Chapter Nine – Golden Eyes, Glowing Embers

      The Emblem of the Star-Crossed Lovers (Interitus 1: Book X)

            Chapter Nine – Golden Eyes, Glowing Embers

 

I saw her smile when the snow transformed to rain; I saw her twirl on the beach like a human hurricane. Tiny drops of water descended from faint clouds and speckled our skin with a soothing touch. I watched her come alive in the falling rain like a parched plant after a drought, and she danced in the shallows with her clothes plastered to her skin. The ocean did a gentle dance of its own, pushing itself upward and then pulling itself back. She and the sea danced together in the rain which promised a petrichor if only we would stay to breathe in its aftertaste after it had passed. And just as old scars still scattered her skin, the distant glow of lava summoned a scarlet glow which devoured the sky. As long as we ignored the makeshift cemetery just beneath our feet, the scarlet shore summoned a perfect portrait of an idyllic world untainted by time.

The citizens of Bones City always saw this glow as a threat and kept their ships in port on days like this, but I saw the lava as a work of beauty. Volcanoes were so strong that a single shudder sent people scattering in all directions. They were so powerful that they upended the ocean itself and forced everyone to get out of its way. And now as we sought to set sail from the city’s shore, the volcanos illuminated themselves to light our very path. But it was more than a glow or a show of support; it was a beacon. It was a way of welcoming its newest inhabitants. I could see that truth clearly in the way that the lava set fire to the rain and sent scarlet shimmers across every drop that fell upon us. Aeliana danced in the shallows beneath these tiny droplets of falling fire. She smiled as the rain soaked her scarred skin. She cast shadows through the fiery light as her feet splashed upon the sand.

“I don’t think I’m ready yet to leave this land, even if they fear what they don’t understand. If I have you I don’t care about anything else, so against any enemy I will defend myself. This is where we met for the very first time, and this is the beach where I first held your hand in mine. That means this city stands on hallowed ground, because this is the place where our souls became bound,” said Aeliana with the courage she found.

She clung to my side as shallow waves washed ashore. Every breaking wave sent a splash of foam and droplets into the air which glistened in the glow of distant lava. I could practically feel faraway islands calling out to us as we stood beneath the rain, but I could tell with one look that Aeliana would instead stand her ground despite the fear which spread like a plague through the people of Bones City. Despite our distinct distance from the lava, the shimmering sea sent swirling steam from its surface which climbed into the sky to combat the clouds and rain. But if Aeliana wanted to stay, then I resolved to enable that desire at all costs. She could claim anywhere in this world as hers, and I would give her that life even if it meant I had to destroy any device or difficulty that dared to defy her desire.

I turned my back on the distant islands and the lava which scoured the sky as it strived to summon us to its shores. But before I even took another step toward the city, she grabbed my hand tightly. I thought at first that she simply sought a subtle intimacy, but then I felt her heartbeat through her hand. I saw a shimmer on the surface of a dagger in her left hand. I could practically feel her violent instinct, so I turned my head to see the source of her shock.

At the boundary between the starlit sand and the city street stood a shadowed figure. Though the wide beach and the gentle rain concealed every detail with darkness and distance, I could still see the extent of her height. I could still see her curly hair dance in the wind behind her head. The streets were empty all around us, even though I always avoided Ember Bay at this time of day because it was too active. I could sense an unsettling presence even from a distance that declared an inexplicable admonition. Perhaps this was the reason that the occasional passerby chose instead to avoid the quiet beach. I suddenly felt Aeliana separate her hand from mine, and then she drew her second dagger from its holster. It was then that I realized the shadowed figure had stepped onto the beach. Raindrops gently fell upon her skin and further concealed her features.

“I have seen this before; an Astrodeus is after us,” said Aeliana as if there were nothing left to discuss.

Without waiting or wasting another moment, Aeliana threw herself into motion and raced headlong toward the silhouette with her deadly daggers drawn and ready. I wailed out a word of worry, but Aeliana never even reached her target. The towering figure threw her left hand forward and unleashed a sphere of spiraling fire. It burned brighter than the distant lava and shrouded the stars in the stormy sky; every wave reflected the inferno, and every raindrop transformed into a suspended flicker of fiery light. The towering figure unleashed this fireball so swiftly that Aeliana could only defend by bracing her body and crossing her blades.

The fireball struck Aeliana with an explosive shockwave and a spiral of fire; she was blown backward and into the windblown waves with a heavy splash. She screamed aloud until the underwater engulfed her cry. The sea extinguished the smolders on her scarred skin, but I swung my sword forth from its sheath and stormed across the sand, barreling toward the towering figure even though I had just seen the weapon she possessed. With a worthless whisper of woe and worry, I watched with eyes trained for the power I had seen only because Aeliana had the courage to attack first. Our assailant unleashed another fireball as soon as I stepped halfway from the water’s edge, but I threw myself aside in the moment she summoned spirals of fire in the form of a blazing sphere. She unleashed the fireball at a calamitous speed, but I had dodged the strike before she even launched it—a luxury afforded to me by Aeliana’s bravery.

The fireball struck the surface of the ocean in the background with a fiery shockwave which sent scarlet shimmers across the sand. As the rain transformed into a shower of fiery light, I charged the tall woman and swung my sword with all my strength. She deflected my attack with a spiked shield, and the collision sent shockwaves through my strong arms. As the rain devoured the fire in the distance, I saw an Array of Black Fire stained upon her shield. She then pushed forward, and I blocked her shield with a strike from my sword.

She said as she glared at me with her golden eyes, “That attack you just dodged was just a disguise. I never intended to strike you; I merely sought to confirm my suspicion that you are the person for whom I traversed half the continent. I awaited this day since the moment I was touched by the darkness and first set upon this path. It was whispered in the winds of fate that I must find you in this place. The driving darkness delivered to me the power to destroy anything that stood between us. The city and its walls cannot separate us; everyone else in this place is a purposeless pawn worth nothing more than the fuel sealed in their souls. That is why it was worthwhile to wipe them from this place. This quiet bay is the crossroads of a manifesting dream and a dying reality.”

A flash of errant lightning shot across the sky and unleashed a flash so powerful that it illuminated the world. I could see every inch of Ember Bay and every faded footprint that withstood the storm. I could see the bloody bodies of bystanders strewn across the nearest street. With a glimpse over my shoulder, I watched Aeliana struggle to stand in the shimmering shallows in a state of shock. But more than anything else, I saw the murderous monster stand before me with hungry eyes which seemed to glow gold. Her long hair danced in the rising wind which swept in from the sea. She showed a sinister smile as she shifted her stained shield against my steel sword. In the moment before the flash of lightning faded away, I saw that her skin was scattered with stains from a sandstorm in the badlands. It was evidence that she believed her own words at the very least; she had compelled herself to find me and ignore all obstacles in her path.

“I wandered the wilderness and withstood whirlwinds just to find you in this bay,” she said as if for a long time she had dreamt of this day.

“I’ve already met the woman with whom my fate is bound,” I answered as my feet dug into the ground.

“You misunderstand my intention. I am called by my curse, compelled to complete and consume you in a crisscross of chaos. Ever since I was first summoned to see the true face of oblivion, I harnessed destruction inside myself; I became a vestige of the all-consuming shadow. But where I am its pawn, you are its envoy. You do not even realize the destruction that you will bring upon this broken world. Only I can save the world from you,” she said if she believed her words were true.

With a forceful heave of her solid shield, she sent me sliding backward in the sand. Now that a short distance separated us, she lowered her shield and lifted her left hand with a fiery glow. In the next split-second, she summoned a sphere of spiraling fire and shot it across the sand, but I shielded myself with the power I had stolen from Kalairo. The fireball struck my decoy dummy and destroyed it in a dance of sparks and cinders. The powerful shockwave blasted me backward across the beach, but then Aeliana threw herself into the storm of falling sparks in a full-speed sprint. She crashed her left dagger against the enemy’s shield and then struck twice in a row with her right. After a crisscross clash and then a quick kick, she nearly knocked the shield from her enemy’s hands. But in the moment Aeliana would have struck with both daggers, the golden-eyed assailant unleashed a fast fireball onto the beach right between them. The fiery explosion engulfed Aeliana, and then the shockwave launched both fighters backward. Aeliana nearly slammed onto the beach, but I tossed my sword aside and caught her in my arms.

As we stood at a standstill, I saw that sparks stained her scarred skin. Then, as if to fan the flames of the firefight, the towering assailant lifted her left hand from a safe distance and then summoned a second smoldering sphere. She then unleashed the fireball with so much force that the recoil sent her stumbling backward; I barely managed to safeguard Aeliana by deflecting the blast with a substitute dummy. As the forces of fire fractured the dummy and demolished it in my hands, Aeliana jolted to a short distance and passed me my sword. When I caught my weapon and launched myself forward, I clashed weapons again with the monster on the ash-stained sand.

I pressed forward with my sword and glared at her as I said, “I truly think that all of this is just in your head. I am bound by a great destiny exactly as you say, but that destiny was never meant to wipe this world away. I know nothing of the shadow that you say has somehow cursed you, so in some way or another that means your words cannot be true.”

She asked as she narrowed her eyes and stepped backward in the sand, “Do you know about the Interfectus which once haunted all this land? It was a monster borne of God’s nightmare that would target a city and then attack from the sky. Their attacks gradually slowed with time, leaving behind nothing more than a tragic memory that strikes fear in all our hearts. Almost everyone has heard the stories. Hardly anyone has seen one for themselves—hardly any seem to strike the world they had already slain. But that isn’t true for me. I saw the true face of the monster when it struck my quiet village in a forest. It tore trees and homes like they were made of paper; it killed everyone I had ever known. When I tried to fight back, it cursed me but did not kill me, almost as if in a consequence for courage.”

“What exactly are the details of your curse?” I asked as our fight took a turn for the worse.

It was in that moment that my assailant pushed herself forward and nearly struck me with the Array on her shield, but Aeliana knocked me aside with a full-force tackle. Even as we both fell onto the rain-soaked sand, I felt her heart pounding with terror. She glared at the symbol with both fear and hate, but then she threw herself upright and dashed to the side. With a smug smile, our towering enemy lifted her left hand and aimed at my defenseless protector. But instead of running or bracing herself in any way, Aeliana valiantly propelled herself forward and crashed her daggers against her enemy’s shield. Even as sparks split off into the humid air, she steadied herself to stand beside the source of her horror.

“I am cursed to carry countless screaming voices in my head as if the demon’s touch is a ticket to a tragic tempest. I am forced to fence in a flashflood of sorrowed souls. I can hear their wayward voices wail like a whirlwind in the wasteland in my mind. Everyone the Interfectus ever killed still exists as a storm of screaming souls. They lost their memories and their identities as they became its fuel, but when it touched me, it cursed me to hear the same screams. I am the audience to this ultimate tragedy, but the demon carries its victims forevermore. Does this not sound familiar to you? Just as I am connected to the emissary of darkness, I am also connected to you; you are the Interfectus in its human form. I am its vestige, and you are its vessel. It’s why you can carry your victims in your mind,” declared my assailant as if we were entwined.

I will confess that I have wondered about the way that I could still feel Aziel and Kalairo in my head. Though they had lost their individuality and melted in with my own spirit, I could still sense their energy inside myself. Each kill had transformed me. Each kill had empowered me. In the nights after I killed Kalairo, I set aside my notebooks filled with nonsense and instead read books from other killers just like me. Though they discussed sin and guilt and pain, no other killer made mention of inheriting the essence of their fallen foe. At that time, I had simply concluded that I am unique in that way. I concluded that it was at worst a way of punishing myself for my murderous descent, or at best it meant that I am an afterlife unto myself—that the people who die by my hand are not conscripted to Heaven or Hell or anywhere else. They instead settle on my skin as a specter while I strive for eternity.

But instead of entertaining the possibility that I am the human form of the Interfectus, I instead saw the way the towering enemy pressed her shield forward and overpowered Aeliana. The love of my life lost her footing and fell onto the sand, so I launched myself into motion. I sprinted across the sand at my fastest speed and swung my sword in a desperate attempt to save her life, but the golden-eyed enemy used that moment to unleash a fiery sphere without hesitation. A cataclysmic crash echoed across the shore, and every raindrop reflected the radiant fireball. It shot across the sand so swiftly that even my power could not protect me; the searing sphere struck me at full force like a flashflood of fire.

The eruption and the shockwave combined to hurl me through the windows of the nearest building. Rain and glass shattered in my slipstream and spiraled through the shadowed shop. My body barreled through the bread in this bakery’s display, and the only worker exclaimed with shock at this revelation. I did not realize how much damage I had taken until I stood upright, but in that moment, I could feel every incision ignite upon my skin. But as the worker dashed into the corner of the quiet bakery, I glanced out the broken window and saw my enemy launch herself in motion. By blasting two fireballs at a high speed behind her, she both knocked Aeliana into the sea and launched herself closer with the resonant recoil. I did not even realize the speed she attained until her shield shattered the door in a shower of woodchips.

As a flash of lightning illuminated the rainy darkness behind her, my assailant lifted her left hand and forced a fire stream to spiral swiftly into a sphere which she then unleashed. Flashing fiery light forced a flicker into the shattered glass, but I summoned a substitute dummy which I then pushed aside with all my strength. This shove was powerful enough that the fireball flew furiously between myself and my decoy; it struck the helpless worker who cowered in the corner of the bakery. I saw the shockwave shatter his bones as the fire engulfed his clothes. It was then that I realized that Aeliana and I had only survived her strikes because our clothes were soaked by the sea and the rain. But with no such defense for himself, the victim strived to tear himself free from his blazing clothes. The flames burned through his nerves before he ever got the chance. The crackle of growing flames quickly eclipsed his hopeless screams as his body surrendered to the forces of fire.

Though my enemy and I both felt nothing for the civilian killed in the crossfire of our calamitous clash, I steadied my sword and glared into her golden eyes. A flash of lightning illuminated the darkness behind her, and the flicker of fire illuminated the light behind me. The surface of her shield shimmered in the shower of light.

“Perhaps I truly am a monster unconcerned with my own origin. Perhaps I truly will shatter this world as if it’s made of porcelain. Perhaps I will prove to be the darkness at the end of all things. I have no doubt that I will force this world to end in screams. You were right that I am a monster that surely must be stopped, but you were wrong to think that you could carry out that plot. You were merely touched by the same darkness that pervades me, which means your failure in this fight was from the start a guarantee. You should have been careful what you chase because it all just might come true. I would kill everyone and everything just to hear her say I love you. It was a deadly mistake for you to ever start this fight,” I said as my body shimmered in the fiery light.

The towering woman was transfixed by my words, but they had already served their primary purpose. She almost seemed stupefied as if overwhelmed by the screaming souls locked inside her head. If she were right, and we were connected as a vestige and a vessel to the very same dark force, then we were truly bound to each other exactly as she said. One darkness would devour the other and superpose to summon a world without light. And just as I had earlier resolved to step into eternity with this body just to resist rerolling the cosmic dice, I determined that I had to destroy this assailant at all costs. I could not let her win, and more importantly, she had already hurt Aeliana; she had already committed an unforgivable sin. This was the only way to exert my will upon reality, which meant it simply had to happen. I would rewrite reality itself and reject any recourse.

I threw myself forward and slashed my sword with so much force that it struck her spiked shield and sent her stumbling back into the street. She tried to retaliate by striking me with the symbol on her weapon, so I threw myself backward to evade the attack. It was then that she lifted her left hand and again created a sphere of spiraling fire. I could feel the heat from a distance, so I desperately used my stolen power to produce a decoy to take the hit for me, though I quickly realized that her weapon was far more fearsome in an enclosed space. When she unleashed her fireball, the flames devoured my decoy and blasted me backward through the wall of this building. Dazed and disoriented, I desperately stumbled onto my knees on the tile floor of an empty tavern. Broken glass and spilled spirits scattered the shambles around me. Fire flickered on the wall and surrounded the breakage through which I had first entered this tavern. I saw the small flames inch toward dark bottles on the shelves, so I partially retreated and steadied my sword.

The assailant announced as she tore down the door, “This world has no place for the broken anymore. Ever since I was cursed by the demon of shifting shadows, I have felt its madness poison my brain. I am not the person I used to be. I killed four people in the streets just so that they would not interfere. I killed the baker, and all this block will burn so that I can bury your ashes. But even all this murder is a token gesture compared to the tragedy you will unleash upon this world. I know you can’t admit it, but it isn’t a coincidence that you suspend your victims in the same way as the Interfectus.”

But in that moment, Aeliana threw herself through the shadowed streets and stabbed her dual daggers into my enemy from behind. Both blades bloodily burst through her chest, and the weapons glistened in the fiery light all around us. I was certain these two stabs would strike down our golden-eyed enemy, but she instead dropped her shield and swerved around. Even with two daggers lodged in her chest and blood pouring down her body, the woman seized Aeliana with both hands and then threw her into the rain with extraordinary strength. She then illuminated her arms with a fiery light as she prepared to obliterate her enemy in the rain-soaked street, but I didn’t give her the chance. Before she could even unleash her attack, I crashed my sword in through the back of her skull from behind. Her whole body halted and seized with a shower of blood.

“For her I would annihilate everything that exists. I believe in a fate that does not allow coincidence. You may be right that I am the shadow demon locked in human form, but I never cared about why or how I was born. I don’t care for this hopeless world or the people in it; compassion is a poison that I quickly learned to quit. I pose a threat far greater to this world than anything you say, and I see this darkest side whenever she is in harm’s way. I am more merciless and savage than I ever could admit, which is why you cannot conceive of the crimes I know I must commit. Your curse warned you of a monster, but it’s already too late. We will take what we want from this world without reason or debate. You said you sought me as a mission to kill or else complete, but you’ll become a piece of me when I burn you in the street.”

Without another word, I flexed my arms and pierced my enemy so deeply that my chipped blade erupted from the other end of her head in a burst of blood and brain. I sank my sword so savagely into her skull that I touched her with an Array of Black Fire. I had inscribed the lurid symbol on my sword after I had killed Kalairo by using a special pen I stole from his body. The Array of Black Fire then activated with a shimmer of light which contrasted with the fiery glow behind me. Thunder rumbled across the sky and forced the street to shudder, but Aeliana and I focused our eyes only on the way the black fire burned the body of our assailant. It was in this moment that the golden-eyed marauder became nothing more than another iteration in a diminishing sequence. She was an infinitesimal increase inching toward an unreachable asymptote.

I said to my love in words I knew were true, “She would have killed me if it were not for you.”

But Aeliana smiled shyly and stepped slowly through the rain. She stepped upon our fallen foe and kissed me without shame. We embraced in the rain as she stood ankle-deep in brain. I saw her swell with joy when she kissed me and said, “You aren’t in this alone; put that out of your head. You speak of our future as if it’s something you alone must do, but we are only at our strongest when I am right beside you.”

It was then that our kiss escalated into a heavy embrace. Aeliana jumped into the air and wrapped her legs around me, but my back could not support her weight after the damage it had taken. We fell together onto the headless body of our soulless enemy. She giggled as she splashed faceup into the bloody puddle, but she wrapped her arms around me to pull me closer. I set my left hand onto a chunk of brain which popped in a bloody splash as I tried to support my weight. Blood splashed into my hair as I deeply kissed the love of my life. Our bodies wriggled together as one on the torn-open corpse of my attacker, though I suppressed the new spirit inside my head as she strived to barge into my brain. Nothing mattered in that moment except for Aeliana.

I whispered to her as she tore off my bloody shirt, “Until I met you, I lived in a cycle of hurt. You are better than anything I ever dreamed of. We could crush entire worlds fueled only by our love.”

Aeliana smiled widely and sank her fingertips into my shoulders, but then I heard a sudden clamor pierce the gentle din of falling rain. Two trash bags fell over on the other side of the street to reveal a person cowering in the shadows. As soon as he saw that we saw him, he scurried to his feet and strived to sprint away. But he had witnessed both the fight and the black fire, so he could not be left alive; he would otherwise endanger us both if he ever told anyone. So without wasting a moment, I lifted my left hand from Aeliana’s body and prepared to use my new power for the very first time. A spiral of fire shot across my arm and summoned a blazing sphere which overwhelmed the darkness and the rain. Steam swirled through the street. I unleashed this fireball at the witness as he tried to run away, but even the recoil of this massive attack could not separate me from Aeliana.

The inferno struck the witness and devastated his body; he crashed into a wall with so much force that twelve bricks cracked on impact. He collapsed onto the street and strived to drag himself forward, but fire clung to his clothes and overcame the rain. It was not long before the fire burned through his will to escape. It burned through his will to survive. He died a short distance away and flooded the air with the stench of burning flesh, but Aeliana and I ignored it as we caressed each other atop our dead adversary. Rain fell gently from the sky as blood soaked our skin beneath us. As a second body burned out of existence just a short distance away, Aeliana giggled and pressed her lips against mine. She wrapped her arms around my back and pulled me closer.

“Our enemy’s now just fuel for the monster from which she fought to save this world,” I whispered into the rainy air where smoke and steam both swirled.

Aeliana smiled shyly and said as she stared into my eyes, “Her self-righteous dream designed her dark demise. For all the crimes she committed to consummate her goal, she became nothing more than the candlelit bed on which we will become one for the first time.”