Talan landed lightly beside it. For a moment he gazed upon the hideous monument before he called to the fire that waited impatiently outside. It rippled into the chamber, licking up the eggs and larvae that writhed agonizingly as the flames devoured them. The Queen’s corpse cracked and popped like the driest, most flammable wood. Talan stepped out of the chamber as it erupted into a sizzling inferno.
The children still battled the last huddle of Gigeron. He lifted his hand with a weary sigh. The same force the Queen had used on him flattened the knobby creatures; they shattered against the walls before they could utter their death cries. Talan walked over to examine who it was the children had fought so hard to protect. What he saw almost caused his heart to shatter in its cage.
The body that that was strewn across the rubble was Skye.
Chapter 7 — Pyrrhic Victory
She was limp and broken, a doll trampled and discarded by a vindictive child. Numbly, Talan gathered her in his arms. He trapped the sob that swelled in his chest, held it fluttering helplessly inside. It was too late for tears, too late for regrets. All of his rage, all of his vengeance washed away in the face of his sorrow. He had destroyed the Queen, yet her mocking laughter still rang in his mind.
Even in death, she still defeated him.
“We tried to stop them,” one of the dirty-faced children said. Tears carved tracks down his cheeks. “They were too strong for us.”
“It’s not your fault,” Talan said, his voice hoarse. “The fault is my own.” Skye felt light as a bag full of broken feathers, and he wanted to howl until his voice shattered. Instead he gazed at the throngs of children that had gathered around. There were more than he had allowed himself to see; row upon row of anxious eyes stared at him, forbidden hope flickering in their wide, haunted eyes. They were his responsibility now. His burden.
His treasure.
“We leave this place.”
The ascent was long and laborious, but the taste of freedom gave them fuel that strengthened their limbs, boosting them up the jagged stairs, up out of the pit of shackles and broken spirits. At last they rose from the depths, blinded by a brilliance that some of them had forgotten existed, something that shimmered like the brightest of jewels.
Daylight.
They spilled into the banquet hall, where they interrupted the Faelon in the midst of their dancing and feasting. The cherubic creatures cowered and shrank back in terror from the swarm of dirty, tattered children led by a blood-spattered demigod cradling a body in one arm, and in his fist a sword that shone like the sun.
The Faelon fled, taking to skies and dashing out the doors, overturning tables and scattering bejeweled goblets of food and drink in their haste. Talan let them run, though in his heart he wanted to slay all of them, to shave off their wings and hear their screams gurgle in their throats.
But his vengeance was spent, his hatred tempered by the price he carried in his arms.
He walked with eyes straight ahead, ignoring the overflowing tables of delicacies, the tainted spoils of the Faelon as he led his people to the walls of the city.
He lifted Muse and Focused. The walls groaned in protest, but yielded to his command, glittering curtains of stone that parted before him. The children raced past, out beyond the city where the colors were faded and the air thick with the smell of redwood giants. Talan came last, carrying Skye. The walls of Albriktan sealed behind them, cutting off the view of the Faelon who huddled far back, watching with terrified eyes.
Talan turned, and his breath caught.
For his Focused eyes saw the face of the City; the dull, cracked and ashen walls, the fractured and ruined edifices, the blasted spires. Red, throbbing veins laced the seams; blood vessels with probing electric eyes that pierced flesh and marrow, and sighs of oppression that shuddered the buildings with every gust of the wind.
Talan lifted Muse before his face and Focused every ounce of feeling he had inside, all the grief and despair and hatred until the sword effused so brilliantly that light was all that existed. He hurled the blade with all of his strength.
It span through the air, humming a hymn of loss and vengeance and redemption. It flashed even brighter as it struck the heart of the City with the brilliance of a thousand lightnings.
The scream of the City was almost human as the glass cracked and splintered until the tallest spire fractured; then Albriktan collapsed in glittering shards. It reverberated, a shattered crystal bell that folded upon itself, tumbling into the hive of hollowed foundation that the children had carved for so long.
As the children shouted and cheered, Talan gently laid the body of Skye upon a bed of grass and smoothed her hair from her face. Something grazed down his cheek and spattered across her brow. The tears that he thought had burned out so long ago flooded from his eyes.
The heavens wept along with him, rain streaming from broken clouds as if sharing in his grief. The rain fell gently, until the dirt was washed from Skye’s face and her seraphic features were cleansed entirely. Talan wept a sea of tears; for innocence lost, for torment and pain, for hatred’s vice on his heart, for the blood he had shed.
But most of all, he wept for Skye.
Chapter 8 — The Vow
The rain ceased only when the Talan’s grief abated, and the tears no longer fell. He closed his eyes, focused on the memories of her alive as though somehow he could will her back into existence. But when he opened his eyes, she lay still and lifeless as before.
“So the boy has returned,” a familiar voice said. “Foolish no longer, I see. A strong, courageous warrior boy now.”
A man clad in layered shades of gray strode from the forest, a grizzled wolf at his side. It was the same creature as the fox and the lizard. Talan knew, though he couldn’t say how. What were their names? He frowned in concentration.
Reynar. Reynar and Ash.
Talan stood. “You. You deceived me. You knew I would be captured inside the city.”
“I tricked you?” Reynar raised an eyebrow. “I warned you not to go inside, did I not?”
“Yes, but…” Talan blinked. “…you left the key.”
“The key fell from the tree, young Talan. You were the one who picked it up.”
“But…” Talan fell silent, confused. “Why did you tell me of treasure when you knew I would try to seek it?”
“I knew that you might try. The future is not open to me, nor the intentions of the heart. I can only surmise — nothing more. Indeed there was a treasure to be found.” He gestured to the crowds of children. “And so you have brought them out.”
Talan frowned, feeling anger flicker in his heart. “If they are so precious to you, why did you not rescue them?”
Rain clouds gathered in Reynar’s eyes. “The gate was too small for me, Talan, and their walls unable to be scaled. Their defenses were unlike any man has encountered. I could have gathered an army and laid siege to the city, true, but they would have destroyed the children before surrendering them. They swore that many time when I tried to treat with them. No, lad, the rescue could only come from the inside. You have gone through many pains to come through triumphant. For that, I am sorry.”
Talan looked around. “Where are we? Where is the town?”
“It is gone, Talan.” Reynar’s gaze was saddened. “When you entered the city, you entered a realm where time moved differently. That is why the children never aged, no matter how long they had been held captive.”