03 Sky Knight (33 page)

‘Are you just saying that so I give you the ring?’

‘I could be. What do you think?’

Nimbus looked at the ring one more time, and almost believed he could see a woman’s smiling face trapped inside the beautifully smooth surface of the quartz.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘you are a liar. You are a cheat. You are a murderer and a monster. I think that if you got free from there you would kill me without a moment’s hesitation.’ He caught the look of grief on the vampyr’s face. ‘And yet, bizarrely, I think you are my friend. It’s a mixed up world. Here.’

He pressed the ring into the vampyr’s hand, and then turned to leave.

‘One more thing,’ the vampyr said, as he slipped the ring onto his finger and then clasped it to his chest.

‘What?’

‘Don’t leave me like this, pinned to a tree. It’s so undignified.’

‘I’m not going to let you go.’

‘I don’t want you to let me go. I want you to kill me.’

‘No.’ Nimbus answered without any hesitation. He had already seen enough death to last him for the rest of his life.

‘It’s not fair to leave me here, counting the minutes before the sun comes up.’

‘I’m sorry. I won’t do it.’

The vampyr looked sad, staring into the quartz ring with great longing. ‘This is the worst punishment you could have devised. To be so close, and yet to have to wait.’

‘What’s he talking about?’ Sky asked. She had left her father’s side, and was approaching with the pegasus.

‘You are Sky, aren’t you?’ the vampyr said, kindly. ‘I know you. I have a message for you.’

‘What message?’

‘Your father... I’m afraid I am the creature who took him away from you. I have consumed his spirit. But in doing so, I consumed his thoughts and memories too. There is something he always kept from you, and wished he hadn’t.’

Nimbus put a hand on Sky’s arm, but she shook it off, moving closer still to the vampyr. ‘What?’

‘It’s about your mother. She never left you, or at least, she never wanted to. She had no choice. Your father was bad to her a lot of the time, and she had to go. But he doesn’t want you to hate her for his mistakes. And he’s sorry.’

Sky almost smiled, but not quite. ‘I know,’ she said. Then, after a thoughtful pause, she added, ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. If it is any consolation to you, you’re father was a torn man. He was restless in life, and he would have been tormented forever in death. He would not have passed over, and would have stalked the night–time world of the living eternally, suffering for the mistakes he made. You can hate me for what I have done, but at least this way he will not hurt any more.’

‘I don’t hate you. But I know why you have told me this. You want me to ask Nimbus to kill you.’

‘You children,’ the vampyr chuckled, shaking his head. ‘How is it you are able to see through my deceit?’

‘Adults are never as smart as they think they are. And I’m sorry. He won’t do it. Nimbus is pig–headed.’

‘But there is another way,’ Glass said. ‘If you give me a minute. I think I can make it work.’

She shot a quick look at Moon, who nodded. Then Glass made fists with her hands, and closed her eyes. Instantly, sweat began to bead on her forehead, and she grimaced as though whatever she was doing was taking a huge amount of physical exertion.

The vampyr watched her carefully, wondering what the little magic user was intending to do. Was she going to strike him down with a bolt of lightning? Summon magical blades to cut his head off? Or was she just going to set him on fire?

Slowly, a change came over the world. It was a subtle change, and at first nobody even noticed it; but gradually, the darkness of the night began to recede.

‘It’s still hours until dawn,’ Nimbus said to Cumulo.

‘I don’t think that matters to Glass,’ the dragon said.

The sweat was pouring off Glass’s face now, and still the world continued to brighten, the shadows retreating as the air became lighter and warmer. Suddenly the pegasus whinnied, and with a small pop it transformed into a star.

‘You brought me the dawn,’ the vampyr said, clearly in awe.

In response, Glass’s eyes sprang open, and a great gasp came from all those who were gathered to see it; because the little girl’s eyes were gone, and in their place were two fiercely blazing orbs of light.

‘Then it is true,’ Moon said to herself. ‘Nothing really ends, and stories do go on after we have passed away. Here is the new unicorn rider with the power of the sun in her eyes. And there is no place for me here any more.’

All around, the birds were tweeting in confusion, welcoming a dawn that, by rights, should not have come for several hours; and then the simmering arc of the sun appeared beyond the fringe of mountains in the East.

Glass blinked rapidly, and her eyes were once again eyes; although they were now forever changed, and deep within her pupils there boiled a heat and energy that could never be extinguished.

The sun continued to rise, its warmth and energy flooding the land. The vampyr turned his face away as rays of sunlight tore through the leaves of the trees, slicing into his body like lances, cutting through skin and bone, and leaving smoking wounds that smelled like baked earth. He did not even seem to notice.

‘Rose,’ he said, and then with a flash and a sizzling pop, he burst into flame.

Nimbus shielded his eyes, as the physical remains of the vampyr burned away and the shimmering blade of the spirit sword melted with him; but just at the moment Nimbus turned his face away from the inferno, he caught sight of two forms in the very heart of the billowing flames: The vampyr, and a beautiful girl. Two figures, wreathed in unnatural fire, holding each other tightly as the blaze engulfed them. By the time Nimbus looked again, they were gone; but he knew what he had seen, and he smiled to himself as the fire choked, sputtered, and died out.

The body of the vampyr was gone, and all that remained on the ground, among the tangle of roots and brambles, was Venom’s hilt, and that peculiar rose quartz ring, which no longer shone, and seemed somehow less beautiful in the sunlight.

***

Under the cover of the trees, about half a mile from where the survivors of the battle had gathered, Moon sat on a rotting stump, and folded her hands neatly in her lap. It was quite cold here, away from the new sun that Glass had urged to shine; but inside she was colder still. She had felt her familiar drift away during the atrocities of the night, and she knew that this time it had gone for good.

Moon had been kept alive for this one last battle, but she knew she could not be kept alive any longer. She would go now, into the West, and she would fade, as she had once intended.

She had crept away with all the woodland animals while everybody else was in the process of sorting through the bodies of the human dead, and she would be long gone from these realms of men before anybody thought to come looking for her.

In the deeper gloom, where the trees clustered hungrily, two nervous shadows were drawing nearer to where she was sitting. She waited for them, refraining from any sudden movements or sounds, making it obvious in her demeanour that she did not fear them.

Finally, the timid ghouls came out into the open, loping towards her nervously, shuffling in a way that was half bow, and half sideways crabwalk.

‘You are fairie,’ one said.

‘You make people feel,’ the other said.

‘In a way,’ Moon responded.

‘We are lost,’ the first ghoul mumbled. ‘We are so lost, even death does not look for us. Perhaps, we think, death does not consider us worthy of its attention.’

‘We live forever,’ the second ghoul added. ‘But this is no life. We cannot remember what it is to be the way we were. But you can help. You can make us feel.’

‘You are standing right beside me, so close that great men would weep. Can’t you feel anything?’

‘It is not enough,’ they said together, and they extended their arms to her.

Moon knew what it was they were asking her to do. Without another word, she took their hands in her own.

The first ghoul looked to the second, and there were tears in his bulbous eyes. ‘We are human,’ he said.

‘I remember,’ the second said.

It seemed then that a shadow fell across the two hunkered creatures, as if long arms that had been waiting for them were now hurrying them into a loving embrace. They slumped together, crying freely, and they finally died.

Moon stood, and was shocked to feel a dampness on her cheek: a single tear.

There was a rustling sound behind her, and Sage the stag strode into the clearing. His antlers were chipped and broken, and there were several cuts on his flanks and legs; but he looked no less majestic than he always had. He stood with Moon, and together they watched as squirrels darted among the treetops.

‘I was wrong,’ Moon said. ‘So was Nimbus. I thought Glass had to do it. She is the light of hope, and I thought only she would be able to burn away Crow’s evil. And Nimbus thought he had to do it because it was expected of him. But you knew the truth, didn’t you?’

Sage sniffed.

‘You, and your wolves, and all the other animals. You knew this was something we all had to do. This was something we all had to fight for.’

Sage waited a moment longer, then turned away.

Moon smiled. ‘When they write the legends, they will write about the mighty Wing Warrior on his fire–breathing dragon, and they will write about the unicorn and the pegasus. But they won’t write about you. They won’t even remember you were involved.’

Sage chuckled. ‘Of course they won’t. But legends aren’t about the truth, are they? Besides, the animals keep their own legends, and I doubt very much that the Wing Warrior will feature heavily in any of them.’

The stag disappeared.

‘I thought he was never going to speak to me,’ Moon said, as she continued her walk through the woods, heading back into the West where she would fade away to nothing.

***

Hawk was sitting on a crushed pillar beside Autumn and several of the landmark garrison.

‘It’s been a weird night, hasn’t it?’ he said.

Autumn was examining her own hands, clenching and unclenching them as if she couldn’t believe she was able to do it. Tucked into her belt was the knife that had killed her. She was going to keep it as a souvenir. ‘I guess so,’ she said.

‘It’s a shame we missed the sunrise,’ he added.

Autumn put her arm around his shoulder, and kissed his cheek. ‘It’s okay. We’ll catch the next one.’

Elsewhere in the ruins, there was rising panic. For all the best efforts of the survivors, they had been unable to find the body of Lord Citrine. It had simply vanished.

But not everybody was panicking, and tucked away from sight, between a pile of rubble and the last, sad remnants of a defensive wall, Captain Obsidian, Glass, and Lady Citrine were crouched around the body of a soldier that nobody else would even recognise. Cumulo was sitting patiently nearby, with Nimbus, waiting for the decision to be made.

Glass, whose face was a mask of composed concentration, laid her open palm against the soldier’s forehead.

While Glass worked, Lady Citrine turned to Obsidian, who was already fully recovered from the effects of the hydra’s poison thanks to Cumulo’s magical breath. ‘You know, they never could have held out here if it had not been for you,’ she said.

‘I had a bit of help.’

‘I know, but you were their strength. I was wondering if you might like to reconsider the position I offered you before, as a Guardian of the Realm?’

‘It’s an honour to be offered the position once, let alone twice, but my place is here. With these people.’

‘Perhaps. But you could do more for them with two thousand men at your disposal.’

‘I suppose I could, but who would be captain of the Landmark garrison?’

‘That would be your decision.’

Obsidian nodded. ‘I think I know just the man.’

‘He doesn’t want to come back,’ Glass said, interrupting their conversation.

‘Why?’ Lady Citrine asked. ‘Did you tell him that the glamour stopped working the moment he was killed? Does he know he doesn’t look like Citrine any more?’

‘I told him. But he thinks he let you down.’

‘Oh no. No. It is I who let him down. All these years, while he has sat on the throne and pretended to be something he never wanted to be, I have been failing him. But he doesn’t have to pretend any more. The people believe that Lord Citrine is missing, or dead. He can come back now, he can be himself. And in time, after I have mourned as long as the people think it is proper for a woman to mourn, I will be able to marry again, and I will marry him. We can rule together as we always should have done. Openly and honestly. I can make it up to him.’

‘Do you want me to tell him all that?’

Lady Citrine smiled. ‘No. Just tell him what he has always wanted to hear, what I was always too afraid to say.’

‘Which is?’

‘Tell him I love him.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The following day, Glass and Sky were sitting on the beach, watching the gently lapping waves of the unforgiving ocean. Reflection was cantering along the shoreline, occasionally stopping to look at herself in the frothing surface of the water.

‘Seems odd, doesn’t it?’ Sky said.

‘What?’ Glass asked.

‘Everything. Now the war is over. Everything seems so different.’ Her hand moved to the pouch around her waist, her fingertips tracing the outline of the star through the leather. ‘I thought that afterwards, we would be able to go back to the way we were. I’d always thought that. But we can’t, can we?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘There’s too much that’s happened. Crow hurt so many people, and even though he’s gone, the hurt hasn’t. And when I was out at Serpent’s Coil, I saw baby leviathans. Hundreds of them. If they make it out to the sea, and they can grow... I don’t think the world is going to be a very nice place any more.’

‘We’ll make it as nice as we can.’

Sky hesitated for a second, and then put her arm around Glass, hugging her closely. Glass thrummed with magic, but beneath it all, it was still possible to get a sense of what she really was: a little girl.