The Young Gods (The Young Gods #1) [NEW DRAFT]

•capítulo ocho // chapter eight•

Fire, burning. Voices, screaming.

Eden is fourteen and standing knee-deep in the snow, watching his childhood home go up in flames. His eyes ache when he looks at the fire. It rolls and tumbles, opening and closing like a beast's maw ready to swallow him whole. The heat stings his face, the only thing keeping his tears warm enough not to freeze on his face. The forest around him bows to the screaming wind, boughs bouncing and swaying, sparkling snowflakes whizzing through the air.

Somewhere inside of that flaming maw is his father and the knife that ended his existence, along with a part of Eden that died with him.

The towering black shapes of the trees start to morph. Pairs of trunks become pairs of legs. Stars that were once perfectly positioned over the tops of the evergreens are now glowing, piercing eyes. The trees- though they aren't trees anymore- descend and speak.

Boy of the cold, of the snows and sands, they hiss. Boy of the snows with blood on his hands.

Eden falls to his knees, hands pressed tightly to his ears. Though the keening cry of the wind escapes him, the voices don't. He has a sneaking suspicion that they're not outside him, but within him. They are him.

The shadows cast by the flames writhe and seethe, flickering in time with the fire and wind. They creep up on Eden's back, forcing him into the snow.

Listen, the shadows scream.

But Eden doesn't bother. He lets the voices drown each other out.

There is nothing that matters to listen to anymore.

Eventually, the brutal bite of the snow fades into suffocating humidity. The shrieking maw of the flames morphs into the gaping mouth of an alleyway. Slowly but surely, things start to come into focus.

A Tondan girl lies still on a stained pallet, back propped up against the alley wall. One of her arms ends in a blunt stump, oozing with fluids and tinging the air with rot. A Tondan boy stands before a girl cloaked in black, whose hands are raised, palms forward.

"You did it with these," the boy observes in Tondan- and to Eden's surprise, he can understand the boy. "How?" His expression grows hopeful. "Can you teach me?"

"No," the girl informs him, replying in the same language, letting her hands fall to her sides. "Is that what you wanted?"

The boy's smile is sheepish. "It was worth asking. Still-" He turns, gesturing to the girl on the pallet. "I just- I want to thank you again first. If it wasn't for you, she might be very ill."

"She's already ill." The girl in the cloak sidesteps the boy, going for the the girl on the pallet. "Look at this. See how the black is spreading?" She turns, the slope of her pointed nose barely visible. She doesn't touch the stump of the other girl's arm, doesn't even dare to. "She won't last a week. She'll fall into a fever, go unconscious, and never wake up."

"I had medicine," the girl on the pallet protests. "I'm going to get better."

The cloaked girl shakes her head. "You won't."

"It was those Sentinels," the boy grits out. His sheepish smile is gone, wrought from him just like the girl's right hand, cut away with the remnants left to fester. "They chased me like a dog! I could've gotten away- I'm fast enough- but not with a dozen vials. They treated me like a criminal." He turns to the girl on the pallet. "I'm sorry, Aizel."

"Kuya, it's not your fault." Aizel's big brown eyes shine. Her head whips around to the cloaked girl. "Tell him it wasn't his fault!"

"It wasn't," the girl agrees. "I should've done more for him. I could've at least picked up a few vials. I would've been able to find you."