NOTES:
This contains SPOILERS for the ending of the An Ember in the Ashes quartet, so don't read on if you haven't completed the series! I have a thing for Avitas Harper and believe that there is no reason at all for him to be gone, much less at the hands of Keris Veturia, so here we are. As seen from Keris Veturia and Helene Aquilla's perspectives. Everything else is canon.
See the end of the work for more notes.
Keris Veturia
I kill as if I am possessed by a ghost. Whoever unlucky enough to be in my line of sight is slain without fail. My scims flash again and again, and with each fallen body, my mind screams for more. More, for all the hurt I was forced to go through. More, to bring myself further into numbness. More, to cleanse the earth of all these unworthy lives such that none shall stain history with their existence ever again. In this respect, the Nightbringer and I seem to be on the same page.
But thoughts of the jinn and his plans disappeared the moment I saw the boy.
The same strange compulsion from years ago overtook me—a fleeting urge to keep him alive.
"Stay far from the Nightbringer, Ilyaas," I warn him, not knowing where those words came from, or why I uttered them. Devilish mothering instincts, I curse in my head, raising my scims in a fury. But before I could vent my frustrations on the unfortunate souls in the vicinity, a clang resounds from my blades. I raise my head in part surprise, greater part irritation.
Quin Veturius. A ruthless grin edged its way across my face. A worthy opponent, at last. How many years have I waited for this? Finally, a battle in which I could forget myself and let instincts take over. To survive. To kill. I welcome my father with a deadly strike to his left, but he manages to evade it. Of course. He would not be Quin Veturius if he were so easily disposed. I wonder how it would feel to finally sink steel into his flesh. Will I get a sense of relief? Or will I remain dissatisfied?
Our blades clash again and again, Serric steel living up to its name of indestructability.
"Girl." He speaks calmly, as if there isn't an enemy dealing killing blows at him at every moment. "Your mother would break to see you like this."
I bark out a laugh. "Talking about ghosts now? I suppose I can understand, since you are about to become one yourself," I spit out, ferociously raining blows onto his defences.
"I should have been there for you." Was that sadness in his eyes? "The both of you. Karinna should not have—"
I don't let him finish the sentence, slashing violently across his chest in a move that he manages to block at just the last second. My other scim comes up to slice at his undefended side, finally hitting its mark this time. But the cut was shallow, and Quin Veturius leaps back into a steady stance again, not even blinking at the injury. My blades are in his face again in a second. There is no time for sentiments on the battlefield, and he better well defend himself if he wants to live.
We continue our dance, his face turning more and more grim with every meeting of our blades. He knows. With his age, he doesn't stand a chance the longer the battle goes on. I sneer, showing my teeth, luring him into attacking my open side. But that was a feint. The moment he realizes it is the moment he falls. It is also the moment my brain pauses with the weight of a hundred emotions—although my body automatically moves in for the kill.
Then the Blood Shrike appears, and the killing intent emanating from her successfully draws my attention. For a second, I am relieved. But this quickly changes to rage as I become conscious of the traitorous feeling that my mind was experiencing. It should not hurt me to kill Quin Veturius. I should know better.
I turn to the Blood Shrike and unleash everything upon her—my fury at the sliver of humanity that I still retain, at the human ties that somehow still cannot be weeded out from me. First Elias. Now Quin. But nothing can come in the way of this battle against the Shrike. Everything I wasn't able to wreck upon those two men, I threw at her. She stumbles, her skills evidently leagues away from the man I just fought. If this keeps up, she'll be dead within the next few blows. I am almost disappointed.
She tries to fight back, using cheap tricks that do nothing to fool me. Instead, they earned her a few deep cuts, injuries that start wearing against her stamina. Her mistakes cost her her weapons. And now there's nothing standing between her and her imminent death.
Except the fool who calls out her title with desperation, and—did I hear that correctly?—with unquestionable love. I snort, catching the dagger he throws towards her—no doubt a hope to arm her, prolong her chance of survival—and flicking it back with little thought. If he were a normal soldier, he would be dead by now. Just as I turn to confirm the fact, the Blood Shrike screams out a single, anguished word.
For a moment, I am back in Blackcliff again, and the voice that calls out is my own.
"HARPER!"
The other masks are beating Arius Harper to death, and there is nothing I can do. By the time I arrive at the scene, they are just about finishing up. What's left of the man I love is a bleeding, wrecked piece of meat, but his green eyes somehow manage to find mine, sorrowful through his mask. Just one moment, I see him still. And he sees me.
And then he fades away.
I howl. A hundred times; a thousand times. It is not enough to bring back the man I lost.
On the battlefield, those same green eyes meet mine, framed similarly by a silver mask. My heart stops. I cannot kill him. The dagger I initially aimed for his heart now flies towards his thigh. He roars as he falls towards the ground, blood pouring from him. Still, he reaches for the Blood Shrike who is now crawling towards him. Still, he pushes his scims towards her, wanting her to regain the weapons she needs to fight me. She ignores them, intent on getting to his wounds. Fools!
I stalk over and snatch the scims up, impaling them on the Blood Shrike's back. She screams again, and Avitas Harper roars, though he is void of his weapons and of no threat.
"Pathetic," I say to the Blood Shrike. "Look at you. On your knees in the mud. Your army dies around you, and no one else is brave enough to come to your aid. Weaklings! All of you!" I spit. "You are a fool, Helene Aquilla, for giving in to your love. I thought I trained you better. And now you will die."
Vaguely, I note that the words I utter are also directed towards myself. To the part of myself that cannot help but show mercy to the men my bleeding heart once cared for. The tattoo across my chest twinges. You too are a bleeding fool, Keris Veturia!
I raise my scims up high.
Helene Aquilla
I cannot die here.
If I die here, there will be no one left to sing Harper back to life. The dagger sticking out of his chest has obviously ruptured one of his lungs. He is breathing hard, gasping for air. He needs me. He needs me.
"Lovey," I whisper the first word that comes to my mind to the monster that I am at the mercy of. "That's what she called you."
I can almost hear Keris Veturia freeze. Then she is crouched in front of me, her hand gripping my throat up.
"Who told you that name?" She hisses. "A Scholar? A Martial—"
"No one living. A ghost told me. Karinna Veturia. She waits here in the Forest of Dusk, Keris. She has waited for more than thirty years." I stare the Commandant down, willing her to see the truth in my words.
Keris Veturia pales, and her eyes are now unfocused, far away from the battlefield. I push on.
"You were a child. It's not your fault the Resistance took your mother. It's not your fault they hurt her. Your mother tried to be brave, Keris. She tried to be silent, but the rebels hurt her. The screams scared you at first. She could hear you begging them to stop hurting her."
Her grip on my throat has now loosened, and she has staggered away from me. A bit more. Just a bit more.
"You were a child, Keris. What the rebels did to you and your mother was unforgivable. But what you did—crying out for her to stop screaming—skies, she forgave you for that the moment it happened. She only wants to see you again."
A great groan splits the air, and I inhale sharply. Bleeding hells. Where are you, Cook?! The earth trembles. We have no time. I must get to Avitas. I push off the ground, clenching every single muscle in my body around the scims. Ten hells, it hurts. Bit by bit, I unstick myself from the ground. The pain is phenomenal, but I finally stagger to my feet.
"She waits for you, Keris."
There was a pause, and then a dark shadow explodes into motion across the battlefield. It seems like Cook finally got the signal. Before my eyes can follow, Keris is on the ground, the scarred face woman looming over her. Thank the skies. My job here is done. I leave them to their battle, my attention already solely focused on the fallen Mask in front of me. Harper. No—His hand is cold in mine. No. No— Harper cannot be dead, he cannot be gone forever, not when I am still here—
"He-Helene—"
His voice is weak, but it is still there. My eyes burn.
He draws a rasping breath. "Em-emifal Fi—"
"Shut the bleeding hells up, Harper!" I snarl. "Don't you dare—!" I don't want to hear the rest of what he has to say. I should not have explained that phrase to him, should not have put this wretched idea into his mind, of dying, of leaving this world before—
I will sing him back. He will not die here. He cannot. I will not allow it. Despite the pain tearing through my gut, I take a deep breath. It takes all of my concentration to focus on his song, when my body is screaming out to heal its own.
Harper's essence hits me again, just like when I sang for him on that boat eons ago. Quiet, cool, steady. But this time, there is a thread woven even more strongly through the entire dimension of his consciousness. The thread of my life. Emifal Firdaant. To him, it means that he will give up his entire existence for the sake of mine. He wants me to put myself first, always. Even when we are both on the edge of death, he will want me to be saved, not him.
No! I pour more energy into his song, ignoring the request so clearly suffusing his consciousness. The wound around his chest stitches itself back together ever so slowly. With a thud, the dagger drops out. I feel myself getting more lightheaded. Almost there. The blood dripping down his thigh slows as my song repairs the trauma to that major artery. When I feel him being pulled back to the side of the living, I finally stop.
Great, I think, and then rip the scims from my body. I should heal myself now. But I can no longer find the strength. What was the song of Helene Aquilla again? I cannot remember it. Individual notes hang in the air, but they are unable to coalesce into a melody. Is this it, then? At least I managed to save Harper. Emifal Firdaant. Thank God—thank God that not everyone I love will die before I do. A tear rolls down my face at the mercy that the skies has bestowed. I lean my head against Harper's shoulder, no longer having the strength to hold myself upright. But as I start to slip into unconsciousness, I hear humming. Two notes. Soft but clear. It pierces through the fog in my mind.
On instinct, I echo them. And then, other notes follow. My song. It rushes out in a torrent, my voice entwined deeply with the baritone's. I feel pain like I have never known, as if I am standing in the middle of a raging blizzard and the molten depths of hell at the same time. Yet I don't stop. Supported by the baritone, I sing until the song ends, until the blizzard quiets into the coolness of a calm winter night. Until I open my eyes and see the green of spring again.
"You… remembered," I say.
"Always," Avitas Harper says back, clenching my palm with a grip that will never allow me to go where he is unable to go.
END NOTES:
YES. HARPER LIVES. And of course he will remember Helene's song even after hearing it only once! He is the consummate Mask! The consummate second-in-command to the Blood Shrike! The consummate lover! Silent though he is. And of course, I don't see how Keris can kill him so easily when she had taken him under her wing for the past decade?! In my mind, this is how things should have played out instead. And Helvitas gets the happily ever after that they deserve so, so much.
For more moments on what their lives are like after this, see AO3website/works/28041387! It was everything I needed after finishing the series.
Please feel free to scream at me about Avitas/Helene/other AEITA characters in the comments, because I don't really know anyone else who reads this series TAT I would have posted this on AO3 instead but I don't have an account there yet (and it looks like there's a waiting list to get one LOL). Maybe I'll migrate it over when I receive my account then.
EDIT: I have successfully created an account on AO3 under the same author name (pluviolion)! The story is published there at the following URL: AO3website/works/34567120. Thanks for all the support!