The Serpent and the Shattered Sword, page 7
The ground beneath Alira gave way. She reached out, clawing at a jagged stone outcropping. Darkness yawned behind her, promising oblivion.
Pressure built in her fingers. Blood rushed to their tips. They burned, but still she held on. Until she could no longer. A brief moment of panic washed over Alira as she fell, caught at the wrist by the hand of her sister.
“Zahra! Oh, thank the goddess you’ve come back!”
As she looked up, Alira’s heart preceded her fall into the Abyss, dropping into her stomach as she noticed the gaunt smile on her sister’s face The same she’d remembered from the Throne Room in Namelle. The same as she’d seen in Astera, on the deck of the Demise, and on the Plain of Estrada. The iridescent serpentine eyes returned, unveiling the one who waited below. The demoness, whom she thought to be gone forever. The puppeteer of her nightmares.
“Se...Semera? You’re–”
“You thought you were rid of me? No. She is mine, and the light shall never sever us, unless it be by my design.” She reached down with her free hand, to take Alira’s second hand, keeping a grasp on both her wrists. “How the Imperator shall rejoice when he discovers that which has come to pass. Our dark machination. Always one step ahead of you.”
As she looked into the demoness’ eyes, her heart raced, with nothing to stay her fall. As Semera let go of her grip, her words hissed and burned into Alira’s ears, who fell victim to the dark and passed from sight.
“Long live the Queen.”
Chapter IV
Through
ZAHRA RUSHED UP the steps, lungs searing, legs trembling under their own weight. Dust poured from the ceiling, choking her, filling her throat with grit. She gagged but kept climbing. Above, the cavern roof collapsed, blocks of stone smashed into the steps behind her. Below waited the black pit that had swallowed her sister.
The dark pit she was cast into.
Her boots slipped on crumbling stone. She caught herself on a jagged edge, coughing until her ribs ached. Her body was failing. Her pulse thundered. Still, she dragged herself upward, one breath at a time.
The sting of Semera’s presence burned across her chest like a brand, forcing her on, even as she sagged.
“I’ll not have you die here. Not when we’re so close.” Semera’s voice rose inside her mind, filling every shred with its corruptive poison. The seductive luster of her jailer’s words had been lost in the two years of her captivity.
I did what you wanted. Zahra’s throat cracked with an inward scream. Let...me...die. She’d accepted that her death was inevitable, and that she would never shake the demoness she’d allowed in. But she was the prize. One that was hard-fought and never yielded.
“No.”
Zahra’s knees buckled. She wanted to collapse, to vanish into the dark. But Semera moved her limbs like a puppeteer, jerking her forward. Each step was agony; her muscles were aflame, and her heart rattled against her ribs.
She remembered only hearing the words: ‘We have to go,’ and, ‘Run.’ In a full sprint, as fast as Semera could will Zahra’s legs to pump, Emile kept an arm linked to hers as he pulled her up with him.
Up the last flight. Rock shattered at her back.
At the top of the final step, she was thrown through the arch, with the Tallieri King diving on top of her. The collapsing roof nipped at her boot heels as it passed into the oblivion below, tearing away a chunk of the sole.
The remnants of the house of the Arc of Solis fell away, smashing into the cavernous walls as they plummeted toward the ground, hidden somewhere far below. Burying what waited in the deep.
Where the darkness waited.
Where she waited.
Teora and Flynn, steps ahead of the collapsed cavern, rushed back into the dust, calling out, searching for their companions. They were both pulled to their feet, and retreated onto the platform with the vestiges of Aten and the Illuri. Teora stayed, flushing out their dust-filled eyes with the last splashes of water she had.
After setting Zahra down on the stone, Flynn turned to rush back into the fray, needing to find Alira, whom they’d left behind. His voice calling her name tore through the opening of the cavern. The augmentation of Drea’s echo in the stone walls blistered in the ears of the others.
Feverish, and desperate to clear the rumble lying beyond the wall of stone, he sent forth a tremendous shockwave. The stone collapsed into the dark below, yet beyond waited nothing, save for an empty promise.
“You won’t find her,” Zahra croaked, coughing up the corruption within her lungs. “She–”
“Fell,” Emile said, finishing her thought. Because he lingered too long to confirm their well-being, he saw Zahra dive to rescue her sister, only to come back empty-handed.
And regretful.
“Fell? Fell! That’s all you have to tell us?” Teora shouted, her voice booming well over Flynn’s. She gave in to her instincts and desires. She grabbed Zahra by the collar, hauling her to her feet. But Teora was refused a look of simple dignity.
With her palm extended, the Taitapian struck Zahra across the face, still not earning herself the attention she sought. “It’s not you at all, is it? Is it!” She drew her hand back to her waist, reaching for the bolt slinger dangling from her hip. Quicker than any other could intervene, she raised it to Zahra’s head, finger trembling atop the trigger.
Emile shot to his feet, quick to stand by Teora’s side and lend his wisdom. His voice remained light, despite the tension dictating their current dilemma. The weapon wouldn’t lower, her muscles wouldn’t untense, and her jaw wouldn’t separate.
He only needed to buy it time.
“If you want to pull it, then pull it,” Zahra told her. Needing to leave a believable, genuine impression on her would-be assailant, she raised her head, gracing Teora’s gaze with a newfound redness, and tears that spilled forth from the corners of her eyes. “I lost her. It was my grasp from which her hand slipped. Do not pretend you have the authority to take away what I have left, for it is nothing. I am...hollow.”
Zahra collapsed away from the weapon, crying tears that soaked into the damp stone beneath her, lending droplets–small pieces of herself to the place she might’ve called home.
“Damn it, blondie,” Teora said, dropping the bolt slinger from her shoulder and wiping her tunic across her cheeks. Close to the platform, Teora started back toward the collapsed mess of pillars in the distance where they’d fallen.
The sniffle of her nose wasn’t quiet as she accepted Alira was gone. No matter how long Emile tended to the broken, sobbing Clerracian on the floor, and no matter how many times Flynn’s voice boomed across the cavern, calling Alira’s name, she was gone.
And she wasn’t coming back.
An hour passed between them in silence, offering each the chance to process what had happened. Plans were drawn in silence, but given up in the realization that there would be no pursuit. Their fated blood could spare them from much misfortune, but wouldn’t cushion the blow of a leap of faith.
More than half of the group hadn’t set foot in what should’ve been the resting place of Aten’s Halo before it, too, became much like their lost companion.
A memory.
It was Zahra who stood first, finishing her audience alone with the infinite blackness waiting beyond the platform. Her feet dangled over the edge, alluding to a hidden desire to throw herself off. Emile remained close, ensuring the day would never be offered the chance to claim a second Fate.
“It’s time to go,” she told the group, patting herself over to ensure that Aetherion was still anchored in its sheath. Zahra’s desire was to wallow in the misery of her sister’s loss, and not to be spurred on by a relentless burning beneath her skin, as the shadow within imposed its will.
“And how exactly does our leaving help Alira?” Flynn asked. “If she awaits our rescue beneath this place–”
“She’s a Fate,” Zahra told them, casting off her silence and taking charge of their council. “We trust that she’ll make it out alive, as she has once before. My sister is strong, more so than I remember her. If there is anyone who could endure what this world has to throw at her, it’s Alira Verbrandt.”
“Easy for you to say,” Teora said, dusting herself off, and she left streaks of dirt on her cheeks. “You fought against her for years, only to have her risk her life to save yours, and her loss doesn’t affect you?” Emile reached for Teora, who threw off his embrace as she moved toward Zahra.
“I’ll have none of this,” Zahra told her. “Cope,” she said to Teora, a firm expression settling across her brow as her lips locked tight together. “We have a job to do, and whether or not you agree, it’s what she would want.”
Teora stormed toward Zahra when she was met with the broadside of Emile. He whispered to her as her eyes met Zahra’s downtrodden expression, and she backed off. The fiery flush of her face–even in the deep light–was notable, but was extinguished by his words.
“As much as I’d like to linger with my remorse,” Emile told her, letting go of his hold on the Taitapian, “we have to.”
“Zahra, maybe she’s right,” Emile said, injecting himself between the two. “I can’t...I can’t move on from this so quickly. I know your love for her. Why can’t you let yourself feel this?”
“It will only delay that which she worked for!” Zahra hollered, pushing back Teora’s advance. Her fist shook at her side, cocked back, and ready to be thrown at a moment’s notice. “This is how you honor Alira? She showed you strength, and you would sit here and commiserate. She showed you resilience, and you prepared yourself to walk away from all of this–to put this world’s destiny on hold to search for her? No. I am her sister. She would want us to go on.”
“Enough.” Flynn’s voice rumbled and quaked through the thick musty air beneath the city. Each looked on, impossible to tell whether it was Flynn interjecting, or Drea at his behest.
“Flynn, stay out of this,” Teora said, advancing toward Zahra with her fingers tracing the grip of her bolt slinger.
“I said enough!” He drove Jord between them, buying enough time for his shoulder to separate the pair before their actions couldn’t be taken back. Jord lowered, scraping the ground as Flynn looked up away from them, allowing his shoulders to sink as he drew a deep breath into his lungs. “She’s right,” he told Teora. “I hate it, but she’s right.”
“Oh, now you’re siding with her?” Teora scoffed.
“No,” he said, turning his gaze to Zahra. “My thoughts are with Alira, as is my loyalty. But moving on is indeed what she would want. The mission is important above all else. She knows that, and we need to understand it ourselves.”
Teora’s hands met her waist. All that came from her in reply was a huff of displeasure, before she turned her back on the group.
“Take a moment,” Emile told them, seeing to tightening the straps on his vambraces. “Then we plan our next steps.”
Zahra allowed a few moments for the others to gather themselves, but no other member of the group was inclined to meet her forward movement. “Lochlannion,” she said, nodding toward Flynn. “When we set foot on this glacier, you told us, ‘The only way out is through.’ We’ve had time to mourn. Now, we leave.”
“Where do we go?” Flynn asked, holding out his arms, showcasing the surrounding darkness.
Teora allowed the question to simmer for a moment, telling Flynn that Drea could get them back above ground, but the idea was dashed, as each was unsure of what remained above. True to his word, they indeed needed to push through the underbelly of the city to find their way out. It was only then, with her eyebrows threatening to shoot off her face, that Teora remembered the depths of Taitapu, and the story Alira told her about meeting her father.
“There’s another way out.” Teora’s words captivated the trio, who gathered to her in anticipation. “It’s not the first time we’ve lost her. Beneath Mamana, where I’m from, Alira said she was lost in some place. The–”
“–Labyrinth,” Zahra said, interjecting into Teora’s story.
“Hey!” she cut the Clerracian off, not wanting to have her revelation spoiled by a rude outburst. “I’m telling this story, and if you don’t like it, too bad.” She stuck out her tongue at Zahra, who continued her feigned, sullen stare. “Anyway, Alira said there’s this place called the–”
“–labyrinth beneath the world,” Flynn told them, helping Teora realize she wasn’t the only one who had been told the story. Her eyes bore holes into him as though he were a piece of carved stone. She slid the sleeves of her dress up her arms, leaving her fists clenched together.
“You too? I swear if anyone else interrupts me again–”
“I’ve heard of it,” Emile responded, holding up a finger to stay Teora’s wrath. “And I believe I know a way in.” He spoke of the darkest place in memory. “The Île-Royal, off the coast of Chantilles. A darkness broods there, one as deep and ancient as Idel itself. Amid the island, they say, is a great clearing, one that plays host to an altar that once worshipped the damned. If there’s a way into this labyrinth, then I believe we might find a lead there.”
“Or–” Teora said, drawing out the latter consonant far longer than it should’ve been. “We sail for my homeland, and go straight in through the deep. I know something that just might help us get there.”
“No,” Emile told her without giving her even a chance for rebuttal. He explained that although she might revel in a trip to the West Coast, it would take an equal amount of time to sail south to Périzieu.
Not only was there the threat of Illyria, and now the labyrinth to contend with, but he spoke of his sister, and both the growing influence of Evenglacia in the region, and the threat to Vilmonde in the west. In his absence, he expressed his worry that Josée may have turned her attention to the expansion of her pro-Eastern sentiment.
“So, we find a way out of here and sail for Astera. There, we oversee the redeployment of my soldiers under Rinley’s command, then make for Chantilles, and journey southward toward the Île.”
Though Teora, enraged from the earlier slight, protested that leaving didn’t help save the Namellian, she had to accept the process that had taken place, swallowing her displeasure. The Taitapian followed last as Flynn led them off the platform and down another winding path, opposite the one from which they’d come.
Stone turned to gravel, giving way to the moistness of dirt the further into the deep they traveled. Flynn continued leading their column, with Teora behind him–who protested being sent to the rear–and Emile following her lead.
Zahra took the trail position. It was important to leave their greatest sword to watch their backs, even if some among the group weren’t trusting of her return.
“So, pretty boy,” Teora said over her shoulder, needing to grab Emile’s attention. She dismissed Flynn, who’d also turned around at the remark, ensuring she slid in a ‘no, not you, the other one,’ to keep the peace. “You said this Île place will take us to the labyrinth?”
“Might.”
“Oh, right. We’re gambling on it. Sure. Anyway. You said your people worshipped some darkness there? It seems a bit–I don’t know–crazy. Maybe? Did they tell you anything else about it?”
Emile padded along, protecting his peace, and seemed not to desire to answer her question. From the rear, Zahra watched him grapple with the weight of the decision. She noted how his fingers trembled and fidgeted at his side. He scratched at the stubble on his neck and saw his hands as they combed through his hair incessantly.
“You know what waits there, don’t you?” Semera’s voice welled up inside her mind, like eyes breaking the veil of the dark, swirling void in her head. “Everything we’ve done has led to this. Though the greatest moment of our triumph is to come, it is already at hand. They’ve decided on their own, and they’ll be right where we want them...where we need them.”
I know what you intend to do, Zahra replied, her inner monologue trembling and recoiling into the corners of her mind. But freeing him shall bring about our ruin.
Her chest was ensnared as Semera compacted it with her grip. Breath vacant. Heart throbbing. And still she was forced forward, unable to shed even a tear without the consent of the one who waited within.
“There shall be no ruin that follows. Ardyn waits to be set free. Réus heard his call in the earth’s foundation and woke on his own. But as he was sealed by her hand, so must he be freed by it. As Ardyn awaits the abolishment of his sentence, so too does Aegill await–”
“The Crown of the Fallen King,” Emile said, mustering the courage to tell the rest what awaited them when they found their way to the Île-Royal. “An ancient weapon that disappeared during the Cataclysm. It’s foretold to be a symbol of the shadow itself, and a relic of the cosmos. It’s the Dark One’s right to rule over this planet. Our records tell us, in the dark, it shall remain, out of memory, for eternity.”
The passage, as he told them, was taken from a book written by the Keeper of Reyvia, Terik Telyka. It was gifted to the King as a wedding gift from his bride, Maliheh. But the person he most wanted to share it with when they returned to Nemesia was the one they’d lost.
“So, they do know of it.” Semera thought, brooding in the depths of Zahra’s mind. She lingered on the idea of the revelation for a moment, deciding she’d need more time to re-evaluate the mission she was assigned. “But only I was there a thousand years ago when it was taken from Aegill, as I shall be again at the moment it’s returned.”
Zahra’s mind lightened, and stars sparkled in her eyes as Semera forced a memory into her mind, calling her back to the moment of its surrender.
The shadow receded in her eyes, opening them to a great calamity. Around her swelled a great army of black, surging forward, driving itself into a mass of silver steel at the center–pocked with color. A microcosm of the world.
It was a harlequin, faltering against the coming of night.
Above her, the sky was torn open, spilling a sprawling crimson across the horizon. Tears of stone and granite rained down, leveling the field beneath her. Indiscriminate and devastating, they fell, but still the Army of Darkness surged on.
