“I’m on my way.”
I throw on a fresh outfit, a traditional cloak of the nightfolk, allowing for ease of movement with varying limbs and wing structures. The Shadowlands leadership has no need for a fashionable signifier of status or power. The blood dried beneath my father’s claws is enough; the quiet, razor-sharp threat on my mother’s tongue is enough.
General Isek is shorter for a nightfolk, not even seven feet, but carries himself with poise that could never leave his dignity in doubt. His wings are folded neatly at his back like a fresh set of clean clothes. Everything about him in this moment portrays carefully constructed serenity. Beneath, I know in my heart that he must be screaming and screaming for his son until his voice, too, lies in an early grave.
I follow General Isek through the labyrinthine fortress’s halls, despite knowing every path by heart. Where I imagine the dayfolk’s underground hovels must be narrow and cramped, our obsidian halls are broad to accommodate nightfolk height and breadth. Banners of the same twilight shades that adorn my ceiling hang vertically at intervals, occasionally interrupted by braziers of blue flame conjured by our own gifts, tended periodically by the lowest-ranked soldiers.
Windows, though they would let starlight pervade the fortress, would simply be too great a security risk. To leave this place, one must either take flight from a parapet or exit through the main gate, to which we proceed now. The higher-ranked soldiers patrol on rotating cycles; we pass several on our way outside, though I don’t make eye contact with any of them. I feel like my body is proceeding of its own accord.
I don’t fully process what’s happening until we’re completely outside, bathed in refracted starlight from ice and stone, and Isek unfurls his wings, taking to the sky, nodding in the direction of Elysium.
The invasion is now. The execution of the cultists, the overcharge of our army.Now.No time to prepare, no stretch to consider the most effective way to stall or interfere, no readily available opportunity to plead with my father to reconsider. Rather than being gifted by the light, he is determined to consume it, to become it, alongside my mother. Together, they will inflict the full breadth of its barely contained wrath upon the dayfolk, for the sake of their own insatiable appetite for conquest.
“It’s happening, isn’t it?” I look to General Isek. I don’t even have to say what.
Isek’s eyes slide almost imperceptibly away from meeting mine. “I only wish my son could’ve seen it.”
My throat constricts. “Did my father tell you what happened?”
“He died a hero,” Isek says, onyx eyes faraway. “Pushed himself to the absolute limit of his youthful strength. Proved it was possible, but the Diakópsei overcame him.”
I could tell him of the severed head, the squishy noise of its bounce, the strange angle at which it finally came to rest. But I won’t take a hero’s death from little Isek. It’s what should’ve been; it’s the only comfort his father has.
“I’ve planned a moment of honor for your son. If I’d known how soon the rest of the army was to be elevated, it would’ve been well prepared, but alas, this all happened too quickly. Would you forgive me if I flew on ahead, to make final preparations before the overcharge takes place?”
Isek’s eyes flick sharply back to mine, pooling with what I can only read as barely repressed hope. Surely, even being ignorant of his son’s true fate, Isek can’t fully support this heinous escalation. Surely he wouldn’t be the only soldier to stand against my parents’ decision, if he knew others were willing to fight.
Isek finds his voice. “Does the king know?”
“Actually, it’s to surprise him as well. I know he loved your son, too.” The lie tastes like filth, but I swallow the revulsion just long enough for General Isek to bid me farewell.
I fly so fast that my wings sting with every beat, stretched thin as old parchment. Desperate to beat my parents to their intended prize, I plunge like a stone at the first sight of the pit. I land with such force, wings and arms splayed, that the chamber’s walls rumble. Aboveground nightfolk were not expected here again. At once, hooded cultists materialize from the shadows, some bearing stone daggers, others armed with more advanced freezeshot pistols and freezeblades—all with shadowed eyes locked on me, wordlessly demanding an explanation.
“They’re coming,” I say.
“Who?” says a cultist, fingers hovering over their pistol’s trigger.
I raise open palms toward the ceiling, a signal of peace. “My parents. The army. They were never going to be satisfied with one evolution, with one body. They intend to empower the entire army. Wipe out any of you who resist. Take that army to the Daylands, exert absolute authority over the planet. Please, you must understand—”
“So you came to warn us?”
My teeth worry at my lower lip. “A warning wouldn’t be enough.”
I hear the clicks of countless triggers ready to snap and unload freezeshot into my body, dropping me like a batbeast for this ill-advised intrusion. One Elysian lifts her voice. “Then what are you proposing?”
Briefly, I pause, considering what I’m about to do. There’s no turning back from this. If I go through with my plan, I’m seizing my parents’ title—and these Shadowlands—for myself. For little Isek, for the innocent dayfolk, and for every nightfolk soldier who would otherwise throw themselves into a useless war for endless conquest.
I don’t want to hurt the people who made me. But I can’t let them recklessly hurt everyone else. Molding our people into killing machines. Slaughtering a society that has left us in peace.
I suck in a deep, cold breath. Fill my lungs to bursting before I let it go. Then I summon every ounce of azure energy I can muster, a starburst of gifted power exploding out of me, blinding every cultist—and myself, too. I lunge sightlessly forward, barreling through shouting Elysians, hoping to the Beyond that my memory of the path to the Diakópsei is correct. More Elysians materialize out of corners and angles as I sprint, full throttle, but no one here was prepared for visitors. If my parents and the army had gotten here first, they would’ve made quick work of everyone. But I merely crash through every obstacle, slamming every cultist to the floor so that they might not pursue me. Some of them shriek when they land. I hope I haven’t broken any innocents’ bones,but I can’t afford to be gentle right now if I’m going to reach my goal without being restrained.
No, what gentleness I have left in me, that which even my parents’ harsh hands could never kill, has come here to die.
At long last, following the radiant asteroid’s light, I stagger into the Diakópsei’s host chamber. I stride forward as if confident, my gait unbroken, palms open, wings folded in resignation against my back, heart pounding through every inch of me. Only one thing can overpower a monstrous king.
A monster all the worse.
A scream in my throat, my own blood salty on my tongue, I throw my entire body upon the Diakópsei, embracing it with both hands, calling its power into myself. Blue light floods my vision. I collapse, and sharp rocks bite into my knees, but I barely register the pain. Impossible, supernatural strength courses like poison through my veins, the kind of cold that brings with it a vicious, cleansing burn. It burrows into the marrow of my bones, pumps my muscles to absurd proportions. I think there are Elysians behind me, terrified, shouting, but all I can clearly hear is my own voice, unmoored, screaming and screaming and screaming. The Diakópsei hears me, extends to me the purest gift, one my body can no longer refuse.
