Chapter 36

CHAPTER36

Aglaope slams down on her back as she seizes, her limbs contorting, her heels digging into the earth. Her teeth clatter as her body trembles. The ward still stands between us and I press my palms to the surface, slapping it until my skin burns with the impact, until I form fist and pummel it with punches that do nothing to dislodge the strong magic. I slump down, powerless to do anything but watch as Aglaope continues to convulse on the cold, damp ground. Thin channels of blood flow from her nose and ears and the corners of her wide, unseeing eyes. I whisper into the pendant again for Ediye, but I can feel the magic of the summoning hit the barrier and reflect back to me, bouncing through the small space until it disperses.

“Aglaope…what have you done, sister?”

Time feels endless. There’s nothing I can do to help my sister. Whatever she’s done is tearing her apart from the inside out. Sweat coats her body as though she blazes with a sudden fever. Her hair catches the blood trailing across her skin to paint patterns across her cheeks in the sudden wind. I press my fingers to my temples, too afraid to watch but just as afraid to look away. “I can’t lose you again, Aglaope.”

The convulsions become thrashing, desperate movements. A loud groan resonates in Aglaope’s chest. It gets louder, and higher, and turns into a scream, a piercing sound so loud that I cover my ears and curl into myself. I press my eyes closed and cry out, and when I think the sound of Aglaope’s torment is going to be the last thing I ever hear, there’s a loud crack.

Silence.

Another crack. A smaller one. Another, louder this time.

I slowly take my hands away from my ears and open my eyes.

The instant I do, I scramble back to the furthest edge of the globe.

My sister’s eyes are open, blinking but not seeing, her face serene. Except it’s upside down.

Her body is contorted, one leg pressed against the ground with the knee bent the wrong way. Her shoulder looks dislocated. Her neck is broken in at least two places, forcing her blank expression toward me at a nauseating angle. A loud crack shifts her broken leg into place but dislocates her hip in the process. I cover my mouth as tears fill my vision. Bile churns in my stomach as one of Aglaope’s hands presses into the dirt and her humerus slides back into its socket with a snap.

I vomit at the edge of the sphere.

Crack, crack, crack.

Aglaope stands, her spine tilted at an impossible angle. A broken elbow cracks back into place. Something in her pelvis snaps and she lurches forward. I press myself against the dome when she takes another unsteady step in my direction and feel my hand slide through its barrier. It’s weakening.

Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack.

I grip my pendant as though it’s a talisman.

Ninmen Eslal. Ninmen Eslal.

I keep whispering as every vertebra clicks back into place and Aglaope straightens. A deep breath fills her lungs, shifting several ribs back into place. When she exhales, her eyes drift closed. She opens them again and blinks, looking around before her gaze lands on me. “That was…deeply unpleasant,” she says with a little shudder.

“You don’t say.” I stand as the dome dissolves around me, though Aglaope seems unconcerned with its absence. Something about that is nearly as off-putting as the cracking bones. She withdraws the fate stones from the bag and my heart lurches as she looks toward the archway.

“We were made to serve the gods, but where are they now? They left these realms long ago, and yet still we feel the pull of purpose. For what? Why?” Aglaope gestures to the crumbled stone foundations that were once our cottages, a little village of forgotten women, a place where we developed kinship with our sisters. “Mountains have crumbled around us, and yet we remain, just the two of us. We have withstood the ages, unblemished by time. Imagine it, Leucosia. We could bring our sisters back. No more enemies with knives at your back. No more threats looming like thunderclouds above the raging sea. We can have everything we ever wanted.”

“I do already,” I say. My eyes sting with unshed tears. “I got you back, Aglaope. There are good people who depend on me. They depend on us. We may not have asked for this responsibility, but it is still ours to carry out.”

“And this is us doing just that, my love. We are the last castaways.” Aglaope’s brow furrows and I see a depth of sorrow in her that I’ve only seen once before, in that instant when she pushed me from the cliff. “Do you not wonder why we are the last two left, Leucosia? Even at the end, it was only us. Our other sisters had already sailed away on stolen ships or died by unworthy hands. And yet we endure. Have you not wondered why?”

“You think we’re the last because we were meant to seize this place? Because you saw it in a dream?” I shake my head and take a careful step toward the space between Aglaope and the gate. Aside from my touch and my fangs, I have no weapons, she’s made sure of that.

A deep breath leaves my sister’s lungs as her gaze sweeps over my face. “Not just that, sister.”

“Then tell me, Aglaope. Tell me what I’m missing. Tell me what’s driven you to this. I love you, and I want to help you. Whatever is going on with you, this can’t be the way to fix it. Just share with me.”

A soft smile tugs at Aglaope’s lips. “I do want to share with you. That is exactly what I intend. I will not just tell you the past,” she says as she turns toward the gate and raises the stones clutched in her hands. “I will show it to you. And I will do what I could never do until now. I will make sure you are safe.”

Aglaope starts to chant. “Hursanu y aabba, ziana y anzu. Os naru nibiru insabatu.”

I recognize the first part of her chant from the wall that housed the Deathfate stone. Mountains and seas, valleys and skies. I call upon the convergence.

A wind rises around us. It twists in white tendrils around Aglaope like a shield, curling and coiling down her body as it streams toward the gate in a continuous swirl. A shimmering curtain of light forms from the boundary of the archway. Letters flare to life across the curve of stone. Alahalsu.

“Si kagal qabu petasa.”

I don’t know what the rest of Aglaope’s words mean. I just know it can’t be good. So I whisper a chant of my own as I rush to place myself between my sister and the gate, directly in the path of the wind.

Ninmen Eslal.

I don’t know if anyone can hear me in this ancient place.

“I can’t let you do this,” I say above the increasing roar of the wind with a slow shake of my head. My shoulder leans into the torrent as it funnels around me toward the gate. I will hold Aglaope off with my bare hands if I have to. The only thing I can hope for now is that she truly loves me and doesn’t want to hurt me. If I can just get her close enough through this wind to touch her forehead, that might be my only chance.

Thunder splits the air. Flashes of lightning creep from the edges of a growing black sphere that swirls with distant galaxies and starlit gases.

“Stop, Aglaope,” Ediye says as she steps through the sphere, her eyes consumed by the inky dark of the deepest space. Ashen walks out after her, his hair and clothes dripping, his arm braced around his abdomen, his silver sword clutched in his other hand. I can see how desperate he is to surge forward and attack, but when our eyes meet, he understands. This is something I need to do without his intervention.

Aglaope keeps chanting as she takes another step closer.

“Please, sister,” I beg. Tears blur my vision. Through them, I can see what my sister cannot, the stars of Ediye’s power stretching behind her into thin blades. “We can’t let you do this.”

Aglaope breaks her chant, the wind continuing its sheltering swirl around her, whipping her long black hair in its furor. My sister’s smile looks like heartbreak. And determination.

“I promised I would look after you, Leucosia. This is me keeping my promise.”

My eyes slide to Ediye’s as my first tear falls. I nod my head.

Ediye releases her starblades.

A dozen shards pierce my sister’s back. One juts through her shoulder, another through her abdomen. Thin channels of blood flow from the wounds.

But Aglaope doesn’t stop. She barely even seems to notice.

“The ushgada,” I whisper.

She will not die. She won’t even falter.

Ashen yells my name. When I meet his eyes, he draws his sword behind him and throws it, not to hit my sister, but for me to catch so I can defend myself. It spins end over end, and I catch it by the hilt. I hold it raised behind me, keeping my other hand lifted in Aglaope’s direction in a wordless plea for her to stop. But she doesn’t.

I call to Ediye for a second volley and she hits Aglaope with another round of blades, but my sister only resumes her chant with renewed commitment. Ediye and I exchange a fleeting, terrified glance before Ediye refocuses on Aglaope, hitting her back with black orbs of magic, some bursting across the shield of white wind, others smashing through to hit Aglaope’s back with no effect. But Ediye is undeterred. With every step closer that Aglaope takes toward me and the gate, Ediye calls upon more magic, her palms raised as her incantations thread into the wind in black filaments.

“Nigin nippur kia duranki ka mitta baansig,” Ediye yells into the wind. Two marks flare to life on Ediye’s outstretched palms, glowing with red light.

The Sun Disc of Shamash.

“Aglaope,” I plead, meeting my sister’s eyes as she takes another step toward me. I take one backward. “This is not meant for you. The fates never chose you for this. Just stop.”

Ediye hits Aglaope with another desperate attempt to bring her down, but Aglaope seems to pulse with magic. She stands right before me, starblades glistening in the sunlight as they pierce through her chest and abdomen. The stones hum in her raised hands. The wind snakes around her body. “Stand aside, sister. You cannot kill me. I do not want to hurt you to get to the gate, but if that is what I must do to keep you safe, I will. Trust that I will make it right when I get to the other side.”

Tears burn my skin. I shake my head, but this time it’s not a plea.

“You’re right, Aglaope. I can’t kill you.” I fold my free hand around the one that holds my husband’s sword. “But I’m the Queen of the Shadow Realm. I can take your soul.”

I plunge Ashen’s blade into my sister’s heart.

The stones fall, landing on the ground with heavy thuds. The wind fades away like fog in the sun.

We both look down at the silver that shivers with the beat of Aglaope’s heart. We meet one another’s eyes. Her hand slowly rises, her fingers shaking, and I think she’s going to try to grip the blade, but her hand comes to my face instead. Her touch ghosts across the tears staining my cheeks. “No, Leucosia,” she whispers.

My voice is caught in a tight cord. Flame erupts on the blade, but despite the scent of burning blood, Aglaope’s skin isn’t marked. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. When I say it again, I can’t contain the sob that wrenches from my heart. “I’m sorry, Aglaope.”

“Stop…please, sister…”

Her pulse still pounds against the sword, but I feel the first essence of her soul pull into the blade. My heart breaks with hers. Tears warp my vision. “I love you, Aglaope. I’m sorry.”

We fall to our knees. I grip the sword with both hands. I try to steady them, to not make her pain worse, but they shake no matter how hard I try to hold still. Aglaope’s soul strips away in tendrils, flowing through the blade like smoke. I can see the glow of it curling around the bloodied, shining silver that catches the sun. When it climbs to the hilt and touches my hand it burns unlike any flame. It’s a searing hiss of anguish and loss, of love and sadness. Of memory.

Part of my own soul is being carved away with her and I cry out with the pain of a deep, unmendable wound. I nearly release the blade, but Ashen’s palm slides up my forearm to fold around my hand and strengthen my grip.

“Steady, vampire. Hold it tightly.”

“I can’t.” Tears carve fresh paths down my cheeks when I shake my head. “I can’t do this.”

My name is a whisper as Ashen kneels beside me. His grip on my hand never falters. He lays an arm across my back to grip my elbow, quieting the tremor there. “You can. You must hold steady or you risk more pain to her soul. Keep her safe,” he says, and I tighten my fingers beneath his warm embrace. “Let a piece of yourself go. It will guide her way to the Shadow Realm.”

The tendrils of Aglaope’s soul flow into my palm. They sear my flesh. They climb my arm. They peel a strip away from the very core of me, that piece of me that was notched, marked by the justice delivered by my hand. Justice that does not feel merciful at all.

Aglaope’s dark eyes are draining of color, but still they hold mine with a plea, begging me to stop, the hurt in them deepened by the immense love she feels, even as I betray her. It’s there, within every wisp of her smoky essence that flows into my body. Every memory she has of us comes alive within me. I see my own face as a baby, cradled in her arms. I see us playing in a stone village nestled deep in a forest in another land. I watch through Aglaope’s eyes as she stands before a council in an ancient temple, volunteering to come to Anthemoessa and protect the gateway in the hopes I would be left safely behind. I’m crushed by her sorrow as she sails away, her eyes fused to the shore where I stand, still a young child, crying and inconsolable as she departs to fulfil her duty. Her fear fills me when she’s transformed on the journey into a creature capable of protecting the fates from the ships that might too close to the last of the gods. And I feel my sister’s joy and sorrow as she finds me on the shores of Anthemoessa, knowing I couldn’t remember a single moment of her love. But she had never forgotten. She remembered everything.

And now I am betraying her, to send her soul back to the Shadow Realm.

My heart feels like it’s tearing from my chest. I’m desperate to let go of just one hand so I can touch her, but I can’t. I won’t risk causing more suffering to her soul. “I am so sorry, Aglaope. I love you.”

“Sister…”

“I love you so much. But I cannot let you have this. The fates were never meant to be ours.”

Aglaope’s breath shudders. Every beat of her heart resonates through the blade. Her once black eyes are smoky grey. The tendrils of her soul snake into my chest, climbing beneath my mark and taking a strip of my own soul with them.

A sorrowful smile casts a faint shadow across Aglaope’s lips. “Love you…always…”

And then she is gone.

The flame dies on the blade as her essence disperses and fades from my chest, leaving behind a raw, invisible wound.

There are voices and movement and my eyes are pressed closed so tightly that I think I see my deafening pulse surging in the blackness left behind. My hands no longer hold the blade. My palms are pressed to the ground, my arms trembling, nails clawing into the wet earth. It sparks a memory of scratching my way back onto Anthemoessa to avenge my sister with a sword and a spell. There’s a terrible sound, like the wind wailing through a window in a vicious storm. As I’m pulled from the ground and the intense pressure lifts a little from my head, I realize the sound is coming from me.

“I’ve got you, vampire,” Ashen whispers. My body is bracketed by Ashen’s strong embrace and he turns us away, but I don’t open my eyes. I just cry. I cry until I feel like I’ll crack in half. I weep until the shock of the grief gives way, leaving only a bottomless anguish behind. If there’s a shore in this sea, I don’t think I’ll ever find it.

“I betrayed her,” I say. My voice grates like splintered wood against skin. “I sent her back.”

“Aglaope made her choice. You chose the realms. You protected those whose fate is not yours to decide, my love. The right decisions often come with the worst pain.” Ashen holds tighter. I don’t look up as Ediye whispers Ashen’s name. He places his palms over my ears but it only dulls the sound of the blade sliding free of Aglaope’s chest. I still hear it. I still sense the cadence of her beating, soulless heart.

Ashen resumes his embrace when it’s over, and I turn my blurry gaze to Ediye when the stones hum louder as she lifts them from the grass. “They speak to me,” she whispers, her eyes shifting between them before she looks to the gate. “I don’t understand the words, but I know what I have to do.”

Ediye moves toward the gate. She holds the stones toward it like an offering, their hum growing louder with every step she takes. A wind picks up, but it’s gentle this time, as though it’s guiding the rightful guardian to the place she’s supposed to be.

Ediye lifts the stones into the curtain of light that shimmers from the archway to the ground. When she pulls her hands away, the stones remain suspended in the light. They start to glow from within and then crack, blinding light forcing through their shattering shells. The stones split open with a loud snap and disappear, the curtain of light dissolving into the wind. There’s a tremor beneath our feet and the gate crumbles as though it has suddenly weathered the centuries in a moment of time. The archway falls, one jagged side remaining, jutting toward the sky like a fang.

The tremor quiets. The wind fades away. We stand in silence for a long moment, watching the dust that settles over the broken stone. I look at the village beyond for the last time, trying to imagine it as it once was. But it’s not really the buildings I try to see. It’s not really my little cottage that once stood on the left of the circle. It’s the women who lived here with me, for a time. Mostly, it’s the one who stands near us unmoving, her unseeing gaze fixed to the sea.

“She’ll never die, will she?” Ediye says as she follows my gaze where it’s fused to the shell of my sister.

“No,” I whisper. “She won’t.”

Before Ediye asks what we should do, I pull away from Ashen’s embrace. I take Aglaope’s cold hand. I swallow the burn, forcing the stinging tears away as I meet Ashen and Ediye’s worried gazes. “Wait here. I know a place. I’ll be back.”

They both give a solemn nod as I turn away, pulling my sister’s hand with me. I let my tears fall when I know they can’t see.

And they don’t stop.

They don’t slow as I guide my sister to a cave that faces the western horizon. The tears keep flowing as I sit Aglaope down on a stone to look over the sea. The tears are matched with cries and sobs as I pull every starblade from her back with my bare hands. I welcome the pain as my palms slice open. I weep as I work, talking to my sister who never acknowledges the scenes I describe, all of them memories of us on this island, each one a story of love.

When I’m finished, I kneel before my sister. I take her hands. I kiss her cheeks. And then I leave her in the cavern, alone in her vigil over the ocean.

The tears still fall.

I’m afraid they’ll never end.