Chapter 27

*****

Screams split the air, ricocheting, rolling over themselves until the sky was full to bursting with terror and pain.

Calyx wasn't sure if they were real or not, so unearthly their echoes. She shook herself, blinking against the fog of night, wondering where the hell she was. Feeling oddly detached from her magic, she lifted her hands and baulked at their ethereal appearance. She flexed her fingers, a disturbed expression clouding her face as she stared at their translucence. She swallowed as she tried – failed – to reach her power. She could feel its echo, but it was muted, and far, far away.

She fisted her hands, rubbing them on her thighs, trying to incite some feeling. Swinging her gaze around, she tried to make sense of what had happened. She was in unfamiliar territory, magically speaking. Slowly, the world came into focus, sight and noise and sensation accosting her in parts – like a stop-motion exit from Betwixt, if such a thing existed.

Torches flared around her, piercing shallowly the darkness, illuminating small flakes of falling snow. Hoarse shouts rebounded – desperate orders to mount a defence. Soldiers rushed back and forth through the thick, frosty night. One sprinted straight through Calyx, stippling a wild chill across her translucent skin.

Had she died?

The last thing she remembered was giving her magic to Nerys…

The flood of soldiers thickened but she moved freely amongst them, unhindered by solidity. She realised she was on the battlements of a stronghold she didn't recognise, and reached out to run a curious finger across the pale marble wall. It was smooth and cool, even to her ethereal touch. She looked up at the glorious rise of a palace on the crest of the hill, visible in the flickering lights of millions of torches. Its marble spires rose proud into the night, glinting in the pale light of the crescent moon. A medley of arches and gables flared like the proud feathers of a white peacock, fanned out in silent tribute to true beauty. It had been built for grace, not as a fortification, that much was clear. Her slender eyebrows arched in pleasant surprise as she drank in the view.

A soft, rasping echo accosted her attention. She turned back, looked out across the black landscape.

And it seethed.

A subtle hissing of husks, the quiet clicking of claws; an exodus of unholy beasts approached through the darkness. The soldiers descended into fresh waves of panic. They fumbled for bows, loosed arrows, yelled through hoarse throats. Calyx stepped to the edge, squinting out. In the distance, flashes of fire illuminated the valley – and the giant, mantis-like skitters that boiled across it. They were headed for the walls, for the beautiful, fragile palace. Calyx looked beyond them, to the glare of firebursts. She realised that the flames were the product of magic – the beasts were being spurred. She narrowed her eyes, scanning between the sparks of light. There! Barely visible, even to her exceptional vision, a silhouette stood on the crest of a ridge, driving the beasts with lashes of flame.

She had little chance to observe further – a giant, shiny beast launched itself over the top of the battlements. Slick, black, and covered in spines, it impaled the nearest soldier by means of two massive scythe-like claws on its front legs. Another followed, and then another, and suddenly the walls were awash with the swarm of skitters.

"Where did they come from?" a wild-eyed soldier shouted, frantically fencing with a pair of bone-scythe limbs, "It's winter, they should be dormant!"

His comrade turned to yell at him to calm himself, to focus, but his head jerked unnaturally high. Up, and up, it tore free of his neck with a spray of crimson. Behind the crumpling body, a skitter reared up in uncanny silence, brandishing its bone-scythe forelimbs as it tossed the head away into the snowy darkness. It took no pause, leaping for the wild-eyed soldier who stood, frozen with fear. The monster's fellows swarmed over the walls in its wake, lashing out with predatory ease. They painted the white battlements red with gore.

Calyx lifted her arms to come to the castle's aid, but her power eluded her. Magicless, her face paled as the creatures raced in her direction, but each passed through her shimmering form as if she did not stand in their way. She pressed against the wall, hugging herself, relieved – and afraid. She could hardly feel her own skin beneath her fingertips… The skitters paid her no mind, swarming past her by the thousand, razing the town beyond, rushing towards the glittering palace.

Time jumped.

Calyx reached out to steady herself, her fingers brushing against smooth marble that she could hardly feel. The world seemed muted, and then she realised that she was indoors – inside the great white palace. She had no idea how she'd got there. She pressed her back against the wall, scouring the room for something, anything, to help her make sense of it all. She was in a chamber, opulently decorated by someone of exceptional taste. Linens the colour of moondust and shadow draped the snowy walls. A large bed occupied the centre of the room, canopied with a dark fabric beset by sparkling stars.

A soft, fearful hiccough caught Calyx's attention. She stared, for under the bed was a child, five or six years old, tiny, and trembling. Her bright eyes were huge, filled with silent tears, her face shadowed by a cascade of midnight hair. She pressed her small fist against desperate lips, trying not to make a sound. Calyx crossed the room with soft footsteps, bent down in front of her refuge.

"Come, child," she whispered, holding her arms wide, "Come, let me help you."

The girl seemed neither to hear nor see her, and Calyx turned to look over her shoulder as she caught a sound in the hall beyond the half-open door.

An eerie quiet fell. The girl wept in silence, trying not to give herself away. Her eyes were fixed wide, seeing through Calyx, flickering to every shadowed movement beyond her refuge. She held her breath as a pair of the horrid creatures entered her chamber. She couldn't see their blind, mantis-like heads, nor their bone-scythe forelimbs, from her vantage, but she could see the heavy talons of their dual-paired rear limbs. Calyx could see the whole of them, half as large as a horse, all spiked, gleaming shells, and long, deadly scythes. Their heads twitched from side to side, mandibles opening and closing as they tested the air. They were horrifying, but she had no fear for herself – only for the defenceless girl. She tried, tried, and failed to summon her power. Hopelessness descended.

The skitters' giant claws clacked on the white-marble floor, drawing nearer.

Click. Clack. Pause. Click-click. Pause.

They made no other noise. They hunted by sound, hesitating every few steps to listen for quarry.

The girl stifled her exhale, shaking hard. Calyx crouched in front of her, desperately calling to her magic, the girl's only chance for salvation.

The monsters shouldn't be here. They should be deep beneath the bulk of the southern Dawn Mountains, sheltering from the encroaching winter. They shouldn't be here... But they were. And only Calyx's ghost stood between them and the vulnerable girl.

The world rocked.

Calyx found she hadn't moved, but time had. She blinked. The girl stood across the room, staring at the charcoaled remnants of the two skitters. She held tight to the strong, slender fingers of her rescuer. The monsters convulsed, still burning, victims of death's hot embrace.

With her back to Calyx, the woman reached out to tilt the child's chin, turning her gaze away from the horror, enticing her to look up into impossibly emerald eyes instead. The girl stared with terrified adoration at the Angel of Fire – her blazing saviour.

"Wh-who you?" the child murmured. Her face was pale, and she'd tucked one finger into the corner of her lip, a gesture of self-comfort.

"I am your future, darling," the glittering woman whispered.

She crouched down to her level, inspecting her. As she turned the girl, she cried out and buckled. The stranger caught her around her waist, supporting her before she fell.

"Oh, darling! You're hurt!"

A quick spell, and a bandage wrapped itself around the child's thigh, binding the shallow slash from a bone-scythed limb.

"You are one lucky little girl," the woman crooned, wiping her tears.

The girl sucked on her finger, stared down at the bandage, and then tugged on the woman's hand. She hiccoughed. "Want mama!"

The woman reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "Your mama is gone, darling, the monsters got her. But they won't get you, I will keep you safe."

The girl stared, trying to understand.

"No monsters?" she said.

"No monsters," the woman promised.

She stood up, offering her hand again. Hesitant, the girl took it.

"Don' leave me," the child whispered.

"Never, darling."

They turned for one last look at the broken room, the shattered monsters, and Calyx's blood ran cold. In the pale moonlight, she made out the woman's haughty face – one she knew all too well.

Realisation hit her all at once, chilling her to her core. It was Fayne who had driven the monsters out, used them to swamp the castle. Fayne, who had engineered the massacre of an entire city. Fayne, who had come to claim her future weapon.

For the child, dark-haired and amber-eyed, was Nerys.

*****