Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Why? Why have you done this?”

“But for you,” he said. “For us. So that we may live free at last.”

“This makes no sense. Constantin, it’s madness!”

“You don’t understand because you’re still attached to the old world. This old, dying world which to survive has betrayed, used, and manipulated us, and would not have hesitated to kill us.”

“Perhaps, but—”

“I’ve seen death, Cousin. And I understood the vanity of it all—my father’s ruses, just so he could earn more power, the political bowing and scraping to preserve corrupted nations. I have been offered unrivalled power allowing me to get rid of this. To send the old world back to its inevitable death and to build something new here…something unique! “And this new world is my gift to you. …You and I could be its new gods—the immortal and benevolent monarchs.”

“HE HIMSELF IS THE INCARNATION OF THE OLD WORLD HE IS SPEAKING OF. HE HAS ITS VICES AND ITS POISON. FOR HIS OWN IMMORTALITY, HE’S PREPARED TO DESTROY EVERYTHING AROUND HIM…TO BREAK MILLENNIA OF CYCLES.”

The voice of the god went through me, and I felt my heart falter in its wake. That voice was like a force of nature, like a wave or the wind, but… But the words were wrong. For his own immortality?

No. No, that wasn’t why Constantin had done this.

As soon as the thought came to me, I saw them both with new eyes. En on mil frichtimen, the god who had been driving me to kill my cousin, might have been a prince or a governor. Ancient, far-seeing, and beyond my understanding, yes—but he had manipulated me. He was manipulating me still.

“I EMPLORE YOU, FLESH OF MY LAND, THINK OF ALL THE LIVES THAT WILL COME TO AN END TO FEED HIS PRIDE.”

“Don’t listen to this old god,” Constantin said. “He’s like all the others after all, clinging to life.”

And Constantin. He had changed so much since the bonding ritual. Gone mad, I had thought. But here in the sanctuary, where the air moved strangely and the Nádaig baro followed his commands, I couldn’t believe that any longer. Somehow my cousin had found a way to become a god and was on the edge of accomplishing it. In the moment after he spoke, I looked at him and saw how different he was. The marks were like a mask over his face; they had been all I’d seen before, the few times we had met him in the throne room and, later, when we’d surprised him at the stone circle in Cwenvár.

Now I saw that the hollows in his cheeks were gone. He had always been too thin for his height, but not any longer. He was broader, muscled like a fighter, and taller. But the changes went deeper than his appearance. Almost for as long as I could remember, Constantin had acted out, jokingly or at times in anger. He might be sincere and earnest sometimes, but he had rarely shown that face to anyone aside from me, when we were alone. It wasn’t until I’d been older that I’d learned to call the feeling that he carried with him behind the face he wore despair. There was no sign of that despair in him now.

“All you have to do is to bind yourself, here, with me,” he said, offering me his knife. “And we will be gods together, forever.”

The hilt of the knife felt strange in my hand—or perhaps it was my arm that felt as though it didn’t belong to me, as though I was separated from my body. Constantin’s right hand when he held it out to me was already bloody, and I could see the old scars crossing his palm. How many times had he done this to himself?

I realized I was looking at his hand like I could read the answer there on his palm, in his blood. He was asking me to choose. He had no other weapon, and he stood there in front of me open and unguarded, looking at me like… I couldn’t finish the thought; my mind wouldn’t form the words. If I lunged for him, I could kill him before he could stop me. I could slip the knife up under his cuirass. My hand knew the angle that would find his heart.

I felt my own heart then like it was shrinking away from the point of the knife.

Come away with me, I wanted to say to him. We could leave and— But why speak such empty words? Even as I thought them, I knew there was nowhere for us to run. Constantin would not go back to the Congregation. The Coin Guard would kill us, or perhaps just kill me and ransom him to his father. The Bridge? I hadn’t told Constantin what I’d found in the caves beneath Hikmet, at first because I was afraid of what the knowledge would do to him and then because he’d kept himself so distant. But even with Asili dead, I would be a fool to trust Governor Burhan. The Nauts might take us, if I asked, but I knew they couldn’t hold out long against the Congregation, if the prince wanted us.

If I thought I could keep him alive, I would have tried to take Constantin to Dunncas. But how long could Dunncas turn a deaf ear to en on mil frichtimen? The god wouldn’t let Constantin live.

And those obstacles were just speculation. I knew Constantin would not leave the sanctuary.

Constantin took a breath. “Lily,” he said, and I met his eyes, unwillingly. “Do you know what they want from you?”

When you’re alone, I heard the echo of his voice in my thoughts. He knew I was thinking of killing him.

And if I did, if I survived it—what then? What orders might come across the sea? What betrayals would they ask me to commit?

Why was I here?

I couldn’t have said in what moment I decided. Perhaps I had never been able to make any other choice. My hand was shaking when I put the knife against my palm and cut through the worn leather of my glove. I did it too quickly and used too much force, and the pain made me hiss through my teeth.

Constantin saw my hesitation when I closed my hand in a fist against my chest and came to me. “Come,” he said, reaching for my hand. I looked at him and couldn’t breathe around the tightness in my throat. The air seemed to have changed. When I had come into the sanctuary, it had seemed almost to be pulling me upward. During the whole long battle with the Nádaig I hadn’t been sure when I took a step if there would be rock underneath my feet or nothing at all. Now that pull had ceased, and I felt the ground more solid beneath me. Leaves and ash were drifting around us, hanging in the air.

Now it was the way that Constantin looked at me that made me feel disoriented and made me hesitate, even while I was putting my hand in his.

“Trust me,” he urged, softly.

His fingers closed around my left hand, and I felt blood spreading through my glove and the sharp pain in my palm. He pulled me against his chest with one arm across my back. We both wore armor, and I couldn’t feel his arm or his chest, only the pressure bringing us together. But I saw and felt his shoulders relax as he bent his head close to mine. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and rested my head on his shoulder, relieved even while I feared what might be coming. I could choose this, at least—to let Constantin live. And when I thought about what I might have done, I clung more tightly to every sign that he was alive and well, the solidity of him, his hand around mine, the sound of his breathing.

Constantin’s breath stirred the hairs on the back of my neck when he spoke.

“You won’t regret it, Cousin.”

I felt his attention turn elsewhere. And then the world tore itself apart around us with a sound too immense to be heard. It felt as though I was inside of it, caught in an invisible wave. Blinding white light glared through the tears in reality and swept away everything it touched, until Constantin was the only real thing left.

I felt as though I had been sick, or in pain—so much pain that it drove all thought from my mind—and now I was well. Or perhaps it had been the weight of the air that had changed, pressing down on me with such force that I was crushed beneath it. I had a sense that I should have died, that I had been dying. But I was spared.

Not only that—I felt none of my wounds at all, not the cut across my palm, not the fierce ache in my hip where I’d hit the rocks after the Nádaig baro had caught me with a swipe of its huge claws or the beating I’d taken when we’d fought our way up the mountain. I remembered what Constantin had said about the ritual weeks ago, I felt better than I’ve ever felt, and I knew the truth of it then. I’d never felt as new as this.

Constantin’s hands were on my arms, and he held me away from him. His eyes were searching my face while I struggled to understand what had happened in that impossible span between this moment and the last one. “It worked,” he said in a hushed voice, and I looked up at him. His face was lit up in a way that I hadn’t seen it since we’d landed on Teer Fradee. I had lived to see that expression on his face, once. But the marks were still there, and when he realized where my eyes had gone, he brought a hand up to touch his cheek.

“If that’s the price…” he said. Underneath the elation that made me want to toss back my head and laugh, or grab Constantin and swing him around, I felt my stomach clenching with disappointment. I felt these things so strongly that it took me a moment to realize that they weren’t mine. They weren’t my emotions. They were Constantin’s.

“Constantin—” I started, but he had raised his hand. I forgot what I had been about to say when I felt the pressure of his touch, but above my head. I started to bring my own hand up before I realized I still wore my gloves. As I tried to pull them off with unsteady hands, Constantin took my elbows, one after the other, and worked on them himself, gently easing the glove off my injured hand. When he had gotten that hand free, he ran his thumb over my palm. The cut was there, the edges still open, but it had stopped bleeding. I reached up with my other hand to feel what convincingly felt like wood—branches, like those that grew from the heads of the islanders, spreading out from the crown of my head. They were impossibly tall; I had to stretch my arm almost as far as it would go to feel their tips.

Constantin’s eyes followed my hand upward. “Lily,” he said then, meeting my eyes, suddenly urgent. I felt his hand close around my left hand. “I know it’s so much to take in. It seems unreal. But you’re so strong.” He laughed, once. “You’re going to be magnificent. –Just imagine what we could do together. What we can do, now.”

“Wait for me,” he said. He touched my cheek. His fingers were hot on my skin, and I realized how cold I must be. “There are so many things I haven’t been able to tell you.” He backed away from me several steps and turned before I could form my scattered thoughts into a question. Behind me, the Nádaig moved to follow him. I felt the presence of them like white hot flares in my consciousness, like two miniature suns. They stirred the air as they passed me—and that breath of air on my cheek was all it took to sweep me away.

I was the lightning-struck tree. I was the forest around it, breathing out now as the sun was lowering. I was the soil holding the day’s warmth and the cool waters tumbling down the side of the mountain. I was the mountain—old and solid, rooted deep—and its red-hot heart that churned far below. It felt as real as the visions had. But I wasn’t a tree or a seed; I was everywhere and nowhere all at once. There was nothing left of me. I felt my panic, but I had no heartbeat or breath, no muscles to tense. There was a feeling of something vast moving that hadn’t moved in ages, and then Constantin was calling to me.

Lily, I’m here—you’re safe. You can let go.

His voice came from nowhere, and I had no way to hear it. But it was his voice, as clear as if he was standing next to me. I felt only confidence from him.

You have to give yourself to it. Let go.

His voice faded, and I felt myself suspended again, part of everything but wholly nothing. I was still but also ceaselessly moving as plants and animals breathed in and out, and lived and died. If I tried to hold onto one thing for too long, I felt my nothingness again, and a shudder went through me. But always Constantin was there to calm me. And while I was there, the light aged, the shadows grew, and the sun sank below the horizon.

And the night! I felt the night air like I was naked beneath the stars, and instead of fearing being so vulnerable, I thrilled to the touch of shadows and silvery light. I was every secret thing that hid in the dark—and everything that shone brightly only after the sun went down. There were flares of white fire across the island. I saw them and felt them at the same time; they felt like starlight felt, like the first cool touch of a silver chain on my skin. When I reached out to one of the fires with something I imagined to be a hand, I felt as though I was being bathed in winter air. There was a Nádaig in the heart of the white flames, and she shivered as I passed through and shook herself, curling her tentacles around one another like a person rubbing her hands together.

A fire greater than all the others—many fires together—burned near the top of the mountain, and without thinking to move, I was there in the trampled, muddy earth and the air that vibrated with cries and shouts and the crackle of magic. All at once, I remembered who I had been that morning and the unlikely army I’d brought with me up the mountain. I remembered my companions—and I saw their faces, Vasco and Síora, pale and lined with weariness as they fought, letting others retreat down the path behind them. Blood ran from a cut on Vasco’s brow, and when he had a breath of space, he brought the back of his arm up to wipe it away from his eye. Farther up the slope, one of the Nádaig baro lay dead. The other was a great shadow over them, atop the rocks, and in its throat burned white fire.

Vasco pushed Síora into a crevice in the rock and fell in behind her just as the Nádaig roared and the night went blinding white around them. As the smell of scorched rock rose into the air and their vision danced with gray spots, I saw—felt?—Síora grab Vasco’s shoulder. She said something to him, and he let out a heavy breath and shook his head. He started to speak, but she interrupted, urgent, fierce. He relented; he couldn’t say anything to stop her. He levered himself out of their shelter, then turned to help her back onto the path. His hand grasped her arm for a moment longer, until she let go and stepped back, and the moment came for him to leave.

Síora stood alone against the Nádaig baro. But I was there with her when she slid her palm down the blade of her rapier, and knelt, pressing her bleeding hand to the earth while the Nádaig stood back as if it was waiting. She shouted, and though I couldn’t hear the words I felt the pull of them. She was drawing on the island’s power. She meant to become one of the guardians. Even as I realized it, I saw ghostly flames kindling to life around her hand and growing to engulf her where she knelt.

No—that couldn’t happen. I wouldn’t let it happen.

I had a body again, and for a moment, the world pitched like a ship in a storm wind. I wasn’t sure if I was standing or lying on the ground. But then I felt the uneven pressure of rock against my shoulder and hand and legs. I was lying on the floor of the sanctuary, and I was alone. Constantin was standing outside the entrance. Below, on the mountainside, I could feel the cold flare of the Nádaig baro and the smaller fire that was Síora, burning herself up.

“Constantin, stop!” I tried to shout as I pushed myself up to my knees. The words came out thin and cracked, but somehow he heard me. I sensed him hesitate.

But he wouldn’t be fast enough to stop her.

“Enough!” This time I did shout. I felt the word swelling in me, and it burst out as sound and a force that rolled off of me and away, through the rock of the mountain. And I sensed the lights that burned all across the island going out in a wave that spread from the sanctuary to the shoreline, not only the bright Nádaig and Síora but the lesser lights of people and animals as well. The night that had been as alive and vivid as day to me was truly dark now, and quiet.

In the silence, I heard Constantin’s footsteps echoing off the rock. And when he came into the great, vaulted space of the sanctuary, and he saw me where I knelt, I knew I wasn’t ready. I felt as though my edges were disintegrating and I might spill out of myself again into the night. I felt the rush of his exhilaration speeding my pulse and—and desire, a sweet tension between my legs. I wasn’t sure if it was mine or his.

He stopped before he reached me, our eyes met, and I knew that he could feel what I was feeling.

I wasn’t ready for this.

He had just started to say something when the sanctuary unformed itself in front of my eyes, and when the world had form and shape and color again, I was somewhere else. I was still on my knees, but in mud this time. There was light, almost as if it was daytime, but it was weaker than sunlight. The ghostly flames I had seen before were burning all around me on the bare earth. That was where the light was coming from. In that light, the colors were all wrong, and the shadows moved like living things. I reached out and put my hand into one of the flames and felt it lapping cool as water against my skin.

I hadn’t realized I wasn’t alone until I saw another hand reaching for mine.

“My child… What happened?”

The hand passed through mine, and I could see the ground and the flames through his arm.