The response was instantaneous. The depraved beings rushed at the pixie-like woman like a vat of boiling oil dumped from a murder hole. They crashed over her, tearing at her limbs, yanking at her skirt. The wind shrieked and shoved at their sweaty, blood-crusted bodies. Soon, the woman was buried beneath the frenzied mass.
They would tear her apart like animals ripping bark from a tree. They would break her limbs and fracture her bones. The wind ripped around them, shoving at the screaming beings.
The solemn man stood at the edge of the frothing madness. He stared at the pile of creatures, his eyes a flat, pitiless gray.
He was about to turn away when a leaf-shaking, bare-branched moan erupted from the pile of beings. The solemn one paused and watched, riveted, as the depraved began to weep. Then, as one, they shuddered, withered, and disintegrated like dried leaves in the fall.
The solemn one let out a stunned breath.
The wind rushed toward the pixie-like woman as she stood and wiped the dust from her torn clothing and her hands. The leaf-dust floated around her, and the wind blew it away.
The only beings left in the room were the pixie-like woman, the solemn man, the new ones, and the wind.
The pixie-like woman shook her head as if she were disappointed in the man. “What are you thinking? You can’t kill death.”
He smiled. “I can try.”
“How long have you been here?”
The solemn man looked around the room, his eyes narrowed, lips moving. The wind realized he was counting the heads. It huffed, sweeping all the dust around the ugly room.
“997 days,” he said finally, “and 998 nights.”
The wind whistled. Time was a strange thing. Humans could feel the weight of it pressing down on them. Sometimes, it weighed more, and in some places, it pushed them so quickly toward the grave that they were buried beneath it. Time had avalanched over the solemn one in this den, while outside, it had barely moved a breath.
“Nearly three years,” the pixie-like woman said. “Hmm. For us, it’s only been a few days.”
The solemn one gave the woman an arrested stare, as if he were witnessing the birth of a strange creature he’d never known existed.
“If it makes you feel better, she tried to come back for you.”
“I don’t care,” he said, and the wind knew he truly didn’t.
“What did you have to do to survive here for three years?”
The solemn one gestured to himself. “I didn’t survive. I ruled.”
The woman laughed, and the wind flinched at the sound. “Well. Then I’m sorry to take you away from your kingdom. But . . . it’s time to get out of this place.”
The solemn one shook his head. His tentacles stretched toward the woman. “Can’t. I am this place.”
The wind swung backward as the solemn one’s tentacles rushed at the woman. They spun around her, gobbling up the light. They were the viscous, vicious, horrible heart of depravity. The wind shied back, shoving at the black coils. They swarmed the woman, taking bites from her skin, ravaging her flesh.
The wind screamed. The black tentacles wrapped the woman to the solemn man, tying her against him. They fed on her, smothering her in blackness. The room went dark, all the firelight extinguished.
The wind hid beneath the solemn one’s chair.
“I won’t bow to the leggerock again,” the solemn one swore. “I won’t do his bidding. I won’t be his Knife. I won’t bend to his will. I’ll never go back. I’ll die before I go back.”
The wind shuddered at the promise. Beneath the words was the quiet moan of weeping. They were the tears of the bereaved. The widows. The orphans. The left-behind. They were the bitter regrets and the sorrowful longings. It was the pixie-like one drawing death into her.
The black clouds screamed and rushed at the woman. The tentacles swarmed her, darting and stabbing. She pulled them into herself, swallowing the darkness whole. The tentacles unwound from the solemn one, yanking free of him.
“No—” he shouted.
He broke off when the pixie-like woman yanked the final tentacle free. He collapsed in a heap at her feet.
The black clouds shrieked and then fled, leaving the room to darkness and silence.
