Justice (4 page)

5 - Limbo

Krishani was in limbo.

Limbo was between life and death, stark stretches of darkness spread across its bounds. Time stood still. Krishani wanted to negotiate with limbo, tell it to raise the final axe of destruction, only limbo was unable to do things like that.

Krishani desperately thought of the Great Hall, the place on the other side. The Great Hall was a massive golden fortress said to exist in the center the stars. Where Avristar, Avrigard, Avristyr and Avrigost made up the spokes of the wheel, the Great Hall made up the hub.

The Great Hall was the afterlife.

If Kaliel was anywhere, it would be there.

The Valtanyana wouldn’t dare attack it.

Krishani would have died to be there, but he wasn’t dead.

Instead, this slick, oily darkness covered him in his own filth. It rotted him from the inside out. He tried to steady himself, tear it away, breakthrough it.

Krishani wrestled against the darkness cascading over him in sheets, curling around his arms like tentacles and pushing at him with menacing desire. He gasped as he felt his heart beating, heard the rise and fall of his chest as air flushed in and out of his lungs. Prickles of pain rocked every muscle to the core, pushing heat through his limbs. He stifled a gag, plunging himself back into limbo. He tried to pull the darkness into his lungs, tried to force it deeper and further into himself, but limbo wouldn’t give him what he wanted. Death. It pressed against his temple like a handprint and he gurgled at the pain, visions bubbling up under his eyelids.

Istar betrayed him. The Lord of Avristar raced against him on his way to the volcano. Istar stopped Krishani from being with Kaliel, from destroying himself. He wasn’t grateful. A life without Kaliel was no life at all. He would never forgive Istar for the atrocity of her death. He panted as he pushed himself further into limbo, felt it thicken and resist him with relentless force.

He never thought it would be difficult to die.

He never thought it would be impossible to live.

He sucked in another mouthful of the inky blackness, another memory mushrooming across his temples.

The explosion.

Krishani rested on his knees, her name drowned out by the blast. Darkness enveloped him as his heart shattered into pieces. All he could think about was her snow-white strands of hair framing her face, her eyes filled with melancholy, a deep apology for what she had been forced to do. He thought about the orb of ice and all the times she asked him to make it snow. The thought roiled across his mind, picking up speed as darkness pulled him under.

Krishani wasn’t certain of anything until the cold hit him, and even then darkness kept him enveloped in limbo, suspended between life and death, waiting for judgment.

Krishani begged for death.

And limbo didn’t agree.

Fire raced through his veins as he fought against the currents of cruelty forcing his lungs to expand, forcing his heart to throb on as though it was splitting in two, forcing his insides to ache with the instinctive longing to hold Kaliel in his arms. He let out a silent cry as his stomach tightened. He curled his fingers into a fist, refusing to pay mind to the lingering scent of lavender and honeysuckle clinging to him. Her essence hung on his shoulders; it wrapped arms around his waist, pressed lips against his with unmistakable authenticity. Anger raced through Krishani’s veins as he clung to limbo, a comforting blanket of suffocation. No matter how real it felt, he wouldn’t delude himself into believing she was still with him.

Something curled around his ankle, pulling him deeper into the thin veils of darkness keeping him hostage. He tried to let the anguish roll off him in waves, hoping there was mercy, hoping death would take him, but limbo met his pain with pain. The slick darkness wrapped around his leg, pulling tighter with every turn.

He screamed.

Unexpected thrills of pain came on unwarranted. A thousand flaming daggers pierced his leg. Krishani stifled another scream. He closed his eyes and pictured Kaliel’s sparkling pools of green, eyes that made it worth living. He let the folds of limbo cover his body. He let pain rake over him like claws shredding his flesh, like fire searing his bones to ash, like parasites swelling his insides.

He let the darkness torture him because it was better than torturing himself. A cruel stab of pain raced through his heart, but he didn’t flinch. Life for him meant watching others die again and again, the memory of the explosion replaying over and over until he couldn’t take it anymore.

There was only one way to escape becoming the Ferryman.

And so he let the darkness eat away at him.

• • •

Kaliel had been in love.

Desaunius paced the corridors, a squeamish knot in her stomach. Of all the things she overlooked, love was the one thing she never expected. She remembered the Flames from the First Era. They were an unparalleled force against the Valtanyana. Back then they weren’t girls. They were weapons pressed into the hands of their masters. The Flames were deadly. She closed her eyes and blotted out the image of Tempia and its endless crops of silver quenny fruit. Evennses had been her home for centuries, and Kaliel was the first full time apprentice she had taken since Avristar had been attacked by the Valtanyana. She mildly taught the others, but wasn’t responsible for them. Something about Kaliel drew her to break one of her own rules. She raised the girl since birth. Knowing how and why she died made Desaunius want to crumble into dust.

She braced herself, her slippered feet drifting towards the balcony. She gripped the railings with her chalky-white hands. Her skin was wrinkled and bruised, showing signs of her age. The battle took so much out of her. The fear she felt when they swept across the battlefield still festered within her. She had seen them before, the Daed. In that moment the cloaked beings fought like valiant generals alongside an army from the Lands of Beasts. They were a parasite to Avristar, ripping her flesh to pieces, humbling her inhabitants. Desaunius fled from the war in the First Era. It was up to Tor to fight against the Valtanyana. After he silenced them, he shut himself in the Great Hall. It was the only fortress the Valtanyana couldn’t penetrate. She grimaced as she thought of the golden hallways, the Assembly Hall, the Chamber of Souls, the Great Library. The Great Hall was larger than any of the lands, made of pure gold.

Desaunius was certain Kaliel was there, but it didn’t make the pain any less bearable. The Great Hall wasn’t a paradise. It was a holding cell for souls, a place caught between one life and the next. It meant Kaliel wouldn’t return to Avristar. Her soul wouldn’t form in another bed of flowers, it wouldn’t bloom and flourish and she wouldn’t be given to another elder. She was a Flame, an embodiment of magic itself, and because of Crestaos, she couldn’t be reborn without starting another war. It was too dangerous.

Her heart dropped as she thought of Krishani, the boy Kaliel had loved. Desaunius didn’t want to admit to Atara that she agreed with her; it was just so hard to take in. Atara was adamant Kaliel had fallen in love long before she was sent to Orlondir. Desaunius sighed and stumbled away from the balcony. She drifted towards the West wing where the apprentices were healing. The castle felt so much like death she had to stifle the urge to vomit. She quickened her pace and turned the corner only to see a sliver of light from an opened door illuminating the darkened hallway. Her footsteps were silent along the burgundy carpets lining the stone halls. She neared the door; flickering from a candle inside cast light on her face. She inched the door back and stepped into the room. The pain instantly laced itself around her and she whimpered.

Lying on a bed in the center of the room, Krishani’s face turned towards a bowl of herbs on the end table. His hair was a disheveled mess of midnight black, stringy and draped around the nape of his neck. Desaunius tucked her head to the floor. She rounded the bed and stared at his agonized features. Even comatose he looked pained. She traced his sunken eyelids fringed by the same dark hair and pale cheeks. He was elven like Kaliel, the sharp point of his ear poking out from the locks of hair. She didn’t understand how it was possible for them to fall in love. Krishani looked like an ordinary elven; what Atara had said about him didn’t feel real. He looked so harmless. She wondered what Kaliel saw in him. She wondered what he saw in Kaliel except she was a Flame, and the things that made her different also made her adorable. It was easy to love Kaliel for all her flaws.

Desaunius let out a slow breath and carefully reached towards the bowl of herbs. She wetted the cloth, preparing to rub it along his brow. The movement was autonomous; she wanted to soothe his pain, tell him Kaliel was safe. She knew far more about the lands than most of the elders in Avristar. There were words for Krishani, wisdom she could share with him because he needed to know. She wasn’t sure any of it would comfort him though. She mostly wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault for falling for Kaliel, but he didn’t understand what a Flame was, what they were meant for. She wanted to tell him it was better this way.

Desaunius brought the cloth to his brow and padded it gently. She let out a sigh and choked, realizing too late she had made too much noise. In a swift movement, Krishani opened his eyes and grasped her wrist. She let the cloth fall between them as his mismatched eyes pierced her own. It was something so strikingly different from every other adept on Avristar she almost let out a wail. She forgot for a moment how much she looked like the girl that was a Flame.

“Kaliel.” Krishani gasped as he fought for breath and sat up.

Desaunius stood and pulled her arm out of his grasp. She had no intentions of causing the boy more pain. “No, I am Desaunius.”

Krishani leapt to his feet and grabbed her by the shoulders. He spun her around to face him and traced the contours of her profile, comparing similarities down to the last fleck of darkly-shaded green circling her iris. His eyes watered with anger as his fingernails dug into her skin. Desaunius felt ashamed as he searched her face, his expression clear. Only Kaliel should look like Kaliel, this was an abomination, a sick joke.

Desaunius shook with the sensation of grief as the power of his anger flooded her. It felt like all the light in the world drained away with his penetrating glare. She tried to pull away, but he kept his hands on her shoulders. She winced at the pain of his grip.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered in a plea for him to let go. Coming to his room had been a mistake. She should have returned to the forests of Evennses when the battle was over. Anything she had to say to him seemed moot. The love he had for Kaliel was reflected in his mismatched dull eyes. All he could see was her; all he ever wanted was her. Desaunius understood that now.

His fingers trembled as his eyes widened, his pupils almost completely dark. She wanted to tear herself out of his grasp, but the anger on his face made it hard to look away. It took her a moment to realize it was like looking into a stained glass window pane for him, a pane of sharp shards of glass that cut his insides with their jagged edges. She went to say sorry again, but he thrust her away. She landed hard, her face colliding with the floor. She let out a startled cry as her hands dug into the floorboards. Krishani ran his hands through his hair and turned in a circle.

“You look so much like her …” His voice was raspy and hollow. Krishani carefully picked up the saucer and turned. Desaunius pushed herself up, turning to face him. He stopped and almost dropped the candle on his boot. She felt a welt forming on the side of her face. She let a hand run over the mark. Seeing Desaunius marred was like seeing Kaliel dead. Desaunius saw the reminder flicker into his expression. The Valtanyana came for Kaliel, they hunted her with insatiable hunger, lusting for the saccharine taste of her Flame.

Krishani doubled over, the candle slipping from his hands. Fire. The candle graced his cloak and a spark lit the fabric. Anxious flames swept up the cloak and Krishani closed his eyes like he welcomed the heat.

Desaunius’s eyes widened as she watched the cloak go up in flames. She ignored her throbbing face and turned to the corridor. “Help!” she called. She turned back to Krishani, who stood calm and reserved. It seemed like he was waiting for the fire to eat through the layers of clothing hanging off him.

“You’re mad,” Desaunius said evenly as she approached him. His eyelids slipped shut as she pushed him onto the bed in the hopes she could drown the fire. Smoke seeped out from underneath him as he hit the bed, but flames still circled the bottom of his cloak. She frowned and took a step back. Her eyes focused on his burning body as she held her hands out and recited an incantation to snuff out the remainder of flames. All of her was crushed by his self-destructive attitude. She didn’t think she could feel worse, but seeing him made her reel with grief over the loss of the girl she thought of as a daughter. Smoke rose from the bed and Desaunius let out a heavy sigh. She took one last look at his face and stepped into the corridor.

Melianna stopped short and their eyes met. “By the land,” she gasped, a hand covering her mouth, her head swaying back and forth.

Desaunius had almost forgotten about the affliction to her face, but her hand curiously reached up, covering the forming bruise.

“What happened?” Melianna asked.

Desaunius didn’t want to tell her. She raised her head with pride and fought to hide her mistake. “You should tend to him, he’s …”

“He woke?” Melianna whispered.

Desaunius feigned knowledge that this was the first time and nodded her head. “Aye, he was angry.” She passed Melianna and fled down the corridor. She heard the door creak and a cry erupted from Melianna’s lips.

“Wait!”

Desaunius turned at the edge of the corridor, refusing to make eye contact with her.

“What will I tell Lady Atara?” Melianna asked. Smoke billowed out of the room and into the hallway.

Desaunius tried to stay strong, but she choked on her words. “It was an accident. The candle fell.” She didn’t wait for Melianna to respond as she escaped.