Page 24 of A Game of Monsters (Realm of Fey #4)

A whistle rang out across the ship. I sat bolt upright in the bed, aching from the deep slumber I had fallen into. Light cut in from outside, proving some hours had passed. Dawn was upon us, and with it a new chance.

Erix and Duncan were still sleeping when the whistle cut the skies. Not wanting to disturb them, I rolled out of bed and made a move toward the top deck.

Rafaela stood where I’d left her, at the bow, as if she’d not moved a muscle in hours. The sun hung heavy in the sky above her, plastering uncomfortable rays down upon the wood. The scent of warmed salt and polish filled my nose, but it was not that which bothered me. Rafaela turned to me, tired eyes wild as she pointed at something in the distance, hand raised to her brow, blocking out the glare of the sun as it sank beneath the islands ahead of us.

“Look,” she shouted, a singular tear rolling down her cheek before being snatched away by the winds. I did as she asked, facing the distance, just in time to watch a collection of islands appear through the mist. One by one, formations of rock and stone revealed themselves, some large and others smaller.

“Home,” Rafaela muttered as more tears fell from her eyes. “I have made it home.”

I understood the feeling she was filled with, looking at a place she likely never imagined returning to. But it was not the islands that she pointed at, but something on them. I didn’t differentiate what she was actually referring to until the ship sailed closer. What looked like portions of stone protruding across the flat islands and rocky crops were actually statues. Hundreds of them. No, thousands. The clear outlines of Nephilim, forged in dark stone, looking out across the ocean as if guarding the shores.

This was our army.

This was Rafaela’s home, not the place but a people – all bound in labradorite and left behind.

What I witnessed was unlike anything I could imagine. The ship slowly passed into the collection of islands, sailing between them. One detail I couldn’t ignore was just how silent of a place Irobel was.

Far in the distance I caught a glimpse of a formation of buildings, white stone buildings of pillars and pitched roofs. But I didn’t get long to drink it in as my name rang out from across the ship.

“Robin.” Erix stood, face drawn in horror. I shivered at the use of my name. But it was the tone Erix called it with that made the blood in my veins thrum.

He must’ve just woken up to find me missing from our bed. Surely that wasn’t enough to spark such fear in his eyes.

Erix fixed his eyes on me, skin pale and wide eyes bloodshot. And an unspoken truth hit me with the force of a thousand arrows to the chest.

“Duncan,” I gasped, already reading the panic across Erix’s face, the taut posture of his body. I knew Erix well enough that I could read him and understand he was worried – no, he was terrified.

Erix broke my line of sight and locked eyes with Rafaela. She released a small gasp, like a broken chirp of a bird. There was only one possible reason she could’ve reacted like that.

Because my horrors where confirmed.

“No,” I whispered before the horror exploded in me like a dying star. Then I screamed, so loud it had the power to wake every Nephilim bound in labradorite. “No!”

Erix reached me before my body hit the floor.

My hands clawed at his chest, my eyes locked to his. “Tell me he’s okay. Tell me, Erix!”

Erix held me close and whispered his reply. “I’m sorry, little bird. I tried to wake him…”

I saw it then, understanding the truth that was held back in Erix’s apology. He wouldn’t lie to me, but he didn’t have the strength to tell me the truth either. All he could do was draw me close, whilst repeating a promise over me. “He won’t wake up, Robin. No matter how I tried, Duncan will not open his eyes… His breathing is–”

“We will save him,” Rafaela snapped, guided by her hope now we had returned. “But for that we must make haste.”

Gyah ran out from the belly of the ship in that moment, eyes heavy with her recent use of Gardineum. “Jesibel, she visited me in my – have I missed something?”

“Duncan is dying,” I said, voice trembling with my pleading. It hit Gyah so hard that any remnants of exhaustion left her expression in a second. “I can’t… I can’t lose him too.”

“What do we need to do?” Gyah asked, focus set across her brow.

“Get him to land,” Rafaela answered, thrusting a pointed finger in the direction of the islands. “Now!”

I jolted forwards but stopped as a firm hand clamped down on my shoulder. Rafaela held me in place, words scarred with command. “There is a chance Duncan will survive, but I still need your consent. I will not do this against your wishes.”

Duncan’s survival rested on the will of a god, a god whose children petitioned to destroy all of fey-kind.

I fixed my eyes on Rafaela, unable to ignore that this was my only option. Giving Duncan over to her for whatever judgement he had to face with the Creator. I didn’t have to like it to know that this was my only chance to save him.

“If he dies…” I couldn’t finish my threat. The words clogged in my throat, like hands tightening around my airways.

Rafaela straightened. “Duncan was born for this. Put trust in me, if anything, and I will uncover all the false truths you have been led to believe. He must now be made if we have hope in him saving the realms.”

Fuck the realms, in that moment I cared only for Duncan. Selfish or not, he was half of me. The best half of me.

“I will only do it if you agree,” Rafaela echoed, refusing to look anywhere else but into my soul.

She knew I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Only she presented an option to me, I was actually without them. It was let Duncan die or give him the chance to live.

“Do it,” I snarled.

Rafaela’s eyes fell on Erix next, and her question surprised me. “What about you, Erix. Do you consent?”

It was a quick moment, but profound. Rafaela understood the invisible ties between the three of us, and respected it enough to ask for his permission, and not only mine.

Erix was quicker to answer. “Save him. I beg you.”

Duncan lay in a pool of cobalt water, his eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest. I refused to look away from him, dared not so much as blink for fear I’d lose him. So I fixated on the rise and fall of his chest, the slight rasp his breath made, not the fact that he was being handed over to the Creator for judgement.

Sunlight speared in through the glassless windows, dusting an unbearably warm breeze over my skin. The water rippled against it, spinning with motes of glitter. This was no mundane water – Rafaela had just explained as much.

I was jealous that the water and winds got to touch him, but I couldn’t. If it wasn’t for Erix holding me to his chest as we watched, I would’ve climbed the shallow steps into the pool and wrapped my arms around Duncan and refused to ever let go.

The pool was one of a kind. It was set into the mosaic flooring in the heart of a domed building. White stone walls offered shade from the overbearing heat. All across them, images in faded pale paints took up space, showing angels with wings, weapons of yellow gold, spilling from the hands of an unseen figure. I hadn’t focused on many details after Erix had told me of Duncan’s condition, but the few I did stuck to me like sap.

The Isles of Irobel were a collection of islands scattered across the ocean. Set beneath a blazing sun, the air curdled with heat, so much so that I was soaked in sweat the moment we disembarked from the ship. What greeted us on Irobel’s main island was silence. Strange, pillared buildings stood empty, stone-laid streets untouched. The only presence of life came in the form of the statues, countless bodies frozen in stone, watching on from hillsides in the distance.

Irobel was a graveyard. Rather fitting, considering Duncan’s life was in the balance the moment we stepped off the pier, as Rafaela ushered us toward our current destination.

“I will ask you both a final time for your consent,” Rafaela enquired from where she stood behind Duncan, waist deep in the bright pool. If she wasn’t holding Duncan by the back of his neck, his body would’ve sunk. “There are still risks. He may not be deemed worthy for the necessary alterations…”

He would. Whatever test or trial Duncan had to face, he would succeed.

I gritted my teeth, finding myself waiting for Duncan to wake up and speak for himself. But if he had, we wouldn’t be here. There was so much he deserved to know about his story, details he never had the chance to know. And wouldn’t if I didn’t accept that this was his only chance of survival.

There was no ignoring how weak Duncan was now. He’d not opened his eyes since last night. His breathing was shallow, and the faint beat of his heart barely enough to rival the beat of a butterfly’s wings.

He was fading – I could not only see it before my eyes but feel it in my soul.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do it,” Erix added.

We held Duncan’s life in our hands. Rafaela had made clear the dangers of this practice. Although the details were faint, my mind unable to hold onto any facts beside Duncan and how close he was to death.

Erix squeezed my hand, never letting go. “Duncan will be fine. He will come out of this, just as he has with all the trials that have been set out before this moment.”

I swallowed the bile in the back of my throat, forcing it deep down. “How can you be sure?”

“Because if I knew I was leaving you behind, I’d fight tooth and nail to get back to you.”

I warmed at his response, clinging to the feeling of hope it offered.

“Even if you had to go against a god ?” My question echoed around the domed room, skipping between pillars and large block walls. Not to mention a god who inspired enough hate in the Nephilim to go against us.

“Even that, little bird.”

“The Creator is many things,” Rafaela reminded, chin jutted. “But his desires are not for us to decide. The assault on the fey is due to Cassial’s warped sentiments, not because the Creator wanted this future. What Cassial and his Fallen desire is not in line with the rest of us.”

I looked at her, dead in the eye. “You say the rest of you, but you stand alone.”

In the dark of my mind I saw the unseen number of statues littered across the terrain of Irobel. The rest of her ‘Faithful’ were bound in stone, guarding the islands like sentinel guards.

“I am not alone,” Rafaela said, laying a hand on her chest. “Nor are you. If only you know where to look.”

I turned to Erix and buried my face in his chest. “I can’t lose him, Erix.” My knees buckled, the force of the very real chance weighing heavy on me.

“Then have faith,” Erix encouraged. “Do not give up on him yet. Duncan is, as you well know, persistent. He has survived a change before, he can do it again.” He lowered his lips to my head and whispered.

“I’m scared,” I admitted.

“Me too.” His hand brushed down the back of my head. “I don’t want to lose him either.”

Knowing my tether to keep Duncan in his realm was not solitary helped, if only a little.

“This is different,” I said, voice shaking. “No outcome is guaranteed.”

“But remember, Duncan is different,” Rafaela reminded me. “He was born for this. Born to be made.”

Small brass bells danced in the winds, casting a gentle sound around the room. It swelled around me, pressing in on my skin, until the very notes were etched into my bones.

“This process is not pleasant,” Rafaela warned. “I would advise that you both wait outside until it is complete.”

“No,” I said, swallowing my weakness, trying to grapple the little strength I had left. “I’m not leaving him. Not for a second.”

I caught Rafaela looking to Erix for assistance, but his silence was refusal enough. When she understood neither of us would leave, she offered us a final warning. “Do not let go of one another. Stay beyond the pool. If you interrupt the ceremony, it will hinder the results… possibly ruin them, in fact.”

It was not a request, but a clear warning.

Rafaela didn’t wait for our agreement, because there was no room for an answer. It was clear and simple. Don’t interrupt, don’t stop the ceremony.

“You’ve done this before?” I asked just as Rafaela reached for Duncan’s lips and parted them with her fingers.

“Many times. I have even faced this judgement myself. The Creator has seen my heart and deemed me worthy – which suggests that He does not support Cassial’s plans. Remember, it is the wielder who is evil, not the weapon. The same sword, in a different hand, can either protect a person or kill them.”

I couldn’t argue her point, nor did I have the energy left to do so.

The bells chimed louder, casting an unnatural ripple over the already unnatural waters. I couldn’t believe what they were at first, not as Rafaela had hurriedly explained the process on our way here.

“After the Game of Monsters, the Creator hid within the cracked and ruined remains of his lands and wept for his loss of Duwar. It is in those tears of grief that we offer our mortal bodies up for judgement. It was from those tears that his first Nephilim were made, from the bodies of his fallen humans, altered and given the Creator’s own strength. And from that day, the practice had continued. If worthy, the transformation will begin. If the Creator does not find an offering worthy, then death befalls them.”

“Please, Rafaela. Do everything you can to make sure he survives this,” I commanded, toying with the idea of praying to a god I had never believed in, or cared for.

But Duncan once did, under the wings of Abbot Nathanial. Comfort came in small measures at the knowledge of that.

I wondered if Nathanial knew the truth about Duncan. All those orphans he cared for; had they been delivered to him for a purpose? How many more people like Duncan lingered in Durmain, left to play a part in this strange turn of fates. He’d told me an angel once came to him, and I put it down to age and a fragile mind.

Now I knew the truth.

“Duncan, I swear you better survive this,” Erix whispered, lip curling as he spoke to the floating body beneath us.

I risked a glance at him again, to find a furrowed brow and determined gaze fixed to the unconscious body in the pool of the Creator’s tears.

When Erix spoke again, it was to Duncan directly. “Do you hear me? Survive this for Robin. For me. Fuck, do it for us. We have unfinished business.”

Unfinished business.

“It is time I begin,” Rafaela said, her gentle fingers still covering Duncan’s mouth.

She swept her gaze between Erix and me, and we both agreed with the bow of our heads. That was all she needed to continue. Rafaela began to mumble strange words beneath her breath. What she said had a rhythm to it, as if she spoke in line with the bell’s chimes.

Slowly, she parted Duncan’s mouth until it was held open. Then, with one hand on his forehead, the other on his chest, Rafaela forced him beneath the waters.

I was expecting it, but that didn’t stop the scream from bursting out of me. Erix locked his arms around my waist, holding me back, as Duncan was held beneath the pool.

His eyes flared open, panic singing in the bright, forest green. He’d not woken since last night, but the fright had just dragged him conscious at the wrong time.

Bubbles escaped his lungs, as the waters flooded into them. He tried to clamp his mouth closed, but he couldn’t.

The damage was done.

Water splashed over the lip of the pool, cresting over my boots in waves. All the while I continued to shout for Duncan, whose frantic eyes searched for me. In the chaos, Seraphine and Gyah rushed into the sacred room. They saw what was happening, combined with my cries, and Rafaela concentrating on her prayer as she offered Duncan’s life as payment to a god.

“Get him out of here!” Rafaela broke her flow enough to shout at us, a wave of power radiating out from her body. It wasn’t magic. It was authority: the command of a Nephilim who was chosen by the Creator as his enforcer. “Now!”

Erix hesitated, but Seraphine and Gyah didn’t. With their help, and brute strength, we were guided out of the chamber, leaving behind Rafaela to continue holding Duncan beneath the pool, her words echoing between stone walls.

As it turned out, it didn’t take long for a person to drown. I noticed, as I was swept away, that Duncan’s body had stopped thrashing, that the rush of bubbles leaving his mouth had slowed – proving no air was left within his lungs.