7

  In ceaseless tides, mankind shall ever dwell,

  Three fated threads in hand, they weave their tale

  To speak their tongues where truths’ own shadow fell,

  To stain the earth with crimson, cold and pale

  And yet, beneath the weary stars they sigh,

  With hope as bright as dawn

  For as they are, so shall they ever be

  Lying, bleeding, hoping.

  The time was before sunrise. As I woke up, sweat was dripping on my forehead. The dream I had wasn’t the reason I awoke, but the shrilling sound I was no longer used to hearing. My room looked no different than it did before, same wooden bed, same broken walls I punched into, rotten smell in the air.

  The door kicked open.

  Standing in the doorstep was Esmeray holding a head in her head. There was no emotion on her face but the tear that slowly dripped to her cheekbone.

  ?What the fuck is this?”

  Esmeray raised Mercer’s head.

  ?He was in the Valley, alongside..” She stopped.

  I found myself standing in front of her, grabbing her collar like a madman.

  ?Alongside what?”

  ?Alongside his suit. Red stained.”

  ?~ [?] ~?

  The Valley stretched out before us, broken and bleeding under a sky the color of old bruises.

  Esmeray stood beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat of her through the cold.

  “They're waiting,” she said, voice low, almost reverent.

  I nodded. My hands itched for a blade, for anything to hold onto besides the fear gnawing at my ribs.

  “Are you afraid?” I asked.

  She didn't answer at first. She watched the horizon where the enemy moved like a storm rolling in.

  Then, quietly:

  “Not of them.”

  I turned to her, studying the curve of her mouth, the scar that split her left eyebrow, the thousand wars living behind her eyes.

  “Of what, then?”

  She glanced at me, and for once there was no weapon in her gaze. Only something rawer.

  “Of leaving things unsaid.”

  My throat tightened, but I said nothing. Words were a battlefield I had never learned how to win.

  She stepped closer, until her forehead almost brushed mine.

  “Bright one, if we die,” She whispered, "know that I was yours before you even saw me."

  I could have kissed her then. I could have dragged her into the dirt and buried us both in the blood and the sorrow and the wanting.

  Instead, I pressed my forehead to hers, just for a breath, a heartbeat, a sin.

  “Then you were mine,” I whispered back, “before I even knew how to lose.”

  The war screamed for us beyond the Valley. I thought I saw the Wraith at the edge of the firelight, hands outstretched, mouth moving in prayers I could not hear.

  But no one else looked.

  No one else saw.

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  Maybe they never had.

  ?~ [?] ~?

  The wind howled through the broken stone teeth of the Valley.

  I pulled my hood up, but the cold gnawed through the fabric, through my skin, through the marrow of my bones.

  Around us, the assassins gathered like revenants, silent, white-clad, weapons glinting with the last sick light of the dying sun. Esmeray fell into step beside me, her shoulder brushing mine.

  She didn’t look at me. Didn’t smile.

  But her hand, hidden by the folds of her cloak, found my wrist.

  Just a touch. Just enough.

  We said nothing.

  What could be said that blood would not speak louder?

  We marched into the mouth of the Valley.

  We marched into ruin.

  ?~ [?] ~?

  The clash was thunder.

  Steel met steel. Flesh split. Bones cracked under desperate hands.

  Blood sprayed the snow, staining it black and steaming in the cold. I killed a man with my teeth when the blade broke in my hand.

  Esmeray moved like a ghost through the chaos, her blade singing low, almost mournful.

  I saw brothers fall. Sisters shatter.

  I saw the Valley itself open its mouth and scream through them. My white armour was ruined within minutes, a tapestry of blood and grief clinging to my skin.

  ?~ [?] ~?

  I found him near the broken altar, waiting like a wolf at the edge of a graveyard.

  Vaelen.

  Betrayer of the Valley.

  My hands ached for his death.

  "Child of ashes," he called me, mockingly, like I was already burning.

  I answered him with steel.

  We collided in the dust and ruin, blades shrieking against each other, teeth bared.

  There was no elegance. No mercy.

  Only bone against bone, hatred against blood, oath against oath. His blade found my ribs first, sinking deep, a cold kiss to the marrow.

  My dagger found his throat a breath later.

  He gurgled against my hands, hot blood spilling in thick ribbons down my arms.

  Even as he fell, he smiled, a hollow, broken thing, as if he had won something I could not see.

  ?~ [?] ~?

  I found Esmeray kneeling in the dust, blood slick on her skin, her breaths shallow and ragged. She was still holding the hilt of the dagger, her fingers white and trembling.

  The realization was both cruel and inevitable.

  I dragged Vaelen’s broken body towards her. My limbs were heavy, soaked in blood and fatigue, but I still had a task to finish. He was hers now. My hands trembled with the weight of him, but I would not falter. Not now.

  Her gaze flickered to me, but she didn’t move. Not yet.

  Vaelen, the Betrayer of the Valley, lay in a heap before her, his throat slit, a pool of crimson soaking into the earth beneath him.

  She was fading, like a candle burning at both ends. I could see it in her eyes, the death creeping up on her, the same way it had taken me. She would not last long.

  His breath still clung to him, like a shadow that won't let go.

  “Finish it, Esmeray.”

  “You’re hurt.” Her voice was raw, strangled.

  I could feel the death in her. It was almost a comfort, this shared wound. But it was also a burden. My burden to bear now, as it had always been.

  “End it yourself. He’s yours.”

  I saw the flicker of recognition in her eyes as I spoke. She had always known what was coming, even when I didn’t want to acknowledge it myself. Her hatred for him had been as sharp as my own.

  Her hand reached out, fingers brushing against his lifeless form.

  She looked at me, her face pale, her chest heaving with each shallow breath. There was a strange, bitter understanding between us.

  Her fingers closed around the hilt of the blade still lodged in Vaelen’s chest. I saw the last of her strength in that grip, the final spark of defiance, as she twisted the dagger.

  As the world faded to black, I felt no triumph, no joy, no relief. Just the quiet pull of darkness, the sound of her breath, and the weight of everything we had lost.

  My knees buckled.

  Esmeray reached me before the ground did.

  She knelt in the blood-soaked snow, cradling me like something sacred, something already gone.

  “Red Bird,” she whispered, voice cracking open like a wound.

  The Wraith stood behind her, tall, pale, waiting.

  I knew, finally, that he had always been waiting.

  “You will live,” I rasped. “You will remember.”

  Esmeray shook her head. Tears streaked the grime on her face.

  “Pray only for sin,” I said, softer this time, as the world slipped sideways.

  The last thing I saw was her, fierce and broken and still standing, the Valley weeping red around her.

  ?~ [?] ~?

  I awoke in the Cove of Sin. Voices were dancing around me but I could not understand them. A firm hand was steadying the back of my head.

  ?Wraith?” I could see him kneeling beside me or maybe it was only the blood making shapes of ghosts.

  I reached for him anyway.

  Hope is a lie we tell ourselves when dying.

  ?Are you here to kill me because I didn’t join you?”

  ?Red Bird. Listen to me, you have to apply pressure, you’re bleeding and we have to stop it.”

  ?Wraith, I see the sky...”

  ?Bright one, it’s me. It’s Esmeray," The voice said, closer now, almost pleading.

  And I saw her, not the boy made of smoke and wasted hope.

  Only her.

  I grabbed her collar, dragging her closer, my blood smearing her throat like a final prayer.

  She caught my face between bloodied hands, her thumb trembling against my jaw.

  "You know I call you that," she whispered, her forehead pressed against mine, "because you were always burning."

  Her voice cracked, splintered apart like dry wood under flame.

  "Because you were too bright to last."

  "Because I knew," she choked, "I knew you would fade before any of us."

  I tried to answer — tried to tell her it didn’t matter, that the burning was worth it —

  but my mouth filled with blood, and the light was already running from me.

  I think she said something — I think she said everything, but the world was already fading.

  ?~ [?] ~?

  They buried the dead that night.

  The Valley wailed in the wind, a sound too old to name.

  Esmeray stood alone at the edge of the world, Red Bird’s dagger clutched in her bloodied hand. The white of her assassin suit was long since ruined, stained beyond redemption.

  In the corner of her vision, she saw a figure, a girl in white, standing at the treeline.

  Red Bird.

  Just for a breath, a blink, a sin.

  She was there, smiling that broken, defiant smile.

  Esmeray closed her eyes.

  When she opened them, the girl was gone.

  Only the dagger remained, warm against her heart.