Kill your darlings, p.16
Kill Your Darlings, page 16
Yikes, super awkward. I know my friends’ histories, but this is one aspect of the world I did not dwell on. The romance in my books was always fade-to-black, and whatever happened on the pages had a strictly PG rating.
“That’s a garbage artifact from the stupid patriarchy,” I say, waving aside her concerns and hoping my blush will be mistaken for reflected firelight. “If someone is good and pure of heart, the unicorn will come when they call.”
She snorts. “You’re putting a lot of misplaced trust in me, pal.”
“Goodness does feel like an imprecise unit of measurement,” Valen adds. “I thought we’d have something more concrete to go on.”
“You want concrete, you’ve got it.” I take Rexa’s hand and pull her forward. It’s the first gentle touch we’ve shared, but she tolerates it. “We have the only animal telepath in Eldria on our side. You have an amazing power, Rexa. You’re strong and fierce, and you are good. I know that in my heart, because I know your heart.”
Rexa’s face—so often hard with resolve or anger—softens. “That was sweet enough to give me a gods-damned cavity. Careful, or I’ll start to think you’re flirting.”
“I don’t know how to flirt,” I reply matter-of-factly.
“You sure?” she says in a suggestive undertone, wiggling her brows as she releases my fingers. Her catlike eyes glint yellow as they flick toward Valen and back to me.
“Very sure.” I want to make that point clear. I haven’t forgotten our little conversation in the library.
“That’s what Kyla said, too.” She grabs my arm and pulls me along as she trots toward the midnight gloom of the shoreas. “You want my advice?”
Advice is preferable to threats, so I nod.
“This situation is messy enough without romance complicating things.”
“I happen to agree.” It’s Love Triangle meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and I am way out of my genre element.
“Someone’s going to get hurt,” she says. “Probably Kyla, maybe Valen, and definitely you. So watch your step.”
“Gosh Rexa, I never knew you cared.”
“This doesn’t mean I like you,” she says in an airy voice, leaving me at the edge of the low-hanging boughs. Before she vanishes into the forest, she glances over her shoulder and says, “But I owe you for saving Asher.”
For a moment, the cold that’s settled in my bones is replaced with tingling warmth. I smile after her, retreating to the fire to stand watch with my friends.
We wait between the shining forest and mirrored lake for two hours as Rexa works alone. Everyone else is tense, ready to surge into the trees at any sign of distress—but in my silent vigil, I’ve found a strange peace. I trust Rexa to do what needs to be done. And if I’m not mistaken, she might be learning to trust me. The closeness we shared, however brief, reminds me of something. Someone. Someone whose name and face I can’t recall, but whose unseen presence in the shadows of my soul keeps me warm.
While admiring the moons above, the forgotten moon of my home planet rises in my memory. A distant echo of guilt—or is it sorrow?—reverberates in my heart. I’m not too proud to admit that Earth was beautiful in its own way.
No, I take that back. I’m way too proud. I’d never admit it aloud, but I can admit it to myself in the privacy of my mind.
When I return, maybe I should focus less on the drama of publishing and contracts and revisions. Maybe I should return to my roots, the real reason I started writing.
I bled my soul onto my pages—bled too much of it, which perhaps is part of the reason I became entangled with Kyla and ended up here. I spilled my innermost truths in black ink on perfect-bound cream paper, hoping to say something that meant something to someone, somewhere. Hoping to find connections through my words.
Before I sink too far into my muddy memories of Earth, eldritch light spills through the tangle of shorea branches. Rexa’s returned from her sojourn. And behind her, emerging from the forest, a creature strolls out of legend and into reality.
The unicorn walks on long, willowy legs. Its cloud-spun mane floats on the air. Its pale, glossy hide is alight with shards of gold and silver, fire and stars. The shining horn on its brow is nearly three feet long, tapering to a diamond point. It floods our surroundings with soft brilliance.
The unicorn’s effortless beauty steals my breath. It stops at the edge of the trees, but Rexa continues, returning to us. My friends clump together in silence, awestruck.
“Good news is, I found the unicorn,” Rexa says unnecessarily. “Bad news is, before it agrees to help, it wants to pass judgment. Too many humans have stolen unicorn horns for evil. I passed the test, but all of you must, too.”
“No problem,” I say, certain my darlings will pass with flying colors.
“The test is a little off-putting,” Rexa warns us. “It seems dangerous, but no harm will come of it. Unless you’re found unworthy, in which case you’re out of luck.”
Doubt trickles in, dampening my confidence. My darlings are worthy—of that there’s no question. I, on the other hand, am a walking dumpster fire.
“I’ll go first.” I step forward. If something goes wrong in this phase of the plan, it’ll go wrong because of me. As I pass her, Rexa slugs me on the shoulder. “Ow!”
“Just be yourself,” she says, “and you’ll be fine.”
Being myself is what I’m afraid of. Kyla is the hero, not me. I can pretend to be good and brave all day long, and without magic in my soul, no telepaths can see the awful, incriminating truth. Pretending is one thing I’m good at. I did it for years on Earth. Hell, I’ve even fooled Rexa.
Somehow, I doubt my veil of lies will withstand the unicorn’s test.
It plods forward on delicate cloven hooves, meeting me halfway between the trees and lake. My footsteps are leaden. I feel like this is my walk to the gallows. If I ruin this like I’ve ruined everything else in my life, what will become of the quest? Of Solera?
Of me?
The unicorn’s iridescent eyes fix on mine. An aura of timelessness shimmers within those indigo orbs. It dips its narrow muzzle with excruciating slowness, a drawn-out drop of the headsman’s ax.
I stay the course, because failure is not an option. The diamond point of the unicorn’s horn comes to rest over my anxious, racing, unworthy heart.
We stand for a moment, an eternity, creatures of light and darkness facing off.
Then the horn pierces my chest.
Chapter 16
There’s no pain when the shining horn punctures me. My chest heaves as I draw labored, fearful breaths, but the horn continues its inexorable motion toward my core.
Let me see into your heart.
A shuddering gasp breaks from my lips. The unicorn’s disembodied voice echoes inside me, rippling from my heart to my brain like waves on the surface of a still pond.
Do you want my magic for selfish reasons? the unicorn asks.
No, I think, because I can’t summon the strength to speak. The horn connects us, transmitting my reply. Threads of light pulse in the spiral crevices of the bony protrusion, like neurons firing electrical impulses. I want your magic so I can save my friends.
Why do you want to save them?
My heart roars a staccato song in my ears, hammering as it tries in vain to flee the horn that thirsts for it. This strikes me as a stupid question with an obvious answer, but I suspect saying as much will not help my chances. Because I love them.
Solera fades around us, colors bleeding together and twisting in a cyclone of light and magic. I close my eyes against the visual stimuli, but the storm rages on behind my closed lids. It’s a vision of Asher and Rexa. Wistful fondness throbs in my chest, creating pressure around the embedded horn.
If I save them, if I do this one good thing… maybe I can make up for all the not-good things I’ve done in my life.
So you seek to atone for your sins, the unicorn concludes. What did you do that requires redemption?
The vision of Asher and Rexa sharpens, distracting me from my defense. We’re laughing and chatting, clustered around my computer, streaming a cheesy 80s animated flick.
Wait. That’s not right. This isn’t a vision. It’s a memory, more distinct than anything I’ve experienced since coming to this world. That’s Earth I’m seeing. My Earthling best friend, my cousin, and me. The unicorn has dredged my deepest desires from my soul, manifested them before my eyes.
The vision shifts, and my ghostly Earth-self is no longer laughing. She’s withdrawn, guarded. When she smiles it pains me, because I see emptiness where there should be emotion. When she laughs it makes my flesh prickle, because I hear how fake it sounds.
She walks away from them, the only people in her life, and when they call after her, she doesn’t look back. A heaping portion of happiness served to her on a silver platter, yet she can’t taste it. An echo of long-lost contentment lingers on her tongue, turning to ash.
I don’t know what I did, I confess to the unicorn. All I know is I did everything wrong.
I exorcised friends and family from my life, isolating myself and forgetting them. It was my fault. I failed them. Things fell apart.
I allowed things to fall apart.
Revulsion billows from my gut, swarming around the horn and burning my throat. I hate her, that girl. I hate the fact that she walked away from everything. And I know, I know she was tired—too tired to try—but seeing her like this, watching her ruin things when the solution seems so glaringly obvious, I want to throttle her.
She wasn’t worthy of her Earthling friends then, and I remain unworthy to this day. I hope the horn lacerates my galloping heart. I hope my most foolish, most vital organ shreds itself to pieces on the unicorn’s test.
I see conflict in you, says the unicorn. Darkness and light at war.
No shit. Though I try to keep this particular thought to myself, I get a sense the unicorn has heard. Oh well. RIP me.
The ripples of your fate will spread across the sea to touch far distant shores. The threads of your life are interwoven with those around you, in this universe and the next, in patterns you can never comprehend. The unicorn’s voice is a mere whisper in my head. Go then, and save your world.
As quickly as the vision appeared, it vanishes. Gone is that empty ghost of a girl, snuffed out in a hurricane of shadow and light. The vision’s colors whirl together, like water down a drain, and disappear from view.
I find myself trembling in Kyla’s body before the unicorn. Our connection is broken—it’s already moving on to its next victim, its indigo eyes fixed on Cendrion. My fingers fly to my chest, but there’s no wound. Not even a tear in the fabric of my shirt.
“Kyla?”
I whirl and face my friends. They’re watching me, tense and expectant.
“I guess I passed, right?” I ask, glancing at Rexa. She grins and gives me two scaly thumbs up.
“How was it?” Cendrion asks, bracing for impact as the unicorn advances on him. The subtle crinkling of his snout suggests he’s afraid.
“Not bad.” Though my voice is steady, my innards quake with the aftershocks of stressful conflict. The memory I glimpsed during my internal conversation dangles by threads too weak to support its weight. It falls away from me, like a dream that dissolves upon waking.
The unicorn’s horn pierces Cendrion’s armored chest with the ease of a warm knife sliding through butter. His eyes snap to mine, and a jolt of emotion ricochets between us.
How will the unicorn’s light react to Cendrion’s inherent darkness?
Yet no sooner has the horn pierced Cendrion than it retracts without leaving a mark. The dragon’s taut muscles slacken with relief. He and I share a tiny nod. Regret sparkles in his moon-bright gaze. Though I long to ask what the disembodied voice whispered in his mind, I keep my mouth shut. It’s bad enough we were forced to confront ourselves once; I won’t make him relive his visions a second time.
Thrice more the unicorn repeats the process, on Valen, then Fyr’thal, then Asher. By the time the creature pierces his flesh, I’m sure we’ve won—until it tosses its maned head violently. Its horn snaps in two, half remaining on the creature’s brow, half lodged in Asher’s heart.
“NO!” I lunge toward my friend, terror exploding through every nerve and synapse.
But Asher calmly lifts his hands, grasps the broken horn, and pulls it from his chest. He, too, remains unblemished from his ordeal.
The unicorn dips its head, its half-horn glinting: a silent blessing for our quest. Then it canters toward the forest, dissolving into the night.
“We have our weapon,” Asher whispers.
Shaking with nerves, I stare at the broken horn held flat on his palms. It shines less brightly now that it’s no longer attached to its owner, but still it shines. Sparkling molecules of natural light dance across its translucent surface.
I reach out and run my thumb along the jagged edge, the place where the horn snapped. To my horror, its bioluminescence dims. The edge flakes beneath my fingers, tiny pieces crumbling into platinum dust.
I yank my hand back. The horn’s glow returns once I’m gone, but it’s fainter.
“What the blood just happened?” says Rexa. She looks at me for answers, but I’m as shocked as she is.
“The horn’s fragile on its own,” says Asher. “I can craft something to stabilize it, but I’d need the right materials to work with. The earth elements on this mountain aren’t ideal.”
“We’re headed somewhere that might have useful supplies.” My voice is low and tremulous. “The Sky Archipelago.”
“Will it survive the journey?” asks Rexa, nodding at the horn.
“It will.” Asher’s voice is filled with quiet confidence. “It’s resilient, it just needs some support and a gentle touch.”
He raises his eyes from the horn and gazes at us, smiling. “We’re halfway there.”
Asher’s optimism is bracing, but we are absolutely not halfway there. We’re not even halfway to the Galvian coast.
We rest for a few short hours and set out at dawn, forging north. For three days we fly, zigzagging between Shadow-occupied cities to steer clear of our enemy. I don’t need the map in the book I “borrowed” from the Imperial Library to tell me what places to avoid—I know the geography of Eldria inside and out.
The mountains fade into a tiered landscape of elevated steppes and sunken forests. It should be gorgeous, but the farther north we press, the more the land withers.
“It’s the Shadow Lord’s poison,” Cendrion growls when we make camp on our fourth night.
We’ve stopped on the outskirts of a deserted town where the earth has sickened. Pitch-black splotches stain the ground. Withered plants dot the clearing where we’ve hidden. Desiccated corpses of small things, tucked into dusty corners where they crawled away to die before their time, fester in the shadows. A faint breeze stirs the morbid glade, wafting the scent of decay toward me. Once the putrid taste is in my mouth, I can’t get rid of it.
Something about this doesn’t feel right. Zalor’s power is deadly, yes—but this destruction, mindless and random, isn’t how darkmagic works. Whatever did this, it’s darker than darkmagic. More sinister.
It almost feels like a lack of magic is making this place die.
I cast that notion aside. There are plenty of things about Solera that I don’t know. I’m not the omniscient god I believed I was. Zalor is the Big Bad, the ultimate villain. It wouldn’t make sense to introduce something worse than him so late in the game.
Our fifth day of travel dawns, blustery and cold. Valen’s forced to hold me close on the flight to keep me warm, and I thaw at his touch.
In the late afternoon, he whispers, “Tell me about your world.”
“My world?” I twist on Cendrion’s back to give him a skeptical look. “Why would you want to hear about Earth?”
“I’d love to have a firsthand account of an alien planet. The fact that there’s other intelligent life in some far corner of our multiverse has staggering scientific implications.”
Of course. Ever the scholar.
“I d-don’t remember much.” A shiver runs through me. It’s not because I’m freezing—it’s because when I try to summon memories of Earth, nothing comes. It’s one big, dark blank. “And there’s not much to tell.”
“A friendly tip: saying ‘there’s not much to tell’ makes for a poor story. I’d think a professional author would be more inventive.”
I shake my head at the gentle teasing and lean into his warmth. Closing my eyes, I try to summon something, anything, from the darkness. At first, nothing happens. I seek an anchor, a lifeline in the vast vacuum of my mind. With agonizing slowness, I unearth the forgotten foundations of my identity.
“I had friends,” I murmur.
“Did you?”
I elbow him and he laughs. “Yes. When I thought Solera was something I’d made up, I based my characters on them. There was…”
I struggle to think of the name, willing the information to come to me. It’s like a dream, a dream I once knew by heart. And if I’m lucid, I can control the dream.
Focus. Think. Remember.
“Eric.” The word is a whisper, borne away on the biting wind. “He was my best friend. We grew up believing in magic together. I always felt safe with him because—”
I falter, and we fly in silence for a few moments. Valen doesn’t push me.
“Earth wasn’t as accepting as Solera,” I finish at last, skirting the edge of memories I’m not willing to examine, truths I’m not ready to tell. “He and I were different. He knew it long before I did, but that’s why I latched onto him. We were different in a similar sort of way. Other people didn’t understand me, but he always did.”
“He sounds a bit like Asher.”
I embrace the recovered memory of my Earthling friend, welcoming it home. “He is. We lived in a cruel world, but Eric never let it break him.”
“What of your family?”
“Oh, I was kinda the black sheep of my family. That’s why I clung to—”
To who? My stomach drops. Who was the mysterious, warm presence Rexa reminds me of? Her name’s on the tip of my tongue, but her memory hovers just beyond reach. I focus on the idea of her, trying to sharpen it.
