out if their patients with blood-based diseases still have blood. But later that day, not long after sunset, Aisling calls me unprompted. Its the first time anyone but Dad has called me in Im not sure how long. Hi. Howre things looking? Have you not heard? She sounds more tired than Ive ever heard her, which is saying something. Heard what? I bite my lip. That could be my problems or Isobels or any completely unrelated disaster and I dont even know what to steel myself for. Right. Youre still not on Lighthouse, are you? I knew that. Yeah. You should fix that. Just thought you should probably know if you didnt. She heaves out a breath. Shona is dead. Nothing Hurts 9-2 The world around Mide folded in on itself, like all the space between the infested parking garage basement and the road outside was simply squeezed into nothing for a split-second. During that second, the metal-masked Keeper took a single stride, forward and up, tugging Mide along with her by the arm. The girl released her as they touched down on the empty street outside the garage, and Mide stumbled forward, catching herself just short of toppling to the ground. Miss the evacuation or something? the Keeper said. Well, whatever, youre safe now. Get outta here. Roads are clear, far as I could see. Mide recognized her now, in the light, though theyd never actually met C Mary Hyland, Carves the Night. Fine. Shed take any help she could get. No! My partners in there! We need to help her! Mide held her breathing steady, trying not to think about the way she last saw Shona. Trying and failing not to think of her as whats left of Shona. Dont be a fucking idiot, Mary snorted. Only thing youre gonna do chasing someone in there is make a bigger mess. Theres Keepers on the way. Theyll save her. You just get clear of this. Im a Keeper! My partners Screaming Hymn Shona! We arent some bystanders! Oh. Huh. Marys featureless steel mask scanned her up and down. Wheres your stuff? she asked. I dont know! Something happened in there, that thing did something to us, and, and Mide reaches again for her magic and finds nothing. Its as gone as if it had never been there. Fine. Youre right. I cant do anything right now, she admits. It hurts to say, but all her pain is doing is delaying the reinforcements. Just go help her, okay? Dont worry about me. And, and be careful. This ones really bad! I was sure I took its heart while we were in there, but it didnt matter It was some kind of trap! What does that mean for her? Mide did absorb that trapped heart, even if the thing didnt end up taking her. Doesnt matter. Not now. Sure. If you arent gonna leave, just, uh, keep watch, I guess? Tell anyone else who comes in what you told me. With that, Mary rolled her shoulders, brandished her box cutter, and sliced a thin hole in the air, opening a dark portal back into the basement. Smothering all of the panic crackling beneath her nerves, Mide opened Lighthouse and did the only thing she still could C add everything shed seen in the Wound to the initial alert. There had to be something there the others could use. She hadnt even finished typing when Mary reappeared through a fresh tear in the world. Whats going on? How bad is it? Are you waiting for the others? Theyre, um Mide tabbed away from her half-finished battle report to check on the responders. Still en route. Irida was closest now. Uhhhhh, Mary muttered, pointing a thumb over her shoulder at the portal behind her. Theres nothing there. What? Mide snapped. What do you mean? You just saw it! It was just leaving the Wound! She slipped past Mary to peer into the tear. It opened into an overhead view of the garage basement, where there was no shimmering roots in the hole. No moldy starfish crawling out of it. no sign that thered ever been anything there but a giant gaping pit. Even the remains of the one Mary struck down were gone. Yup. I jumped in just to see what would happen and I just, uh, fell through that big fuck-off hole in the world until I jumped back out, Mary said. Didnt feel like anything weird at all. That cant be, Mide growled. I mean, ugh, no, it is, but whered it go, then? Cant you follow it? Uh. Mary shrugged. I cant. Maybe someone elsell sniff it out, but Ive got nothing. No. Mide balled her fists, thumping one weakly against her hip. It cant do that. Thats not how it works. It cant just leave. She cant just she cant Her voice died out with a choking sob. The last bit of strength that hadnt left her with Shona fled her body. Everything was spinning. It felt like she was going to puke. She slumped to the ground, sucking in deep, gasping breaths. Damn, Mary said. There was a long, heavy pause. That sucks, huh? Mide lifted her head to glare at the blank gunmetal face staring down at her, astonishment mingling with the raw, hollow pain she felt gaping in her chest, stealing all her air. Mary stiffened, holding her position a moment longer, then turned, sliced open a gash in the air, and disappeared through it. Leaving her alone on the silent, empty street outside the monsters abandoned nest. It feels like shes the last person left in the ruins of a dead city. ~~~ Shona is dead. Aislings words hang in the air, pressing down and down like a stone on my chest. I dont think its shock, exactly C it feels too blunt for that. Its not like this is some sudden, unheard-of tragedy. Shonas a Keeper. Keepers die sometimes. Its awful, the same way it is when anyone dies, but everyone knows thats a real risk. I dont even think this death feels different because Im part of the group that dies in battle all the time now. I was already as doomed as anyone could be. No, the difference now is that I knew Shona. And I dragged her into one of my nightmares right before it happened. How? I ask, breaking the long silence. Something stormed in on the edge of the city. Probably came from the forest, sounded like a Cluster B from reports Ive read. It was some sort of fungus monster that parasitized people and Harbingers both. Shona and Mide were the first on the scene. They killed something else it had eaten and kept in its Wound, thought it was over, and Her voice cracks on the last word, cutting off her blunt, clinical overview of the events. It wasnt, she finishes simply. Only Mide escaped. By the time anyone else showed up, it was gone. No ones found where it went yet. Thats most of what I know so far. A fungus monster from the forest. Every breath makes the weight on my chest heavier. Was there a big swarm of moldy worms and oozy starfish and things like that? Howd you know? Have you seen it? Aisling barks, the exhaustion almost gone from her voice. If theres another unreported sighting fuck, we really need to get you on Lighthouse, you wouldnt have to interact with anyone, justC No! Nothings happening here! I went to the forest once and saw it, thats all. Or at least this sounds like the thing I saw. I dont know. Aisling sighs, abruptly deflating again. Right. Of course you did. A solo walk in the woods is very you. It was a bad idea. I know. Just I try to swallow, but the muscles in my throat wont work right. Just like the trembling hand struggling to hold my phone. Just like all the rest of me. It wouldnt have happened if Id been there. I dont mean I wouldve killed it, but I dont think she could feel when something was too much for her like I can. I couldve pulled them out. She, she didnt have toC Dont, Aisling orders. Seriously. Theres so much Keepers can do, but we dont get more time in the day to actually do it than anyone else. You are not responsible for everything you didnt accomplish or prevent because you werent there. Start thinking that way and youll destroy yourself. Okay. I dont think shes right, and not just because of some nitpick about how I could be in two places at once if I wanted. I wasnt doing anything but being sick and worrying about myself when I knew Seryanad hurt Shona too. But I dont see the point in arguing with someone for thinking better of me than she should. What are we going to do, then? Are you tracking it like you did with Isobel? Why would I? If the thing comes after us again C I expect it will, after how its first incursion went C and we cant figure out how to handle it, Ill burn questions then. But otherwise, Shona is already gone. Killing it wont bring her back. I guess it wont, is all I say. I cant stop thinking about how it must feel to die in a Wound, dragged body and soul into the depths of a Harbingers mind, but why torture Aisling or myself with every horrible idea I have of how things might work? Not that I have a choice, in my own case. The thoughts arent going anywhere. The funerals on Thursday, Aisling says after another silent stretch. If youre feeling up to it, I think shed have likedC That feels like a bad idea, I try to interrupt. I dont think Ill ever be able to speak over someone again, but Aisling does cut herself off. Dont get in your own way again, she says. You arent wanted, and Roland is obsessed with his image. He wouldnt dream of starting anything at a Keepers funeral. And after its over? Aisling lets out a groan. Fine. Its not that important. Just something to think about, okay? It helps having other things to focus on. Ill see how Im feeling. My health isnt doing so well. Another long pause. Have you been through this before? I dont know. Probably. But I dont much want to talk about her. Aislings voice is tight, but quieter than before. Sorry. Fair enough. I wouldnt either. Ill go, then. Thanks. Um, for letting me know. Of course. Take care. Shes barely finished the last word when I end the call. Leaning heavily on my cane, I struggle to my feet and make my way to my bed. Pearl sits swaddled in a cluster of unmade blankets. I sit on the foot of the bed, pluck her from her nest, and squeeze her tight, staring aimlessly out at the night sky. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I dont think Ive ever gone to a funeral. If I was at Moms, I was too small to remember it. Ive never been that close to any of the people I knew were dying C no one I like on the seventh floor has died yet, at least C and I dont think Id have wanted to go even if I was. I didnt need any more reminders of mortality. I still dont. As near as Ive always been to death, this is the first loss close enough to me to matter as anything more than an abstract reminder of the horrifying, implacable forces that eventually steal everyone from everyone else. I dont know what Im supposed to do at a time like this. I dont know how Im supposed to feel, except I cant help but feel like it should be so much worse. I should be weeping and screaming and paralyzed with grief. But theres only a vague, aching hollowness in my chest, not quite like the numb pain of my blood wracking my body, and the pangs of guilt that come with every thought about how I might as well have killed Shona myself. It feels less like losing a friend in a sudden freak accident and more like learning that I let Aulunla drown some nameless woman. Why? Yes, I could have kept her away from that thing if Id been there, but I wasnt. I was in no condition to hunt. Aislings right, theres no sense in blaming myself for that. Maybe Seryanas attack left Shona in a bad way and she did something reckless, but thats Seryanas fault, not mine. Maybe this had absolutely nothing to do with me. Maybe its just a horrible thing that wouldve happened whether or not Shona ever got tangled up in my messes. What? It could be. I hardly know anything about the circumstances of whatever happened. So why does that feel like the most pathetic excuse Ive ever heard? This isnt working. I dont know if anything will. But eventually, after who knows how long of watching the stars twist and dance, the spiral of nonsense whirling through my head leads me back to the one thing Ive always done to make sense of my thoughts. Its been a bit since Ive had the time and focus for a proper reading, and while I dont know how focused Ill be on anything right now, I cant think of what else to do. I head back to the desk, set Pearl next to me, and start shuffling my personal tarot deck. Until my shivering hands lose their grip on it and half the cards scatter to the floor. Of course Im too sick to manage even this much. Stupid. Shouldve just kept to the pile shuffle, but even that would feel exhausting right now.. Although I can still do a reading. I dont need to move at all. In a flash of emerald light, I summon my implement C my Keeper cards, now arranged into a deck stacked on the desk rather than an orbit floating around me. I havent tried to read with them since I made the Promise, for a few reasons. At first I couldnt read them at all, either to process the swirling sigils theyre labeled with or make sense of the abstract scenes on their faces. But I do understand that glyphic language now, spoken or written, and I have a lot more practice in looking at manifestations of magic and puzzling out what they mean. The other reason, the more important one, is that somehow, trying at all felt a little intimidating. Ominous, even. I know there are depths to what my power is and what its expressing that I dont completely understand. Ive known from the start that there must be more to it than gathering up my misery and hurling it at others. Cruel and capricious fate. Afflicted arcana. But nothing Ive done or consumed has left me with a sense of what those mean or what Im supposed to do with them. I dont even think fate is real, and everything I know agrees with the idea that its impossible to predict the future with magic. If reading with magic cards did anything special, then, I imagined it would be an enhanced version of what I actually use tarot for: understanding myself and my own thoughts. And I dont like myself very much. I wasnt sure if I wanted to know what my cards had to say about just how awful I was. Im still not. But right now, I dont know what else to do, and maybe I owe it to Shona to try. So, cards, tonights question: what is wrong with me? What is going on thats left me too broken to feel more than this dull ache for my dead friend? What, exactly, am I blaming myself for? Do your worst. I will the deck to shuffle itself. It scatters across the desk, just like I would do it, then sorts itself back into a wide fan-shaped display. I wonder if its saying anything by presenting itself like this. Its a technique Ive seen before for encouraging people to pick cards from anywhere in the deck rather than just drawing the ones on the top, but not one I normally use. It shouldnt make a difference if theyre shuffled properly, after all. But there is something to the feeling that you have a direct hand in what the deck shows you, and I suppose I do have more control over my fate, whatever that means in the real world, than most people ever will. I glance across the fan, then pick a card near the left end, float it out, and turn it over. The design on the card is familiar, closer than Ive ever seen to one I recognize from my actual decks. Its an upside-down image of a decaying crows skeleton, but wreathed in enough inky black feathers to nearly reconstruct what it might have looked like while it lived, save for the bare skull. Death inverted. The card Ive come to think of as my card since I made the Promise, the one whose meaning my power turns on its head. Here, though, this doesnt feel like its saying something about my magic or my bizarre relationship with this specific card. These cards could show me anything at all, but right now, its just like the one in my favorite deck. And this card in the past position, while Im thinking about my messy relationship with a dead friend its easy enough to imagine what its saying. It doesnt matter that I couldve saved Shona if Id happened to join her on a hunt there was no reason for me to go on. Thats not what this is about. She might not be dead because of me, but honestly, it would be going easy on myself to think of my failure as something so simple. I never helped her, never even tried, because I treated her as just another annoying person trying to throw a dying girl a scrap of acknowledgement so she could feel nice about herself. But that just wasnt the life I was living anymore, and things were different with her. Or they wouldve been, if Id let them. Shona was only ever nice to me, in her own weird way. She kept reaching out and trying to be my friend well past the point where it wouldve been reasonable for anyone to hate me. Id only just reached a place where I didnt feel strange about saying we were friends. I never told her that. I never stopped treating her like a nuisance I barely tolerated. And now shes gone. My first tears of the night start falling. Only a few silent droplets, but I guess Im getting somewhere. That was only the past, though. Only our short, stupid history together. Whats wrong with me now, cards? Turning my attention back to the fanned deck, I focus on a card in the right corner, pull it out with my will, and drift it to the right of Death, setting it down before I turn it over. This card is more difficult, to say the least. Its art is a jagged mess of three or four different scenes, alternately flowing into each other or simply overlapping, like one piece of paper housing several drawings, each laid over the last C sometimes in ways that make it look like the past artists came back and tried to fix their defaced work. I bring it closer to my eyes and squint at it, searching for any clear element to latch onto and work from there. Theres a person falling through the sky, I think, but its hard to be sure because theyre censored into a fuzzy, pixelated mess. The foot of an ornate throne. A childs sketch of a girl weeping while everything around her burns. The torn, filthy remains of a white ribbon. My throat goes dry. I cant tell what any of the full images would look like, or how theyre meant to connect in the places when they do, but the implications? The memories they force to the front of my mind? Those are all too clear. I try to read the sigils above the mess, themselves fused and knotted into an illegible mass, but I dont need to read them clearly to feel them. the glyphs say. Inverted, by the texts placement. Huh? I murmur. There are no duplicates in tarot decks. So how? A voice echoes through my memories. We constantly cheat at tarot, it says. Its my voice, the voice of the other me I met when I made the Promise, only it sounds the way I sound now. The Seraph must have choked the sound out of her, too. Fine. Then why? What do they have to do with Shona? What about them is important enough to stack the deck with this card? And one of those intrusive thoughts I shoved away earlier comes screaming back. Death inverted is an ending not being allowed to come to fruition. Something lingering. Trapped. What is it like to be killed by a Harbinger? To have your soul sucked out of its shell and drowned in the depths of a living nightmares heart, just like we do to them? Is there some half-digested fragment of Shona lingering inside that thing from the forest, screaming her pain into its soul and never knowing if it even understands? Magic and death are both complex things. Vyuji said that about witches with dead Harbingers. At the time, I didnt understand what she could possibly mean. I didnt see what could be so complicated about dying, the end of everything a person is. Maybe I was just looking away from the obvious. Because I already know what its like for Harbingers when I absorb them. I have three sets of memories of being eaten by myself to pull from, clear as any of my own. And I dont eat Harbingers for sustenance and burn them up as fuel for my growth, do I? They become part of me. They shape what I am and what I can do. Wilt and fill this world wilt. Drink it all. Become true. Together. Together. Together. I turn my gaze inward, to where my power roils in a storm of my pain. Youre still in there, arent you? I ask the empty room. In a chorus of wordless voices I recognize all too well, more pulses of emotion and sensation than clear statements, my soul responds. Dizzying confusion. Longing for someone who never existed. Despair for a beautiful dream and hatred for the girl who crushed it in her fragile fingers. And in the oldest song, the one soaring above them all, bolstered by my constant pain joy. Gratitude. Pride. I bury my face in my hands and try to scream. Only an eerie echo of a wail comes out. A gentle breeze blows through my room, like the ghost of a hand across my cheek. whispers another familiar voice, one Im certain Ive never heard before. Whos there? Which of you? I croak. Only silence answers. Fine, then Im losing it. Thats nothing new at all. Maybe Im some freakish exception. Maybe my desperate rush toward immortality has shaped my own soul into an eternal hell for everyone I claim. No, I already know Im not. My cards wont let me lie to myself. Why else would Harbingers shape Emergence for everyone? Why should it be any different when they eat us? And how am I supposed to grieve for someone whos still there? Still suffering? Its perfect for you, though. Isnt it? My voice again. You will never die. Never ever. I want to be me forever, I hiss back, trembling, brushing silent tears off my sleeve. A chunked-up piece of my soul lingering in something elses gut isnt living. Why not? As long as you exist, in any form at all, theres still a chance to change your fate. Youve already chosen suffering over oblivion, and that was when you didnt understand that there was only ever one choice. So dont lie to me. I know you. I am you. A hand reaches over my shoulder. The pallid, emaciated arm of one of my echoes, black veins pulsing with blood-that-is-not-blood, points back to my cards, indicating the empty spot to the right of the first two. Finish the reading. Whats the point? Theyre all the same card, arent they? Yes, my voice giggles. But youre always getting lost in the now. Staring helplessly at what is and forgetting where the choices youve made lead. Looking back when you should be forging ahead. The entire deck flips itself over, exposing seventy-six variants on the same scene. Shadowed, spectral outlines of me seated on dark thrones, attended by swarms of gaunt, unliving centipedes and the endless reach of my own withered limbs. Each bears the same small glyph: Half-formed dream-scenes fill my world. The faint wisps of life always pricking at my senses floating in the void, bits of power entirely detached from the people they belong to. Fields of them, cities of them, all just waiting for me to breathe in and claim them. My soul ripping my body open like a cocoon and crawling out, shrouded in damp feathers and dripping black blood like afterbirth. Hunting through many sets of eyes, many mes, each her own world-twisting curse pulled up from the black sea inside me and sent forth to take whatever we need. Death is only a distant nightmare, a threshold I will never cross. Death is a curse on us all, the end of every ill fate. And curses, too, belong to me. All you have to do to get there is take what you need. If theres not enough, take more. And if its not enough to make it there alone, take enough to share. Take the thing that ate her, pluck her from its rotten entrails, and pull the death from her until you can put her back together. Just stop flinching away from everything you could be. Nothing Hurts 9-3 You can save her. I sink ever deeper in a sea of nothing-that-hurts. You can save everyone you care about. Sleep is quiet, persistent agony. All it would cost is everyone you dont. If I sleep at all, that is. Sometimes its hard to tell the difference between dreams and the insistent whispers flooding my soul. Memories crash down like the weight of the ocean. Dreams of paralysis, of drowning in nothing at all, of being torn apart layer by layer and left exposed to the frozen wind between the stars. When the echoes in my head fade, Im sitting in a black field of black flowers beneath a sunless sky, in which clouds composed entirely of tiny stars shimmer and shift. At my feet, the dark grass gives way to a thin shore of obsidian sand before a vast ink-black sea. Its surface is still, partially frozen over into thin, cracking sheets of ice that reflect the stars like window-glass. Far away, seeming to float on the waters surface, theres a single ring-shaped structure, its spiny, porous walls like white coral gleaming in the faint starlight. And a living shadow rests by my side, peering at me with two star-speckled violet irises like ring nebulae. Yulasri, she called herself, though not in the way Harbingers scream their truths into the world. Her soul is silenced, as hidden as the face behind her umbral veil C if she has a face at all. I wonder if thats an act of mercy. Ive seen her before. Heard her before. Felt what she can do. I just havent thought about her at all since then, and I have no idea why. All I know is that here, in my own head, Im helpless as Ive ever been. The shadow shakes her head. Her tangled hair drifts in a messy fan behind her, floating as if its underwater. I wince, doing my best to shove those memories away. No matter what she says, just trying to talk to her feels like asking the Sun why it rips our souls out through our eyes. But the world around us is silent, still, tranquil, and she only waits and watches. Whatever shes come back for, this wont end until shes done it. Then why are you here? Yulasri gestures with her eyes out at the black sea. I cant tell what shes pointing me to, at first. Theres only ice and darkness and that strange coral-carved building. But in time, shapes and splotches of dull color come into view. Human shapes. Preserved corpses, far too many to count, half-frozen into the surface of the sea. I cant retch. My stomach doesnt churn. I feel like I should, but thats something bodies do, and in this place, theres only me. All I feel is a familiar heavy, creeping dread when I recognize Shona among them C her body is faceup near the shore, frozen in a rictus of agony, her Keeper outfit dark and waterlogged. The weight grows and grows as my eyes pan over the dead, a spectacle too awful to look away from. Mide is among them, too. And Aisling, and Niavh, and Noirin, and Dad and Grainne and Mom and everyone Ive ever known, and even once Ive ran out of faces I could possibly recognize, I cant help but imagine every single icy corpse as someone precious to me and gone forever. Cold certainty stabs into me, confirming what I already knew. No, the dead-but-suffering souls trapped inside me have nothing to do with me or my power. For beings like them C and like Shona, I can only imagine, and certainly like me, judging by the way my own power keeps screaming at me that my body and my life are mere inconveniences C death is just something worse than even I couldve imagined. Its not just me, is it? Its part of magic. Some aspect of having power and needing to eat souls to grow. Yulasris eyes flicker, seeming to blink rapidly, but only for a fraction of a second before they stabilize. I stare back at her, uncomprehending and hating myself for it. Its one thing to be told youre a stupid child who doesnt understand anything, and another entirely when you know the person saying it is right. This whole idea is a nightmare I stumbled into by accident right before bed. I have no idea how it really works or why its this way. Yulasri handles the word language the way she might a slimy piece of trash, holding it at a distance between two fingers. Then say it in yours! You know I understand it, so If youre here to talk about this, say it so I can understand! She picks a single onyx flower, stares at it for a moment, then releases it to drift into the sea on an unfelt breeze. What does that even- I freeze. The answer to my own question bubbles up from my mind. Drown yourself in my light and I will show you everything, the Sun spoke to me just last week. Maybe there are things no one should know. Things we cant understand and stay ourselves. Nevermind. I think I get it. Um, say what you can without doing that thing. Please. A thin, joyless outline of a smile crawls across Yulasris shadowed face, a faintly-curved crescent of amethyst light. Her bitter expression dissolves back into darkness, leaving only her wide, unblinking eyes. What? I choke out, the word dry as sand in my mouth. That strange smile blinks into being for another instant, but theres a jaggedness to it, like a childs imperfectly drawn outline of the original shape. That cant be, I croak. Yulasris starlit eyes narrow, giving the impression of a mouthless scowl. I know that. The way Harbingers speak isnt just speech. Its opening their soul up and exposing a part of themselves to me. Hearing it is enough to be certain that whatever they say is the absolute truth as they see it C they couldnt spew lies any more than I could tear my ribcage open and pluck an apple from the tree I have growing where my heart should be. But theyre Harbingers. That doesnt mean what they believe is real. Theyve told me things that couldnt be real, no matter how abstractly I think about them. Havent they? The more I rack my mind, the less certain I am. So if what shes saying is true, or some kind of true, what would that mean? Is everyone a Harbinger eats still inside them? What about everyone who was inside a Harbinger I ate? Could I reach Mr. Enfield through Yurfaln, or pluck him out of it and bring him back to life the way Im hoping to do with Shona? I try to reach out for my victims, to feel them and search for any traces of their victims, but I dont know how to target or talk to or interact with them, and their voices are quiet here. Like theyre hiding in the corners of my soul to escape Yulasris notice. I dont know how to check for little tortured people layered deep in the nesting doll of my soul, but I do know souls can be absorbed and still exist. It could happen to normal peoples souls, too. Its not nearly as ridiculous a thought as I desperately need it to be. And, and everyone who lives an ordinary life and dies an ordinary death? What happens to them? Where do they go? Yulasri says, coldly and with absolute confidence. I cant get lost in imagining what that might mean. Not now. I dig my fingers into the grass, clutching stray blades tightly enough to rip them out. Then what are we even supposed to say about any of this? Everything is terrible and it always will be? Is that all? Yulasri glances back out at the sea. She watches as a sheet of ice silently cracks, sending the bodies splayed across and through it bobbing off into the distance. Ive barely processed her words when the voices emerge from their hiding places, speaking all at once in a chaotic storm of sentiment. Fear and shock slowly resolve into three distinct impressions: Seryanas dull apathy, Aulunlas sharp, spiteful insistence that I have no right to wish anything for it, and from Yurfaln, still the loudest and clearest of the crowd How? I ask in a barely-voiced whisper. Why? Yulasri bows her head and puts a hand to her chest. She makes a single sweeping gesture over the colorless field and the star-clouded sky and the corpse-ridden ocean. Theres a sense of quiet triumph in her voice, as if shed accomplished something too beautiful to truly express. What she''s describing is nothing more than the fate I always believed was waiting for me and everyone else. If I take her at her word, she''s claiming to have invented death. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Her eyes flit between the frozen corpses on the water. I wonder what she sees there, somehow certain that we arent looking at the same thing. Where I see the faces of everyone Ive ever known, she must be staring out at her own tortured wasteland of lost friends. How choked with corpses is her ocean? How much pain has she carried, for how long, to bring her to the point of celebrating my greatest fear? Yurfaln babbles desperately. I dont know how to answer it. I dont know what Id say if I did. And what would that mean for us? Less how? I need to be less myself to live. Right, I mutter. Not a good sign. I dont want to carry these monsters around forever. Its not even just for my own comfort. I dont want Yurfaln or Irakkia or Seryana free to follow their whims, but I dont want their conscious remains to be ripped apart and tortured forever. Nothing deserves that. Its horrible beyond comprehension that this is the way things work. Still despite everything they are, everything they did, the idea that they couldve lived for nothing, died for nothing, and been thrown into the void for nothing feels too sad. I know Aulunla deserves better. Id give it better, if there was any way I could. It didnt do anything I wouldnt do, if I had to kill to save my life. No, I finally say. Thank you, I think. But I dont think I can do that to them. Not while there might be I dont know. Something else for them. somewhere. My Harbingers pull back into the edges of my awareness, save for Yurfaln. I feel its gratitude like a warm meal in my stomach, if that meal was still alive and squirming happily. Please stop that, I think at it, to no avail. Maybe Im lying to myself. Maybe I wouldnt give this a moments thought if I didnt need their stolen power to keep myself alive. Yulasri says with only a small tinge of disappointment. Another time? I can only think of one other nightmare like this, but how often has this happened? How many more times will she rip my world apart, then vanish from even my thoughts? I know what she could do to me at any second. Carrying on a conversation with her, doing anything more than answering when she speaks and hoping for her to leave, feels like plunging my hand into a frozen fire, just on the distant hope that my ruined fingers will curl around some precious secret. But whats a little more pain? Um. If you really just wanted to talk why? Why me? Who are you? I ask. Yulasri only shrugs noncommittally, a bizarrely childish, human gesture coming from whatever she is. She doesnt feel the way Harbingers do. She doesnt feel like anything. Okay. That follows. I cant imagine Im special enough to be the only third-angel? The only person with dreams worth invading. Im really trying. To figure all of this out. But I cant understand what youre trying to say if it all just disappears when I wake up. So if thats something you do, some power you control please dont. That thin, hollow smile flashes back into being, but only for an instant. Is it a dream? I mean, yes, but that doesnt mean it isnt real. You arent some tarot character Im talking to myself through, I push. Yulasri answers with a curious tilt of her head. Right. Sorry, its just I wasnt really thinking about this last time. I suppress a fresh shudder. But I think Ive seen you somewhere else. Or someone saw something like you and wrote it into our stories. I summon a deck of my cards, close at hand in my sleep just the way it always is, pluck out the Undreaming, and pass it to her. She takes it in two spectral fingers and stares down at it. she asks. The eerie, ethereal distance in her voice has vanished, sharpened to an icicle point. Um, I gulp. she hisses again. The light of a hundred stars dying at once flares in her eyes, then is swiftly smothered. This was wrong. This was a mistake. I shouldnt have said anything. Maybe all of us have things we shouldnt know. But Im certain she wont just let this go, and theres no point in lying to something that could turn me inside-out on a whim. Shes from a myth. I think its a myth. Claiasyas daughter. All the pain in the world broke her, and her nightmares about it started becoming monsters, or turning people into them, I mumble. A silence as deep and heavy as sinking into the deepest ocean trench. And then Yulasri laughs. She squeezes her arms around herself, leaving the card to flutter to the ground as her silhouette tightens and she bursts into a manic giggling fit. Her whispering voice resounds endlessly, echoes layering upon echoes until the world is enveloped in the soft white noise of a thousand black butterfly wingbeats. Its its just a weird old story you reminded me of! I dont think its true, so- She ignores me, choking on her own breathless voice until it sounds like she must be in pain. The whole world bends, swirling into a chaotic mess around her. Howling wind rushes from everywhere to nowhere, its scream merging with Yulasris agonized laugh. Her body twists itself up, spiraling into an endlessly dark hole in everything, and the night around her spins and swirls until reality is nothing but a storm circling a drainC ~~~ I wake up soaked in frigid sweat. Too-familiar empty pain wracks my body, and even tucked beneath my covers, its so desperately cold. I feel like a living corpse, without so much as body heat to push back against the cold numbness. I probably am. It feels like I might as well not have slept at all, too. I guess it would be strange if I werent having nightmares after last night. Already, Im not sure what theyre about C and there is some small mercy in that, probably C but I can imagine easily enough. Wriggling and squirming and failing even to properly stretch, I shove Pearl away from her place clutched to my chest. Its probably not comfy there anymore. Ugh. Maybe Ill give her a bath later. I linger in my bed there for a while longer, trying to gather up the energy to do anything else, until a small, cold hand on my shoulder interrupts my fitful not-rest. Liadain, Vyuji says. When I roll over, shes seated on my nightstand, looking down at me with a softer expression than Ive ever seen on her. Blrgh. Morning, I say. Did you know? About what? I check in on my children sometimes, but I cant read your thoughts. I have heard about your friend? she says uncertainly. I nod. Yes. I know how little this is worth, but I am sorry. Sometimes its unavoidable, but most of us consider every lost Keeper at least something of a failure on our parts. Okay. Thanks. Maybe she doesnt watch quite that closely, then. I always wonder how much attention shes paying to me, in the stretches between when I usually call for her. That isnt what I was asking, though. I guess Im not sure why I thought youd know what I meant. Vyujis face relaxes into its usual placid, too-calm look. In that case, what was? Last night ngh! Some half-remembered nightmare stabs into me like a cold knife in my brain. Vyujis dark eyes widen, settling as I shake off the momentary pain. Last night, I did a tarot reading with my power for the first time. It showed me a lot of things I really didnt like about myself. And the world. Like that the Harbingers we eat are still there. Still aware, in some form. Still in pain, maybe probably. I think its the same for Shona. And Im not sure what it would be like if you dont get eaten, but maybe its the same for everyone who dies, too. Nothing shows on Vyujis face, but I read into her unnatural stillness all the same. I cant tell if shes surprised or simply taking as long as Ill give her to decide what to say. Yes. Im afraid I did know that, she says slowly. The knowing makes every loss hurt us that much more. As for your friends situation, it is possible that some great work of magic C Emergence, to wit C could resurrect Shona, if she were retrieved from her killer. I must urge maybe not restraint, but certainly caution, if you plan to pursue that Harbinger. I might. I think I might even be able to do it myself. Um, bring her back if I reach her, not run off and fight the Harbinger alone. That gets an odd reaction from her, a proud smile beneath eyes narrowed uncertainly. But not right away. I cant do anything like I am now. Anyway, its not just about her. I dont want the Harbingers suffering forever, either. I dont want that for anyone. Ah. Vyuji nods once. I understand. I dont feel or fear for them the way I do for you, but there is no justice in that fate. I dont want to shrug and say well, thats awful, but it is how it is either! Why is it like this? How do I make it stop? Vyujis gaze shifts, rising to stare out at the sky through my window. I genuinely dont know. It takes a very particular type of perception to notice it, much less interact with the dead, but its been this way for at least as long as I can remember. Which, I will tell you, is a very long time. Theres a hardness in her eyes when she meets mine again. For a moment, they look less like dark, shiny dolphins eyes and more like a thin sheen of water passing over black stone. So, what do you propose? You know what Harbingers would make of the world, left to do as they please. How many of them do you think present dilemmas more complex than whether you or they can survive? My duty is to my children, and I dont consider it useful to paralyze you with the fear that you might encounter one of those few. Even if you did, your survival is more important to me. Fine, just I shouldve known. If it werent for those weird senses, I couldve just pushed on and on and never had any idea that there was a problem Id want to do something about at all. Would knowing from your first day have changed your mind? she asks. I dont know! I cry, blinking away cold tears. Yes you do, my own voice whispers. Fair enough. I wont get anywhere by lying about myself. Probably not, I admit. I still dont want to die. But its not just the Harbingers, either. What about everyone else? What happens to all the people right here wholl be dead soon? Whats it mean to return to the sea? Do you know that? Theres another telling, expressionless pause before Vyuji sighs, her shoulders sagging. Liadain, I will never lie to you, nor to any of my children. I cannot and would not if I could. If I withhold anything from you, its because I dont yet believe sharing it is in your best interests. So all I can do is ask that you believe me now: there are things we cannot share freely with the world. Weve tried. Weve seen what happens when we do. What do you think would change if every human knew what we were discussing now? Knew that there was absolutely nothing they could do about it? Im sure you can imagine, and I hope you keep whatever youve imagined in mind when I ask you not to spread this information too freely. Truth is the furthest thing from an unquestionable good, she says, and lapses back into stone-faced silence. Im sure shes right. I really dont think the answer is that anyone who knew about this would become a Keeper to escape it. If I agree, will you answer my question? Or is that not in my best interests? I press. Its not for me to say, at least not entirely. I had no part in my siblings answer to this problem. I can tell you that they do their best to minimize pain for those in their care. If it helps, think of it as a place like this hospice, for souls who can no longer be comforted in any other way. It really, really doesnt. Forever, I say. Or until a better way presents itself. So, if you consider something about this sorry state of things intolerable, search for a way to change it. Vyuji hops down from the nightstand and leans against my bed, bringing her face to my level. This is not the conversation I was expecting to have, when I came here. I wish I could offer you more. I wish I could encourage you more fully. I cant promise that such a thing is possible, or that any solutions you find would be at all desirable. But your power is your own, and its your right to do what you feel you must with it. Then I will. I dont know what Ill do yet. But I will. Ill look forward to it. But please, do find a way to care for yourself first, she says, and vanishes without fanfare. ~~~ So I sit C mostly alone in my room C and think, and do my best to shove away the pain, until the morning of Shonas funeral comes. It was a quieter night than a few of my last ones. I dont feel any worse than usual C if nothing else, it seems like my health has stabilized in a strange way, settled down on a baseline of the worst possible state I can be in. It doesnt feel like its getting worse or preparing to kill me. I dont much want to rely on that being true, but unless Im going to take my own shadows advice and start eating my fill from the nearest untainted souls, I dont know what else to do. I dont know what Ill do today, either. Im staring at the wall over my desk, trying to decide, when my phone chimes with another unexpected call. Aisling again. I pick it up. Hey, she says, weariness clear as ever in her voice. Hi. Will you be there today? Will he? I ask. Look, probably, yeah, but Roland seriously isnt going to start any shit at a funeral. I already asked him and- You what? I sputter. Its crazy, I know, but most Keepers do communicate about this sort of thing. He did say he wanted to talk, which I do not consider a preposterous ask in your circumstances, but that it could wait if today was not the day. He said it directly to me, and Im sure you understand what that means. I do, but when he came after me, when I asked if we could talk to you about the whole thing, he said it didnt matter if you believe me because there are ways to fool your power. Aisling snorts out a bitter laugh. Yeah, well, Rolands an asshole. Im sure you know what it means that I can say that, too. What he meant was that there are linguistic tricks and mental complications that can muddy my results or keep something misleading from pinging as a technical lie, not that theres some magic way to spoof my detection entirely. If there is, I dont know about it. As for those, my club and I keep track of them and actively search for more, and he wasnt using any loopholes we know of Im pretty sure. Yeah. I mean, he said it clear as speech can be, at least. Honestly, it sounds like he just wanted you to himself. Maybe. His reason why Niavh couldnt be involved didnt really hold up, either. But, um, if I go, Im seriously, seriously going to hold you to that pretty sure. Fine. Do it. Ill be there if anything blows up, Aisling says. Was that the only concern? Its very much not. I still feel terrible and I cant see myself being at all okay at a funeral, least of all one where Im fairly sure the person its for is trapped in some fate worse than death. But I really do want to help her, and if theres any way to do that without making any more of a disaster of my own life, I think Ill find it with the handful of Keepers whove decided, for some reason, not to think the worst of me. The only one I mightve stayed home over. Ill see you soon. Nothing Hurts 9-4 When it comes into view, the Chancel of the Silent Vessel reminds me of nothing so much as the Soul Sanctuary. Maybe thats just because I havent been to very many churches. A lot of their more important buildings look like this. White walls, rounded edges, sea-colored glass windows. The surfaces here seem less compact than the Sanctuarys pristine fortress walls, with tiny pores and smooth needle-tips that make it look like the entire structure was grown from a single enormous piece of coral. Its much wider than it is tall, with at least the front half forming an almost perfect circle no higher than a normal house. Liadain? Hey. Were here. A mans voice startles me out of my own head. Irial, the aide I asked to drive me here C I dont know if theyve technically updated the parts of my files that say I shouldnt leave the hospice, but everyone working there knows by now that my files dont mean anything. Hm? Oh. Thanks. Wed been driving along the shore on the edge of the Wealds thick canopy for some time, leaving me to stare out the backseat window and think in useless circles. Irial climbs out, opens the back door, and offers me his arm. Reluctantly, I take it, wobble to my feet, and more or less steady myself on my cane. Standing up makes my head spin and my legs threaten to buckle and snap like twigs. Do you need me to wait for you? No, thats okay. I dont know how long Ill be. And Im not sure if I could slog through this knowing I can walk out the door and be home in twenty minutes the first time someone looks at me. Alright. Well, just call whenever you need a ride back, okay? Im sorry about your friend. Me too. Irial lingers a bit, watching to make sure I can move without dying. By the time I hear him drive off, Im halfway down the straight, tree-lined approach. Im alone here C even the parking lot off to the side isnt as full as I expected. Whichll make it harder to disappear into the crowd. For once, I actually wish there were more people. This is the last place and time I want anyone paying attention to me. Its not even just about what Ive done and the people I dont want to see, either. Ive never understood funerals. Ive spent my whole life next to death, lost a friend close enough that its at least a little bit my fault shes dead, and I still cant imagine how theyre supposed to help anyone. They arent for the dying C theyre dead, gone to wherever souls go. And for everyone else, its not as if a big event where youre meant to make a show of your pain and judged if its not the right kind of pain will make the person you lost any less dead. Keeper funerals made the least sense of all to me. Keepers never just die, theyre killed C or much, much worse. How are you meant to celebrate their life or thank them for their sacrifice, as if they gave their life rescuing a bunch of kittens from a burning building or something instead of making a mistake that got them devoured body and soul, when you know all too well what actually happened to them? When the monster that did it could still be out there, waiting for a chance to do it again? If I got eaten, whether people thought I did any of it for them and held me up as some kind of hero would be the last thing on my mind. Well. Not because it wouldnt matter to me, although it wouldnt, but because Id have a much bigger problem. And almost no one does know what actually happens when you die, do they? They have no idea how much worse the truth could be, unless theyve all just decided to be silent about it. With that in mind, I guess theres some chance that funerals are for the dead. Whatever it means to return to the sea, though, I really dont think what happens to your soul depends on whether you had your broken shells ashes dumped into the ocean or how sad people were while they did it. It means something different for Keepers, yes, but knowing what I know now, I still cant see how it would matter. Still, here I am. Whats even the point? Why am I risking this? Yes. Why? Theres nothing here you couldnt take on your own. My voice. My gaunt, bitterly smiling face. My own spectre walks right beside me, leering at me through a shroud of white hair wet with black water. Well, fine, me. Maybe I dont NEED their help. Theres so much more to take than I ever imagined, after all. At the true scale of things, I dont even know if it makes a difference if any given person dies at the end of their lifespan or right now when I drain them dry. But they dont want to die any more than I do, and I dont want to be the kind of monster whod drink everyone in reach up until theres nothing left. Wait. That isnt even right. Im not here because Im hungry not only here for that. This isnt about me. Shona needs help. I can help her. I just cant chase after the thing that ate her alone, not in my current state, and this is where Ill find everyone whod want to help her if they knew she was still there. The phantasm at my side says nothing else. She only smiles a little wider before she pops out of being like a soap bubble. I push the press to open button next to the Chancels glass doors and lurch into the vestibule. The chamber is lit by evenly sized and shaped coral formations on the walls like little torches, but with no bulbs C theyre just suffused with soft, blue-white bioluminescence. Both walls are lined with decorative niches filled with all sorts of art depicting the saints I think. I only really recognize Kuri and Nistla at a glance C one represented as a planter of tiny trees somehow grown together into the shape of a young woman, clad in regalia crafted from flowers and vines, the other an androgynous figure in a white greatcoat with a rain cape decorated in elaborate patterns not so far from the ones on the windows here. A half-sphere of paneled glass blooms from the hand above their head, scattering the light above into prismatic beams. Ahead, the chamber splits into two wide, curving halls around a central set of opaque, sea-blue glass doors. An attendant in the simple blue mantle and long, wide white skirt of a junior priestess looks me over, squinting slightly, then nods to herself. Welcome. Are you here for Screaming Hymn Shonas return? Return? No, Im here to bring her back to life. But I guess thats just a formal term for todays service. Mhm. Youll find it that way, she says with a gesture to my left. Most of the guests were expecting have already arrived, but the ceremony proper wont begin for some time yet. Right. Thanks. Ah, and while its by no means required for Keepers to transform, it is customary. I look down at one of my usual dresses, which Id figured would be close enough to funeral wear to count, and shrug. Calling my magic into the world briefly smothers the lights and casts the hall in strange twisting shadows, but the priestess only watches with her head slightly bowed, neither awed nor terrified. I dont feel much better or worse for the change, but thinking on it now, I am glad to have my mask. My secrets are mostly out, and it wont protect me from anything my immunity mist doesnt, but it still feels a bit like armor against the danger of other people looking at me. So, that finished, I follow the distant murmur of voices down the hall. That impression of the entire building as an above-ground coral reef is much stronger inside. Its walls are a thick lattice of blue-white ridges, grown together into a gently arched ceiling. Its window frames, decorative niches, and even the benches lining the hall all seem grown rather than crafted, though the benches stand out for still being wood-colored. I read once that coral comes from millions of tiny little critters who live in a big clump. They make reefs by forming exoskeletons around themselves, and those hard, rocky shells linger after they die, so the next generation of critters can keep building and building their city atop their friends and families colorful corpses, then add their own to the pile. How different is our city? Our world? Do our ghosts just sink beneath the cities theyve built and pile up forever, an invisible boneyard at the bottom of the world? No, of course not, they bloom in their fullness and return to the sea. Whatever thats supposed to mean. Oh, how bad could it possibly be? They do their best to minimize pain, dont they? There is that. Vyuji said so, and everyone says Messengers cant lie. Its probably true, or else she wouldnt have said it in the least reassuring way possible. She wouldnt have left me thinking of all the people dumped on the ocean floor making their own reefs, growing corals with little human faces, staring up through the water and thinking of the lives they no longer live, but are never really allowed to leave. No longer live, maybe. But they never die. Yes. And somehow, its hard even for me to imagine that as a good thing. Its a short walk to the source of the voices, a wide opening on the right. Judging from the sound and the souls on the other side of the wall, a confusing blur of nine or ten Keepers and about as many ordinary motes of human life, theres not as many people as I thought thered be. I dont do well with crowds, but I also dont do well with groups of strangers too small to disappear into. I cant decide which is worse. I creep along the wall, peeking in through the doorway at an angle I cant see much of anything from, and slowly work up the nerve to step around the corner. If Shona were here, shed be the one to drag me inside. And the one to stand up for me, for some strange reason, if no one else wants me around. I brush away my first tears of the day. That doesnt have to be a miserable memory of how badly I treated her. I can fix this. Thats why Im here. I steel myself and step inside. The first thing that strikes me, almost literally, is that its cold in here. Impossibly so, well beyond the clinging chill of my barrier. Its like someone bottled a Winter morning where the Sun keeps the breeze from stinging too bitterly and let it loose inside. Sunlight floods in through a colored glass ceiling stained in wavy patterns of blue and grey and green, gently tinting the white pews the colors of a shallow sea. Azure curtains are drawn over the back walls, and on the altar in front of them, theres an elaborate arrangement of red coral and black flowers into a jagged lightning pattern, fanning out around a blue urn and a framed photograph of Shona in her regalia, grinning and waving to the camera. And most of the people scattered around the pews are already looking my way. Right. They can feel me, I can feel them. Im an idiot. I glance around, quickly picking the faces I know out of the small crowd. Aisling sits alone near the entrance, one hand raised in greeting. Mide is between two adults and a younger boy, and none of them acknowledge me with more than a quick glance up C theyre all focused on her, and she looks and feels miserably exhausted. Neither she nor Aisling have transformed. In the same row of seats, another adult man sits with his arm around a sobbing woman. The two Keepers to my left carry right on talking to each other. The girl in the plain black dress and dark leather jacket, only marked as a Keeper by her aura and pale pink hair in a loose side ponytail, does most of the talking. The tall girl in the grey suit and featureless metal mask C Mary Hyland, she was on that Keeper reef C mostly just leans against the wall looking imposing. And the biggest group in the room, clustered around the middle The Stardust Seraph, in an almost priestly outfit rather like his regalia, but mostly white save a red trimming along the hem and entirely sans his armor and headgear, greets me with a soft, knowing smile and a two-fingered salute as soon as I spot him. Tetha Fianata blanches at the sight of me, visibly wincing, and seems to untense only slightly when Roland gives her a gentle clap on the shoulder. The Silver King, dressed in military finery and seated across from one pew in a wheelchair held by a spectral soldier, watches me through the corner of her eye. Tarnished Angel, the swan-winged, bandage-armed girl I met on the night I found Seryana, spares me only a glance up from her conversation with Frozen Sun Iona. At a glance, a young woman in a royal blue cloak, in her nineties but forever frozen at sixteen. Skin the blue-white shade of fresh snow under a clear sky. Eyes sculpted from ice, but bright with frozen flame. Our citys founding hero and oldest, most important Keeper by decades, looking my way with narrowed eyes, flecks of the snow floating all around her settled on her lashes. You must be Eyna, she says mildly. My trembling fingers tighten around my cane. Ive spent the last month eating her city. I put her daughter in a hospital. I cant be here I dont want to die I dont even know what that meansC Hey. Im glad you made it, Aisling says, looking at me as one would a bomb that might be armed. Um. Hi, I mutter, flicking my eyes between them. Ive heard a lot about you. Good things, more than you may expect. She beckons to her pew, inviting me into her group. Asking me to sit right between her and the two Keepers Ive fought. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. What do you mean? I whisper, frozen in place. I can barely hear my own voice. I wonder if the sound is traveling at all or just turning to frozen breath in the air. A small smile spreads across Ionas face. It looks curious, almost warm. Only that you strike me as someone whos been running nonstop, never stopping to look at where shes ended up. Or how far and fast shes gone. Oh. Thanks, I croak. Thats a strange way to describe me, because all of a sudden, I cant imagine taking another step into this room. It doesnt feel physically possible. Aisling, I have to talk to you about something. Outside. Could we? Aisling glances over her shoulder, suppressing a grimace, then nods once. Well be back, she says. Of course. Take your time, Iona calls after us. Aisling follows me to the nearest bench out of line of sight from the room. Thanks. Sorry about that, I say. Its hard to sit down without just losing my balance and falling back, but I manage it this time. Aisling plops into place at my side, tapping her foot rhythmically on the ground. Youre seriously not in trouble, you know. You saw Roland, and Ionas Id be surprised if shes pleased about the Tetha thing, but I really dont think shes out for your blood. Honestly, sounds to me like she likes you? She wasnt lying. Aislings dressed in a simple black blouse and dress pants, but still wears her usual beret over her curly blonde hair. She only looks a little more tired than usual, but thats not saying much. Keepers get into trouble sometimes, Fianatas or not. She has more important things to do than avenge a fight Tetha lost weeks ago. Okay, fine, but why is she even here? Shona didnt know her, did she? I ask. What? No. Maybe they crossed paths a couple times, but no. She comes to almost all of these. Oh. Well. Sorry again. Its just a lot. Aisling shakes her head. Its fine. Nothings really started yet. Theyre just talking, telling stories, and Ive already heard most of them. I didnt know Shona the best, but better than a lot of them, I think. From your school? From my club. She wasnt a member, but she had a lot of questions about the Promise before she made it. Good for her, I said. Not enough of us have questions. Really? What questions? Shona seemed like she loved everything about being a Keeper. Even the nightmare monsters, when they didnt get too personal. Id have imagined her jumping at the offer and never once looking back. Shows how little I knew about her. Did I ask Vyuji enough for Aislings standards? I dont know. I doubt it. Some were personal. But mostly, she wanted to know why us. What makes someone a Keeper candidate. Aisling leans back and cups her chin, staring at the ceiling for a long stretch of silence. Id have called this part her business, but youll see for yourself soon enough. Best if it doesnt take you by surprise. She didnt want to be a Keeper if Mide couldnt be one with her. Okay? That worked out for them eventually, didnt it? Aisling glances back at the room, waiting and watching for a few beats. When they were together, when you sensed them, how did Mide feel? Not like much of anything. When we first met, I thought they were one person until I actually saw them. I guess she isnt very strong, but whats your point? Exactly that, Aisling says. Mide lost her magic when Shona died. What? How? A Keepers power is theirs. Its them. Nothing but death should be able to take it away, and Im not at all sure about that anymore. The Harbinger? Did it do something to her? I guess. No. To my knowledge, nothing like thats ever happened. I dont believe its possible. Aisling sighs, slouching down to rest her chin in cupped hands. I dont think she ever was a Keeper. That feels like it should be shocking, should be a wild, absurd idea but it really isnt. Its just an answer to a set of questions I never cared enough to ask sliding suddenly into place. Mide felt like nothing to me. She had no soul-sight of her own. They fed her every Harbinger they could and still she never seemed to become anything more than an armed and armored guardian. A weapon at Shonas side. Did it even matter which of them claimed their hearts? If this magic is mine, if its me the way every other Keeper says, and all its given me is weapons and armor and extra skill with using them, I dont think its such a big ask for them to appeal to me, you know? Then what? Her witch? Aisling shakes her head. Its very rare, but there have been Keepers whose magic works to empower other people. They call those people retainers. I dont think thats quite it here, though. They did make the Promise together. Youre on the right track, but its probably more like Mide was Shonas implement. An extra one. An aspect of her magic, only much more distinct from her and her power than usual. That doesnt sound any better for her. No, Aisling agrees. Id suspected something like it for a while, but couldnt say if either of them knew. I never saw a point in pressing them on it. Maybe I should have. Maybe. But maybe take your own advice. Shes the one who told me just a few days ago that there was no point in blaming myself for everything I didnt happen to do. Aisling slumps a little further down. Yeah, thats fair. Every time I felt like getting nosy about it, I just ended up thinking, well, good for them, right? They got what they wanted. They were doing well together. It might not help them to have some know-it-all tell them their powers might be I didnt even know what. I couldnt tell if it was an actual problem for them. Mhm. Maybe it would be nice if anyone could be a Keeper just because they wanted to, or itd make things easier for someone they cared about. Or not C there could be some great reason why it doesnt work that way. I dont know. All it means to me is that the person closest to Shona probably cant do anything to help her. I dont know if it wouldve changed anything. I dont think so. But thats not really what were here for, anyhow, I say. True. I just thought you might prefer talking theory for a bit. I do, too. Mm. But at some point, I should actually get in and go to the funeral. I guess. Hows everyone doing? Like youd expect. Mide especially, and Shonas parents I dont know. They arent really talking to anyone. Not that I can blame them. Aisling straightens up in her seat, quickly fixes her hat, and looks me over. How about you? I havent gotten any worse. Um, if its not a personal thing, whyd you pick that outfit? Oh, did the lady at the front want you in your magical best too? I just think its silly. Feels like theyre trying to frame Keepers as some elite fraternal order instead of a bunch of weird kids with a job that, for whatever reason, only weird kids can do. To borrow Shonas language, I know she wouldnt give half a shit what I wore here, and thats all I care about. I cant help but smile at that beneath my mask. No. She wouldnt. Is that what pink hair thinks, too? Aisling snorts. Who, Erika? No idea what she thinks. Her outfits just I mean, I dont think theyd throw her out if she wore it, but it isnt really funeral-appropriate. Oh. Hm. I wonder for a bit what that means, but it doesnt really matter. I dont care much about what Keepers are to the rest of the world. Im sure I dont qualify as whatever they want us to be, no matter what I wear. How about you? Aisling asks. You seem like youre handling this better than Id expected, if youll excuse me saying. Well, this was always my plan. If anyone will understand, if anyone will have ideas to make this work, she will. I am. Because I think we can bring her back. Aislings face gives away nothing but a nervous twitch in one eye. For a long, long while, she stares at me, almost unblinking. Youre serious. Please explain, she says. I nod. Im not sure if youd already figured any of this out, so stop me if something needs more explaining, I guess. When we absorb Harbingers, we dont digest them like food for our souls to grow. Theyre still there, only part of us now instead of whatever they were before. With you so far. Absorption or certainly eating are shorthand terms for a complex process that may not even work the same for every Keeper. Of course I dont know if it works the same for everyone, but given how Emergence works, I dont think any of them get digested. Mine are there enough that they can sort of talk to me. Aisling narrows her eyes at that. Sort of? How do they communicate? What do they say? Not quite in words most of the time. I dont think. I wince as the pain in my head spikes. Jumbled spikes of memory from the night I did my reading stab through my thoughts, melting like splinters of ice before I can grab onto them. Mostly they can just tell me how theyre feeling about things. Its easiest to understand the one who likes me and hardest with the one I split in half with Mide. I havent figured out how to talk back yet C maybe if I could speak their language instead of just hear it. Aisling lets out a low, resigned groan. Is it important to where youre going with this that theres one that likes you? I dont think so? Leaving that alone for now, then. Go ahead. Um, okay. So, I think Im pretty sure the same thing happens when Harbingers eat us. Probably for everyone else who dies, too, but I dont know what that means for them or what returning to the sea actually is. My point is that if we kill the Harbinger that killed Shona she should still be there. I can steal life, other Keepers can heal, so, so as long as we have her soul, there should beC Wait wait. Hold on. Stop, Aisling hisses under her breath. Youre making all kinds of leaps now that dont follow from where you started. They dont? I bite my lip, tracing my own steps backwards. I dont quite remember how I ended up thinking about normal people that night, but Yes they do. We know what happens when magical beings eat each other. We know from your power that they return to the sea is a true description of what happens to the dead, and nothing works the way it should for reincarnation to be a thing. Keepers and Harbingers arent the same thing! Yes, there are obvious parallels in how magic functions, but we dont know what does and doesnt work the same way for us, and if we could pull these rescue operations where we pluck someones soul out basically intact any time we kill a Harbinger thats killed Keepers, then Aisling trails off. Her eyes widen. The light in them leaves sunspots in my vision. Your titles different, she says. That can happen? Different how? Different like Aisling lets out a long exhale through her nose. Im not really sure. Just different. Youre still Ill Wind, but youre good with sensing magic, arent you? Does it feel different to you? Looking closely enough at Keepers souls to really read them is always a confusing, overwhelming thing, enough that I dont make a habit of scrutinizing everyone I meet. My own is no different, and Id only barely begun to make sense of what I see in it, so I steel myself before I turn my gaze inward. There is something new, beneath the abstract poetry of my souls awful name, but I cant place it. Its like trying to smell tea in a coffee shop or identify one of a dozen musty odors in an old attic. Maybe if I pushed harder, dug deeper, but that feels dangerous. I have enough to worry about right now. And Ive already made enough of a scene without plunging myself into another nightmare like my last tarot reading. I cant really tell. It feels less like its different and more like theres something new there. Whats it mean? I ask. Im not sure. But youve mentioned talking to Niavh, right? Have you sensed her? Pain and guilt deep enough to drown whatever her presence used to express. I nod, shuddering at the memory of it. Thats the kind of thing that normally causes distortions severe enough to change how your soul looks and feels. It tends to mean extreme shifts in circumstance, in how you see yourself or your magic. Learning some horrible truth of the world wouldnt typically qualify. Im not accusing you, but aside from what we already know, is arriving at this idea the only thing thats gone on for you recently? As far as I know! I suppose it is a particularly horrible one, if youre right. And its not as if your titles actually changed, so well figure it out. One world-breaking mystery at a time, though. Aisling chews her lip thoughtfully. We sit in silence, staring across the hall at a mural of some legendary hero who appears to have been a giant fluffy moth with wings of white fire. And while were working on this I know what youll think of what Im about to say. Ive been in your place before. But at least for now I wont say keep this strictly between us, but dont go in there and shout it to everyone, okay? What? Why not? They should know the girl theyre here to mourn isnt dead! WE dont know that! Aisling says. Listen. Im not saying youre crazy. Im not saying youre wrong. I can tell that you believe this, and I dont know anything that would disprove it, but that doesnt rule out any number of candidate explanations in which youre mistaken, or manipulated, or experiencing something through the lens of your power that does not extend to the fate of every human whos ever diedC I asked Vyuji about this! She said she already knew and the Messengers do their best to minimize pain for those in their care, but she wouldnt tell me the whole story because something bad would happen if she did! Okay, yes, that sounds bad, but I still think that before we go back to Shonas funeral and announce something like hey, death isnt and has never been real, we should make damn sure weve verified that idea! Then verify it! You can do that, cant you? If I dropped everything to go research this, sure! Id need to dig through everything public about or relating to this subject, make certain Im not wasting a question on something thats already been answered, then formulate a version of the question that will get us a reliable answer with the minimum possible risk of setting my mind on fire! I have a process! And a priority listing of other very important questions! I only step outside of it for urgent emergency uses. And yeah, if its true this sounds pretty urgent, but its not going to change based on whether we start work on the question of She pauses to look uneasily back at the room, lowering her voice when she speaks again: Of how dying even works right this second! You dont know that, I insist. It could be worse for Shona the longer shes in there. The sound of Aislings teeth grinding practically fills the hall. It could. And if it turns out that she is in there in some form that can be retrieved, suffering in a way that could have been mitigated if wed acted faster, Ill accept responsibility for that then. But its not as if youve come to me with a concrete plan of action, is it? You have an idea that may be true and something we may, in principle, be able to accomplish if it is. Correct me if we can verify that you have some incredible new resurrection power. But more importantly, we dont know where this Harbinger is, when well next see it, how we could find it, or if whatever group we could put together right this instant would win in a fight against it without burning even more questions. Aisling fidgets frantically in her seat as she speaks, contracting herself into something less like a ball and more like a pretzel atop the bench by the time she finishes. And meanwhile, what I do know beyond a reasonable doubt is that things will get worse for my stupid friend Isobel the longer I take to drag her out of her current situation. And for the rest of her Harbingers active cult, which Im still working to pin down. Right. I know that. Im sorry, I mutter. I never forgot about Isobel, but between everything that happened after I last saw her, everything Ive learned, its been hard to think much of her. I still want to help her, too. If theres any way I can. Somewhere deep in the recesses of my soul, in a place hidden from the callous gaze of the Sun, Aulunla seethes in silence. It cant hurt me, but it can make me feel how very much it wants to. Thanks. Id have understood if you were more focused on this other thing, after how our last disaster went, Aisling says through a sad smile. But again. One thing at a time. We should get back to the funeral or people will start asking us whats taking so long, and thatd be an awkward thing for me to answer. Um. I wasnt really thinking about this, either, but Could any of them have just listened with magic? Nnnnnn Aisling grunts, trying to force out a word that just wont come. She thumps a fist against the bench, scowling at nothing in particular. I dont think so. Not in any ways that wouldnt be conspicuous to at least one of us. To my knowledge. That was a lot of caveats. Yeah, well, if anyones listening, please come offer us any pertinent information you have. If you dont have any, fuck you and welcome to the nightmare club! Youre here forever! She throws her arms out in a broad shrug, hops to her feet, and offers me a hand up. Are you alright to head back? Theres still a lot of things whirling through my head. Its hard to even think clearly of what I came here for. Im certain I cant grieve Shona when Im fairly sure that neither she nor anyone else has ever died, but its not like I could if I didnt believe that. Im not so good at letting go of anything. And if nothing else, there are already things in and about this world Im more afraid of than Iona Fianata. Fine, I say, and take her hand. And to get through this without breaking anyone elses conception of death?" Fiiine. Why wait? Theyll all know soon enough, wont they? Nothing Hurts 9-5 If anyone was eavesdropping on us, they arent letting it show. By the time we get back to the funeral, two priests are lighting votive candles around the altar, and most of the small crowd has returned to their quiet conversations. Or not-so-quiet, in the case of the pink-haired Keeper in the corner. Erika, apparently. She waves at us as we enter, then goes back to talking to Mary: Yeah, so Shona turned up at my school one day, back when I went. Said some girls on Flow needed a Keeper to get rid of the ghost in the bathroom, so there she was. Mary snickers at that. Dumbfucks. Ghosts arent real. Erika slumps, covering her eyes with her palm, and sighs. No. They sure arent. Im not here to tell two girls I dont know how real ghosts are or how terrible that is for everyone. I keep walking, not sure where Im meant to be C Ill feel just as out of place anywhere. When I stop, halfway down the aisle, Aisling turns around and shoots me a curious look. I gesture over the pews and tilt my head. She shrugs, gesturing to Mide and the group I imagine is her family with one thumb. Mide is the only other person I really know here, and I dont think she hates me anymore, but I motion for Aisling to come closer. Is it okay to tell her? I whisper. She should know. She deserves that much. Aisling bites her lip. We really should verify what you think we know, first. Imagine if you tell her something like that and youre wrong. Or theres nothing we can do about it. Im not wrong. But Im not sure about the second part, I admit. All I really have to go on is what? A weird tarot reading? Some part of me that thinks I could solve all my problems if Id just eat everyone? Because you could. Youve already done so much with so little. Maybe. But it doesnt matter. Im not eating the city to find out. Fine, I say. Thanks. Aisling nods once, then makes her way to the central pews, sitting behind one of the crowded ones. Which brings me back to my first problem. I dont really want to talk to Mide while Im holding something like this back C sorry, Mide C so where else is safe? Do I brood in an empty corner, hoping everyone ignores me, or join Aisling in the cluster of people I least want to be part of? Ugh. At least no one can get me alone there. And Aisling can hold Roland to his promise not to bother me. I take a seat next to her, and no one seems to pay me much mind. Except for Tetha Fianata, whos still staring at me like something contagious. Um. Hi, Tetha, I say. Im sorry about About what? Have you changed your mind now? What would you have done differently? my voice whispers, a sneer in its sound. Shut up. I never wanted to hurt her. That had nothing to do with Aulunla or the people it killed. The book I fought her over didnt even matter to it. It was just a stupid mistake. Mhm. Youll do better next time. Tetha stares at me, blank-faced. About? she prods. Oh. Sorry. About that whole thing. I didnt mean to hurt you. I just, um. Had a very stupid idea I thought was very important. You were right about it. It wont happen again. It wont happen again? Seriously? Thats it? Whyd you put me in the hospital over a monster the first time? she yells. I flinch. I can barely hear her over the sound of shredding paper screaming through my skull in protest. Tetha, Iona scolds, her voice gentle. Whatever the mistake, the first time its made is a lesson. Tethas head darts back to glance over her shoulder. And well talk again the second time. R-right, she stammers. Im not really sure what she means by that, but Iona smiles and nods. Even in those simple gestures, she moves like her body is an instrument shes spent decades mastering, a facet of her power she controls as completely as any other, and the flecks of snow drifting around her seem to dance in time with her, emphasizing every little thing she does. So, uh Turning back to me, Tetha folds her arms and squeezes her elbows, like she cant quite decide if shes protecting herself or trying to look stern. Is there gonna be a second time? No! I just told you it was a stupid idea! Things really wouldve gone a lot smoother if youd told us before, though, Roland says as he steps into the conversation. Told you what? I snap. That you thought you needed to do the stuff you were doing to live, he replies plainly. As reasons go, thats a pretty good one. Whered you I start, but quickly trail off. Niavh, probably. Right. Thats fine. It doesnt matter. Ive already heard from almost everyone Ive met how terrible I was at keeping secrets. There are more eyes on our conversation now, but of them, only Tetha looks at all surprised. Roland. We talked about exactly this, Aisling warns. Roland raises his hands, palms open. And I meant what I said. I just wanted Eyna to know Im okay if she is. I think were about even. Its fine, Aisling, I say. Yes. Im over it. And youre right, my health stuff was a stupid thing to hide and my life would be a lot easier if I hadnt. Maybe if he hadnt been so creepy about it, but it doesnt really matter, unless Rolands scheming something I just cant be bothered to puzzle out. Knowing what I know now, it feels ridiculous that I was ever worried about some stupid thing like what people would think of my deadly disease they could all look at anyway. Oh, and thats not my name. Im Liadain. There was really nothing sinister about it, Im just tired of keeping track of who I use which name with. Dont tell my dad. Well, Liadain, its a pleasure to finally meet you. The smile on his perfectly sculpted face reaches his bright red eyes, sincere as can be. Its too warm and bright and radiant to possibly be real. I still cant help but read smug satisfaction into it. After all, he didnt believe me from the start. Im not sure. I dont really care. Tethas eyes dart back and forth between us. Her mouth twitches back into a nervous smile, which she looks like shes straining to hold. Its almost charming, isnt it, Nilamai? Iona says with a sidelong glance at the swan-winged Keeper. New Keepers always think their first mistakes will herald the end of the world, and theyve all been wrong so far. You must remember the cleanup we used to do for Alva, Goddess keep her, Iona says. Goddess keep her, Nilamai echoes with a wistful smile. Her wings droop as she speaks, settling around her like a feathered capelet. Adamant Titan Alva? What about her? I ask. Everyone liked her. She made the Promise at 11, bent earth and steel to her will, carried around a giant hammer twice her size. People thought it was cute. She died last Summer. Enough to tolerate the collateral damage, yes. She did make such a mess of everywhere she fought. Inside Wounds or out, it never seemed to matter. Sorry, guess thats just how it works, shed say. Iona chuckles a bit wearily. But thats not what we remember her for. It was only a small inconvenience. Yes, once we started evacuating a five-block radius around Wounds she entered, Irida says. Shes smiling as if at an old joke, but really doesnt sound like shes reminiscing. I cant help but think of what Roland said about her. Yes, Iona agrees. Some Keepers require accommodations. Sometimes there are bumps before we learn how best to work with them. Aisling kicks my shoe in emphasis. Point taken, I say. But Im not really here to make this about me. Ill figure my stuff out with Niavh. On my time. Good, good. Im sure shes grateful for your trust, Iona says. How did you know Shona, in that case? I long story. I dont really want to talk about it right now. Iona gives a single slow nod. As you like, she says, and turns back to the rest of the Keepers. And that seems to be that. Following her lead, the others return to talking quietly about their memories of Shona. I dont get the sense that any of them were especially close with her, and I dont join in at all. Even if I werent holding back the most important thing I have to say, its not like Ive got much to offer. I almost ate Shonas best friend. She got me a funny sweater. It seemed like we might be starting to get along. And then she died. Good story. Not that I think theres such a thing as a good story for a funeral. No matter when someone dies, therell always be some wonderful thing they couldve done or been part of, if their time hadnt been stolen from them. Therell always be stories about them that end with a sudden, senseless and then they died. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. And then they drowned beneath the earth, to linger alone for the rest of time. ~~~ Eventually, one of the priests, his robes and mantle noticeably more ornate than the others, takes a stand at a podium. The soft, wordless music in the background trails off, which the others take as their cue to quiet down and let him speak. I dont know what I was expecting him to say, but when the service itself starts, all I can think of is how wrong it feels. I dont have any other funerals to compare it to, not that Ive actually been to, but it just seems so normal. He talks a bit about the Promise, about Shonas heroism, the hope she brought to the world, how grateful we all were to have had her, but theres so little about what it even is to be a Keeper. Not the horror, not the terrible beauty, nothing at all of what it meant for us or her. Nothing someone whos really experienced magic could take the smallest bit of comfort in. It barely even feels real. None of this does. Thats what they always say when someone dies before theyre supposed to, but I never understood it until now. It doesnt, does it? Because it isnt. Isnt it funny? Isnt it pathetic? How everyones talking about her like shes gone? I ignore her. I ignore everyone and everything in the room, withdrawing into my own bizarre, useless thoughts. They still feel like a more comfortable place to be than here. Until another voice shakes me out of myself. Sacrifice? someone spits. A woman with coiffed red hair and a tear-streaked face has stood up, gripping the pew in front of her with white knuckles. The head priest blinks rapidly, but quickly composes himself and gestures for her to join him at the altar. Mrs. Tiernan, this service is as much for you as anyone. Please, feel free toC I DONT NEED YOUR PERMISSION! Onora, please The man beside her reaches out to take her hand. She immediately smacks his away. The ultimate sacrifice? Thats what you call it when you force children to die for everyone else? Do you think itll become something different if you bury it beneath enough of this Old Clarish military-honors garbage?! she screams. Still sobbing, choking on the last word through her tears. Tetha sputters out an incoherent sound. A second later, a great, awful tearing rings through the chamber. Behind us, Mary Hyland has brandished a box cutter and carved open a thin, dark hole in space. I turn just in time to see her rush through it. Mary, hold on, wereC Erika starts to say, but shes already gone. Hey, fuck you too. We can make our own choices, she calls, then turns and slips into the portal moments before it closes. In their passing, the rest of the room is eerily still. I cant read the faces in front of me, all trained on Shonas mom, but Tetha is visibly quivering, and Nilamais wings have curled around her in an almost protective gesture. Rolands silky hair covers part of his face from this angle, looks like hes keeping it as perfectly together as ever, hands clenched in his lap. Iridas no different, silently drumming her fingers on her wheelchairs armrest. Finally, Mide barks out a dry, miserable laugh. What? Mide, what? Is there something youd like to say? Mrs. Tiernan asks, her voice so tight I feel like I can hear it snapping in two. I guess youd rather blame anyone else than think about why Shona thought she had to do this, huh? Mide stands and pushes past her parents, stopping just short of shoving herself into Mrs. Tiernans face. This complete raving bitch is the reason shes dead! Mrs. Tiernan flinches back as if struck. Mide presses in on her, shoving Shonas dad aside when he tries to come between them. Yeah. I bet you werent even thinking of that, were you? How the last time she saw you, you were so fucking awful to her that she went looking for a fight to blow off steam instead of cooking you alive. Like she shouldve done. You, Mrs. Tiernan seethes. You you said, you promised when you dragged Shona into this, you promised. You said whatever happened, youd keep her safe. Aisling clenches her teeth. She clenches her teeth so hard it feels like I can hear it. The spectre at my side looks like shes holding back hysterical laughter. Just tell them already, she hisses. Tell them theyre mourning someone whos still alive! Shut up already, I snarl under my breath. Still suffering! Aisling puts a hand on my shoulder. Hey, this isnt she mutters, trailing off into a whisper. Are you okay? You dont feel okay. Tell them you could save her if they stopped crying and fighting and gave you everything they have! Shut up! Liadain. Hey. Listen to me. I really dont think you should be here, Aisling insists. This is not your fault, not your problem to solve, well figure it out later, just come on. How could it not be? Im the only one who knows what these people are talking about. How pointless everything theyre saying is. How could I just leave and let them tear each other apart over nothing? See? Just like I said! And I wouldnt have had to protect her if you hadnt made her so miserable that shed rather fight monsters forever than live with you! I shouldnt have had to! Mide howls, her voice breaking. No! You shouldnt have! Because you are a CHILD! Mrs. Tiernan shrieks back. She flings an arm out, sweeping it over the gathered Keepers and pointing an accusing finger at the priest. And what about YOU? What do you have to say for yourself? You STEAL CHILDREN! She was just a girl, still just my baby, and you sent her off to fight to the death in this war that never ends! Why her? Why any of them? Why? WHY? Suddenly, the room feels even colder. I shiver, but it does nothing to shake off the sensation of ice crystals forming in my veins. From the crowd of Keepers, Iona Fianata stands. Mrs. Tiernan looks past Mide, turning to meet Ionas ice-sculpture gaze. Her mouth hangs open in wordless terror as Iona approaches her. Other than her soft, even footsteps, the chamber is silent. Even my shadow can only stare up at her, dumbstruck. How many Keepers has Iona watched die? How many friends, how many memories, how many dreams, how many lives is this woman dismissing as a bunch of stupid kids tricked into serving as child soldiers? Iona comes to a stop right across from Mrs. Tiernan, held apart only by the distance of the coral pew between them, regarding her with softly burning eyes. Youre right, she says quietly. Beyond a doubt. Of course you are. She is? W-what? Mrs. Tiernan asks, stumbling over the word. A fallen hero. A sacrifice. A casualty. Those all mean the same thing, dont they? Someone we loved, taken from us in a way no one should be. Someone we could have saved if wed only worked harder or taught them better. Someone all of us failed. Iona brushes a few half-frozen tears from her cheek, scattering a dusting of fresh snow into the air. I cant turn back time. I cant do more for your daughter than I did. I cant do anything to ease your pain or redress your loss. All I can say is that youre right C there is no justice or honor or glory in it. Only a call for us all to do better, which I should have heeded sooner. And for what little it is worth, Im sorry. Mrs. Tiernan stares back at Iona in silence, quivering and squeezing her arms. And breaks down weeping. She almost falls forward, thumping her fist on Ionas shoulder with no impact, and cries and cries and cries while the mother of our city embraces her. Her husband stands beside her, rubbing her back. Even Mide has given her her space, retreating to cry quietly with her family. I am so sorry, Iona repeats. I know. Please trust me when I say that I know. No matter how much time we have, its never enough. Never enough to say everything we want to say, do everything we want to do but it should be. I hope beyond hope that one day, it will be. She already knows. She must. Even if Iona doesnt have access to all the scary magical secrets, which I doubt, she cant have lived almost a century as a Keeper and never seen the signs. Im not that special. So what is she doing about it? Could she help figure all this out? Or, more likely, is there anything I could do to help her? ~~~ Things do calm down after that. Mr. Tiernan wrote and read the familys eulogy for Shona, which is probably for the best. Aisling, Irida, and Roland all have kind words for her C Mide doesnt seem up to speaking in public, which I cant at all blame her for. When the service ends, the head priest leads the small crowd out to the rocky seaside behind the Chancel. The seas a beautiful graveyard, if thats what it really is. If there are any graveyards, anywhere. The Sun hasnt quite set, but it has dipped low in the sky, so here on the eastern shore, the shadows are long and the colors of sunset are just starting to creep over the horizon. Ahead, a long, narrow pier stretches out from the coast, with a white motorboat fastened to its far end. After a brief, quiet discussion between the priests, Shonas family, and Mides, the priests lead Shonas parents and Mides to the boat. The junior priestess unties it from the dock, then takes the helm and sets off, slowly, into the Sun-dyed horizon. They dont travel too far out, though C only enough to make for a safe distance from the shore. Once the boat comes to the stop, the head priest stands on its back platform, facing us, and recites, loud enough for us to hear clearly: Silent watcher beneath the waves, Vessel of all earthly pains, we entreat you to carry your sister safely home. Guide her to her place of honored repose in her Theres an odd pause, but when I look around, it doesnt seem like most people think much of it. I only catch a few reactions C Iona is smiling to herself, like shes caught some very dry joke, while Roland and Irida glance her way with neutral expressions. In Claiasyas gardens, the priest finishes. He steps aside, beckoning Mide and Shonas family to the back of the boat. They step forward, Shonas mother in the center holding the urn, and slowly lower it into the sea together. It looks like an awkward job for three people, like her father and Mide are only moving to keep their hands on it. But eventually, they let it go, leaving it to bob along the waters surface. They step away, Shonas father leading her mother along as she bursts back into tears, and the boat speeds to the pier, moving notably quicker than it did on the way out. Almost immediately after the priestess finishes tying the boat to its dock, a low, doleful sound rings through the air no, not through the air at all. Its like the cry of a whale echoing inside my head. In unison, the priests bow deeply to the sea. Shonas parents startle at the sound, huddling a little closer. Mide simply stands tall, fists balled at her side, and watches. A shadow slithers beneath the water, taller and wider than a skyscraper. Its entire shape ripples at its edges like cloth in the wind. The ocean ripples and rises and crashes into the rocks as something enormous surges up from its depths. But before it reaches the surface, it slows dramatically, leaving the sea almost as still as it was before it arrived. And when it does finally breach, its movements are slow and gentle as a thing of its size could be. It looks at first like a great undersea flower, or something clothed in them C a column of pale white petals, each bearing patterns of blue bioluminescence that shine like star-clouds in the dark water. Then, all as one, they contract into themselves, becoming something more like tentacles and offering us a clearer view of the beautiful creature hiding behind them. Nha, the Silent Vessel. The Messenger who never speaks, but shows himself to everyone. Beneath his countless fronds, he has the soft, round body of a sea slug, skin shiny and pearlescent and almost translucent, patterned just beneath the surface with its own lights and abstract shapes. Around his wide, dark whales eyes C orbs much bigger than me that still look tiny and beady on his face C is a thick cluster of fronds like the tentacles of a cuttlefish, which seem placed to hide his mouth shyly. Slowly, the petals on his back fan back out as if to feel the soft, cold breeze, or simply to show off the starlit displays dotted all across them. He glances over the shore, taking us in, his eyes lingering a bit longer on the group at the docks end. Then, his gaze settles on Shonas urn, displaced far to one side by the waves of his arrival. Carefully, gently as can be, he reaches for it with his front tendrils, takes it, and cradles it, building it a little nest in his many-limbed grip. Holding it tightly, he turns away from us, dives back into the deep, and swims off toward the horizon. Any trace that he was ever here is gone within seconds, when the last waves hit the rocks. Nha wanders the sea, peeking up from its depths to shock the occasional sailing crew, but hes seen most often on days like these. When we offer a dead Keepers remains to the ocean, he appears without fail to receive them. Whatever it means to return to the sea, its much more literal for us. Except its not, is it? Shona isnt in that urn. Nothing wed even think of as part of her is. They didnt recover her body from getting eaten by a Harbinger. So why? What about that little vessel is important enough for him to collect it and every other like it? The Tower 10-1 Once Nha leaves us behind, carrying whatever final token of Shona he took with him, most of the procession gathers by the dock. Iona sits down on the rocks with Shonas family, consoling them while they stare out and watch the Suns last traces fade. Mide eventually joins them. I just stand on my own, straining against the frozen weight of my body, and try to make sense of everything. It doesnt work. My shadow doesnt even have anything snide to say C I barely see her. Eventually, when night has almost fallen and the crowd starts to thin, Aisling breaks away and approaches alone. She greets me with a tiny nod, then turns, slowly, to watch night fall. Hey, she says. Whatre you thinking? Nhas cute, I say. Right, its your first time at one of these. He is. And about your idea, with him in mind? Oh. I look around, making sure no ones in earshot. I dont know. I mean, of course I knew about him, I just wasnt really thinking about him when I learned all this. And I cant think of any way itd make sense for him to do this. I was hoping you could. They didnt go find her body and put her ashes in there, did they? No. Even in cases where someone has killed the Harbinger that got a Keeper, they almost never find their remains in the Wound. They usually just fill those with some of a Keepers favorite things. Tokens of them, you know. Then Ive got nothing, I admit. Well, one more for the pile. All this aside, howre you managing? You look any progress on the donation plan? Id have a hard time thinking of how to ask enough random people to be worth it for something like that on my best days, and I havent had any good days since everything last week. Ah. Well, I obviously dont know the details of your medical situation, but if, for any reason, you absolutely needed to, could your power turn a bad day good? My legs wobble as I look inward, feeling the chill in my veins, listening to the strangely dry, rustling sound where I once heard blood flowing through my ears. Yes. But Id have to eat people first. Ive been empty for a while and it doesnt like that. Of course. Aisling grits her teeth and exhales through them. So. Do you have any estimate of the minimum viable amount of people-eating youd have to do to fix that? Just making sure I understand where we stand, if you or we have an emergency. Not really? After the first few times, I started looking for big groups and taking tiny bites from every healthy person in them. Well. Im sure you can see now how it might help to keep logs of these things. Does it really work that way? It doesnt feel like it does. Ive never had a concrete sense of how much stolen health Im holding or how much it takes to do any given thing with it. The closest Ive come to thinking of it in amounts is that there is a smallest possible sip I can take from someone C which is more than enough to hurt them C and how quickly whatever Im doing is burning through my remaining supply. Lots of things dont feel the way they are, and you wont know how it works if you never even try to quantify it! And not to pile more stuff on you, but itd probably also help if you could find a specialist in Keeper health issues. The experts will know way more about whats going on with you than I do. I do already have one of those. They brought her in right before we met, so I havent asked her about the feather thing yet, but maybe soon. Oh! Good, then. Who was it? Aisling asks. My doctor? Why? Aisling shrugs. Just wondering if theyre anyone Ive heard of. Medicines not one of my big things, but I have looked into the field. Her names Dr. Cantillon. I dont know if youd like her, sheC Ava Cantillon is your doctor?! Aisling almost shouts. Shes looking at me the way Shona mightve if Id talked about having lunch with Irida. Um. Do you know her? Only by her work, but her papers on modern presentations of the Third Scourge are incredible! One of the first things I read about intersections of magic and the material world that made its subject look like something it might at least be possible to understand and systematize! Do you think you could get her autograph? Probably? Or I could make you a squiggle thatd look just like it. Shes got the most doctor handwriting ever. Youre fucking with me. Im sure youve had someone you looked up to enough to know how not the point that is. I smile despite myself. Shes right, with a catch. I used to. It was Tara. Aisling purses her lips, holding back an expression. Ah, she says, and nothing more. Right, has she been around long enough to know Tara? To have her own awful experiences with her? Does she think Im some gross serial killer fangirl now? I can never miss a chance to mess something up. Um, yes, though, Im sure that wont be a problem. Ill tell Dr. Cantillon she has Keeper fans, I say. Appreciate it. And you know, about the volunteer thing if you arent sure where to start, theres a lot of people right over there who Im certain could help. What? I glance back at the dock. Irida and Nilamai have left, but the priests, the Fianatas, and Roland all sit on the shore, gathered around Mide and Shonas family, talking quietly amongst themselves. Shonas mother is still visibly crying, but even shes part of their conversation. Now? I cant. Theyre doing funeral stuff. Plus thats two of the people wholl least want to help me and one of their mom. One of those people just offered you a clean slate, and meant it, yes. And whatever you think about him, hes an expert in PR bullshit. Wait. Seriously? Youre serious? Why does it even matter to you? Aisling puts a hand to her temple. Deadly serious. And because I am trying to help you. If you end up in trouble again, or we find Isobels Harbinger, I dont want you out of commission because you didnt take what might be very simple steps to get you the resources you need, and itd be very easy to take those steps right now. Oh, I say. Right. That makes sense. Aisling pulls her phone from a coat pocket and starts tapping away. Here. If you dont want to interrupt their conversation, I can call him over right now. He answers Keeper messages pretty much instantly unless hes in a Wound or something. Set against his brilliant smile just a few hours ago, Rolands voice echoes through my head: Ill kill you! Youre going to die alone! It doesnt make sense. Nothing about him makes sense. How could I trust him with anything when I dont understand him at all? How can Aisling trust me? How could Shona, who barely even had anything to gain from it? Go ahead, I say. Great. Sent. Aisling taps a single key and puts her phone down. Sure enough, maybe a minute later, Roland stands up, approaches us, and raises a hand. Yo, he says with an inviting smile. Is this no longer off-limits? Obviously. Id say you dont need to gloat, but Im not sure if thats true, Aisling says. Rolands smile widens a little, but he says nothing. We thought you might be able to help sort out the logistics of something. I dont know exactly what you two talked about the last time you met. Are you aware of the donor plan to fill Liadains particular magical needs? Oh yeah! Roland says, eyes narrowing. You mentioned it back then. And I told you how easy itd be to get it going with my help. Yes, you did, I say. But whyd you have to be so weird and pushy and creepy about it? Roland takes a single step closer. I suppress a flinch. Reflexively, I want to pull back, but it doesnt feel quite like hes pressing in on me, and the way I am now, Im never sure how close people need to be to even hear me talk. Whyd you tell me there was no way we could talk to Niavh when she told me the morning after she wouldve answered her phone whenever? I ask. You apparently met Niavh, then continued doing what you were doing for more than another week, Roland answers immediately. If I left you for her to handle, how was I supposed to know you wouldnt go off and keep doing it until she got back? That doesnt make any sense! If that was my plan, whats the exit strategy? Itd just be digging a slightly deeper hole thatd cave in around me the next time you two talked! Aisling squints at me, very pointedly. Rolands smile returns, wry but thoughtful as he glances off into the ocean. You know, when I found you, I really didnt know enough about you to say just what I thought youd do. His red eyes dart back to mine. Now, though? Yeah. Sounds about right, he says. Fine, yes. Ive had a lot of stupid plans. I say nothing. Look, this is not really the point, Aisling says. Roland, whatever your thought processes and the information you had access to at the time, Im confident you were mistaken about Liadains intentions, both before and after your encounter. I also dont see what any of us have to gain from relitigating this. So, given that we seem to have moved past it to something resembling everyones satisfaction, are you willing and able to help now? Oh, sure, Id be happy to help! What can I do for you? Roland asks, looking my way even while Aisling speaks. Um. I want to arrange some kind of event where people can donate health to my pool in exchange for, I dont know, autographs or something? It doesnt sound like a very good deal when I say it like that, but Aisling says people will do it. I just dont really know where to start, and I havent been able to figure it out because everything hurts. Roland nods eagerly. Thats no trouble at all, yeah. I can set you up with my agent. Nice lady, great at her job. Shed at least want you on Flow or Lighthouse to make the arrangements, but either of us could verify you as a Keeper right now. I sigh. I was afraid of that. Okay. Thats fine. As for the or something Roland taps a finger on his chin. After a few seconds, his ruby eyes light up. Got it! You do tarot, right? he asks. I tilt my head and narrow my eyes. Whered that come from? Thought your cards looked familiar. Not really my thing, but some of that old occult stuff comes up in training seminars. Ohh. I guess it would. Yes, I do. Thats perfect, then! Offer people selfies or autographs for a little bit of juice, tell their fortunes for a little bit more. Tarot isnt Nevermind, thats actually a good idea, I say. What were you expecting? he asks, holding up his arms as he shrugs. I dont know. Some sort of plot to make me your sidekick, maybe. Roland leans forward with his arms folded behind his back, bringing his face close to mine. The motion is so sudden my heart leaps out of my chest like a startled cat, but the rest of me freezes in place. Well, if youre offering he murmurs, his voice slightly warm on my cheek. Just like that, all my thoughts scatter, blown away on a passing wind. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Im, um I cast my eyes downwards. I cant think clearly when I look at him. Hes too bright. As obnoxious as he is, I cant even begin to deny that he just looks unbelievable. Like a photo of a supermodel in motion. But hes right there. Hes so close. I dont know whatll happen next, but maybe it wont be bad. I get what Mide meant now when she mentioned wondering why she even bothered every time she looked in the mirror after meeting Roland. Tall, slender in his robes, with a sharp-featured face that could as easily belong to a handsome girl as a beautiful boy, all framed by long hair that flows out like strands of golden silk and those big, red eyes of his. I glimpse upwards into them and a memory stabs sweetly through me like a jagged shard of glass. The image of a single crimson eye, its frenzied glare peeking out between sullied golden curtains. A burning desire to tear me apart piercing through the night as every bit of breath is crushed out of my chest. But I dont understand. Im terrified, but its a fear twined together with with what? He pulls back and the world snaps back into place around me. He chuckles to himself. I blink. Nah, I dont have to be there. Especially not if you show everyone a face as cute as the one youre wearing right now, he grins teasingly. I point to my face. I Im wearing a mask, I say tonelessly. Oh, your eyes are enough to tell. I grab the forearm of my cane hand, folding my free arm over myself protectively. Roland, are you quite done? Aisling asks, voice sharp, arms folded. We do have work to do. I was just coming back to that. Anyway, I dont have to be part of it at all, really. Youll get more of a crowd if I am, but hey, up to you. If you want your debut to be your own thing, I can respect that. Irida tried something like that on me when I was getting started. Id feel better that way, yes. Thanks. I cant stop wondering why hes being so helpful all of a sudden, but I also cant bring myself to ask. I feel like I already know what hed say, but also like I wouldnt understand him any better for having heard it from him. And Im sorry, I say instead. For making everything so much harder than it needs to be. I know what I was doing, I get that you had your reasons to see me how you did, and Im not sure why youd bother helping me now but Im I dont know. Thanks. Im glad we didnt just kill each other. Aisling shoots me an odd sidelong look. Roland only blinks. The sound of dark waves breaking on the rocks fills the silence between us. Finally Yeah! Me too, Roland says blithely. Is this flirting? Is this what that looks like? my shadow asks, regarding me like mud on her boots. Bizarre. Disgusting. One more thing youll never miss when you shed this flesh like snakeskin. Is it? Now? Why? It cant be. It better not be. Thatd make even less sense than everything else about him. That cant be all it takes to win you over, can it? she growls, Some creepy pushy words and a favor he TOLD you was trivial. Just shut up. Youre not helping. Im not dealing with you right now. ~~~ It takes a few more days of quiet misery for Rolands Church-furnished publicist, a lady from Alelsia whose name, Aethelflaed, Im glad I dont have to pronounce, to schedule the event. She obliges when I ask to make all the plans through Lighthouse messages, asks some questions about how my power works, what exactly I need from volunteers (my answers arent as detailed as either of us would like) and the level of exposure Id be comfortable with (as little as possible.) Taking all that into account, Aethelflaed arranges a simple meet-and-greet at a small chancel in the Weald, with the obvious twist that while she cant stop anyone who just wants to look at the weird new Keeper from showing up, the main event will be a spot where people can line up to offer me their health. The smallest sip I can take will get them a picture and a shaky autograph. A slightly bigger one adds a three-card tarot reading, where I have veto power over the subject if I dont think its a question tarot could help with or someone just asks me something stupid. Im sure she found a more diplomatic way to phrase that. By Sunday, everythings been set up and shes spread the word around on whichever platforms people get their Keeper news from. Wary as I was of getting their attention, these Church people do work shockingly fast. ~~~ I dont read any announcements about the event. Im sure Id find whatever they say about me embarrassing. All I do is show up when Im supposed to, torn inside between my urgent need for more life and hoping I wont be the center of some huge horrible crowd. As it turns out, its not too bad. The chancel is a modestly-sized circle of ceramic white and blue glass, and it looks like most of the people coming must already be inside. Out front, theres only a woman in simple priestly robes, who leads me in through the sanctuarys back entrance. I transform before I head in, not interested in putting on any more of a show than I already am. Voices raise as I step inside, not shouting for my attention but speaking among themselves. Theres somewhere between thirty and forty people here. Of those, most of them, maybe twenty-five, have joined a line that winds around the chambers edges, while the rest are simply standing around. Some raise their phones to take my picture. The line has formed up around a booth in the corner closest to us, where theres a long table covered in black cloth and draped with dark curtains on either side. I dont suppose I gave them much to work with as far as my aesthetic. The priestess escorts me there, past the small crowd. Um. Ive never done anything like this before. Is there any way Im supposed to start? I ask, then sit down and set my cane against the table. This seat is surprisingly soft, at least. Thats up to you. Is there anything youd like to say? I tap my throat once. Even if there was, they couldnt hear me like this. I have a voice thing. Emergence. Ah. Well, Im sure thats fine, she says with a small nod. Just do whatever feels natural. All these people are here to help you, after all, and we have volunteers on hand to care for them afterwards. If its necessary. She gestures across the room to a nurses station with a spread of snacks and drinks, which makes the whole thing feel more like a particularly fancy blood drive than anything else. Alright. Ill figure something out, then. Thank you. I guess tell them I said so too. The priestess nods and steps away, leaving me alone at the table. People at the front of the line crane around each other to look at me, while others reposition to take more pictures. This is fine. Thisll be fine. I only need to deal with one person at a time. Doing my best to ignore the observers, I unceremoniously wave the first person in line forward. To my surprise, I dimly recognize her C a girl with thick glasses and her red hair in a spiky bun, though shes wearing a long Spring dress instead of the school uniform I last saw her in. Mor, was it? Hi. Oh, cool, it is you. And you remembered! She sits across from me and cranes almost halfway over the table, probably to hear me better. It hasnt been that long. And I dont meet that many people. Mor shrugs. Yeah, I guess not. Thank you for coming, in any case. Howd you know it was me? Its starting to seem like basically everyone knew me way before I thought of doing this. I mean, people talk, yeah. Especially Shona. You two were friends, right? She talked like you were, only sort of half-assedly anonymizing stuff about you. You know how she is with secrets. Or well. Im sorry about her, she says, lowering her voice. I didnt know her that well, but the whole schools yeah. I dont want to talk about Shona, I say flatly. Oh. Sure. Sorry, she mutters, looking a little taken aback. Anyway Are you sure thisll be okay? I dont know a lot of things about how this works, really. Itll hurt, and Im not sure how much or for how long. Seriously? The spectre seated on the tables edge shoots me an incredulous glare. She has a point. Why should I get cold feet now of all times? Why should inflicting myself on a normal girl around my age living her normal life feel any different from what I was doing before? Theres no way shes even the first kid Ive hurt C I wasnt sorting my victims by age, or by anything. I almost never saw them at all. Mor shakes her head, smiling. Its fine. Happy to help, and I dont really care about missing school or anything like that. Ill have people around, books to catch up on, stuff to think about. I dont mention the days where Im in too much pain to focus on anything. Im not trying to scare her away, I just I dont know what Im doing. Alright. I think itd be best if I do things for you before I take what I need. So, whatre you here for? I think Id like a reading. If Im going to be sick anyway, getting a little more sick seems like a fair price to see the future. I point to the bottom of the sign on my table. Tarot is not magic. No one can see the future. All I know about you is what you tell me, the last line says. That parts there at my insistence. It may not be exactly true, but I expect my magic readings would be just as awful for everyone else, and Im not using these people as guinea pigs to find out. Maybe if another Keeper volunteers, Ill tell Aisling to add it to whatever experiments on my power shes thinking up. Im, well yeah, I know that. I read a bit about it before I came. Too much to hope that itd work differently if a Keeper does it, huh? Yes, I say. Do you still want it? Yeah, thats fine. So I pull an ordinary deck from my Keeper pockets, have Mor pile shuffle it, and get started. Its the first reading Ive done for someone other than myself in a while, since Ive either been too busy or too imposing for my seventh floor corner to get many visitors, and it pretty quickly leaves my comfort zone. She asks me some fairly specific questions about a crush she has and what to do about it. Shes not trying to divine someones private details or anything stupid like that, which at least one girl did try when I was still in school, but her situation sounds complicated enough that I dont really understand it. I just explain the cards and let her do the talking about what she thinks they mean. Eventually, she decides more or less on her own that the girl she likes isnt in a place where that sort of thing would be good for her, even if she did reciprocate. I mean, I pretty much knew all of this, being honest with myself. But it helps to unpack it all and sort it out, yknow? Mor sighs. Her shoulders droop a little. Thats the point. Thats what tarots actually good for, I say. Sorry it wasnt a nicer answer. Better right than nice. Thanks for listening. Listening was all I could really do, so Im glad it seems to have been worth something to her. Mor steps around the table and poses while she takes a picture of us. I sign her journal and three more books she pulls from a big messenger bag C not that I really have a signature, or practiced for this at all, or could have made my hands cooperate for long enough to practice even if Id wanted to. Still, she seems happy enough with my shaky scrawls. Thanks, she says as she tucks her books away. So, uh hows the next part work, exactly? You probably want to sit back down, I say. She does, balling her fists and steeling herself like shes about to have blood drawn. If only it were that easy. Without another word so long Ive already waited too too long I let my famished soul reach out, taking her life in its many-fanged grip. Mor winces at the sensation, face paling. The whole world smells of warm rain and fresh growth. I grin behind my mask, open my maws, and drink, draining first one gulp of essence, then a second. It takes all my will to pull away with only those drops. The suffering written clearly on Mors face helps C shes trembling, eyes wrenched shut, whimpering and biting her lip hard enough to draw a trickle of blood. And that was nothing. Thats what carrying the barest fraction of your burden will do to a person. Try to breathe the way you normally do. It wont help much, but itll do something, I say. Mor nods, but very obviously doesnt do that. She stands slowly, almost tripping over her own legs, and holds herself up on her chair, doing her best to smile through the pain, until a nurse rushes over to help her across the room. Watching her limp away, I understand why I hesitated. The reality of what Ive done was never the point. Without the threat of immediate death on the line, its just hard to take a bite out of someone sitting right in front of me, someone whose name and face I know. Its simpler, easier, less raw and less real to sense an abstract wisp of life in the distance, know at a glance that it belongs to someone whos never suffered the way I do every day, and take just a little bit of the good fortune I shouldve been born with for myself. But I wouldnt be here if feeling bad was enough to keep me from doing anything. ~~~ And on it goes. A few people leave the line after seeing my first victim, but only a few. And slowly, like the roots of a parched plant drinking the first rain in weeks, life trickles into my empty well, easing the agony thats gnawed at me ceaselessly since I wasted everything I had fighting Roland. Its more like a too-brief shower or a trickle from a watering can than true rain, though. Compared to the reserves I used to have, I can already tell that these gifts are only droplets. As long as Im relying on donations like these, Ill never reach the heights I did in Aulunlas Wound again. But thats okay. Itll have to be. Pushing myself that hard was a miserable experience, and more importantly, I dont need to do it. I can already do more than I could then. I just need to make better plans that use the things Im good at. Maybe therell be another Harbinger I can drain the way I did Aulunla. Or maybe itll turn out that I can just hide in an alley and feed my targets cursed copies of myself until it withers and dies. At Aislings urging, I have tested the range I can control my clones from and found it to be pretty far, but I obviously have no way to tell how theyll interact with Wounds until I find one. The shadow at my side leans over the table, filling the corner of my vision, and fixes me with a grim, knowing smirk. What? Whatre you so smug about? We havent even tried yet! You dont know how itll work any more than I do! Of course I dont say any of that, but the boy next in line is still giving me a weird look. He scuttles off when I scowl up at him, so Thanks for that. Hope youre happy. If you want me to stop holding back and eat everyone, you picked the worst possible time to bother me. ~~~ Im exhausted by the end of the event, but physically, I do feel better than I have in a while. A thin trickle of life is enough to keep my veins from freezing and my body from screaming out in constant crippling pain. I dont even have to feel bad about using it for enough everyday relief to keep myself standing, since all of it came from people who offered it to me freely. Part of me wants to walk home, just because I can, but that would feel like an extravagance. As part of this event, my donors were all offered treatment at Guiding Light, the hospital that deals with esoteric injuries when they dont quite merit a stay in the Sanctuary. By the time I need more, there should be doctors with at least some idea of what Im doing to people and whether any of my harm is lasting. I should make this much work until then, or at least for as long as I can. So I take the bus home. Its good practice ignoring the way people look at me now. When the elevator opens on the seventh floor, the front desk nurse smiles at me. Welcome back, Liadain! You have a visitor. I told him he could wait for you in the great room C dont worry, though, you havent kept him waiting too long. What? Who? I ask, gripping the desks edge and leaning over it. The only he I can think of is Roland. He couldve tracked me down or followed me home or gotten my info from his publicist or something. I still dont know that hes plotting something weird, but even if he isnt, Im not letting my hospital become a meeting room for every Keeper who wants to bother me. The nurse looks a little unsettled C Im sure she knows what it could mean when strange things startle me C but relaxes after a moment. Theres nothing to worry about, dear! Its just your dad stopping in. Its been a bit since hes made it here, hasnt it? Oh, I say. He actually came here? Now hes decided to remember I exist? I think that might be worse. Behind her matted, ink-stained hair, my shadow stares at me with a confusing blend of disbelief and disgust and fear? Something Ive never seen or imagined seeing from her, but thats the only way I can read her face. Im about to ask the nurse if she can get rid of him, or just turn around and leave, when she points and waves. There you are! Shes back, Mr. Shiel! she calls. Dad stands at the end of the hall. A big bag from a bookstore slips from his fingers, thudding to the floor. His hairs gotten long and scraggly since I last saw him, the pale stubble on his chin is thick, and his eyes are wide and wet behind his glasses. Hey, Lia. His voice breaks as he says my name. Volume 1 of the Nowhere Stars LN is now available! Hi! This was supposed to be a while ago, and the gap where the first two arcs of the story weren''t available was supposed to be, like, a day. Then, for no particular reason, Amazon held my release hostage for two weeks. I''m very sorry for any trouble that caused. But we are now free from Bezos Jail at last! Here''s Volume 1 of the book edition of Nowhere Stars, edited and with pretty pictures, as well as the audiobook, narrated by the wonderful Caitlin Kelly of Kumo Desu Ga Nani Ka: