Vulture (18 page)

19 - Winter

Tyr kicked up the white frost stretching across the tundra. Krishani cinched his grip on the reins and blinked; his head was swimming with vertigo. He had the stone locked in his left hand, but because of the twisting and turning during the transport he was disoriented. He leaned back and tucked the stone into the knapsack as Tyr slowed to a stop. A hazy gray sky spread above them, dawn creeping over the horizon in a pale yellow. He frowned. This wasn’t a village; this was the middle of nowhere. He turned Tyr in a slow circle. Low-lying skeletons of shrubs poked haphazardly out of the ground. Night escaped over the western horizon, nothing in the distance but endless plains of frozen moss.

An explosion sounded behind him.

He flinched, instinctively ducking into the horse as Tyr whinnied and stomped his hooves. Krishani quickly gathered the reins and pulled Tyr around, only to see fire, smoke, and flying bits of debris in the sky. Tyr backed away but Krishani kicked him in the side and galloped to the fire. It went against the better judgment of any creature but he couldn’t avoid the Horsemen.

A plank flew by his head as Tyr gained speed, dodging pellets of fallen rock and wood speckling the frost-covered plain. He was nimble on his feet, jumping over patches of upturned grass, avoiding tree branches hurled into the air in every direction. Krishani tried to calm the nerves in his gut as he pushed forward. There was no doubt in his mind he would rather be with Kaliel, but this was what he was. This was what he always would be.

A monster fighting monsters.

The land sloped upwards as the debris got heavier. Thick streaks of burnt grass snaked towards the house, four singular paths marked by large hoof marks. Krishani stifled the urge to vomit as the smell of charred flesh hit his nostrils. He looked up in time to see something big hurtling towards them. He pulled Tyr to the right, planning on passing the one house blown to smithereens and catching the Horsemen in the village. He kept his head down as he traveled across black streaks of scorched land and covered his mouth with the sleeve of his cloak. The grayish black smoke became heavy. Tyr panted and whined, slowing down and bobbing his head in distress. Krishani had no time for this. He came around a small hill. Tyr slid down the slope and hit a crux in the grass. He hastily pulled Tyr around the scattered evergreen trees. One of them was missing half its limbs, the blast blowing it clear from the yard.

Tyr tiptoed across a small curving walkway of flat, sunken-in stones, his hooves clacking against them. He wended around two shallow mounds and entered the tiny village. Smoke hung on the tops of the trees, a flower garden burned bright orange, and the house, an elaborate three story cabin made from both wood and stone, was a shell of its former glory.

Two people lay on the ground, their tattered gray clothes pulled away from their skin, smattered with holes in the fabric, sticky at the edges where the fire tapered off. One of them was a bigger man, brown hair frayed at the edges where fire had scorched it. The blonde woman next to him had her hands in her scalp, her head beet red. She was almost bald because of the fire, her long wool tunic shredded by flame. Where it left patches of her skin exposed were dark black marks outlined by angry red.

Krishani slipped off Tyr, his jaw hanging open as he carefully approached the two. There was nothing left of their home except for a porch and a few support beams. He fell on his knees beside the man and diligently turned him onto his back. His brown eyes were open, but he wasn’t screaming in pain. The look in his eyes said he knew he was dying. Krishani gripped his hand, his eyes widening as searing pain raced across his skin. Krishani felt the effects of the burnt skin and winced, vomit rising into his throat. He swallowed it down; it tasted gross. He squeezed his own eyes shut as he whispered the incantation and dropped the man’s hand.

The woman’s pain was worse. Krishani held her hand, his chest burning. She was dying from the inside out, having inhaled mouthfuls of smoke before making it outside. Krishani felt like he would pass out before he could say the words.

An icy tendril whipped across his sweaty face. He forgot there were still things on fire, and if it weren’t for the trees at the edge of the yard he would have raced into the village to fight off the Horsemen. He couldn’t do that now that Vultures surrounded him, cooling his insides with their inky black frostbite. He welcomed the cold because it took away the woman’s pain and made it easier for him to drop his head to her ear and whisper the incantation.

She sucked in a surprised gasp as her soul forcefully broke away from her body. It wasn’t until the Vultures lifted into the air that he realized why she was unwilling to go. There was a huddle of children near the porch steps. Their bodies were molded together, hands and limbs melting into each other as though they were holding on for dear life. Krishani counted four of them as he dropped to his knees and tried to grasp one of the liquid-like limbs. He cast the words over the four of them and tried not to think about their contorted forms. They were dead already. There was nothing he could do. Elwen was right; he didn’t have time to save them, not when fire devoured everything in its path.

He stood, sick from grief, and hung his head as he paced towards Tyr. Thick streaks of the Horsemen’s tread painted the yellowing grass. They broke through the trees, their reign of destruction far from over. If Krishani ever expected to see Kaliel again, he would have to end them. He glanced into the black gray sky, so full of smoke he couldn’t make out the shapes of the Vultures. He swung onto Tyr, preparing to ride after the Horsemen when he caught something out of the corner of his eye–white smoke, rising from the body of another. His stomach lurched as he stumbled off Tyr and awkwardly lunged towards the corner of the yard. A black shape blocked his view as a Vulture flew right in front of him, hissing, its tendrils reaching for him. Krishani stopped short, his eyes wide as another one dived for the white smoke, sucking it up into its dark storm cloud. A web of icy blackness struck Krishani’s cheek as though the Vulture was telling him something. Before Krishani could react it fled, leaving Krishani stunned.

When he found his feet, he realized the fire was still pressing in on him. He closed the distance between himself and the body. The Vultures had taken a boy, no more than four years old. A numb feeling of regret washed over him as he glanced at his right hand, the black scar deepening and expanding.

The boy wasn’t just gone. He was gone forever.

• • •

Pux wasn’t there in the morning.

Kaliel woke to the sound of scratching against the roof. Branches. She would never get used to that, the rough edges of Terra, a land hard and unforgiving. She stretched, feeling stiffness in her limbs. It was getting worse, not better. She rolled her shoulder in an attempt to work out the kinks, getting only a bit more fluidity. She slid on her slippers and went to rummage around in the bag for one of her familiar ivory dresses when a knock on the door interrupted her. She briefly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her black hair in knots. There were some things she needed to ask Elwen for if she was going to be comfortable living in the village.

Kaliel moved to the door and opened it but nobody was on the porch. She frowned and went outside, noticing the overcast sky. A brisk chill colored the morning air, and she rubbed the tops of her arms, leaning over the railing. A dark figure in a full black robe waited at the bottom of the stairs. Her stomach curdled as she recognized Klavotesi, The Obsidian Flame and her self-appointed mentor. She clambered down the steps as he began taking long strides across the grass. He didn’t stop and she didn’t catch up until he was at the steps of the hall. She followed him inside only to be hit with the smell of fresh bread. The scent made her stomach slosh in a sea of restlessness, wanting to savor the taste.

Klavotesi swept towards the table and sat on the bench. She curiously followed, sitting across from him and grabbed a hot bun off the tray. There weren’t many, only enough for the serving staff and the guards. She broke it open and steam oozed out, bringing prickling feelings to the tips of her fingers. She didn’t care about the heat. She sank her teeth into it before Klavotesi had a chance to speak and chewed until it was soft enough to swallow. It still didn’t taste anything like the food on Avristar, but it was fresh and warm and that made up for most of it.

“You were late for our lesson,” Klavotesi said.

Kaliel grabbed another bun and began stuffing it into her mouth. A sheepish expression crossed her face, her cheeks turning pinkish. She set the bun on the table. Self-consciously, she ran her hands along her dress and coughed a little to get the sticky bread out of her throat. It was an odd thing to say; she was always tardy for lessons, but she had never been three moons tardy.

“I’m sorry,” she squeaked, hiccupping and bringing a hand to her mouth. His face was a mask of nothingness.

“I meant this morning. I understand you had unfinished business on Avristar,” Klavotesi said smoothly.

Kaliel looked down the length of the table, half searching for water and half avoiding him. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Of course not,” Klavotesi agreed. The tips of his fingers were almost visible under the cloth of his cloak. Kaliel could tell his hands were pressed against the table, fingers spread, but other than shadows, she couldn’t see his hands clearly. “I wanted to begin with theory.”

She gave him a wary look as though he was going to start talking about herbs she couldn’t remember or something else she hadn’t learned altogether.

“Relax, you should know these things already.” He presented a piece of parchment from his cloak. His hands were exposed, and they weren’t just pale white. They were bone white with bright red fingernails outlined by blood red cuticles. His hands were like polished stone, unchipped and seamless. He spread the parchment flat on the table and pulled out a piece of charcoal. Kaliel watched him draw a circle and then split it into four quadrants.

“Can you name the four corners of the lands?” he asked.

Kaliel nodded; she learned this as a child in Avristar. Everyone knew the names. Klavotesi positioned the paper so the lines formed an X in front of her. She pointed to the quadrant on the right side first. “This is the Avristar quadrant.” She moved her finger to the left side of the circle. “Avrigard,” she said, moving her finger to the southern quadrant. “Avristyr,” she breathed, tracing her finger through the middle of the X so it rested on the north quadrant. She gulped. “Avrigost,” she whispered. She stared at her finger placed on the place where the Valtanyana were locked away. Klavotesi tugged at the edge of the parchment and she was pulled out of her stupor. She lifted her hand and buried it in her lap.

“Very good,” Klavotesi said. He went on explaining the things she knew about Avristar looking after the seven Lands of Men. Similarly, Avrigard looked after the eleven Lands of Immortals, and Avristyr looked after the five Lands of Beasts. Avrigost looked after nothing because it was a place of chaos. “Do you know where Avristar is on Terra?” Klavotesi asked.

Kaliel sat straighter and stared at him blankly. She didn’t understand the question. Avristar was its own island. She frowned. “Across the lake?”

Klavotesi didn’t emote at all but he hummed, and it was enough to make Kaliel feel queasy. She didn’t want to be wrong when it came to him. The way Clamose treated her like she was a sovereign was confusing enough without Klavotesi spending three moons waiting for her return. He could have gone back to Amaltheia in light of her absence and adolescent longings but he didn’t. He brought out the parchment again and began drawing a circle, then formed land masses across it. There were squiggly lines all over the place and she cocked her head to the side, staring at it. He put the tip of the charcoal on a very tiny island to the north. “We are here,” he explained, moving the charcoal to a place in the middle of the waters where there were no squiggly land masses. “Avristar is here, physically.”

“Physically?”

His hood shook with laughter. “You don’t remember anything from the First Era do you?”

Kaliel looked down at her hands. Clamose had assumed the same. “No,” she muttered, but images of the sky full of fire and smoke hit the back of her mind.

“You need to stop thinking in straight lines and think in spirals. Avristar is hidden, so physically the island is here, but humans can’t see it.”

“Is Terra really that big?” she asked, nudging the map with her fingernail.

Klavotesi sighed. “It’s thousands of times larger than Avristar.”

“Where is Avrigost on this map?” she asked suddenly, taking a closer look at the land masses and trying to match them to the quadrant map she had been shown earlier.

“It isn’t,” Klavotesi said slowly. He let out another sigh and buried his hand in his hooded face as though he were pinching the bridge of his nose. Kaliel straightened her spine, noticing her body was aching again, this time in the backs of her legs. “This is a map of Terra, a land as big as a star, but not as hot as a star. If you look at the sky, lands like these are scattered across them, but they’re invisible. Only the stars shine.”

Kaliel frowned. This wasn’t common knowledge on Avristar. Talking about the Lands Across the Stars was a romantic idea most kinfolk never bothered to explain. She looked at the ceiling, forgetting they were inside, and immediately felt foolish for doing it. “So Avristar is on Terra?” she said slowly, trying to comprehend.

“And it is on Amaltheia.” Klavotesi quickly drew another smaller circle with more squiggly-lined land masses and pointed to the spot where Avristar was. He drew five more circles and pointed to five more places. “And on Arathia, Seventia, Matakasha, Nimphalls and Ronannon,” he explained.

Kaliel’s head was spinning. “Avristar is in seven different places at the same time?”

Klavotesi pulled himself taut and laced his fingers together. She could tell he was beaming. “That is correct.”

“How is that even possible?”