The Court of Less, page 16
“Are you ready?” I asked him.
“I always am, little Crow.”
“You seem calm.”
“War doesn’t scare me. I was born into this world with a sword in my hands.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m not afraid of death. I’m scared to lose those I’d leave behind. I’m scared to never see those I love again.”
It took me several tries to speak again. My heart caught in my throat. “Will you die down there?”
“I don’t believe so, no.”
“How comforting.” I smirked.
“There are no guarantees, especially not in war.” He turned to face me. “If I were to fall, run. If I’m dead, Zephyr likely will be, too. Go with the Sluagh. They’ll hide you. They will grant you and Nix safe passage. If you don’t, you’ll be hunted down with the full force of every court.”
“What about the Gate?”
“You’d never make it. You’d die before you got there,” he answered. “Promise me, Perdi, that you’ll run.”
I nodded.
“Say the words. If I’m dead, if Zephyr is dead, you’ll run. Do not go back to the mortal world. They won’t be safe if we are gone. We are the only ones who have stood between Elphame and the mortal realm.”
“I promise. If you both fall, I’ll run,” I agreed. “Promise me, you’ll do everything you can to survive. No matter what happens, you’ll keep living.”
He pulled me in for a tight hug. “I promise.”
He didn’t know what he was promising me. It had nothing to do with battle and everything to do with his will to live when he realized I wouldn’t come back out from the Gate. He kissed my forehead, pausing like he was memorizing what I looked like, and was gone. Like that, a cloud of mist trailing the earth, he was gone to his men.
“I love you,” I whispered to him, but he’d disappeared, not having heard it.
Zephyr stepped up to my side and squeezed my shoulder. “He loves you.”
“I needed him to hear it, once.” I looked up at Zephyr. “I’m not going to leave the Gate alive.”
“I know,” he answered but kept his eyes forward, watching, waiting for his turn to strike. “I’ve always known.”
“How?”
“From the moment I knew you’d come, I’ve known we’d end up here. Just as I know you will walk into the mists of the Gate and will die there for us all,” he answered. “And now, I can feel it in your pearl—a sadness that only the deepest of sacrifices can bring.”
“When I die, can you release my pearl so I’m not stuck here?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“Zeph, bring my body home. Don’t leave me in there to rot. Bring me home, please?” I whispered and breathed through the threat of tears. I would not cry on this field and willed my tears back through blinks and sheer force. Elphame had gotten enough of my tears already.
Zephyr squeezed my arm and nodded. “I’m honored to have known you, Perdita Darkmore, Soul-Eater, little Crow. Your sacrifice will forever be remembered, and not a day will go by where I won’t curse the Gods with your name.”
“Solas will need you. Don’t leave him.”
“It is time to fly, little Crow.”
The world around me exploded in magick and power, rolling tendrils of darkness, shadows that ate all in their path and the rumble of thousands of bodies closing the gap between the Seelie and Unseelie. The clash of sword against shield and screams of pain filled the crisp morning air. I looked above as the Sluagh fought against creatures on wings, painting the sky in red. Beasts climbed through the earth and ate battalions of men on both sides. The trees bled with nymphs of all shapes and terrifying sizes. Men who tried to cross the river drowned before their hair was wet. I watched the dark court eat the light and everything that stood in its way.
My heart broke in sadness.
But this was war.
My stomach rolled at the carnage.
War was nothing more than the dance of the dead.
My eyes watered at the sounds of blood and bones.
But war was never meant as an act of kindness.
I scanned the masses, watching and waiting. Solas cut through swathes of men as if they were butter. Wave after wave tried and failed to take Solas from this world. It almost pained me to think that even in war, he was beautiful and graceful. But he was. If terror could ever look elegant and stunning while taking a life, that was Solas. It was a dance he had mastered over decades of death. His entire body moved as one, yet every part of him moved differently. It was as though he already knew the movement of the other before they did, and he struck them down before they knew well enough that they were already dead the moment they woke up this morning.
On the other side of the field was Zephyr. Where Solas was liquid grace, Zephyr was a raging fire. Men fell, and Zephyr climbed over their bodies as if they were ground and beneath his notice. Once they went down, they were of no more consequence. And when the armies moved toward Solas, Zephyr’s men moved to cut them in half, dwindling the numbers against Solas. I knew after just minutes of watching that Zephyr had ordered his men to protect Solas before himself. And when groups came for Zephyr, Solas’ rage billowed from his soul, cutting them down before they could strike against his most loyal friend.
Zephyr had once said he’d give anything to have the kind of loyalty Nix gave me, someone who would die for him. But Zephyr did, even if he didn’t know it. Solas would give his life, his very soul, to save Zephyr. They each would. I felt calm with that knowledge.
“It’s uglier down there.” Nix hopped onto my shoulder. He would be with me until the end. “From here, you can almost pretend. But once you step onto that field, the curtain comes up, and you can smell the colors you can only see from here. Each scream can be felt in your soul. Time will move differently down there. Every minute will feel longer. Every inch feels like fifty yards to cross. You will fight for everything. Every breath, step, inch, second will feel impossible to gain.”
“How many wars have you fought?” I asked him. I had never thought to ask before.
“Until I went to the mortal realm, every single war this cursed place has waged. I’ve lost count. No one is safe from war here. You’re either fighting in it, dying in it or suffering because of it.” He shivered as old memories came back. “I may be small, but I’ve never lost.”
“This is my first, and I can’t lose.”
“Are you ready for it?” he asked. “Unlike every other war fought, we are fighting to get to the Gate, that is all. There is no other task. This battle will be over within a couple of hours, not days or weeks. But for you, it’ll feel like weeks.”
I nodded and drank the power from the air. I would need it all when I got to the Gate. I closed my eyes and felt every soul who dropped from a sword or magick, felt every wound from battle. I ate the fear and pain and remorse. Not once did I feel regret from Solas or his people as my Malice flowed through the field. They fought, knowing what they were fighting for, the future of their people and a chance for their families and children to be free and safe. They fought for me and were willing to die to give me a chance. They, like me, would give anything for the Gate to close, to no longer watch children dragged into Elphame. They, like Solas, hated the Taking.
At my back, twenty Aos Si stepped out of the darkness. Zephyr had saved the best of his men for me. They dressed as if the very night had wrapped them in armor and weapons. My eyes found Zephyr, and he nodded. I looked to Solas, and even from here, I saw him smile. The clouds above opened, and pools of darkness fell to the earth. The Sluagh. I felt the rumble from every corner of the Court of Less. Everyone would fight, man and beast, and we saved the worst we had for last.
“I’m ready.” I finally spoke.
“To war, we go,” Nix called out.
This was it. I ran toward certain death and didn’t stop. My little creature joined the run, flying at my side, her teeth bared to the world, already covered in the blood of the unfortunate soldier who’d dismissed her as a warrior. Behind, hundreds of her brethren followed. They covered the enemy in waves, picking them clean of their meat. The screams were, as Nix had warned me, felt deep in my soul and down to my toes. Nix jumped from shoulder to shoulder and tore at their necks, not waiting for them to bleed out before moving on to the next.
I ducked and jumped and skidded across blood and remains. A run that should have taken me twenty minutes felt like days had already gone by. Every second was stretched out to impossible lengths. I knew where I had to go but found the trip unbearably long with mountains to climb between here and the Gate. Although I had been told, it was always different when you actually lived it. I had run across the entirety of Elphame, being chased by every creature of this realm, yet that run felt like I had done it in half the time it had taken for me to move a few feet on this field. It was as if everything was happening too fast and my movements too slow.
The world slipped, and I went forward under the weight of another. Before I could scream, the man on top of me let out his own. I struggled from under him and flipped to face the sky. A soldier was fighting Nix, who was too slippery with blood to be held long enough for death to come. The temptation to suck his soul dry was tempting, but it was a last resort. I pulled my knife and pressed it under his chin. I didn’t wait for him to drop Nix. I shoved it in and twisted. The warmth of his blood was almost relieving against the cold stickiness that already covered my hands.
Zephyr pulled the man from my body. “It’s not nap time yet, little Crow. Get moving.”
I nodded and swallowed my urge to vomit. I had killed before. I’d killed the Golden King with this very knife. This was no more or less horrifying. Taking a life, even in war, would stain the last few minutes of my life. I was not born of war. But I had learned fast enough that Elphame didn’t care where I was born or why. War still came.
“Move!” Zephyr pulled me to my feet.
“Solas?” I asked. My heart was now in my throat. “Am I running to the Gate? Or am I running away?”
“He’s alive. The Gate… Get to the Gate.”
Zephyr cleaned swathes of soldiers from my path and barked orders at the others to fall in line behind Solas. But they wouldn’t be there to fight beside him. It was time, and Solas would need to be held back. The only ones strong enough to contain him were the Aos Si and Zephyr. The Sluagh, although they answered to Solas, wouldn’t help him with this. They, like everyone else, wanted the Gate closed and knew the cost. I glanced at Solas, who was making his way to me, as I reached the shimmering wall that held the Gate inside.
“Goodbye,” I whispered.
Zephyr moved to stand between Solas and me. “I am privileged to be written in the books with you, the Crow who burned the world for all of our freedoms.” He tilted his head, a salute, and left me to a destiny written long before the Gate was formed.
I stepped to the shimmering wall that split the worlds and breathed in the scent that rolled through from home. I looked back at Solas, not to remember him in battle, but to remember why I was doing this. Eventually, this would mean there’d be no more reason for war. On this day, what each of us gave on the field, would mean something. When Solas saw Zephyr, he realized in that heartbreaking moment what my fate would be, what sacrifice I would become. A Crow is not a sacrifice unless she dies for her realm. The battle, still going, raged around him. He cleared his path, like water can clear villages off the map. But it wouldn’t matter because Zephyr could not be moved—not by Solas, not by the entire war.
He ran faster, screaming my name. “Wait! No! Perdi, no!”
“I love you,” I answered and motioned for Zephyr.
Zephyr ran to Solas and tackled him, lifting him off the ground and slamming him down. Solas bucked and screamed, but no magick or power would pull Zephyr from him. He commanded and ordered, but not even the Gods could control a Soul-Eater. Zephyr covered them both in his shadows, a brick wall of darkness to hold Solas in. I looked at Nix, standing mere yards from me, and smiled. His face crumpled, but he still nodded. No matter what the Gate threw at me today, it would never be as painful as knowingly leaving behind those I loved.
I stepped into the fog, the same inky mist that had Taken me from my home, from my people. Once, I had been terrified. Now, I stepped in and closed my eyes. I stood straight and allowed myself to take it all in. I had crossed the threshold. I had made it to the Gate. I was both in here and out there…two worlds. I stood inside the white mist, but beyond the wisps of power, I could see Elphame. It was like looking through water. Beyond the haze of the Gate, the war raged on. Men lived and died for this moment. Solas was kneeling on the ground, still screaming my name. Zephyr and his men circled him and fought off every man who approached. Solas begged for my return. He would find a different way. But there were no other ways. There was only this. Hearing him beg me broke my heart. He once told me that I would learn true pain in Elphame. Today, right now, the lesson had been learned. I turned from Solas and the pain in his voice.
Ahead, two trees and a single black gate—the Gate we all suffered for, and oh, did we suffer. A rift between the fabrics of our realms had cursed both worlds equally. The ground crunched with each step I took toward the Gate. The white mist darkened the closer I got to my fate. It felt like walking through thick water. Each step took more and more effort. My heart dragged behind me, holding on to Solas screaming my name, begging me to return to him, telling me he’d rather fight a million wars. The harder I tried to silence that hurt, that tug within me, the thicker the air grew around me.
The Gate swung open with a cry, its hinges rusted with time. Through the Gate, a young woman staggered, her eyes wide with fear and darting wildly. The girl had hair like her mother and like her mother’s mother. Her nightgown was stained in blood. Her cheeks streaked from tears. It was like looking in a mirror at myself the day I came through the Gate, terrified but not yet stained and broken.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Aoife,” she answered. She reached out to me. “Trust no one.”
I smiled at my greatest of grandmothers. “You can trust Solas.”
She stared at me for a moment and nodded. She walked through the mist and was gone, gone to a time that had passed long ago. I wasn’t alone in the fog. Hundreds of Crows before me lingered as memories. I could feel them. They were gone but would always be a part of Elphame, a part of me, a part of what I was doing. Together, we all gave ourselves to the Gate, in one way or another.
Go back.
Echoed around me from all sides.
You’re not welcome here, little Crow.
“No,” I answered plainly.
Give me back that which you took, and I will allow you to live.
“No,” I answered again. I would not bargain with the very thing that helped kill my people. “You gave it freely.”
You took it.
“You didn’t stop me. The power was mine, gifted from generations of Darkmore witches before. It was left here for me to take, for this very moment.”
I know why you’ve come.
“Then you know I cannot turn back now.”
You will die here.
“I know.”
I cannot allow this.
“And I cannot allow this to continue.”
You will try, and you will fail. She will not allow this.
I hesitated for a blink of an eye. Who was she, and what would she not allow?
She, the opener of the Gate.
She, the bringer of Blood and Bones.
“She is not here to stop me,” I answered. “She can fight for my blood and bones once I’m dead.”
You’re a foolish child.
You bring damnation.
“I bring your damnation.”
The Gate cannot be destroyed.
“But I can close it, and you can rust for all of eternity.”
You will fail.
I found myself smiling. “I’ve heard that song before, yet here I am.”
You will die.
“We all die. This is as good as any reason to die.”
I have secrets you want, truths you seek.
I can let you go home and never come back.
“I am home.”
The air grew thin and cold. Frost coated my skin. My teeth chattered, and I fell to my knees, dizzy as if the air were being sucked from my lungs. My vision danced with stars as I starved for one more breath. I pulled the knife from my sheath and sliced my shaking hand. I let the blood pour from my wound and soak the ground, guided by memory not my own. I could hear my mother and her mother and her mother’s mother whispering around me. The fog held memories of those long forgotten, and now they were mine.
With knot one, the spell has begun.
With knot two, my heart is true.
With knot three, so mote it be.
With knot four, the Gate is no more.
With knot five, our people shall thrive.
With knot six, the Gate can never be fixed.
With knot seven, this spell will not lessen.
With knot eight, this spell is our fate.
With a knot of nine, the cost is mine.
So mote it be.
I cried out as the power, the magick, my Malice, burst through me and filled the mist. Every voice who had stepped through the Gate screamed from my bones. The power blasted through the vapor and threw me through the air into a crumpled heap. Through the whiteness, I could see my Malice snake across the frosted ground, unbothered by the cold. Screaming filled my ears until I realized the screams came from my own mouth.
The Gate slammed shut, and I felt it in my marrow. With the final beats of my heart, the spell would seal. Now all that was left was the cost for me to pay. I relaxed in the cold seeping into my body. On my back, I smiled my last smile as the cold touch of my payment rushed in. It was worth it. Even as the little air I had left was slowly ripped and snatched from my lungs by talons I couldn’t see, I would be left with no scars of regret. Very few deaths are glorious, and even fewer that I’d been present for had been worth watching. But mine? I wasn’t disappointed in a single moment of it. It was glorious. It was everything I thought it would be and more.
