The last traces of Seryana’s corpse dissolve into gri 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 I’ve 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 ? What does he want? All questions I have no way to answer. I shove them from my racing thoughts — right now, the answers wouldn’t matter even if I had them. Right now, all that matters is that Seryana is mine.
…No. That’s a useless thought, too. How badly I need this doesn’t change the situation at all. If I don’t figure this out, I’ll 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 weightstill pressing in on my soul, I think I’d only hurt myself if I attacked him.
So what, then? What can I do that won’t ruin everything?
“Well? What are you waiting for?” the Seraph calls out with his hands on his hips before I can co up with an answer.
“…What?” I can’t tell how long we’ve been standing here, but he hasn’t moved at all. He seems to be watching rather than the heart, but his mask’s sharp visor completely obscures his face.
“Go ahead. Take it. You’ve earned it.” He raises an open, gloved palm and gestures magnanimously to the heart.
Part of wants to race to Seryana’s remains and swallow her without another word, but I don’t know yet if that would be right. Without so idea of what he wants from , I have no idea how to navigate this.
“Just like that? You don’t want it? This isn’t a trick?” I ask.
“Eh?” The Seraph gives a barely-perceptible tilt of his head. “Could you, uh, not know who I am, maybe? I’m the Stardust Seraph. Y’know… ‘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 wouldn’t be your thing,” he finishes with a broad shrug. “Besides, what kind of trick? If I really wanted to sneak up on you, I’ve missed my chance, don’tya think?”
“I made the Promise a month ago! I don’t know how vulnerable we are while we’re eating hearts, what I should be worried about, what you can do, what’s 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 so weird reference to my na?”
“…Pfft… hahahahaha!”
After a mont’s tense silence, the Seraph first chokes down a chuckle, then bursts into hearty laughter. “Suspicious to a fault, I see… well that’s probably for the best. You’ve just gotta learn to hide it better… but no. Of course I’m not here to steal from you. Don’t be ridiculous. That Harbinger was already in tatters. All I did was hasten the inevitable. In fact… I swear this on my na as the Stardust Seraph: I will not by any ans interrupt your consumption of that Harbinger’s 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 doesn’t exactly withdraw from , but there’s a strange current in the intangible energy flowing around us. It gathers around the Seraph’s 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 sa 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 don’t think it’s possible to lie in that language, but it also doesn’t seem like every word spoken in it is a binding oath. A Harbinger can say sothing 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, andthe one out he included isn’t anything weird like that Sanctuary contract’s 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? We’re two Keepers and a dead Harbinger. What danger am I going to be in?” I ask.
“Just in case, of course. Wouldn’t wanna watch you die if so freak incident happens and I’m sworn to stay out of it.”
…Fair enough. It’s a pretty specific situation, and the way his promise resolves it is completely in my favor. Even so… this wording doesn’t quite leave perfectly safe.
“And what about after I’m done?”
The Seraph tilts his head to one side farther than last ti. “What aboutit? 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 sothing to do to imdiately after I’m finished? So big ritual that takes ti to prepare, which you could do because it wouldn’t “interrupt” , and that I wouldn’t notice until you spring it on the second the Harbinger’s gone?”
He places his palm to his forehead as though in consideration. “…I guess that would work. I’m not gonna do that, though. If I were planning to, I’d have done it by now — or, again, before I blew the elent of surprise on that Harbinger. There’s sensible suspicion and there’s 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 sothing. Nor will I prepare to take any hostile action against you while you consu that heart, from when you begin to when you finish. Is everything to your satisfaction now, princess?”
“…Princess?”
“Is it?”
I’d feel better about this if he would tell what he is here for, make assurances as to what he’s planning once Seryana’s remains are dealt with… but I don’t think I should push any harder, at least not yet. Whatever cos next, whatever he actually wants with , it doesn’t change that I need that heart.
I nod to the Seraph, steady myself on my cane, and approach Seryana’s 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 Seryana’s soul.
~~~
I don’t… I’m not a good person, XXXXX.
Get away from while you still can.
Those words could be ones of simple admission. Resignation. Regret, even. But spoken sincerely… they say so much more, don’t 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 stord 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 couldn’t 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 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 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 , in glances, in casts of light, in the gentle caress of radiation on my bare skin. They promised 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 ti 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 beca .
But dearest, I needed to be more than a monunt. You deserved so much more than that. You see… from the mont 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 mories, in gaping wounds where once had stood sothing beautiful, in echoes of despair that felt so much like you I could convince myself you were truly beside again.
But… when I claid my first, I heard a whisper on the night wind. A voice I already knew, a ssage carried down from the void for 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.
You’re not him. Of course you’re not. None of them were. He isn’t here, he isn’t in the stars, he isn’t anywhere. He’s 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 . To beco him. If you couldn’t, if I couldn’t, then what does anything else matter? Who cares about tomorrow? Who cares about ✴✴✴✴✴✴✴? Who cares what all this could beco if through it all, I will only ever be alone? If they filled the world with so much love, then WHERE IS MINE?
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
~~~
She’s gone before I can say anything. Can whatever’s left of them hear in there? Aulunla could, at least for a mont, but I guess it doesn’t matter. I don’t know what I’d say to her anyway.
Tears that are not mine blur my vision. No… no, soof them are probably mine. I still wouldn’t say I understand Seryana, and I don’t regret her death at all — it really was putting her out of inescapable misery, as horrible as I’d find that thought in any other scenario. But I think it’s impossible to take in another’s essence, everything that made them what they were, and not find sothing in them to empathize with. The one thing Seryana wanted with all her heart was sothing she couldn’t have, sothing so power or law beyond either of our ken insisted she shouldn’t have, and that much I understand all too well.
But the heady haze of eating a soul soon fades, and I don’t have ti to think through what the disturbing details of her story might an. She’s left 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… ti 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 so of them saw the Seraph fall from the sky like a scarlet teor, but if they did, they’ve had the good sense to stay away from a violent display of power at night. At the very least, we don’t have an audience.
That hardly makes feel better. I don’t want to talk to him, in private or anywhere else. But he’s not going away, I have no chance of outrunning soone who can fly,and… well, and if I think about this from his perspective, I guess he hasn’t done anything bad to except say sothing weird about my na. He didn’t steal my Harbinger. He could’ve been flying by, thought I was really in trouble, and only figured out who I was after he jumped in to help. I don’t think he did, but he could’ve.
And if I want to stop making horrible sses everywhere I go, I should really try not to panic until I have so idea of what he wants.
“…Okay. About what?” I ask. Stupid question. There’s only one reason the city’s golden boy would be seeking out… well, one big tangled pile of reasons. Still, let’s hear it from him first.
“Well, first off, why don’t we start with you giving a proper introduction?” the Seraph replies. “Unless you’d prefer I keep calling you ‘princess’, that is. As it stands, you have at a bit of a disadvantage.”
Do I? The first thing he said to was about my na. He obviously knows who he’s talking to… well, whatever. He can have what everyone else has, and if he wants to push on it, that’s his problem. “I’m Eyna. Ill Wind if you prefer. I don’t have a pose or a speech, sorry.”
“So that’s really your na, huh?” he presses, crossing his arms as his visor stares relentlessly through .
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 he’s so pushy about this. Eyna isn’t my actual na,of course, but unless Shona has spilled her guts to everyone in the last few hours, there’s no way for him to know that, is there? “That’s a really weird question. It’s not like it’s a special na. But yes.”
“Ah, I see, I see.” He nods his head in understanding. “That’s so weird, then. I didn’t find anyone like you when I checked through the public records for girls with that na. Must be a nickna or sothing, 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 wasn’t following . Why would he be digging around for my personal identity, anyway? Would he have dropped out of the sky and into my ho if he could have? Aren’t Keepers’ personal lives not ant 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 could’ve just robbed if you wanted. But I still have no idea what you want and you’re just… just standing there, dropping hints about how you’ve been stalking ? Why? What’s that accomplish except tell that if my nickna were sothing else, I’d 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 ti, this ti in the opposite direction. The wings of light at his back stretch out like a hawk’s 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 that’s it. I let out a barely-audible croak, the smothered remnant of so worthless word or panicked laugh.
How? I haven’t told anyone except Aisling. Would she…? No. No. Shona said once that the Seraph could “sniff out a Harbinger from miles away.” I’m 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 ti.
I can’t even count them. I’d given up on counting them within my first week.
But it doesn’t matter. He’s right. Neither my new plan or my feeling bad while hurting them change anything for those people.
“Yes!” I shriek. “Maybe, I don’t know, so of them could co up with better horrible things to call , but I’m already thinking those things about myself every day! So that’s why… that’s why I’m not doing that anymore,” I say. “It’s 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 I’m not dragging Aisling’s na into this. It might help. I don’t care. I’m not doing that to her.
The Seraph corrects his posture, returning his hands to his hips. “That’s good to hear, then. I’m glad you understand that won’t fly in this city,” he says, gentler than before. “I don’t want to have to treat a fellow Keeper like a crook if I can help it, but you’re not exactly making it easy. Actually, I’m here because I want to help you.”
He really could’ve said that in the first place. But… you know what, fine. It’s fine — if he ans it, if he doesn’t have so terrible idea of what ‘help’ is here. From a distance, I can’t exactly bla soone for looking at my actions and thinking I’m the new Tara. I take a set of long, slow breaths, loosening my grip on my cane.
“…Okay. Help how?”
“That depends,” he replies, cupping the chin of his mask between his index finger and thumb as though in consideration. “There’s plenty of arrangents that could be made with willing participants, depending on what you’re actually trying to accomplish. But first, why don’t you tell about this ‘better plan’ you’ve co up with?”
I grimace. He’s doing it again with that thing about “willing participants.” That has to be so intentional impression he’s trying to make, but until he actually says he’s here to arrest for magic cris or sothing… fine. Is Aisling’s plan a secret he’s prying into? I don’t think it is. Getting health donations would obviously have to be a public project.
“Volunteers,” I say. “I have to do what I’ve been doing to make my horrible power work, but I don’t 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 what’s 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. “We’re on the sa page, then! That’s perfect. And with on your side, you’ll have no problems at all getting that off the ground!”
Hold on. When did that happen? I didn’t ask, he didn’t even offer, just… declared it. Invited himself into the ssiest, most difficult part of managing my new life.
…Maybe… that’s not the worst thing ever? It is a problem. I still don’t know where to start with fixing it. Maybe Aisling does, but she doesn’t seem much happier with the public-figure side of all this than I am.
“We can also get you so training at the Church so nothing like that thing that went down with Mide ever happens again. Oh, and don’t worry about the Fianatas. I’ll handle them, if anything cos up.”
I stiffen up again as the Seraph carries on, casually taking charge of everything wrong with . Don’t. Don’t break now. Don’t blow up on him while he could still just be trying to help, just because he’s doing it in that pushy, overeager way I’ve never been able to stand from anyone.
“Hey, let walk you ho. We can talk about everything on the way.”
“I wasn’t!” I snap, then sigh, forcibly evening my voice out. “…Worried about the Fianatas, that is. Not anymore. I know, I’ll say sorry to Tetha if I ever find an occasion to do it that isn’t incredibly weird, but if I needed help — really, if I need help with any of this — I’ll ask Niavh. She’s already offered. But… thanks.”
He pauses for a mont, letting the silence between us settle in the cold night air before he continues. “…when’d you et Niavh?”
“…A week and so ago,” I say, and swallow. “Why?” Has he talked to her since then? About ? I t her before Tetha… I guess I don’t know if that offer still stands, really. All I have is a vague idea that Niavh must’ve said sothing in my defense. I have no other way to explain how quiet her sister seems to have been.
“So, uh… Lem get this straight. You t Niavh a week and so ago… and then you just… kept ‘draining’ people? And you only ca up with this new idea just last night?”
“Yes,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’ve had a lot to deal with and not a lot of ti. I didn’t have a better plan. Now I do. I don’t know what else you want from .”
“…Not sure you realize how you’re making things sound, but I’m gonna give you an easy out to this, princess,” he says calmly. “Do you know Niavh’s phone number?”
“…You’re right. I don’t know how it sounds. And no. She said she was easy to find if I needed anything. I assu the Chancel or sowhere has her number. I’m also… I don’t really see the point of this whole question. A minute ago when you were all cheery and excited, all I said was that I’d contact her if I needed help sorting this out. Which I will, because I’d rather work with soone who has so idea of what it’s like. So if you an sothing by this, please just say what it is already.” I say, straining to keep my voice level. “Is it that I should’ve stopped draining people and asked for help making a better plan a week ago? Yes. I know. But I can’t go back and do that now.”
“So you haven’t actually spoken with Niavh about this,” he restates, giving a nod. “That checks out, considering she’s not due back in New Claris for a day or two more… Anyway, it’s in everyone’s best interest if we put that new plan of yours into action as soon as possible. If you’re serious about this, I can make it happen tomorrow. Niavh can pick up where I left off the mont she’s back, if you really can’t stand that much.”
“Yes. That’s next on my list of things to do, now that she’s not stalking anymore.” I wave my free hand back at the ruins of Seryana’s house. “I’ll talk to her as soon as she’s 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. “I’m 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 see to it that you make it back ho 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 dical history, which… I’ve ripped that bandage off twice before now. I’d share it if I thought it would help, if I thought it would change anything about where we stand, but at this point, it doesn’t seem like it would.
More important, then, is that he’d know where I live. He could drop in on the seventh floor and make a ss of everyone’s lives whenever. He’d have the easiest possible route to keep appointing himself my minder and new best friend.
“I try not to bring Keeper business ho,” I say. “Sotis it follows anyway, but… you know. Personal stuff. Private stuff. My family doesn’t know and I don’t plan to tell them,” I say. All true. “If you need to find again for so reason, look around the university on most nights.”
“I could always just fly off when we get within view, you know. I don’t have a problem with dismissing my regalia and just walking the whole way, either. Nobody would see a thing.”
“People won’t recognize you any less that way!” I ca dangerously close to eting one of the Seraph’s fans a couple weeks ago. I know what they’re like. The last thing I need is for one of them to take a picture of 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 .”
“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 I’ll let you go. Could you lend one of your feathers?”
“My… feathers,” I echo. My blood. The black, shimring nothing running through my veins as of this afternoon. How closely has he been following ? For how long? What he wants it for is less of a question — I’ve read enough to know that blood has a kind of abstract weight to it. A connection to its source, in so symbolic sense that I’m sure is important to certain Keepers’ magic. I can’t see most of the things you’d use taken blood for being good for that source, and that’s before I even get into whatever’s happening with my blood.
“You’d have to cut open and rip them out. So no. Goodnight,” I say flatly, and start down the street.
“…Huh? The hell do you an by that? Wait,” he says, his voice drawing further away with each step I take—
“I said wait.”
—until he’s suddenly right in front of , his body and wings shifting into view in a flash of scarlet motion. My mouth goes dry and my heart hamrs 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 sothing, anything to get him away from .
But before I make it even a block, two cars parked on either side of the road before abruptly slide across the ground as though dragged by an invisible force. They skid until they co to a stop nearly bumper to bumper right in front of , forming a barricade.
“I. Said. Wait.”
Reviews
All reviews (0)