Villains (6 page)

“You are an unnatural thing!”

Aria felt something cold near her, and glanced to her left only to see the cottony substance of Afton beside her. She was no longer the malformed white wisps, but a fully transparent version of her living self.

“You weren’t wrong, they tasted good until the storm began,” Afton said.

The boy stood and pointed at her. “Go, before I bring the elders.”

Aria glanced at Afton, a sickly feeling spreading through her. “Come, we must call the Ferryman.”

Afton followed Aria through the haunted forest. Unlike Skeld the girl was fascinated by everything the forest had to offer. She wanted to taste more of the poisonous flowers, and she wanted to play in the branches. She wanted to unravel the cotton from the trees and make friends with the other ghosts. She almost got caught in fourteen different trees, and Aria found herself using her odd abilities to free her. By the time they reached the shores, Aria was exhausted. She glanced at the sea and hated the sight ahead of her. The usual yellow line of the horizon had become a streak of red, black clouds roiled over the sky while the water below reflected their menacing intent. She neared the grassy shore and tried to dip her fingers in the water but felt nothing. She raised her hands to the sky and recited the incantation. Afton didn’t deserve to lose her life but she was gone, and she deserved to return.

“Nobody knows how to call the Ferryman,” Afton whispered when Aria was done. They stood side by side, Aria in her white gown and Afton in her light blue one. They didn’t hold hands because Aria couldn’t feel her, living or dead, and Afton clasped her hands together, whispering other things to herself.

“Tor told me how.”

Afton dared a sidelong glance at her. “You must be very special to know the secrets of the land.”

Aria laughed. “I know nothing.”

“You know more than I.”

Aria was going to rebut her, but the boat appeared on the horizon and glided towards them cutting through the shapes of the clouds on the sea. Moments later it fetched up against the shore and the Ferryman glared at Aria.

“You bring me one so young.”

Aria couldn’t take her eyes off him, fighting the urge to burst into a shower of sparks. The same feeling she experienced the first time she saw him cut through her from head to toe as Afton stepped forward.

“It was an accident. I ate the poisonous flowers,” Afton said boldly.

The Ferryman didn’t dare a glance at the young girl, his hooded face focused on Aria, but his next words were meant for the girl. “Do you have a coin to pay me?”

Aria caught Afton biting her lip out of the corner of her eye. “No…but I beg you, please take me.”

The Ferryman extended his skeletal hand towards Aria. “Will you pay the fee for her?”

“I—I don’t have a coin…” Aria could barely speak, her tongue feeling three times its usual size. The Ferryman withdrew his hand and went to push off the shores when Aria stepped forward and without thinking, caught him by the arm. Lightning shot through her fingers as she gripped the fabric of his cloak hard, the sensation of it under her fingertips surreal. She couldn’t help it; tears sprang to her eyes and slid down her violet tinged cheeks. The Ferryman wrenched his arm out of her grip and looked at Afton.

“I will take you,” he said, his voice hoarse compared to its gravelly quality moments ago. When Afton was safely in the boat, the Ferryman turned to Aria. “You owe me. I will return to collect.” He pushed off from the shores and disappeared in a cloud of mists.

Aria couldn’t think straight as she watched them go. Had she really touched him? Was that what it was like to touch something? She expected her form to move through his the way it had with the ghosts and the people and the trees, but with the Ferryman it wasn’t like that.

Where he was, he was solid.

And it made her giddy.

Tor stood over the Flames when Aria returned. He had the feather crown in his hands, fingers worrying over the intricate pattern. Aria recalled Cassareece and her frozen hands, and shuddered to herself. “Where were you?”

“I took a walk,” Aria said not wanting to talk about Cassareece, the poison petals, the Ferryman or the name etched onto her soul, the name that turned her into something terrible for all eternity.

Tor picked up the wand and waved it in the air, but nothing happened. “They won’t work for me, but I created them.”

Aria shot him a half smile. “You need to invoke them,” she said, not entirely sure how she knew the answers. She saw the other Flames as beings like her, but trapped inside inanimate objects. “And you have to let them be who they are.”

“What they are,” Tor said, correcting her. He flexed his gray scaled hand and gripped the wand harder. “These are weapons.”

“I’m not a weapon.”

Tor looked at her, apologies in his gold lightning eyes. Aria hadn’t noticed it before but Tor wasn’t like the children. He was more like Cassareece. She didn’t like the thought and to distract herself she commanded the crown out of his other hand. It floated to her and rested on her head, the feather sticking up. “Do you like what I made?”

Tor pursed his lips. “You took my breastplate to make that.”

“You took too long in the village.”

Tor put the wand down and picked up the lantern, opening the inner chamber and touching the orb inside. It reacted and Tor winced, pulling his finger out like it had bit him. “The people are going to die. I couldn’t leave.”

“Tiki doesn’t like being in the lantern.”

“This is the Kuliana Kulnindom.”

“It doesn’t matter what you call her, she prefers Tiki.”

Tor put the lantern down and faced Aria. “You have me confounded. Tell me Aria, how do I use them?”

Aria was going to tell him everything he needed to know when another thought entered her mind. Names. Cassareece named her something deadly and terrible, and the Kuliana Kulnindom named itself Tiki, a short and simple name. Aria didn’t know what Tiki meant but she was forever curious as to why Tor named things the way he did. “Why do you call us by these names?”

Tor sighed and sat down on the bench on the far end of the cairn. He ran his hands over his face. “It is customary to name things. Trees, lakes, seas, skies. We name things to know what they are, what they mean, what they do.”

“Why did you name me Aria?” She said it even though she was afraid of the answer.

Tor smiled. “It means songbird.”

Aria felt relieved. His name for her was benign, beautiful even. “What about the other Flames?”

Tor looked at the floor. “I…”

“I cannot help you use them if you do not tell me what you called them.”

“They weren’t like you.…” He moved to the sword and put his hand on the hilt carefully, so it didn’t light up and shoot lightning across the cairn. Aria glanced warily at the crack in the stone the sword had already produced. “This is Cara Najeel, the Ruby Sword. The others are the same. Tineca Maliorn means Citrine Shield, Ortel Nuite means Azurite Crown, Kuliana Kulnindom means Carnelian Lantern, Callen Hyloma means Emerald Shell, Comim Ramm means Quartz Wand, Murr Karraske means Obsidian Scythe, and Mylinn Windall means Iolite Staff.”

Aria moved to the staff and waved her hand over top of it. The crystal lit up and it shone with a deep indigo aura. “You will call her Isadora from this day forward, and she will do as you command.” Aria tried to will the staff to move but found it impossible. Interference caused her to feel fatigued to the point of passing out. Vertigo clouded her vision as she knelt on the floor and something peculiar happened. Aria saw a set of indigo tinged feet hit the floor, and when she looked up, Isadora stood before her, holding the white staff in her left hand. Her form was fluid, the way Aria was when she first formed.

“Isadora?” Tor asked, testing the name on his lips.

Aria gained herself and stood beaming from ear to ear. “You’re here.”

Isadora’s form was humanoid but indigo, no lips or eyes or nose yet. She was the silhouette of a woman. She went to speak and her ethereal form cracked, white lines appearing in jagged crisscrosses along her form until it shattered in a shower of dust and was sucked back into the crystal in the center of the calcified anemone. The staff teetered, but Tor saved it before it hit the ground.

Aria was more than tired from the ordeal. She didn’t think she could stand another moment. She glanced at the other Flames, determination in her to free them from their tiny prisons.

“I don’t understand. Aria, what was that?” Tor seemed perplexed as he placed the staff in its spot beside the other Flames and sat on the bench.

“You need to listen to them.”

“And you will help?”

“I will do what I can.”

Tor stood and nodded. “Good. I need to return to the village.” He stopped at the mouth of the cairn and shot her a cautionary glare. “Do not leave the cairn. Do not come to the village. The war is coming, and I cannot let anyone know about you. Not yet.”

Aria felt the guilt inside of her deepen as she swallowed hard and nodded. She couldn’t tell him that she’d already done so many bad things. He lingered for a moment then escaped into the night.

Aria woke on the floor in the cairn hours later. For a moment she thought she was blind but her hand pulsed and a faint shimmer emitted from her pale violet tinged body. She sat up slowly, the fire in the pit snuffed, the crispy smell of smoke lingering in the air. She wanted to obey Tor’s tenet but she couldn’t deny the Ferryman his payment. She got to her feet, the makeshift white dress scraping along the floor as she quickened out of the cairn and into the night. The haunted forest was alive, poisonous flowers lighting the way as she traipsed along the vein-like paths towards the east shore. The closer she came, the more she buzzed, her form threatening to erupt in fiery tentacles of flame. She slowed, her breathing heavy as she smelled salt, and broke through the last of the rotting trees, beholding the green sea.

The red streak on the horizon had become a deep burgundy, and the black roiling clouds had become peppered with lightning. Aria followed the jagged lines of light, and jumped at the bursts of light behind the clouds. She lost herself in the symphony of light until the land beneath her sizzled and the Ferryman cleared his throat. She dared a glance at him, her mouth open in awe, the familiar blade singing along her form at his penetrating gaze. For a long time she stood there staring at him while he stared at her, not brave enough to speak. Without a word he stretched his skeletal hand towards her palm up. His face was concealed by the large hood but Aria didn’t need to see his eyes to know the expectation in them.

She didn’t bring a coin.

She opened her mouth to speak but it was like a swarm of bees attacked her tongue and she gagged, desperately trying to clear the stinging from her mouth. The Ferryman said nothing until she gained control over herself and shot him a sheepish smile. She definitely wanted less weird things to happen to her when he was around, but she couldn’t help the curiosity. “You’ll need to come ashore to collect. I left all the coins at the cairn in the forest.” She purposefully glanced over her shoulder at the glowing orange and violet petals, marking their way through the woods.

The skeletal hand paused, pulling back involuntarily as if she had shocked him. He seemed to flinch despite his cool composure and she winced. She didn’t mean to scare him. “I cannot step foot on land.”

Aria narrowed her eyes to slits. “That’s a very sad thing.”

“My master wills it. I am to return with a coin, nothing more.”

Aria crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “And if I refuse you?”

The Ferryman seemed to smirk and chuckle under the expanse of his cloak. “You can face my master if you wish, but be warned, he is not kind.”

Aria dug her toe into the ground, entirely determined to see his face, even if it was nothing but bone. “Then we’ve come to a stalemate. I cannot pay you lest you come ashore, and you cannot leave without being paid.”

The Ferryman huffed and pulled his skeletal hands into the ragged folds of his dark cloak. Aria fixed her gaze on him no matter how strong the urge to burst into a shower of flames was. After a long time he nodded and braced himself on the bow as he stepped out of the boat. The transformation was instantaneous. The moment his foot touched the grass the land sizzled, the cloak cocooning him in its tight folds as he changed. Shin-high boots covered his feet, while flesh covered his limbs as though he were dipped in bronze. Golden brown hands emerged from the sleeves of the cloak, while the rest of the transformation remained trapped underneath the heavy folds of fabric. Tattered shreds became polished edges fitted with embroidery. A golden clasp in the shape of a snake held the cloak together, showing off a beige tunic and black breeches below it. Aria stumbled backwards, almost falling over herself as he pushed the wide hood onto his shoulders. The Ferryman had long brown hair, straight as a line, deep black eyebrows, and mismatched eyes framed by long lashes. Aria couldn’t take her eyes off him, the smooth jaw line, golden brown skin, puckered lips. Her eyes gravitated to his, one hazel and one a bright golden yellow. He abashedly averted his gaze when he caught her amethyst enflamed eyes and stalked towards the break in the trees.

“Come, we mustn’t waste time,” he said. Aria’s heart trilled at the cadence of his voice, like water over smooth rocks. She tried to find her footing but the land tilted, and she may as well have been upside down she was so disoriented. She staggered towards him, trying to keep her balance, trying not to crash into him. He took the lead through the path wide enough for one and she followed; all the giddiness in her rising in a steady, disenchanting crescendo.

“Do you have a name, Ferryman?” Aria wasn’t used to being bold, but she had to do something to distract her from the many moans in the trees, and the steady thumping in her heart. If she didn’t know better, she’d say it was a stampede.

He glanced back at her, his gold eye glowing in the dim moonlit night. “It’s very long, and hard to pronounce.”

“Oh. Is there a name you like to be called?” Her fascination with names hadn’t waned since the momentary outbursts with Cassareece and Tor. She was a death bringing songbird girl, and a Flame. All things she had trouble understanding, and yet if she didn’t think about it, she embodied it perfectly. Life was peculiar like that, being who she was, was easier than understanding what she was. She didn’t like the way Tor treated the other Flames, but she didn’t feel like he wanted to hurt them. The battle and the people were important to him. Whatever Cassareece and the rest of them were, she didn’t want them to exist much longer either.