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FATE IS A BITCH

Ryther

I fly low, those strange, beautiful membranes instinctively batting to crush the air, racing for time. I don’t let myself think of the fact that the only heartbeat I hear is mine. I don’t let myself notice that in the dim morning light, the inert body in my arms feels colder.

She’s not dead. She can’t be. The marks prove it.

They run along her legs, her torso, her arms, snaking across her limbs like they have a life of their own, mirroring the ones that appeared on my skin.

I wasn’t surprised to see them. I wasn’t surprised to feel the bond click into place the moment I stopped ignoring what I knew. What I’d felt from the start.

Darina Thorn, cursed child, changeling, ironsider, queen.

And mine.

She was always mine. I wonder if I’ve known ever since I laid her down on that stone, frozen in time, a thousand years ago. It’s likely. I’ve felt like I’ve been waiting for her return since. I told myself I was expecting the heir to the high queen’s throne, so that she might seal the gates at the heart of Ilvaris, or chase the eldritch, or even tame the court. But between the few lords who care more than for the world than their own happiness, and my brother and I, we were managing all that.

What I wanted and needed was her, so that my life might start.

And now, she’s dead.

Or something close to it.

The journey doesn’t take long, as crows fly, and for the first time, I am one of them in earnest.

They called me the crow king as a jest, an insult that long ceased to have any sting. I am a Crow, issuing from the royal line of court of wings, but failing to don my own wings as a child meant a one-way trip off the highest tower of the highest mountain. One I only survived by the will of the high queen. I was disowned, disavowed, and ceased to use the name, shedding it for the one Morrigan called me instead. Ryther.

Then one day I found him, small and broken on the ground, doomed to die. I don’t know what pushed me to bond myself to it. All around me, the other children of the gentry were bonding to beasts with powers and strength. But I claimed him, letting him take my strength to mend his own broken wings. Crow has been with me since, and I was bestowed the name again by my peers.

The wings behind my back are velvety soft, featherless—closer to a bat’s than a bird’s, but the flock riding the wind around me doesn’t care. It’s long accepted Crow as their leader—the oldest, wisest of them—and me as something like a friend or protector. I’ve never had cause to require their aid before today. I wouldn’t have known to call; it’s not in my nature to ask for help. Turned out, I didn’t need to. Their many wings split the air in such a way, my first flight is smooth, unencumbered, and much faster than it would have been.

I don’t want to think of what would happen if her body was left too long. Those of pure, ancient fae blood don’t rot like mortals and lower beings, but would she start to morph into a tree? A mushroom?

I tell myself I’ll never have to find out.

We’re already here, at the heart of Ilvaris, the very place where I told Caenan that if Darina dared approach without me, he was to kill her on sight. Because I knew her blood would draw her to the gate, marked by two ancient trees, one yew, one oak, bending to embrace one another and mark the edge of the portal leading to the center of our world.

There are things beyond those gates, powers who whisper to the folk in the night, telling us all to come, and worship them. Praise them. Give them our energy, our prayers, our very lives.

Things that cannot be let lose in the world. That should never be free. Ilvaris was created as a prison. The folk were made to guard it. Keep them from destroying the known universe. It’s our entire purpose.

And yet, as I land mere yards away, and stride towards them, I don’t even hesitate.

Moments later, soft padded feet soundlessly fall right behind me, as the great beast that trailed us all the way lands, its wings, not unlike mine, tucking against its dark sides.

Right. Darina’s nixie. I grimace; there’s likely remains of little folk still stuck between its teeth. She’s certainly not company I would have thought—even in the wild, we stay away from their nests—but I can’t command her to go. She’s a wild creature, with a will of her own.

The flock takes to the branches of the oak and yew, watching.

As I step forward, the warriors bonded to the trees stir, their wooden limbs stretching threateningly.

“This is queen Morrigan’s heir, blood of the high queen. She has the right to cross,” I say.

There’s no reply, but the creaking stops, giving way to stillness.

I am meant to be here. All my steps have led to this. I don’t doubt it for a moment.

I see you clear as day. And you’re nothing.

The…absence of matter.

The void of void.

You are to be the Undoing.

The little human girl who saw that fate disappeared from the palace grounds the next day, but those words forever stayed with me. At times, I lied to myself, pretending it couldn’t be more than the rantings of an imaginative child. Then the predictions she made about my brother came to fruition.

I denied it, still. It didn’t seem possible. First, that I’d be foolish enough to have anything to do with the Undoing. Second, that I’d have the means to access the heart of Ilvaris in the first place. Queen Morrigan certainly wasn’t going to bleed to give me the privilege.

But here we are.

The girl in my arm is cold, her skin pale. The soft hair falling to my shins is no longer blue, or even reddish blonde, as it is when the unconscious human glamour she wore for years clicks into place, but completely washed of any color, white as a blank sheet. I don’t let it trouble me. She’s Morrigan’s child; the queen was known for shifting eyes and hair. Just moments ago, Loch demonstrated the same ability as his appearance changed again and again, before he settled on his favorite blond locks.

It doesn’t have to mean anything.

Except that she’s not strong enough to sustain any color at all.

My jaw tightens as I lift her small frame so she’s seated in the crook of one of my arms. I take her palm, changing one of my nails to a claw, and pressing it into the pallor of her skin.

Her blood is ink black, and stinks of iron after she plunged that dagger right into her heart rather than her Loch’s.

I should have seen it coming. Of course she couldn’t make things easy and simply murder her smug, annoying brother like any hag would have. He was willing enough. Prepared for it. But Darina isn’t only the blood of the high queen, a Harthorn. She’s also a Thorn, full stop. Raised by humans. She wouldn’t have easily understood the brutal, wild ways of the folk; especially mere moments after losing her parents.

She said she imagined a brother. Heard his voice. She’s loved Loch longer than she knew he existed. And love, like iron, is poison to the folk.

I hope I never grow to love her. It’s bad enough that every single part of me needs her. Enough to do this, though it’s against everything I believe in.

I bring her hand to the immaterial barrier between the yew and oak, and a wave of power pulses under my feet, shaking the island, and likely the rest of Ilvaris. A warning.

I ignore it.