Authors: Rhiannon Paille
Villains (22 page)
Chapter 5
Kaliel was exhausted.
Life became a monotonous myriad of patterns. Years, decades and centuries passed, but Tor didn’t give up. He didn’t feel remorse and he didn’t give her solace and he didn’t allow her to do what she had done in the village to the North. He kept the others tied or chained, and forced her into their bodies whether they were male, female or child. And it didn’t matter who they were, king, warrior, shield maiden—if they were human, Kaliel killed them.
She felt like a destructive malevolent thing before. She felt like the weed, and the girl that brought death but this was something beyond all the awful things she had done in the past. This was genocide and she was the direct cause of all the bloodshed.
Tor didn’t apologize. He didn’t take her faults for his mistakes and he didn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing his grief. He kept her from the Valtanyana and kept the truth of her identity a secret to those that tried to hold her essence.
Kaliel counted, she counted each and every one she took, six thousand eight hundred and thirty three before Tor stopped, before the lands changed so much Tor no longer visited marketplaces and Koochi tents, but skyscrapers and glass buildings. He eased into the modern world like a well-aged wine at a high society dinner party, dressing in nothing but the finest suits, leather shoes and bowler hats. And no matter what Kaliel wanted, she was trapped in his tiny prison, nothing but the steady ticking to keep her company.
***
Hunger & Smoke
Companion to
Vulture
***
Chapter 1
The worst part was not being dead after she kissed him. The curse shredding muscle, disintegrating bone and crunching his heart into calcified shards was pleasant compared to the realization that hit him the moment the sky roughshod him.
He wasn’t dead.
He was cold, so cold he couldn’t remember what it felt like to be warm. This place was a silent, frozen hell and he was a conscious prisoner to its ever-changing will. Screeches brayed beside him, jarring him out of shock and devastation. He understood their broken language, their incoherent slurs, the Vultures wanted Krishani to follow.
He couldn’t fight against the wind whipping his form back and forth, tossing him like a boat on a tumultuous sea. Frost licked the edges of his blackened non-corporeal form as he tried to sweep low, snow blinding his vision until the land below him was nothing but a blur of white and gray. Sandpaper grated over his taste buds and pinpricks stung his vision but he needed it, a last look at a girl he could no longer touch or feel.
In those first seconds after the transmutation he fought. Everything about the Vultures attempted to shred his memory and spread it on the wind, leaving it in the place he was sentenced to this horrifying non-death. He wanted something—more time—more warning—more courage to tell her the truth in the first place. He couldn’t help but gape at the ground, tiny patches of black against a snow covered land.
She wasn’t going to live.
And that was the injustice. He didn’t want her to die knowing their last moments were nothing but the storm and the kiss that disentangled him from her, the curse liquefying his bones until they were as weightless as wind. He didn’t want to watch her freeze to death while he fought to grasp the severity of his non-death. What would he do now that he had no control over himself? What would he do as a slave to the swarm? How could he live if he didn’t have her?
All he had were petrifying memories of a life that ended in chaos and a million more days, hours and minutes to replay the scene in his head. He felt himself drop, drop so low he made out the shape of her body in the snow, little hands curled into tight fists, amethyst eyes regarding the maelstrom sky with a sense of helplessness that hit Krishani like a battering ram.
There was nothing he could do.
The swarm tugged at him begging him to flee the scene, follow them. He thought if he waited she’d die, and he’d take her soul before the others could have it, and in some strange way they’d be united for eternity, but she didn’t die, and the beat, beat, beat of her heart slowed until it was a faint pulse, something reverberating through Krishani’s ears.
He wanted to stay by her side for it.
He wanted to wait it out.
He wanted her to suffer with him.
But they pulled and pulled, whispering things about how she could never be his. She wasn’t going to die, the Flames were a race like none other, they’d live with or without a body. When Kaliel’s body died, there would be no wispy white smoke, only the amethyst essence he had seen inside a tiny orb in a golden puzzle box. He caved in on himself, trying to bring himself back to the memory of her arms around him on the battlefield, when she had saved him from becoming a Vulture, when she possessed Aulises, but the memories were like glass and the more he pushed, the more cracks appeared along the edges until they spider webbed into the center, and crumbled to dust.
He watched and waited for a long time, as long as he could and with a blink and a silent goodbye he let the swarm take him through the sky, screeching as they fled across the frozen land. Their babble became daggers as Krishani realized they had been feeding. All the time he had sat there shocked, they fed on the villagers, on Jack, and the rest of the Tavesins, his entire bloodline stolen by pure darkness. The Tavesins wouldn’t create another Ferryman, the Tavesins no longer existed.
And the guilt, anger, and hatred for what Kaliel had done barreled into him. She didn’t kill him, but sentenced thousands of others to a death that would be carried out by him, by the swarm, thousands of souls he could have saved, forced to devour. He let the garish, feral nature of the Vultures shatter his mind until he had nothing left but incoherent dregs of everything that broke him.
Vultures were worse than savages. Clawing at the air they made their way across the ocean, leaping through sky the way black-skinned creatures limped across the fields of Orlondir. Krishani couldn’t control what he remembered and what burned to ashes and spread across the sky, an entire lifetime of nightmares and bittersweet passion unhinging itself from the rickety iron gates his soul had become. He was a poison to himself and to the land and he couldn’t turn back and change it.
This was a forever kind of death.
The swarm tried to talk to him, giving him some sort of clue as to what they were but their jagged syllables and monomaniac mind frame left Krishani with nothing but a strong urge to go off on his own. He didn’t know the first thing about a world desecrated by a girl he used to love, but he’d find some hamlet to hide in and wait out the darkness. He’d suffer through the pangs that lapped over him, worsening with each gust of wind that seemed to think Vultures were solid, twisting them up in invisible walls.
Krishani begged the swarm for death.
But the others didn’t understand. They swooped low, dropping below shiny white clouds until Krishani saw a small village tucked against a blinding frozen shore. Straw triangle tufts stuck out above snow covered ground, a few stones for a hearth fire visible amidst the drifts. Krishani felt like he wanted to throw up at the site of a bare foot child clad in tattered breeches, the thought of suffocating under a blanket of snow quashing his form until he blew out a breath.
At first he didn’t understand. The swarm lapped up wispy white smoke like it was water, and for however long it had been between then and now he wasn’t sure, but they seemed like they wanted more. He refused it at the Tavesin village, but they traipsed across the ocean and lived through the worst of the storm and he was powerless to stop the pangs from attacking him.
He finally knew what those pangs were—hunger.
It was a sharp, acrid, stymied hunger. Wispy white smoke rippled off the surface like heat waves off stone in summer and Krishani watched the others gorge themselves on the thing he desired most now that he wasn’t a Ferryman.
He wanted the wispy white smoke more than he had ever wanted Kaliel, more than he had ever dreamed of a life with her, children, growing old. She was a mere faded anamnesis somewhere in his mind, the hunger consuming him to the point he couldn’t stave it off any longer.
He swooped around the others, tossing himself between snow dunes until he spotted half an uncovered shack. He ducked through the window before the others found him and stopped. This wasn’t different than devouring the souls of his kin. This wasn’t going to absolve him of all the mistakes he made, it wasn’t going to erase the things he never told Kaliel and it wasn’t going to repair his damaged soul.
There was a faint heartbeat. The young maiden beside the fireplace had her hands curled into fists, eyes closed, head lolled to one side. She had fair skin and dirty blonde hair in a braid down her back. She wore nothing but peasants clothing, the same drab colors Krishani was used to seeing on the villagers. She was unconscious but alive.
The swarm took a long time in the village, their screeches surrounding the cabin, but Krishani hoped they wouldn’t sit beside him and wait for this girl to die. The steady
thump, thump, thump
slowed until it was so faint Krishani wasn’t sure he’d feel it again. She was strong, and he was going to take it all away. The last beat sounded and a gust of breath blew out of her mouth, wispy white smoke filling the small cabin. Krishani reached out with his icy tendrils, covering the girl’s body with his form as he pulled the white matter into himself.
Starbursts of visions played in his mind, the young girl running through the field to meet her mother, blood rushing down her arm. And then she was older, tending crops, digging out potatoes, yams and carrots from soil, cooking them over a fire. Stealing glances at a boy from across the river, hoping her father would give her to someone worthy, spearing fish on a long wooden pole.
It filled Krishani with liquid sunlight, all the pain in his form melting into bliss, but the girl—he couldn’t give the soul back. He finished taking in the wispy white smoke, feeling the last of her memories until the white matter hit his core and like a door slamming, everything about who she had been was erased forever.
Krishani fled the cabin, the swarm screeching for his return. He didn’t know how to feel, satisfied off white matter and guilt ridden at what he had done. Her death was so quiet and seamless, one moment she was alive, locked in a blissful sleep, the next she was gone, and seconds later she was nothing.
Krishani followed the swarm into the sky, the others seeming joyous at the amount of food left for them in a land so broken beyond repair. They hadn’t made it to the next village before the hunger hit Krishani again, sharp nettles raking across him, begging him to feed. Take more lives, erase more souls, and turn what was once beautiful into emptiness. No matter how much he took or how much the others took, it would never be enough to keep away the hunger or the cold; it would never be enough to satisfy him.
Kaliel had sentenced him to a life of killing and dying, a life of helplessness against pain. And he had a crushing need to find a way to free himself of the hellacious torture she had forced him to endure.
***
Chapter 2
He was tied to the swarm and the swarm was tied to him. All feeling left his extremities, leaving nothing but hunger and cold. He tried to fight, memories like spider webs unraveling until they were nothing but silk strands, bits and pieces of the past he couldn’t sew back together. Amethyst eyes and pale white skin, the last words she said taken by the wind. The heavy feelings he had when he was hers untangled from his form, left behind in the clouds and sky and ice ensnaring Terra.
Time was something he couldn’t count anymore. Vultures followed darkness, sweeping through villages in the dead hours between dusk and dawn, wispy white smoke starkly visible against the night skies. He gorged himself on souls, needing them to fill him with something, anything besides the hunger.
He lived inside memories villagers provided him, a dreamscape of working, playing and loving taking him into reverie. It played out for days until they found themselves by a shore, and he devoured a fisherman, spearing fish for days until he met a maiden and stitched fabric. The girl spread the patchwork quilt out along a cot on the ground, wrapping herself in it like a cocoon, but the cold snapped through the thin canvas tent, and stole the breath out of her lungs while she slept.
Krishani didn’t give her mercy.
He took what he was expected to take and so much time passed he forgot what he was before he had been a Vulture. As far as he knew, this was the way it was. The others told him there was no other way. They had to stop the smoke from returning, had to stop it from festering in bodies and forcing eyes open, tongues moving, and hands working the land. Krishani never stopped to ask what would happen if they devoured all the souls, if there were none left, would they be full forever, or would they starve?
What if he starved?
Could he truly die from this?
There were no answers for these deep questions. Screeches and ignorance, and more traveling on the wind through clouds, landing in villages of straw huts and canvas tents, shoddy craftsmanship and temporary homes for traveling people. Some tents were bigger than others, containing gold and jewels, but those people were dead, smoke waiting for them.
Krishani wrestled with his form, trying to create arms and legs, instead of this self-contained storm. He wanted to resemble the men he ate, wanted to feel the ground and touch their cheeks but when he reached out he was whiplashed by some unknown force and sent onto his back, choking and gasping for the very air around him. He struggled until he surrendered to it, everything melting into darkness.
Passing out was the worst pain Krishani ever felt.
He stood in a black room, the eyes of all those souls he had devoured surrounding him. Their hands grappled at his arms and legs as they tore off bits of skin, and muscle. They took his eyelids and tore off his fingernails. Krishani let out a gasp and a loud wail as each of his ten fingers burned from the ends to the core of his body, nerve endings on fire until he numbed.
The girl, the first girl he took, stepped forward with her dirty blonde hair and her eye whites glazed over. She reached into his chest, cracking his ribs until she held his heart in her hand. He tried to take it back but his hands dissolved like sand and it felt like a thousand swords slicing him into small pieces. She waved a little at him as he reached for his empty chest, but found he couldn’t feel it, he couldn’t feel anything. He gaped, feeling like every last memory, every shard of who he used to be was in the palm of her hand.
And she had taken it from him.
The last thing he remembered, the only thing he remembered about the life he used to live, were lost in that handful of blood and muscle. Before he reached her she squeezed hard and it crumbled into shiny gray dust. She poured the silver dust on the ground at her feet, shooting him a look that said without words everything she meant.
He took everything from her.
And she took everything from him.
Shocked awake by the cold, he found himself in the sky, tethered to the swarm, tendrils of the others wrapped around him, pulling him along the unforgiving wind. They whispered a name, his name? He wasn’t sure, whether they were right or wrong, whether they knew him, or not.
“Gajan,” was all they said, over and over, repeating the name until he believed it was his, and whatever name he had before was lost with the girl he took, and the others that had their revenge in the upturned spaces of his broken mind. Where they were going didn’t have souls for the taking. He felt food in the opposite direction and for a moment his form fought against the swarm, meaning to move away from the pressing cold and towards liquid sunlight. He meant to go, to feed, to fill the growing void with some sweet sappy visions of someone else’s life, something real and tangible and less like spattered paint against canvas. He had to go back, back to somewhere far away and he had to fix something, but he didn’t know what and he no longer knew who he was, or who he used to be.
“We’re taking you to the small lady,” the Vultures screeched and he understood them, for the first time their words were more than slurred cacophonic sentences.
“Why?” he whispered, his voice corrugated. He wanted to know why he was one of them, how he had become one, and why the girl took his heart and turned it to dust. He wanted to know why he couldn’t remember anything and why wispy white smoke he folded into himself, but they didn’t answer those questions.
All the other Vultures had to say was, “Something is wrong with you.”
The small lady lived in the brambles. Gajan followed the swarm over tops of roseless rose bushes, thorny brown brambles creating fields of biting vines. Frost covered the top layer of brambles in a sheet, little spots of white forming on thorny vines. The swarm swooped low, leading Gajan through a tunnel of gnarled trees. The land dipped, and he felt like he was flying into the core of Terra as he followed the tunnel lower and lower until it opened into a spacious cavern, bats hanging from the ceiling, a stone palace covered by gnarled trees. Some of these had leaves at the apex of the canopy, wind ruffling them, showing off outlines of a midnight blue sky somewhere high above them. Gajan pulled his attention to the stone, naturally formed shallow steps leading to a throne of brambles.
He stifled a gasp at the little girl. He recognized her but he couldn’t for the life of him remember where he knew her from. She peeled her hands carefully off the armrests, blood covering her palms in a sticky paste. Her eyes were glazed over black storms, lighting flashing in her pupils every second. Her skin was grayish, a long sleeved nightgown falling to her ankles. It looked like it used to be white but discoloring turned it a sickly bluish gray.
The others screeched and she silenced them, holding up a hand and forcing them to scale the ceiling. Gajan didn’t know what to do, so he hovered at the foot of the stone, waiting as she gingerly approached him, bare feet sticking out of the nightgown. He went to recoil but couldn’t, lodged firmly in place. She reached out with her bloodied hand, stroking his form and shock moved through him.
She could touch him, and it was both intimate and distinctly inappropriate. He cowered, guilt lancing through him like a spear. Her eyes tightened and she let out a short little laugh that hit the air like wind chimes and died away.
“I told you once,” she said, turning and skipping up the steps.
Gajan couldn’t find his voice but he tried. “You told me?” He tried to remember but no matter how hard he concentrated, there was nothing in him, nothing but hunger pangs stabbing through him and cold making him shiver. The shockwaves wore down, the feeling of lightning inside him becoming nothing but a dull hum.
The girl clapped and smiled a terrible toothy grin. “You truly don’t know yourself do you?”
Gajan shook as a way of saying no, but he wanted to, he desperately needed to know why he knew her and why he so fervently longed to be nowhere near her. Silent lacerations attacked his center, spreading out to the very ends of his tendrils and snapped back like a whip being cracked. It was only one of the most unpleasant things he had felt since watching his heart turn to dust.
The girl said nothing as she moved into shadows beyond the throne, somewhere beyond the moonlight filtering in through the spaces between the canopy, the only small space in her bramble castle that wasn’t dominated by twisted wood and misshapen branches.
“Who is she?” Gajan asked aloud, his question meant for the other Vultures.
They were silent ghosts, blending against the makeshift walls. Gajan waited for an answer before sinking to the ground, pain caroming through his form enough to make him pass out again. He wouldn’t let it happen, he couldn’t fathom letting those he had taken steal more of who he used to be. He fought dizziness and spots against his vision until his voice came out as a roar. “Who is she?” Sound echoed off the walls, startling the bats. Wings flapped against the air like hooves along the ground and Gajan felt something slick and cold against his tendrils. Another Vulture twined himself around Gajan, an answer muttered in low baritones.
“The small lady is Morgana.”
The Vulture detached, stealing into the shadows as the others screeched in pain at the mention of the girl’s name. Gajan didn’t recognize it. As hard as he tried he couldn’t conjure the memory of the little girl. All he had was the same repulsion the others Vultures felt towards her.
It was some time before Morgana emerged from behind the throne, fresh blood smeared on her palms, a wicked look in her eyes. She sauntered towards Gajan and he backed away until invisible strings pulled and like a marionette he was drawn towards her. The screeches in the cavern reached a deafening level and Gajan fought against the searing hunger but it was no use. White matter smoked from the blood on Morgana’s palm and he wanted to devour it, all of it. So did the others but she held them at bay.
“I told you once…you would long for this,” she whispered, holding her hand out so close he smelled the sunlight in her palm. His form shuddered, wanting it so bad, wanting to curl around her hand and lap up all the matter, but she pulled back. “First you must tell me what you remember.”
Gajan gaped, gasping at the matter, the fighting screeches reaching a crescendo. “I remember nothing,” he choked.
“You don’t remember me?” Morgana sounded innocent and hurt, but Gajan knew better, something in him told him not to trust her.
He shook again, trying to reach for the white matter but she forced him away. “Please, I want more,” he rasped.
She quirked her lips up in a wan smile, “Is this all you know?”
Gajan let out a sneering screech, his first as he tried to bat against the barrier keeping him from the glorious salvation in her outstretched, bloodied hand. “All I know is hunger and smoke.” He could barely speak he wanted it so much, wanted her. He’d never remembered ever wanting anything as bad as he wanted the smoke in her hand.
Morgana shot him a devilish glare. She taunted him, pushing the smoke near his self-contained storm but he couldn’t eat and it killed him being so close to something he couldn’t have. “Will you pledge yourself to me?”
Gajan nodded fervently, he would do anything for her if she would give him the smoke, the pure, untainted smoke. She giggled and thrust it forward as he spoke the words. “I belong to you.”
The barriers fell and he covered her hands in the cold storm, lapping up every last grain of white matter, folding it into his core until there was nothing left. The others took to the sky. Gajan went to follow but the white matter held him down and he slipped, grappling at the brambles as the memories attached to the white matter hit him like a battering ram. Taking this soul was thousands of times worse than any of the other souls he had taken.
He remembered this one.
Ambrose Telper, the Ferryman of Amaltheia.
The land tilted and blurred above him until glittering sand castles sweltering with heat filled his vision. There were two boys on white horses, and a hoard of rowdy men rallying and shouting, swords raised in the air. “Your care of the land is piss poor,” Ambrose spat at Gajan. “Vultures don’t come where they can’t be fed.”
Gajan had been there, he had been right there. Ambrose was his kin, and now his enemy, and now he was nothing because Morgana had ended him and fed his soul to Gajan. He opened his eyes, the little girl with black lightning eyes leaning over him. He couldn’t think straight but he needed to escape her before she stole what little of himself he had left.
***