“ We both know you’re not up to this.”
Cross didn’t bother hiding his emotions at that point. He called up memories of fallen Southern Claw soldiers. He thought of the wreckage and refuse, the coffins and the funeral services, the songs of sadness and pain.
“ Do you want to know how many have died because of you, ‘Red’?”
“ Is it so hard to call me by my real name?” she smiled. “Margrave Azazeth. You used to revere it, after all. I authored many of the Southern Claw’s laws. I led you through Thornn’s darkest hours.”
“ And then you betrayed us,” Cross said quietly. “All of that time you were leading us, you were setting us up to fail.”
“ You’re an idiot if you believe that,” Red said bitterly. “The Southern Claw Alliance was doomed from the start, and you know it. All of us were. Even the warlocks and the witches that everyone thought were so special, that were supposed to be humankind’s last hope in the war against the vampires, never had a chance. No one could accept the simple truth: if we keep on fighting, we’re all going to die.”
And so she’d taken their sacred codex, the Tome of Scars, the closest thing to a human artifact that they had. It stored the assembled knowledge of all that humans had accomplished in this new and dark world — what they knew of magic, how they used thaumaturgy and science to pull life and resources from a poisoned earth that didn’t want to give them anything, how they’d cheated their own evolutionary demise and had kept civilization going long after it should have failed. It was a handbook for survival in a world turned insane.
There were many who thought it foolish to store so much vital knowledge all in one place. As it turned out, they were right to be skeptical. It was discovered too late that creating the Tome of Scars had been Red’s idea all along. Even at the beginning, when everyone poured their faith and devotion into this woman who seemed to practically be an avatar of the distant and unseen White Mother, Red had planned to steal the Tome, which contained knowledge she could never have amassed on her own. But with the help of scholars, leaders and mages, the Tome had become a living document, a place to record how humanity had endured after The Black. It didn’t matter that there were copies of the Tome: it was the secrets held within that had been lost.
Margrave — Red — fled with the Tome so that she could give its information to an ancient and decrepit vampire seer known only as the Old One. He, in turn, would provide those secrets to the lords of the Ebon Cities.
“ So what do you think they’ll do with it?” Cross asked angrily. “Wipe us out?”
“ You can’t be that naive,” Red said sadly. “The Ebon Cities want this war to end as badly as we do. They’ll use the information in the Tome to force us to stop fighting. My story is not one of genocide, Cross. This is a tale of a surrender.”
“ Bullshit.”
“ Fine,” she breathed. “Bullshit. Either way, the Tome is in the Old One’s hands now. You’re too late.” She stepped closer. “Give it up. The rest of your group died stupidly. You don’t have to.”
“ Why did you do it?” he asked quietly. His words were sharp and clear in the brittle air.
She smiled a surprisingly vulnerable smile.
“ I’m naturally evil, I guess.”
“ We’re in a dream,” Cross said. “There’s nothing that I can do to you here. Even if this were real, you’re much more powerful than I am.” Their eyes were locked. “What could it hurt to tell me the truth?”
“ I was tired of all of the death,” she said at last. “This way, it ends. No more suffering. No more living in fear.”
“ But we want to live,” Cross said. “Life in the Southern Claw sucks…but it’s life. People want to keep on living. We want to survive. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be doing this.”
“ You haven’t seen half of what I’ve seen,” she said, her anger rising.
“ Lady, I’ve seen plenty,” he spat back. “This decision isn’t yours to make.”
“ I was the only one of you that the White Mother would even talk to,” she said. “Of course it was my decision. I was your leader.”
“ You lost that title and any right to represent us the moment you stopped thinking about the Southern Claw…”
“ I was ALWAYS thinking of the Southern Claw!” she shouted, her voice strained with desperation and defiance. “I’ll end the war. I…” She regained her composure in a heartbeat. “It doesn’t matter what you think. It’s already too late.”
The imaginary wind picked up, a reflection of Cross’ anger. He heard the neigh of dark horses. The bloody ebon unicorns from his visions crashed through the trees.
“ You’re afraid that I’ll stop you,” he said. “That’s the only reason you’d even bother appearing here to me now.”
“ I’m not afraid of a pathetic warlock who can’t even muster up the skill to protect his own sister.” Red laughed.
“ Where is she?”
Red nodded towards the line of trees.
Cross saw Snow just inside the canopy. She was bloody and bruised, soaked and terrified.
His spirit was there with her.
The cadre of black unicorns had surrounded them, and prodded the women with their jagged horns.
“ She’s waiting for you,” Red said. “You’re almost there, Cross.”
Cross took a deep breath.
“ You know I have to kill you,” he said.
She nodded, almost sadly.
“ Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do. But to do that, you’ll have to come and get me.”
The sky pulled apart like tissue in water. Everything faded and cracked. Patches of red light punched through the sky. The world became a breaking mirror.
“ I’ll see you soon,” she said, and the sky melted.
Cross’ body shattered like glass. He was ripped back into the waking world.
TWENTY-ONE
Cross woke on his back, looking up at the sky. Ooze pressed against his sinking body, and greasy water filled his eyes like polluted tears. He lay half submerged in a grave of mud. Everything was brown and black. Night lay beyond the ambient mist, as thick as grease.
He rose, unsteady. He was soaked to the bone. Silver light danced in the distance, a muted aurora. Mud was caked against his face. It was difficult to even stand up in the sludge.
Cross looked around, and found he was alone. The camel had gone, or it had been taken, but if that had been the case he reasoned he’d have been taken, too. Likely the stalwart creature had finally wandered off on its own, bored of a companion who was always unconscious.
He listened for the whispers, waited for the silken touch of his spirit, but, as he feared, she was gone. Again.
Cross wanted to just lie down and be done with it. Angry tears welled up in his eyes. He crouched down heel to haunch, and put his eyes and ears in his hands.
When he opened his eyes again, sometime later, it had grown dark. He was in the middle of nowhere, awash in a sea of inky night, standing in darkness so thick that he could taste it. There was just he and the silence, trapped together in a black prison without walls.
It was almost pitch black by the time Cross started walking. His boots splashed in the mud and marsh, and the cold air froze his clothes to his skin. He still wore his armored coat and had his weapons and alchemy on his person, but he had no food and, more distressing, no source of light. His eyes might as well have been in his pocket for all the good they did him. He could’ve been at the edge of the cliff or about to walk into a wall, and he wouldn’t have even known it.
He walked, bolstered by the thought of seeing Snow again, almost believing it would happen.
Time passed. He couldn’t say how much. Nothing changed. The world remained black and moist and quiet.
Cross stopped, even if he wasn’t sure why. Something felt wrong. He had no spirit to tell him what, and he certainly hadn’t actually seen or heard anything. But he felt something, a sense of a presence in the dark…or maybe an absence.