SONDER : ALPHA, Leader of the Fallen

1 § 5 [ The Demon Burns ]

The Town of Emberley could be walked, edge to edge, in a mere hour, and a full loop around its borders done in three.

And yet, Luke was still searching. His breaths were heaving as he fought the panic. He had checked the Inn twice for Azrael. Everything in him wanted to run, to leave everything behind.

He couldn’t relive this.

He would check the Inn once more— no, there! Red eyes.

“Azrael!”

“Luke?” Azrael turned, a pensive pinch to his face. But that look dropped when he saw the sorry state of his friend. “Luke, what’s wrong?”

Luke hissed as he reached him, “What’s yer meaning, ‘what’s wrong’?!”

Azrael’s brow knit on his forehead as he scowled.

Luke grasped his shoulders, turning him forcefully. “Look,” he hissed again.

The warlord’s red eyes began to widen as he took it in.

The pyre was being constructed in the very square Azrael had been about to wander into. As logs piled on logs with splintering cracks, sheet-wrapped bodies were arranged in front of the wood, the heaviness of the oil in the air no longer ignorable.

Azrael shook his head in disbelief, his jaw slack, as he watched the table being set before him.

“Do ye ken, now?!”

“It’s a funeral pyre, Luke.” His eyes didn’t believe his words.

“Do no’ be daft! They’re about t’ burn a witch!”

“No, Luke, witch burnings don’t happen anymo-”

“-Azrael, it’s before yer ruddy eyes.”

Azrael took a step back, his eyes transfixed on the pyre.

“Ye ken it.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he turned. “What witch? How do you know that?”

“They told me, at the Pub.”

“Told you what?”

“And again at the market-”

“-Told you what, Luke?!”

“It do no’ matter, we have t’ leave-”

“-It matters, Luke! Tell me!”

Luke grit his teeth, then he grasped Azrael’s arm, his fingers digging. He pointed at the edges of the light. “It do no’ matter, look and see!”

Azrael did look. And there, where the shadows collected the densest, were those ashen creatures, gleeful and salivating, with eyes that glittered as they spied the humans hurrying about. A child, oblivious, darted past a creature and it reached, but stopped short of the boundary between dark and a fading patch of sunlight with an irate hiss.

Those creatures looked familiar. “Where have we seen those, Luke?”

“A question to ponder over tea and kittens once we’ve hauled our scrawny hides back t’ Aezareth!”

Azrael shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Az,” Luke pleaded; “ye remember, right?”

Azrael held his gaze when Luke’s voice broke, his red eyes softening. “Of course, Luke.”

“Then ye ken, I can no’… I just can no’, Az!”

“It’s okay. We will go, I swear it.”

“Then, let’s, please!”

“But first, tell me what you know, I need to hear it.”

Luke groaned in frustration as he ran his fingers through his hair. “They’re looking for a witch, people have been dying for nigh on a week.”

“What witch?”

“I do no’ ken, Az!” Luke paused as he heaved a breath. “Probably that lass…”

“What lass?”

“The lass, the quiet one. Pepper— the bar-lassie— told me she talks to herself, no’ to others, a shy lass.”

“You saw her, then?”

“Aye.”

Azrael looked spooked. “Pink hair?”

“Aye, how did ye ken-”

“-This isn’t her,” Azrael turned, eyes hard on the line of bodies, his lips pressed in a grim line; “she didn’t do this.”

“Az, it’s not our place, and if they find us, we’ll be joining the lass.”

“I have to get to her. I can’t let them-”

“-Az, ye ken what they’ve done t’ us! We need t’ leave!”

“Luke!” Azrael grasped his shoulders as panic rose in Luke’s belly. Luke was drowning, crushed like a bug under the weight of a surging wave he could barely hold back. His whole body remembered. Her screams, the smell, the way she thrashed, her fragile, little body swallowed by the thickening column of flames and he could do nothing, there was nothing he could do but yell until his throat was raw— “Luke!”

His breaths were heaving, his body threatening to collapse. Azrael shook him, but Luke was barely there, his legs weak, sweat dripping into his eyes as he blinked back tears. It was so heavy, the burden, he didn’t even have the room to feel the shame of his weakness lying bare.

“Luke, we don’t have wings. Neither of us.”

Azrael’s voice was so far away, behind her screams, behind the crackle of the mocking flames.

“They can’t know us, Luke. But if they’re looking for her—” Azrael shook him again, and finally Luke looked up into those gleaming eyes that he had known his entire life. He fell into them, into that grounding, steady, familiar gaze, as he tried to drown out the memory of screams, his heart and soul burning up as she did.

“Luke, my Rose is out there. I know what you lost.”

“Ye do no’,” Luke finally spat.

“No, I don’t. But we can stop this, I just have to find her.”

“Who is that lass? Ye ken her then?”

“I… I think I did. Once.”

“Yer wanting to stay here on a hunch?!”

“More than a hunch. But I won’t ask you to. Did you get the horses?”

Luke nodded.

“Take them to the edge of town. If I’m not there before the flames go up, run. Meet me in Helfen. It’s east.”

Luke shook his head. “I canny leave ye-”

“-You aren’t. This is an order, Luke. I will find her, and we will meet you on the edge of town, or in Helfen. But I am ordering you not to stay and relive this.”

Luke grit his teeth. But those eyes did not waver as Azrael stared him down.

“We were too late once already.”

Finally, Luke nodded. He turned without another word. It was all he could do to not break out into a run, or break down right then and there.

“If ye do no’ return, I’ll haul yer ass from the dead, mark my words, and I’ll kill ye again bloody.”

Azrael smiled wryly, nodded, and ran off.

“Until the flames go up, then,” Luke whispered. This lass had better be his damned bloody soul-mate.



~*~*~

She was in the belly of a great ship. They had stopped chaining her now, she had been good, and they no longer thought her broken body was capable of climbing the ladder to throw herself into the sea. But that was what she wanted them to think, and only because she knew now that there was no longer anywhere to go in the vast ocean without the shore in sight. Her last attempt to dive had revealed nothing but empty blue, so vast, so complete, that she could no longer tell where the sea ended and the sky began.

And vengeance did not wait beneath the waves.

Once port was made, she would fight them again.

Until then, she would endure. The ship rocked her back, and forth, like a cradle, nursing her hatred, the violent surging of the voracious sea pressing against the thin, rotting ribcage of wooden bones, its groaning her lullaby. As she rested against that thin veil parting her from a death of crushing, hungry waves, she allowed the rocking to soothe her body.

But not her anger. Never her anger. No, that, she let it nurture.

The creature of the night came in and out of her dreams of the sea. Her head was rocking against something in a rhythmic beat, her arms hanging limp. She had no feeling in her fingers. She tried to open her eyes, but there was swelling in her face. Blood was on her tongue, tangy and welling.

She tried again to open her eyes— gingerly, she manged. The sounds of the groaning and the waves were gone, replaced by thudding, heavy footsteps. Those footsteps came into focus, attached to striding legs.

Like a sack of flour, she had been tossed over someone’s shoulder, her head banging against his back with each measured step. Panic bloomed. She squirmed, and the hand around her waist squeezed her as she whimpered with the pain.

She was thrown harshly to the cobblestones and she scrabbled, her arms weak and sleeping. Angry voices yelled and chanted around her as thunder clapped the sky.

Her arms were seized and yanked harshly in front of her, jarring her shoulders.

“Careful, don’t touch the devil’s skin!”

Her eyes darted, but she found no friends, only angry, leering faces. Understanding began to dawn: she was in a lot of trouble.

Her blood rushed in her ears as she kicked mindlessly, desperately. But the man with her arms yanked again and she was thrown forward, her face on the rocks as a rope was lashed around her wrists. Then he was pulling her to her feet. She tripped, but he pulled again and she cried out when her shoulder felt like it would pop out of her socket.

The bindings broke her skin, the blood running swiftly down her arms and dripping onto the rocks.

It was red again, not black.

She was shoved against a wooden pole, her head bouncing with a flash of stars. Her arms were raised, the bindings catching on a hook. Her vision tilted, unfocussed. She lifted her head.

The man sneered and spat in her face as voices cheered.

She shouldn’t have looked. But she did. She looked past him, at all the angry faces. But there wasn’t just anger there. She found the excitement of malice, a writhing, surging energy charging through the mob. Then, she looked down, at the piles and piles of wood at her feet. The oil hit her nose.

It didn’t dawn on her right away. Not until after she looked again at the crowd, and spotted The Lady at the back, her heart jolting with relief. Her lips parted on a smile, and The Lady smiled too: hers was a vicious, triumphant smile. Then, slowly The Lady shook her head, from side to side, her lips tsking like she was scolding a child. The Lady was cloaked in shadows, but the Daughter of Darkness could see her all the same. Around her, the ashen creatures of Niflheimr swarmed.

Why had The Lady brought her Watchers here?

The smile fell from her lips when she saw The Lady cross her arms, waiting, watching, as the crowd continued to roar and cheer and shout and spit.

Only then did she begin to thrash as understanding snapped into place. She pulled at her bindings, unable to unhook herself. Her shoulder popped, but she ignored the pain. She screamed. She begged. She pleaded. She didn’t know what she was saying anymore but all the same it fell on deaf ears.

They were going to burn her.

And The Lady was going to let them.

~*~*~

The sounds of the crowd changed, deepened with a new, fervid frenzy. That was how he knew: they had her.

They had his Rose.

Azrael doubled back and ran to the square, skidding around the corners of the alley he had been searching.

He ran and ran and shoved through bodies as he charged, jostling and shouldering and plowing them out of his way. But so many were packed in the little market, he didn’t make it.

The flames began, catching so quickly in moments they could be seen above all the heads that howled in one unified rapture.

Too late.

~*~*~

The sparking tongues reached for her legs and she skittered back, pressing against the pole and lifting herself by her bindings as much as she could as though she could possibly climb away.

The flames licked her skirt. Caught. The gossamer fabric went up in seconds.

At first, when her legs began to scorch, she couldn’t register the pain at all.

But then she screamed like she had never screamed before, kicking and thrashing and sobbing and shrieking until her voice was drowned out by the laughing of the roaring fire.

Once, she thought she caught the sight of furious, ruby-red eyes and a towering man.

A dream, a hope, the vision of an angel sent to lead her into death. She caught her last glimpse of The Lady, who did nothing.

Nothing.

She screamed Azrael’s name over and over as she pictured ruby eyes and messy black hair, trying to hide from the flames behind his memory, behind her fantasy.

It would probably have been better to die by the Ice Wraith.

One last, booming thunderclap was the last sound she heard before the only thing left for her to hear was the mocking fire.

~*~*~

The heavens opened just as he reached her, the downpour sudden and drenching, each drop of water a soldier clashing against the sparks. Lightning flashed, then the thunder boomed.

Azrael worked quickly, shoving aside the humans as he drew his knife and slashed at the rope. He ignored the lingering flames fed by the oil that licked up his pant legs, ripping her free as she slumped. Her body convulsed, her lips still moving on his name.

His heart clenched.

The mortals had been slow to react to him, but now they surged forward just as he cradled her to his chest. Azrael grit his teeth. He couldn’t fight them and take her away, not with one arm.

He whirled on his feet and raised his chin to the skies, bellowing, “Look!” The people of Emberley paused. “Look at the wrath you’ve wrought!”

His eery, red eyes wandered over the crowd as they turned their own faces up to the purple skies, then back to him, uncertainty stilling their movements.

“You’ve angered your God!”

At the back of the crowd, a woman cloaked in emerald raised her arm, flicking her wrist. An odd movement. Lightning struck then at the ground in front of Azrael and the people leaped back, falling over each other and shrieking.

Uncertain murmurs began undulating through the mob. Azrael continued, his voice halting them before they could drown him out, “This woman comes to you for shelter, and you burn her for crimes she did not commit! Your God has spoken, He passes His judgement!”

Azrael backed up as the murmurs crescendoed once more, preparing to run. Another bolt of lightning struck as shadows began to wash over him and the girl in his arms. The darkness thickened into a suffocating embrace, but Azrael did not have time to think of it. He turned on his heel, hurrying to the edge of the square.

“That creature almost killed my child!”

The warlord tensed, eyes darting. He might need to set her down so he could fight.

“But look at the heavens, the stranger is right-”

“-It’s a trick!”

“No man can command the skies, this is God’s work!”

“No man, but the Devil can do such things! He tricks us into sin!”

Azrael ran as they argued, not waiting for their confusion to conclude. He didn’t stop to wonder why they didn’t follow him.

He should have wondered. Just as he should have paid more thought to the few men in the town, to the sudden rains, to the creatures and the shadows. To the lightning.

To the woman in green.

He ran and ran until the Town of Emberley merely dotted the horizon, smoky, black wisps betraying its dirty deed as the rains washed away even that final whisper of secrets.

Azrael’s legs burned as he took his prize to the muddy bottom of a hill, where he sighed in relief at the sight of Luke. He skidded to a stop in front of him, the horses’ reins hung over the branches of a bush.

“Let me see the lass.”

Azrael proffered her and Luke’s face pinched up in dread. Her legs were blackened char, her clothes consumed. Her body was blistering and sizzling, even in the rain.

“It’s too late, Az, I’m sorry.”

Azrael shook his head. “It can’t be.”

Luke stayed silent, placing his hand on Azrael’s shoulder.

He shook off his friend’s consoling touch, defiant. “It isn’t.”

“I’m sorry, Az,” Luke repeated; “be grateful, it won’t take long.”

Azrael sank to the ground, Luke’s words an anchor, heavy and drowning, dragging him down. He shifted her to lay on his lap. Her eyes were sightless, staring at nothing, her lips whispering his name. “I’m here, sweet rose.”

It won’t take long.

Azrael’s fists clenched. He would never know. Those sightless eyes stole his own sight, everything else fading away from him. The once rose-pink hair was black and wispy like burnt straw as he stroked her head. He didn’t dare look lower, to the rest of her charred body.

It won’t take long.

It won’t take long.

It won’t take long.

“I’m here, I’m here,” he whispered back to her as he rocked her, his name breathing from her lips, endlessly, like she was still calling for him.

He raised a hand to run the backs of his fingers across her sooty cheek, bare skin against hers— she stiffened up like a board, her eyes flooding black as her hand darted up to snatch at his, her fingernails digging into his skin.

Azrael’s brow furrowed when he felt a tug from deep within.

She dug her nails harder. The internal tug became more insistent.

“She’s…” Luke began; “she can no’ be.”

A little rivulet of his blood formed under her grip and the mental tug intensified into a yank as Azrael winced. “She is.”

“Do no’ ye dare, Az.”

“I must, Luke!”

“Ye’re gonna no’ do that, no!”

“Look at her, Luke, look at her!” Azrael’s eyes blazed. “This time, I can fix it!”

The little creature’s grip began to weaken as the yank waned. She was losing her strength. Her little nails began to loosen, one by one.

“Pull us apart when she’s had enough.”

“Az do no’ ye dare, ye fool!”

Azrael ignored his protests. He grasped her chin and tilted her face up. He licked his lips once, his heart pounding. He did not have much life left in him to give her. But what little he had, he would share with her, with this little svartalfr.

He leaned over her, her black-flooded eyes staring mindlessly back up at his as she died in his arms, her floral scent under all those ashes reaching his nose. He took a breath, then pressed his lips firmly to hers.

The tug in his mind strengthened, going taut like a pulled rope. He let go of himself, and allowed her to drag that rope to her.

Black veins snaked over her face as an awful pain seared him from their kiss. Azrael lifted her arm around his bare shoulders, giving her as much contact as he could with his skin. He pulled her close against his chest, closed his eyes, and gave in to the searing agony.

This svartalfr couldn’t be Sofia, then.

So why was he gifting her his very soul?