Poison (29 page)

With your death, it ends until it begins again.

Noire's gaze landed on a black-bladed knife, still caked with blood, lying near the Faerie Queen's body. He picked it up with one trembling hand. Bending over Gael, he gave the stiff, cold lips a last kiss. Drawing back, he lifted the knife and ended the tragedy to start it again.

Gael's scream of rage tore Noire from his memories. "You betrayer! You vile piece of bloody evil!" He pulled away from Noire and stormed toward Etain.

Sickly yellow light filled the room:  bright, blinding, and painful. "You will cease to defy me!" Etain commanded.

"You will cease to poison us!" Gael bellowed, and though it clearly hurt him to defy her and blood poured from his nose, he pushed on. "I am the Unicorn, the purity of the land and life! Against all ills I protect it, and I've had enough!"

At his words, new light flared—silvery and shimmering, drowning out the sickly light of the Faerie Queen.

"No!" Etain snarled, throwing out more power, her jewels burning with violet light. "I am the Queen, the Goddess, you cannot—"

"Stand down," Freddie said, her voice resonating, adding her own gold shimmer and making it impossible to see. "I am the Pegasus, the strength of the land and life. Against all abuses I protect it, and I've had enough!"

Etain screamed in rage and threw out still more power, brilliant violet battling against silver and gold. For a moment, she seemed to be winning, as Freddie and Gael were driven to their knees gasping in pain.

But then the Great Oak seemed to shake, and brilliant sunlight poured down in radiant, shining light, and the violet power of the Queen was drowned out, the entire Sanctuary overtaken by burning, blinding light.

Noire hid his eyes turned away, feeling the power on his skin. But then, slowly it began to fade. When he could no longer feel the searing heat of the light, Noire lowered his hand and cautiously opened his eyes.

When the last of the light finally faded back to normal, the Sacred Oak was lush with emerald leaves and the midday sunlight slipping through the branches fell across the three figures at its base:  the Pegasus and Unicorn, and the Faerie Queen at their feet with the sharp point of the Unicorn's silvery horn at her throat.

He could feel the power emanating from them, and he forgot to breathe when, for a moment, Gael's silver eyes fell upon him. Gael's voice resonated through his mind. "
It's over, Etain
."

"I hate you," she said, staring straight at Noire when she said it. "Everything was fine until he saw you."

Noire said nothing, just looked away, unable to bear the loathing in her eyes.

"Nothing was fine,"
Freddie said, her wings moving restlessly. "
We argued constantly. We avoided each other. I would not admit that I was in love with someone else and no longer in love with my siblings. I wish that events had not played out as they did, that our children were not the victims of our falling apart, but it was always going to end, Etain."

"No!" Etain snarled. "I hate you all! You're mine!"

"We were always yours, sister,"
Gael said.
"You just would not see it because it was not what you wanted."

Etain said nothing, but on her back her butterfly wings, larger and more beautiful with her ascension to goddess, slowly turned dark violet. "Licht was right. Choice is a mistake. Everyone would have been happy if they had just accepted fate."

"No, Etain,"
Freddie said quietly.

"Enough of this. We're going in circles and I've had all I can take of that."
Gael pulled away from Etain and lowered his horn all the way to the ground. It began to glow like moonlight, threads of silvery light pouring out to weave and wind through the grass and wrap around the White Beasts.

For a moment, everything was silent. Then all around them came soft groans, the rustle of fabric and grass, as one by one the White Beasts of Verde woke from their poisoned slumber.

Ailill's head ached; he felt as he had that time he'd accidentally gotten into a brawl in a dubious dockside tavern in Piedre. What had happened to him? He dragged his eyes open, saw the glass roof of the Sanctuary, and it all came to back to him. Ivan was dead. The Faerie Queen was evil. He had to warn—

"Cat."

Ailill froze, then his vision blurred. He had to be dead. He hadn't woken up after all. "Vanya?" he asked, voice hoarse. He tried to speak again, but forgot how to entirely when Ivan knelt and pulled Ailill into his arms. He smelled like sweat, smoke, blood, and the sea—and he was soaking wet. Ailill just held on tightly. "Vanya."

Ivan said nothing, just drew back enough to kiss him—hard, bruising, desperate. All around them was shouting, the Beasts railing at the Triad, everyone raging at Etain. Ailill did not care. The only thing he cared about was the man in his arms.

Finally pulling back to draw breath, Ailill stared at Ivan, still not certain he was awake. "I thought you were dead. She said you and Noire had died, told me later when she poisoned me that she'd killed you. Set you up to be slaughtered …"

"One of the oldest tricks in the history of crime and I fell for it," Ivan said. "I'm still angry at myself for that." He kissed Ailill again, softer, lingering. "Noire and I took care of the beasts, though Noire paid a small price for it all. We had to swim the moat to get back, but we made it. I would have done whatever it took to make certain she did not kill you."

"I knew you'd come," Ailill said, and he wanted to say more, but the words stuck in his throat.

Ivan seemed to hear them anyway. "I am just glad to see you awake, beloved. You lay so still and there was nothing I could do …"

Ailill kissed him and held fast, burying his fingers in Ivan's hair. "All I could think about was you being dead. I didn't care about anything else, anymore."

"I'm alive, you're alive—the Tragedy is quite over, I think, though I think there is a tragedy yet to come. But—"

His words were drowned out by a booming crack of thunder. Lightning flashed, and the scent of ashes and roses filled the room. When the lightning faded, six men stood with the Triad by the Sacred Oak. Ailill stared at them a moment before realization sank in—and familiarity. It was impossible not to recognize Raz, who looked the same and yet entirely different as Zhar Ptitsa.

The trio of Kundouins could only be the Dragons of the Three Storms, and Ailill was surprised he knew them all:  Captain Kindan, the merchant Raiden he had met only briefly years ago, and Prince Nankyokukai, whom he had never met but had seen before from afar. How had they become gods? Had they been the whole time, reincarnations like Gael and Freddie?

He also recognized Prince Culebra, but not the man—no, that was a woman—beside him. A companion of some sort to the Basilisk? Ailill wanted to cry to see all the gods except Licht gathered together. If only the cost of restoring the gods of Verde had not been so high. It was hard to be joyous when the Faerie Queen herself had been responsible for the destruction.

Raiden stepped forward, closer to the Triad; he was clearly the leader of the entire gathering. Pantheon, Ailill recalled. Once upon time they had been the Pantheon. "I am relieved to see you alive and well and returned to us, Guardians." His eyes flashed with lightning. "You, Faerie Queen, I could have done without. Your betrayal runs deep—too deep for there to be forgiveness."

Etain's eyes burned violet with hate. "My betrayal? I am not the only one here who is guilty of betrayal. I'm not the only one here who is directly responsible for the deaths of my siblings."

"Enough!" Nankyokukai cracked out, thunder rolling with his anger. "There is a difference between lives sacrificed for the good of all, as were our long-dead brothers, and cold murder committed in the names of jealously and hate."

"My brothers died for me," Raiden said quietly, dark eyes filled with pain. "You murdered yours and made the poison that killed the Basilisk."

Etain shrugged. "I am not responsible for how my creations are used."

"So you admit you made Licht the poison that he used to kill us?" Culebra asked.

Sneering, Etain replied. "Yes, I did. To slay the cowardly god of death who did nothing except whine and moan about how nobody loved him. Who possessed the most fearsome power of the nine and only languished in his stone temple bemoaning it. So good at complaining, snake, but not so good at doing anything about it."

Gael pressed his horn more firmly into her throat, drawing a thin trickle of blood.
"Do you even begin to comprehend your own words? Your crimes? All who have died by your hand or by your negligence or by your cruelty? You are a god of life and yet you care nothing for life. This whole time, we thought it was Licht alone who tangled the world in his thread of fate, only to find that you are just as guilty. You gave him poison. You cast the Curse of Fate. All because you would not accept that things changed, a jealous rage. What happened to the sister I once loved, whom I once called lover?"

"You lost her when you threw her aside to take up with a black cat," Etain said bitterly. "When you chose a little bat over me. You want to blame somebody for the state of our world? Blame yourselves, because the first betrayal was yours, Guardians."

"We are not without blame,"
Freddie said.
"But do not place all of it upon us. We betrayed you and let our children down. But we did not go to your lengths. The matter should have remained with the three of us. We might have even forgiven the murders of us and the White Beasts, in time and with proper penance on your part. But to hand the entire world to Licht, to Teufel, by way of the Curse of Fate … and to feel absolutely no remorse for your actions …"

"How did he break it?" Etain demanded bitterly. "I did not finish the curse, but it still fought chaos for nine hundred years. I never succeeded, but I would have with the jewels. I don't understand how it turned in his favor." She stared hatefully at Noire.

"One sliver of chaos is all that is needed," Raiden said quietly, his midnight eyes somber. "You did not finish the curse, and that sliver of a chance eventually let my brothers pour their powers and their souls into me. My release brought even more chaos back to the world, and in due course, brought the birth of the child of chaos. Every life he touches, he frees from fate and changes forever. At some point, the child of chaos affected at least one person in this room. That was all that was needed to begin fracturing the Curse of Fate once and for all."

Zhar Ptitsa stirred where he stood, ember eyes glowing. "Many years ago, the child of chaos interacted with the not-quite born child of tragedy, and everything changed. Not so many years ago, another in this room was changed forever by the child of chaos. The Curse of Fate, never properly finished, never stood a chance from that moment on."

"Child of tragedy?" Ailill asked, and he followed everyone's gaze. "Noire? What have I missed?"

"A lot," Ivan murmured. "I'm surprised you don't know."

"My memories only go as far as the moment I died," Ailill said. "I don't know what happened after. I thought everyone died."

But even as he said it, images filled his mind, put there by Gael's gentle touch. Ailill's eyes stung as he saw Noire take his own life on the slim hope he could somehow fix things in his next life. He looked sadly at Etain who was too busy glaring at Noire and the gods in turn to notice the way her Beasts looked at her. Willfully oblivious to the end, and the realization made Ailill that much more tired.

"Enough," Nankyokukai said, stepping forward and throwing out his arms, halting all conversation in the room. "This squabbling is accomplishing nothing, and it should not be done in front of those who have already seen and endured enough. Our children should not have to bear witness—"

"No," Verenne cut in, striding closer and lifting her chin. "It was our loved ones, our homes, our lives that have been lost. We are the ones who suffered most by her machinations. She betrayed us, who looked to her, loved her, believed in her all these centuries. We deserve to bear witness to justice."

"Yes,"
Freddie and Gael agreed.
"It is the least they are owed, if that is what they desire."

"Then let us end it," Kindan said harshly.

"We will end it," Culebra said and clasped hands with the woman beside him. They were definitely siblings, even outside of being gods—or maybe it was being gods that made them look like siblings. Ailill couldn't tell, but looking at the pair made him feel afraid and calm all at once.

He wondered if that was how it felt to die.

Gael and Freddie shifted back to their human forms in a shimmer of light, each holding fast to one of Etain's arms.

The woman holding hands with Culebra reached out with her free hand to touch Etain's cheek and stroke it gently. "Nothing will save you from death, sister, but you could die at peace by being sorry for your actions. Did we come so far, do so much, only for you to end this way?"

"You are no sister of mine," Etain spat. "Kill me, then. Death gains a god and life loses one. I want no part of this world that is nothing like what we made."

"Then goodbye," Culebra said, then turned slightly to address everyone gathered in the Sanctuary. "Shield your eyes, do not look up until you are told it is safe."

Ailill obeyed, a shudder running through him at the realization that the legendary eyes of the Basilisk were going to be used. He buried his face in Ivan's shoulder, slid his arms around Ivan's waist, and simply focused on the fact that Ivan was alive. All he needed was that one bright, happy fact; the rest would be bearable because of it.

Death, when it came to the Faerie Queen, was shockingly quiet. Soft murmurs of goodbye from the other gods and only a stony silence from Etain, a gasp, and a cry of pain that ended almost as soon as it began.

Ailill held Ivan tighter. Part of him was angry, vengefully pleased to know that Etain was getting what she deserved. Most of him, however, mourned. It was Etain who had sent him out to retrieve the jewels, professing they would help the ceremony.  Everything he had done, he had done for her, for Verde. He'd made himself a stranger in his own home just to save it—and all of it just to further her malicious goals.