A/N: second to last chapter y'all!!!
† he flew too close to the sun; fell in the sea and drowned †
"Melissa? Are you awake?"
Aquila's voice came before his light knocks, knuckles brushing the wood. The door creaked open ever so slightly. Our eyes met across the distance, and he nodded in understanding.
It was a bright day. The sun cut our eyes from a frosty sky. Our SUV drove through the rough landscape, barely making a sound. Aquila was next to me, and I could feel his thoughts probing around at the edge of my consciousness. They were anxious, but in a quiet way; they were frightened, but brave, resolved.
"You okay?" I asked, turning from the window to look at him.
His smile was tight. I could've sworn his face was paler than usual, Varkolak or not. "I miss Karen," he said.
I tried to make my voice reassuring. "You'll see her soon."
Whatever he said — something that sounded agreeing, reassured — was drowned out by the thoughts he tried to keep from me. What if I don't? What will she do? What about our child?
I cleared my throat and looked away, hoping he hadn't seen the knowledge in my eyes. People kept their secrets for a reason, and I had no right to look into his mind.
The sound of something heavy landing on the seat between us brought my attention back. A pistol lay there; it was silver with a black handle, a lot slimmer than I was used to. I picked it up, weighed it in both my hands.
"It's a .500 S&W.," Aquila explained. "It was designed for hunting in North America. If you aim well, and I know you can, then it should have no issue taking down a few Varkolak."
I turned it around; the weight of it was different from the semi-automatic I had used in practice. "In case you lose," I said.
"In case they find you."
My eyes flashed up to his. It's a possibility, I realized, for the first time. They might lose. Serena might die. And where would I be, then? What chance did I stand? All air seemed to leave the car. I filled my lungs, but I seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. I felt sick, the walls felt close, closed, my head ached, and I felt the stench of sweat begin to emerge.
"I need..." My fingers tripped in their search for the button to open the window. "I nee—."
Aquila reached over me, his hands pushed mine away, and then there was a breeze hitting my face, fresh air. I gulped for air, so desperate I almost put my head out of the window.
"She okay?" the driver asked. The Varkolak in the front passenger seat was watching me in the mirror.
"Yeah," I breathed.
"It's here," Aquila said.
The car pulled to the side, out of the caravan of cars heading over the hill. We were at the top now; there were no trees, no snow, just dry bushes and dark stone. Beneath us, the ground descended into a moss-green valley. It was like a bowl, with hills almost tall enough to be mountains rising all around. On the other side, the mountains truly did rise into mountains. I could see scattered evergreens growing into lush forests, there, behind the scene of the battle.
We stepped out of the car, Aquila and me. When I heard it set off again, tires cracking over loose stone, I felt my heart tug. Aquila put his hand on my shoulder, tugging softly.
"It'll be okay."
I wanted to ask him if he was sure, but I already knew both answers — the truth and the one he'd give me.
My hiding place turned out to be a cave. Its mouth was hidden in a small crevice of the mountain, not facing directly outwards. Moss and yellowing bushes covered it. Aquila took off his backpack and handed it to me. I couldn't help but laugh at the sight of him.
He blinked, baffled. "What is it?"
"No, it's just..." I waved my hand in the air. "You look very much like a dad. Blue backpack, matching windbreaker— sensible shoes and socks sticking up from them."
He chuckled. "Well, I am going to war. It's probably not the best moment to bust out my heels."
I knew I'd stumbled upon a goldmine. "You have heels, don't you?"
"I don't use them." He looked away. "Anymore."
I sputtered out laughing. "Of all people, I did not expect this from you."
"You should've met me in the '20s."
"I really should, shouldn't I?"
His laughter died, but his smile remained. "I do wish you could have been here back then, before— before all of this."
"Melissa!"
I was shocked; usually, I felt her presence before she appeared. I only now realized that it was a kindness she afforded me. If she wanted to, she could probably disappear completely — and today was a good day for her to stay hidden.
Her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, and she wore yoga pants and lightweight sweater. She seemed more dressed for running than fighting.
"There are flashlights, a cell phone, batteries, a sleeping bag and a book down there," Aquila told me, before she came up to us. "I'll see you soon."
I pulled him close by the shoulders and wrapped my arms around his neck. My eyes clenched shut as I breathed in, drawing in his scent, the feeling of his mind, right there, and his arms around me, so safe. As I drew back, I kissed his cheek and whispered in his ear, "See you soon."
Slinging the backpack over my shoulder, I followed Serena into the cave. As I was about to enter, I looked over my shoulder, but he was already gone.
The cave was dark and gloomy. The thought of spending the next hours here, alone with the thought of the battle happening so close, made my stomach churn.
Serena marched around the cave. Never had she seemed less of a Varkolak; Varkolaks were refined. They were humans who had the animal taken out of them. All their natural reflexes had been replaced with a divine light of knowledge. But Serena was catlike as she paced up and down the length of the room.
"I can protect you in here," she said. "They won't feel your presence, your warmth. But I can't protect you if you go outside and they see you."
"You should've taught me how to do that," I pointed out. "I don't want to distract you."
"It's hardly a distraction."
There was something haughty about her that I recognized from my first impression of her. It calmed me; sure, my first impression of her had been scary, but scary meant dangerous, and dangerous is only bad if it's not on your side.
"There's been a lot of talk about you recently," she said. She was watching me with that strange expression that I had seen on her face often before, but never knew quite how to explain. There were thoughts running behind her eyes, yet it was not entirely interested, not quite intrigued. She looked at me as though I had just piqued her interest, and not even she knew why. "I think it's because of how much time I've spent with you."
I frowned. "Talk?"
She cleared her throat and twisted the toe of her shoe into the ground distractedly. "If I die, they'll want you. I don't know what they think I've told you, but they know it's valuable. They'll probably try to change you."
For a moment I didn't understand. "Into a Varkolak?"
"Yes, of course." She tapped her toe to the ground once more, then looked at me and focused her attention. "Don't do it." There was something almost pleading in her voice.
I frowned. "I doubt I'd make a good Varkolak."
"But you would," she said. "You'd be amazing — I've seen the way you moved on from your friends, how unattached you are. You'd survive." Her eyes were intent on mine. "But that's not a good thing, trust me. You don't want that. Everyone admires the strong woman who never cries, but they forget that this is quite a different pain; to never allow yourself to fight for something long enough that letting go hurts. I know this because while once I couldn't let go easily enough, now I let go too easily. I am still torn between these two pains. After all, what hurts the most? — the burning, screaming pain of having to say goodbye, or the hollow numbness of never saying hello?"
At least you remember the things you once held dear, I thought; words I drew out from in between the lines of her speech. Even now, Stilio and Claudius lived within her. Her first centuries of life took up an infinite amount of space within her, while the millennia that had passed since the War was just fleeting moments of dwindling importance.
"So don't let them convince you," she whispered. Her voice trembled towards the end. "Please live. Please just be happy."
She stepped closer to me, raised her hand to touch my skin. I expected a vision or a lesson or something of the sort. But nothing came; she just touched me, felt the warmth of my skin. I sensed the slowness of her mind. For a moment, her mind was not clinging to the past with every frantic beat of her heart. When her lips touched mine, I barely noticed it at all; it was so clearly meant as nothing more than the need for closeness.
After a long moment — where her lips graced mine so softly, and I inhaled the air she released, and her fingertips shivered slightly before moving backwards, towards my hair, and I felt her lashes flutter over my lids — she drew back. I understood her, then, understood her, truly. That moment was already in the past; it was so unique from the rest of my life, so quietly powerful, that the thought of forgetting it scared me more than I could've imagined.
"Wish us luck," she whispered.
"Of course."
And she was gone; and the battle had begun.
What followed were the longest hours of my life, yet I can't for the life of me describe what I did or what I thought about. That day, in the cave, I remember through emotion, and there was only one emotion: fear. Fear of what would happen if the Lilithians won. Fear of what would happen if they lost. Most of all, fear of what would happen if Serena died.
I remembered Isabella, how powerful she had seemed when she was alive, and how little had happened when she died. How long would the power of Serena's name last after her body had vanquished? I knew that, had it not been for her, I would likely have been dead now, or at least far worse off. If she died, how could she protect me?
It was a very selfish thought, but when all that separates you and a battle between two groups of immortals — both of which knew you had valuable information — was a thin cave wall, it was hard not to be selfish.
I tried to read. In the five hours the battle took, I read two pages. I don't even recall the title of the book.
I remember the feeling of the ground beneath me through the sleeping bag as I lay down and tried to rest. As I lay there, my hands ran over the cave floor. My fingers found hundreds of tiny, little pebbles. One by one, I threw them at the wall until finally, I had to move within reach of more.
I remember how futile I felt. So close to me, there was a battle being fought, and all I could do was lie still and make as little noise as I could. When I felt the panic creep closer, I closed my hand around the gun.
I remember realizing that Riley would be down there, and hoping with all my being that he would die. I remember how much that wish scared me.
I remember how the sun, for a little over fifteen minutes, stood at the exact right point to shine into the cave. It lit up the leaves covering the opening and gave them a halo of gold.
I remember the awful sounds that would sometimes reach my ears; the screams and roars and shouts; and I remember how the only thing more awful than the noise was the quiet when the battle came to an end.
Those five hours and twenty-three minutes were the longest of my life, and the seventeen minutes I spent waiting to find out who won and who lost were the longest of those hours.
I tried to sense it. I reached my mind out, out of the cave and as far as it would go until my head started pointing and fear sent my focus crashing. Even if I had possessed the composure to reach the minds of the warriors, I'm not sure if I would've gotten anything out of it. War changes a person, and, as I'd soon realize, in the moments after a battle, they were barely recognizable — minds alight with glory, hearts leaping as if to outrun the guilt.
Footsteps in the pebbles outside alerted me that someone was approaching. My hands went to the gun before my mind went searching. It took me a moment to dive beneath the glassy surface of adrenaline from the battle. There was victory there, too, gleaming golden-and-green — and beneath that, I found Aquila, tiny and bent together beneath the weight of the cape of battle.
We won. After all this time, alone in the silence of the cave, the realization sounded like a shout.
Aquila entered with his back bent, then straightened up. "Melissa..."
"I know." My words were rushed; there didn't seem to be time for either of us to finish our sentences. There didn't seem to be time for anything. "Where's Serena?"
He smiled. "Celebrating, I imagine."
She survived. Tears of joy rose to my eyes, blurred my vision.
"Is it safe for me to leave?"
"Come with me."
I followed him out of the cave. For a moment, I forgot about the battle; the sun shone and all I could see were rocks and bushes. There was birdsong filling the air and faraway voices raised in joy. Then I turned.
The valley had been colored red with blood. Bodies — so, so many bodies — lay scattered on the stone. There was something ironic about all this death on this time of the day. Monstrous acts belonged to the night, not the calm light of the afternoon.
Aquila turned me away from it, followed me back the direction from which we came. I kept my eyes ahead as I walked with short, brisk steps. Feeling cold all of a sudden, I wrapped my arms around myself.
"What about my things?" I asked, coming to a halt as I remembered the backpack, the books...
Aquila turned around. "It's okay, just leave them."
I saw a drop of blood, just below his chin, on his neck. He fought, too. I nodded, swallowing down air.
All of them — the surviving Varkolaks — had united around the cars. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, and yet I knew instantly and acutely that Serena was not among them.
"Where's Serena?" I asked.
Aquila shrugged. "She must be here somewhere."
"No, she isn't."
"I'm sure she came back with us. Let's go look."
This was the first time that it struck me that maybe my mind was more attuned to Serena's than Aquila's was. Perhaps I truly was special, when set into the context of Serena.
"No, she's not." I stopped, stood my ground. "Something's wrong."
Aquila watched me with a strange look; as though he could not decide whether to laugh in disbelief or nod in agreement.
"I'm going," I said.
He seemed to settle on disbelief. "We won, Melissa," he said.
"Then why's she not here?"
"She needed a moment alone."
At first I did not recognize the voice that came from beside me. However, when I turned around and was met by flaming hair and bloody eyes, I was instantly taken back to that night — that night when Serena freaked out, the night she sent me to the TV tower.
"Hayley?" I said, uncertainty filling my voice.
Aquila smiled and reached out a welcoming hand. "Hayley here was a major help on the field."
She touched two fingers to her temple in a salut, smiling almost ironically.
"She was the one to find Isabella's body," Aquila continued.
I frowned. "Really?"
"And just in time, too," she added. "She was just about to dissolve."
Seeing my confused frown, Aquila explained. "When we... well, die, I suppose, we dissolve."
My eyes followed a light, pointing gesture of his hand to the field below us. Already, the bodies had all but vanished — there were only patches of white and dark floating in the crimson now. For a moment, I could have sworn I could smell the blood, salty and thick and flowing... My vision grew blurry, and I only just kept from staggering.
I turned my gaze back to them. "So Isabella is dead? It is over?"
Hayley smiled. "I doubt she survived that." With a little jump, she backed away. "I'm getting a beer. See you!"
And she scurried off, steps bouncy with excitement. Aquila was smiling, too, but that paled away when he saw my face.
"Are you alright?"
I shook my head and leaned my shoulder against a car. "No, I— how can you...?"
"You've killed someone," he reminded me, leaning closer. "You know what it's like."
I shook my head and dried my nose. It had reddened in the cold. "Well, I wouldn't ever celebrate it."
"But you do make yourself a hero," he said. "A savior. In that way, we're the same. We all try to justify our actions."
I sighed. "I need to find Serena."
"I'm sure I there is nothing I can do to help you."
There was nothing disapproving or aggressive in his voice; it was a statement of a fact, a fact that had been clear since we met in Rome.
She must have wanted to be found, because her mind was tangible from the moment I stepped out of the crowd. It floated before me, like an invisible ribbon weaving its way through the air. There was something grayish about it; dull, but ethereal; the color of beginnings, and of ends.
Its path led me in the opposite direction of the cave. The cars were parked on the south-eastern hillside; I was walking further south, round the corner to western end. Here, the moss grew into bushes, and from bushes into thicket for frail, bone-white trees, their branches barren and imploring the skies like fingers of starving believers.
Here, a clear, silvery stream clattered down over the stones. I stumbled as whiteness blinded me. As I regained my balance, the sight came back. Brightness filled my mind, tinnitus filled my ears, growing and growing until my head was ringing and then — silence.
Grey, dull silence, like the fog at the beginning and the end of days.
A mechanical sound started and when I looked down, I found myself on an escalator. Judging from the faded creme of the wall tiles — and the crude writing on it — I guessed I was on my way up from a subway.
I stepped out onto snow that crunched beneath my feet. Puffy flakes of white fell all around me. I felt them settle in my hair. Tall buildings rose, surrounding me, monotonous and grey and disappearing into heavy clouds. It took me a moment to recognize Time's Square in all this tranquility.
All at once, the screens blared on. Pink and blue and white flashed by. I took a turn, trying to understand. This wasn't a vision, not as such; it was a memory of a vision, and one that had been relived, over and over.
And there she was, probably fifty meters away, in the middle of everything. Her hair was wet and tangled with melting snow. When I approached her, she stopped me with a raised hand, then pointed it upwards. I tilted my head back.
Far, far above, a clock emerged from the clouds. Tick, tick, it whispered, but the whisper seemed to come from below me, not from the clock. Tick, tick, to what?
And there came a plane; its pilot was trying to steer it upwards. He wanted to crush the clock. He wanted to reach the galaxies with all their stars. He wanted to see what eternity looked like. Yet, whenever he pulled it up, it descended a little further. Panic had taken hold of him by now, and he was pulling up with all his might, and heaving with the exhaustion, he fell, fell, fell from the sky.
The vision collapsed before the explosion.
When my feet moved, they now hit soft, dark moss and hard rocks. I moved through the landscape, rushing along with the water.
At the foot of the hill, the little stream crushed into a wide river. It was strong and fast, too powerful for me to pass through; its surface was white with foam. I stopped at its brink and raised my hand against the sharp sun to look around.
On the opposite brink, the earth rose again, this time into a looming, dark mountain. Further upriver, trees dipped their leaves into the water and yellowing grass grew in dirty ground. That's where I saw her; with naked feet in dying stray, the wind blowing her hair into her eyes. There were tears, there. And I knew.
"Told you you'd survive," I said, hopeful, even then, as I approached her.
She smiled. "Day's not over yet."
Tears were rising in my eyes, now, because it was so obvious. Her mind was screaming at me. "Don't do this." My voice was brittle.
She shook her head and raised both hands to pull her hair out of her face. "I can't not."
I could tell that she was sorry, that she wished she could stay, that she wished she could. But she had already been at this point too often — pulled taut, about to snap, but brought back in the last minute by that force within her that I wish I could've seen at its fullest.
"Hayley told you where I was, didn't she?" She was rubbing her wrists, up and down, up and down, sharp and tugging movements. "Did you see her eyes? Imagine that..."
I wanted to step forwards. I wanted to yell at her, slap her back into reality. I wanted to tell her what I was telling myself, over and over: We won. We won, Serena!
"If my eyes had changed colors, I think I would've forgotten the real one by now." She sniffed, laughed breathily. "I barely even remember my own name, before Serena..." Her eyes were glassy with memories. They were floating all around her; her mind had opened and spread, circling, above her. "Sometimes I can only remember it if I try to recall the way Mamma used to say it, but then I can't remember her and I can't—."
With a movement so sudden and so quick that I can't trace it, not even in memory, she bit into her own wrist. Blood poured from her lips, bubbling and wheezing with exhaled air, and spilled down, dripping onto the hard earth. I let out a squeal, covered my mouth against the sharp smell.
And then I saw it all so clearly — everything, all at once. Time stretched and collapsed, her memories becoming one and yet separate. There is truly no way to explain the next seconds of my life that is true to reality, for there existed simultaneously two realities: one within, and one without.
Within, I saw and felt and heard and sensed a hundred thousand things in just a few seconds. My entire being was drawn into Serena's; I swung a sword the way her arm once had, felt skin and veins and bones crack away. I dressed in a gown and looked into a mirror, and it was so ordinary, yet something about the way the light caught Serena's hair had made her remember it for two thousand years. I caught Claudius' glance across the room and felt my being warm up and life regained meaning and I knew, I knew, this was love, and I had never felt it before.
And there were newer things as well; Solomon's many trials with her, their many fights and their many reconciliations; there was tribal music on a boat in a dark ocean, and there was choirs in churches that rose forever, and there was jazz and heated glances in smoky rooms; Crystal's first kiss and her last, and her tears before and in between and after; a woman in Rome whose name was forgotten, or perhaps never known, but who had flexed her wrist as she spoke in a movement so graceful that it would outlive her by centuries. I felt Serena's desperation.
Don't let it be forgotten, she was screaming, within. All this beauty, all of this, don't ever let it be forgotten.
Stilio took up most of the space; the way his voice dipped low when he was teaching in a way that would make anyone trust him; how his arms seemed a shield against the world; how he'd fold his arms when deep in thought, how he'd waves his arms in laughter; how the disappointment in his eyes could make all the blood leave Serena's face.
I'm all blood now, she thought, now, in the moment of her death, all blood and death.
I saw a thousand of Stilio's expressions. I felt a thousand of Claudius' touches. I thought a million thoughts and the sun rose a hundred times. I lived an entire life of memories, a life that had been a thousand lives long.
Outside, her skin cracked open where her veins had once been. Blood trickled out, black and red. Her skin, like flakes of ice in a darkened ocean, broke apart, piece by piece. Tears from her eyes turned bloody the moment they fell from her lashes. Her nails and hair and clothes dissolved.
Within, I felt the vibrations of the universe. I sensed the atoms from dying and newborn stars, from the planetary cycles a million miles away. Within, she took her very last lunge. Within, she moved up, up, up, even as her body dissolved, down, down, into the ground.
And that's the last I remember; my own body falling, hitting the stones, but my mind was already gone. Black emptiness enveloped me. Serena kissed me there, below the celestial ceiling. She spoke only one sentence, but it changed every time I thought of it — "Thank you", "I love you", "Please don't forget". Then a wind rose and swept her away to the death that was owed her.