“I’ll save you,” Aveline’s wish, like a sacred and tolling bell, rocked through Nystali’s mind. The voice was twisted and snapping, like bones bent too far, but her friend was in it still. The artifact at Gattler’s core, like a magnified and resonated in Tali’s chest and pounded against her skull. It was horrible, because there was more pain and anger in it than Tali had ever felt, and it was soul-wrenching, because Aveline held fast.
“Ava!” Nystali screeched, shaking and arching wildly in in Elvan’s arms. Her breath was shallow and fast from the damage Cougal had done, but her lungs found the space to sob. “Ava!” the girl howled, fingers reaching beyond Elvan and toward the Gattler that crashed and staggered back. Death to Nystali had been the fleeting souls of artifacts—torn away, unwilling, into the Star Blade’s grasp. Now she understood the difference between the echoes in majik and the true weight of a human soul flying.
Aveline thought she heard Nystali call for her, and it made her resolve falter for the briefest moment. A million memories pressing at the back of her eyes. She hadn’t known the priestess for so many years, but they’d become fast friends. And Elvan, always Elvan, running madly toward her house at sunrise; a little boy with bare feet and a dream of knighthood. She gripped the axe tighter, and then she was alone.
A strange, sickly green glow on the horizon approached. “Knight.” She heard it, whispering through her very soul. She was certain, at first, it was not her own thought. “Why sacrifice for the ungrateful?” the voice asked. Aveline blinked through the empty gloom. The light continued to approach, faster, slowly eating away at her vision.
“It’s my duty to protect and…” she trailed off. She was sure there was no need to say it; the voice was wrapped so tightly within her. It was soft and invasive, lulling, curious.
“Even though he never loved you?” the voice asked. Aveline was quiet for a long moment.
“He did, I think.” She said. The light was close now, cold and consuming.
“The way he loves his Harbor Kin?”
“It would not have been possible.”
“It is her fault then, too.” The voice said, and Aveline wondered if it were her own heart in the green glow, edged and sharp.
“I loved them both.” Aveline said.
“And hated…” she felt a surge of something foul within her, insistent and pounding. Aveline shut her eyes.
“No. I never blamed her. Never blamed him either.” She said, a flood of sensation returning to her limbs. Elvan’s touch on her bare skin, the taste of his lips, the friction between them.
“You lie, too, Knight.” The voice was tinged with a dark amusement. “We lie.”
“We?” Aveline murmured.
“We. Us.” The voice said. There was a loud howling in her ears, and she thought she heard Nystali in the din. A desperate and brilliant blade through the mess. She blinked, and saw movement at her feet. Up through the gloom, as if surfacing through a film of ink, she saw Tali shining. Her silver eyes were glistening with tears, slow to focus on Aveline as she emerged. She reached out for her friend, and Aveline reached back. She saw her hands then, and that they were mangled and charred. When she touched Tali’s palms, Aveline watched her own fingers crumble away to ash.
“Aveline.” Quick, urgent, painful, and ringing in her skull. Aveline opened her mouth to respond and her breath tore Nystali’s image away. Stars on the breeze, carried off into the dark.
“Us.” The voice said again, and Aveline had the sensation of falling. It became real when she felt her spine collide with the earth, the sick thud of her own weight coursing through her teeth. She gasped, and it hurt, and she coughed and rolled and wretched black blood as she lay on her side. Her arms were searing with pain. When she opened her eyes, she was in the depths of the forest. It was dim, but the light still hurt her eyes.
A horrible, dull, throbbing nestled deep in her chest. It made her think of her friend, and the way the Nightingale often touched her chest as if there were something desperate to be freed there. Aveline reached own aching hands, shaking, to her chest. She found a cool blade. Straining, she tried to look down at herself. The Gattler’s axe was buried fast. Most of her armor had been burnt away, a strange black ooze bubbling up and out around the seal of her own flesh on the axe blade leaking and spreading out over her exposed skin. It was enveloping her, creeping slowly across her scarring flesh. The ooze pulsed, and as she blinked hazily at the arm tucked under her cheek, she thought she saw the flicker of eyes in the slithering ink.
Aveline choked out a sob. She was dying, she was fairly certain. Aveline had never feared death. But now, she felt a seeping cold that shook her very soul. This was not death, so much as being taken. “Us. We did hate them.” Aveline thought she heard a whisper. She squeezed her eyes shut.
--
Nystali, lying on the bed she’d been taken to, was so still that one of the villagers held a tiny mirror above her lips to check for breath. A tiny puff of condensation was all the confirmation they were given, but it was enough to ease the tension in the burly man’s shoulders. A tear slithered down the priestess’ cheek.
“Aveline.” Nystali was calling into the dark, chanting her friend’s name with increasing fervor. She’d seen her, briefly, and seen a dark shadow twining around her. In the emptiness of sleep, she thought she saw Ava’s form flicker somewhere out in front of her. Tali gasped and stumbled forward, reaching for her friend. In an instant, she was at Ava’s side. “Aveline!” She could see the dying knight and the artifact lodged deep in her chest. The spreading tendrils leaking over her body. The soft green glow that was at once calming and malicious. Aveline’s eyes opened abruptly, searching until she could focus on Tali’s face. “You’re still alive. You’re in the forest?” Nystali breathed. She could sense the place as if she were there herself. The Gattler’s core had been frighteningly powerful.
Aveline smiled weakly, and her teeth were black with the thick ooze spilling from her body. “Not for much longer, I think.” Aveline coughed. Nystali pressed her hands to Aveline’s cheeks.
“No, hold on for us. We’ll come. I just have to—“ Aveline shook her head.
“I saw you too. You need to stay still and rest. If you wake up now, this would be a waste, right?” Aveline mumbled. Nystali bit down hard on her lip.
“You don’t have to be so long-suffering all the time. With me and… and Elvan…” Tali clenched her teeth. Something shifted beneath Aveline’s skin, writhing along her brow.
“You’re right, I shouldn’t have been. You took him without a thought, didn’t you? And you both… acting so pure for each other…” Aveline’s voice warped, hissing from her throat like a symphony of alien voices. Nystali recoiled. She sounded like the Gattler. Aveline winced and gasped, squeezing her eyes shut and panting when she looked back at Tali. Nystali felt her blood run cold. She’d never seen that sort of fear in Ava’s eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s not… Tali, it’s not me. I love you both.” Aveline coughed again. The black tendrils slithered faster. “Please, don’t tell Elvan—“ Aveline convulsed.
Tali brought her hands back to her friend’s face and leaned to press their foreheads together. “My dear Aveline, I’m so sorry.” She gasped, holding back pained sobs. Aveline reached to touch Tali’s wrist, wrapping her hand weakly there.
--
Aveline kept her eyes squeezed shut, Tali’s presence hovering just above her. A quiet specter. It was comforting, even as it sent a deep coursing sorrow through her heart. “Go peacefully.” She thought she heard Nystali say, and a peculiar warmth spread from her chest, where the Gattler’s axe lay. How quaint. If she’d had the strength, she would have smiled. A parting gift for artifacts—the wish holding their souls to earth, realized in a dying dream. Her Nightingale was more clever than she was given credit, sometimes.
She fell into Nystali’s gift, and felt her friend’s lips against her ear. “Be true, and he might share your dream tonight.” Tali urged. It had been known to happen, like an echo in the living tied by fate.
Ava felt Elvan’s arms around her, and she was sure they were in that damned inn room again. “I’m dying,” she told him, blinking up at him. Her vision was blurry, but she could smell the familiar ghost of his skin. Elvan stroked her brow and gave her his lips. “But it’s ok. It wasn’t time, and you couldn’t let Cougal have her.” Ava mumbled against his kiss. “I love you. I always have. No matter what—“ she stopped before she could lose the illusion.
--
It was nearing dawn when Aveline woke up, and she was not alone. She wasn’t in the forest any longer, and she felt rested. She went to move, and found herself restrained. Gemma’s rope; a paltry gift, but one that didn’t break, it seemed. There was a low, throbbing pressure in her chest. Glancing down, she saw a sliver of the axe’s blade still there. As if it had sunk deep within her. Her skin was covered in a dark slick or something living and corrupt. She swallowed hard and looked back across the room to her sole company.
“Am I dead?” she asked, and dreaded the answer Cougal would give her.