Binarius (24 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN

Blackbird Symphony

“
Fir, get
up! You’re bleeding!”

She looked in the grass around her
and found traces of blood. There was an Obsidian dagger sticking
out of her thigh. “One of the Demogorchians must’ve shot it.” Now
that she saw it there sticking up like a pillar from her leg, she
began to feel the pain.

Kaolin was staring nervously at
her. “You’re gonna make me pull it out, aren’t you?”

Firinne nodded. “We’ve gotta find
something to tie around my leg.” She looked down at herself and
then up at him. “Use the strap from the canteen, we’ll make a new
one with a strip off the bottom of my dress.”

She moved the tourniquet into
position. “Pull it out. Now!” As soon as she felt the pain, she
screamed and pulled both sides of the strap as hard as she could,
cutting off the blood flow to the wound. Kaolin was staring at her
with his face all messed up. She handed him the dagger. “Clean that
off in the grass and put it away somewhere.” She looked around.
There was nothing that she could use to disinfect the
wound.

“
We’ve gotta hurry!” said
Kaolin.

“
I know…I’m thinking. We’ve got
probably another half day left before we get to Citrine. I’m not
gonna be any good with this leg the way it is…and we can’t afford
to use any of our spectralin on this.”

“
So what are you
thinkin’?”

“
Witch hazel! Look in the satchel!
It’s a little vial of clear liquid. Lazata said she extracts it
from the plants found at the base of the mountain.”

“
Yeah, it’s here! I’ve got it!”
Kaolin handed her the vial. She poured a couple of drops into the
wound and then ripped hastily at the bottom of her dress for a
strip of cloth. She tied it around her leg and handed the vial back
to Kaolin.

She reached her hand up to Kaolin
and he pulled her up. The muscle was sore and every time she moved
it, it felt like she was being stabbed again (although she hadn’t
felt the actual stab the first time), but they had to keep moving.
If Mabon were with them, he would carry her the whole day without a
break, but he wasn’t, and she felt like an awful person. To her,
Mabon was her equal. What happened back there was the same as if it
had been Kaolin who broke his leg. She was furious that there was
nothing that she could do to save him. She also knew that for an
animal, healing and rehabilitation wouldn’t have come fast
enough.

After they had been walking a
while, Kaolin broke the silence. “I’m sorry about
Mabon.”

“
I am too…the way he was with
me…it wasn’t usual of a stag to befriend a human. But from the
moment that he did, it’s like…I don’t know…”

“
What?”

“
It was like he knew who I was and
knew that I needed him even when I didn’t know. Is that
crazy?”

“
No, I suppose not.”

“
I’m gonna miss his grunts. You
know he was probably the last one, or one of the last ones at
least?”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah, ever since the Blacken
came, the Desideriums hunt down large creatures like him for food,
and I don’t know what else. I think there’s something more behind
it. Who knows, maybe they just kill them all off to move our
extinction along faster.”

“
You think that’s what they want?
For us to be completely gone?”

“
No, I guess not. They want us at
a manageable level — humans and creatures alike.”

“
But for what? I don’t get
it.”

“
I don’t know if we will ever know
that. Whether it is just that it wants what Fia can provide or if
it wants slaves or maybe it is just as simple as control…we can
only guess. But I suppose in the end…I mean… does it really matter?
Rape is rape regardless of reason.”

“
Yeah. You think your Mum’s
okay?”

“
Do I think she’s okay? No. Alive?
Yes. When they had Imphius kill himself, it was like someone tore
out my heart. If I hadn’t been in the room, I would have know he
was dead. I think you always do when someone close to you dies. I
was so young when my grandparents and my father died, so I don’t
remember feeling anything when it happened…but I’d bet my life,
that I cried when it did.”

“
The same thing happened to me
when my parents died…”

“
You endured so much more than me,
and at a younger age. Look at you now.” Firinne nudged him lightly
with her elbow.

“
I wouldn’t leave the castle for a
month after it all happened. I was terrified.”

“
I probably wouldn’t have either.
But eventually you did, and here you are now. Don’t discredit
yourself…ever.”

There had been no sign of the
Demogorchian pack through the day and as they settled down for the
night, Firinne thought that maybe Mabon was a grand enough
sacrifice for them. It must have been, and they must not have
realized who Kaolin and Firinne were. Her leg was aching horribly
now and she needed to rest. Kaolin volunteered to take the first
watch as Firinne tried to sleep. She put a few more drops of witch
hazel on her leg, lay down, and turned her eyes to the moon which
was coming up between the trees; full and golden.

A few hours passed and Kaolin woke
her. She positioned herself with her back against a tree and her
bow resting on her knees. She stayed there until dawn when the
brown-headed blackbirds began their water-droplet
symphony.

They had hit the main road into the
Town of Citrine. Traveling on it was a bad idea, so they
backtracked a few paces into the forest. They would follow the road
through the forest where they had cover, which was good because a
few minutes passed and a group of Desideriums walked on the road —
headed to Nightsend Tavern, no doubt. They walked with the Sun on
their right side and followed the road for as long as they could.
Eventually, they had to circle around (Firinne said it was best to
stay away from the Tavern) to the east side of the Town of Citrine.
The best chance they had of surveying the town, and the Castle, was
to scale the wall that surrounded it.

Together, they climbed the wall.
The outside crystal obelisks were laid out at an angle towards each
other, so with a bit of effort they eventually made it to the
top.

“
This is where you live?” Kaolin
asked.

“
Used to.”

“
It’s incredible! I thought your
crystal walls were spectacular but this…” He shook his head, his
eyes wide.

Firinne smiled.

If it weren’t for the Desideriums
guarding all of the entrances of Citrine, Firinne would have
thought that everything was back to the way it was before her life
had plummeted into chaos. The people of Citrine were busy holding
markets on the streets, but there was a new energy. Everyone’s head
was low and they never stayed in conversation with one another for
more than a few seconds.

The town vegetable garden was
completely empty and it didn’t look like any work had been done on
it for summer. She could feel it more than she could see it,
though, and she could bet that her Mum was still down in that
dungeon. Immediate anxiety filled her heart at the thought of
seeing her Mum, Auralia. Not because she didn’t want to see her
Mum, no she ached for it, but because she was afraid of what she
might see. Auralia was already so weak when Firinne had left
her.

She signaled to Kaolin to follow
her back down the wall and into the woods that rested on the
backside of the castle. Once there she led Kaolin to a circle of
trees, stopping in the center. She could hear the blackbirds
resting on branches above them and again they were singing. It
sounded as though the forest was leaking water; every drop echoing
off of every leaf.

“
What’re we doing?”

Firinne smiled. “You and I…we’re
gonna go in the same way I escaped.”

She recalled that night in her
memory. The fear and the sheer panic. The desperation to do
everything she could to return as soon as possible with
reinforcements. She laughed to herself. If only she had known then
what she did now. But she had returned; despite everything. Despite
her Uncle’s unwillingness to help, despite Cyneric and his pack of
demons, despite everything — she had returned. She took the stone
dagger which had been secured between her leg and the tourniquet.
The blackbirds grew louder as she slit a small cut into the palm of
her hand and fed it to the crystal bricks. The stones dissipated in
a spectrum of light, and once again she found herself staring into
that darkness, in complete ignorance of what lay ahead.

My name is Firinne Luxithanya…and
this is my resurrection.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT

Crimson Rain

Triphosa
led Cyneric by the hand into the room that was glowing with gray
light. When they reached the pit, they both bowed low to the
Dantalion Lords. Triphosa had a sickly smile on her face. No one
spoke, Triphosa and Cyneric were capable, but the Lords were not —
not in that way.

If you were to study Cyneric’s face
long enough, you would see the pain he was trying to hide behind
his cold face. The Lords were screaming at them inside their
skulls. Screaming about orders that both of them had failed;
screaming new orders that they would be killed for if they did not
succeed. Tendrils of black mist reached from a black, bony hand to
the throats of their servants. Cyneric’s face was purple;
Triphosa’s was pinkly, and determined.

After their release, they walked
through the corridors of Castle Blacken. Cyneric wiped the black
tears from his face; they were sticky on his skin; like candy or
blood. Triphosa didn’t seem to mind. She wore her black tears like
war paint or a coming-of-age tattoo; proud; mind-fucked.

Triphosa didn’t speak until she was
sure that the Lords would not be able to hear them.

“
See what you’ve gotten us
into?”

Cyneric said nothing.

“
We’ve got to hurry…or there’ll be
hell to pay. Go get our Dems ready!”

As he turned to leave her, she
grabbed him forcefully by the front of his armor; scraping skin
from his collar in the process — she kissed him violently, biting
his tongue at the closing, and licking her lips at the taste of his
blood.

Frantically, he flipped open the
stopper on his flask and took a long drink of blood,
himself.

It was a cocoon of
darkness.

Then there was a hue of blue light
emanating from Kaolin which reflected off of the slimy walls of the
tunnel.

“
How far do we have to go?” he
asked.

“
Not far but we need to move now
before the stones cut us off.”

She could see a faint outlining of
light on the ceiling ahead of them. They drew closer, closer, and
then, she was pulling herself up through the hole and into the
dungeon. She grabbed hold of Kaolin’s wrist and helped pull him
up.

The dungeon was quiet and smelled
of old blood and urine. In the cell next to hers was the silhouette
of a person, crumpled up in the corner. She couldn’t tell if it was
her mother, but by its shape, it was definitely a woman.

“
Hey,” Firinne
whispered.

The person stirred.

Again. “Hey,”

They lifted their head and slowly
began to move from the shadows. As she got closer, Firinne realized
that it definitely wasn’t her mother.

“
Queen Firinne?” croaked the
woman. It was one of the gardeners.

“
Yes, it’s me. Where is
Auralia?”

“
I’m so glad you’ve come back! I
don’t know where they took Queen Auralia. This morning, a group of
Desideriums came down here and took her. All that they said was
that they were relocating her.”

“
Somewhere in the
castle?”

“
I assume so.”

“
How is she?” Firinne
asked.

“
Not good…she’s weak. After you
escaped, they gave her lashings. After that, she was only allowed a
meal once a day.”

It was what Firinne had feared at
that moment that Auralia had told her to escape and leave her
behind. Somewhere deep down, she knew that this would happen, but
she also knew that her Mum was strong.

“
Kaolin, I need you to get us out
of this cell. You know what to do.”

Kaolin pulled out his silver twigs
and began cutting the lock on the door with electrolifi. It didn’t
take long before the lock was lying in a mass of molten iron on the
floor. Once they were out, he started on the lock for the
gardener’s cell.

“
Where are the children?” Firinne
asked her.

“
They are locked in the Academy.
Triphosa has been attempting to undo the education that Professor
Lirveen did.”