Bonded

The Countess D

It was Kiba's place to be captured. This much, he understood. There was a haze of familiarity to it all, one that sent his ears ringing as he fought his way through Jaguara's guard and to Cheza's prison, feeling the sheer gravity of her presence thrumming through the glass.

The platform they laid him on felt as if it were carved for his cheek. The needles pushed through his skin by Jaguara's acolytes nestled in as if finding home. Though he could not see beyond the moment he was in, he was certain that he had once lived it all.

He closed his eyes as his blood was fed into the crucible. The light within it, a twisted mockery of the full moon, went red. It was an unsteady power, as rebellious as Kiba beneath his restraints, energy blasting against the borders of the arc that contained it.

Her acolytes looked on, waiting for him. Waiting, he realized, for him to surrender the key to Paradise's gates.

Kiba… Kiba… Are you there?

His brow twitched at the sound of Cheza's call. Cheza. There was a fleeting moment of relief shared between them. Cheza… Sing for me.

And like that, like always, her melody pierced through. Kiba ached at the sound of it, a song laden with despair. All the markings of a swan song. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it all ended here. Cheza imprisoned. His pack scattered about this keep. Paradise eluding him on some unfelt wind.

Perhaps. Even so, he also understood that an end in resignation, with him laying dormant at the foot of Jaguara's monstrosity, would not do.

With renewed strength, he pushed and broke free of his bonds. He shucked the needles with ease, standing before the acolytes' stoic masks. Still, they did not move, and Kiba realized that this, too, was part of the show.

What did it matter? He looked at them with the utmost disdain, deciding that he would give them a display worth watching. With Cheza singing his accompaniment, he threw his head back and howled.

"She's awake! Stop, stop, she's awake!"

Kuri didn't wait for Rafe to slow before falling upon Atra, knocking all three of them to the ground. Atra winced and heard her pain vocalized in the grunt of her carrier. Before she could adjust, Kuri was pulling her up to embrace her, speaking words of love and care even as her grip sent pain shooting through her limbs.

Her body was slow to remember itself. Atra let her arms hang and burrowed her face in the crook of her sister's neck. "Is it really you?"

"Yes," Kuri whispered, "It is. It is."

She pulled away to look Atra in the eye, the both of them teary. Reading pain in Atra's expression, she frowned. "Are you… Can you move?"

Atra shook her head. "It's still… Not much."

"She's still weak." Her carrier gathered her back into his arms. "She's been out a long time."

She looked at him for the first time. "Rafe?"

Rafe gave her a fond, if wan, smirk. "Sure am." Behind him, the lights blinked on and off. He exchanged a look with Kuri. "We need to keep moving."

"Why? What's going on?"

He quieted Atra with a firm look. "We'll talk once we're out of here."

Atra caught a fleeting, frustrated glance from Kuri as they stood. Before Rafe could take off, a familiar voice sounded from the end of the hall. "Kuri!" Rafe's chest rumbled against Atra's cheek with a quiet growl as Tsume ran towards them.

Tsume glared at him as he slowed. He paused at the sight of Atra. "So you found her." At Kuri's nod, he flicked his eyes to the ceiling as the lights dimmed and lit once more. "You heard her, didn't you?"

"Cheza?" Atra asked. They looked at her, only Tsume answering with a nod.

"You think the rest of them are with her?" Kuri asked.

"Seems likely. Hige was headed that way when we split up." He looked warily at Rafe. "And where are you all headed?"

"The exit," was Rafe's clipped reply.

"Leaving with your tail between your legs? Didn't think you had it in you."

"Atra's in no state to fight for anything right now, even the Flower Maiden," Rafe said. "We won't be of any use there. Take Kuri if you like."

"I won't be taking anyone. If Kuri wants to come, she can. My guess is you haven't even asked what they're interested in doing."

Kuri shot a glare at Rafe. "I wanted to find Cheza."

"And Kiba?" Atra wilted against Rafe as Tsume and Kuri looked at her. Rafe's hold on her tightened ever so slightly. "Where's Kiba?"

Even in Rafe's arms, their rundown of the state of affairs made Atra feel breathless, her stomach turning at the thought of Paradise being wrenched open by Jaguara's hands. As Tsume began to speak of their crawl through the keep—Rafe and Kuri's search for her, and Kiba's decision to brave Jaguara's threats all on his own—a rich, plaintive sound reached her ears.

"Do you hear that?"

Rafe's thumb traced the planes of her back in gentle strokes. "Hear what, bee?"

"It was a howl," she murmured. "Kiba's howl."

His fingers stilled. Tsume and Kuri studied her with knowing eyes. "Are you sure?" Kuri asked.

There was another, louder now and somehow more urgent than the last. Atra found herself climbing out of Rafe's grip, ignoring his protest. "Something's happening." She managed a single step before stumbling onto the floor. Rafe rushed to help her, his hands at her arms as if she were a fallen babe. She jerked away. "We need to go."

"Atra—"

"He needs us!"

"Let her go," Kuri said.

"This isn't her fight!" Rafe spat.

Tsume advanced, momentarily shocking Rafe into silence. "If you won't take them there, I will."

Rafe bared his teeth in contempt, only for his attention to be drawn back to Atra with a touch to his arm. Her face was soft with worry, her shoulders bowed. It would have embarrassed her in any other circumstance, but all pride of hers had been lost in the wind. "Please," she begged, "Please, Rafe."

She couldn't have known that this was the moment that he understood there was no hope for him. Atra would never be satisfied with the mundane.

They found Blue, Hige, Toboe, and two humans standing at the threshold of the Great Hall. The doors were thrown open, a fury of light shining through. It blanketed them in a strange cast of colors, cycling through all worldly shades and shifting shadows. Toboe was the first to turn to them, greeting them with an overjoyed cry. "You're here!"

"What is this?" Tsume asked as their groups joined.

"The Nobles—" Blue began, only to flinch as something burst within the Hall. They eyed the sun past the doors warily, as if it may collapse at any moment. "Two Nobles were fighting."

"It's Darcia," Cher said. "Darcia and Jaguara."

"And then?" Atra asked.

They looked at Rafe and noticed the ward he was holding for the very first time. Toboe's jaw dropped, the boy overcome with relief. "You… You're back! Atra, you're—"

"Later," Tsume said. "They were fighting and then what?"

"We don't know." Hige turned once more to the light. "The power went out for a bit and then, this… thing came out of nowhere. Cheza and them are still in there!"

"You see anything like this before?" Hubb asked Cher.

She shook her head. "No. I guess theoretically, Jaguara might've found a way to… activate Cheza somehow. We never got that far."

Another rumble sounded from within the hall.

"We need to go in, right?" Kuri asked, desperately looking between them. "If Cheza's in there, we have no choice."

"It won't let us," Blue said. "We can't."

Atra stared into the light. It was alive. Breathing. She felt as if she could see to the heart of it. It was only a pinprick, but deep within, she thought she could see land. There was a pull in her chest, a force wrapping about her even more surely than Rafe's hold, drawing her in.

"Let me try."

"Atra," Kuri said, her name dripping with worry but no surprise.

"Put me down," she said to Rafe. There was a twitch in his jaw, the seed of an argument, but ultimately he acquiesced. He gently placed her on her feet.

She nearly stumbled again, her knees still weak. But that same force bolstered her, pouring strength into her in the same manner of Cheza's song. She felt eight pairs of eyes on her as she stood, all her weakness, for the moment, gone.

She turned to Kuri, took in her concern, and reached for her. Kuri accepted her hand and squeezed. "I'm sorry," Atra said. "I just… I feel like I need to."

"Yeah." Kuri drew close. There was no hesitation on her part, no grudge lurking beneath the sad smile. "I know."

"I love you," she murmured, pressing her forehead to Kuri's as if she couldn't bear to be pulled apart. "I'll be back."

"Love you," Kuri echoed before stepping away, releasing her. "Go on."

And so, she turned to face the door. Atra reached forward, and the otherworldly sun reached back, its heat coursing through her, its force unbearable. In an instant, something in her broke. If she'd felt nothing in that dark prison she'd died in again and again, suddenly she felt nothing but life. She felt it all.

Love, grief, euphoria that made her feel as if she might split apart. Dread. Even so, she looked into that far off distance and felt it again, that pull to the eye of the storm. When she pressed further into the room, it did not resist her. With a deep breath, she went on.

It took everything in Kiba to keep breathing as he ran through light, through fire, through this formless void. It disoriented him, shifted beneath his feet and swam before his eyes. But it welcomed him, too, tugging him forward in fits and starts, and in this way, Kiba knew that Cheza was at the end of it all, waiting for him.

The world turned on its head, tipping him into being from nowhere at all. He closed his eyes, a woman's voice reaching him as images surfaced from the recesses of his mind. "We Nobles have become lost. Disconnected from the world of our birth, we quietly wait for a lonely death."

A white wolf—him?—standing beside a man the spitting image of Darcia. The flourishing leaves of a towering tree. A white wolf howling to a rising moon or sun.

As his feet found solid ground, the woman said, "But you and I can stop time, and hold this moment forever."

"But in this stale and stagnant moment of time, one can neither long for the past, nor change what is yet to come."

"A fabricated Paradise," Kiba found himself saying, the words unbidden and not entirely his, echoing far beyond the heart of the crucible. "Such a place holds no future."

"But what of your grandfather?" The woman asked. "He too searched for a Paradise meant only for the Nobles."

"That man thought only for himself." There were more glimpses of another world: lunar flowers, flowing water, the garden where Kiba and Cheza first met. "He cared nothing for those he left behind. That's why he vanished and our clan was cursed."

"A Paradise created from a cursed world is meaningless," Kiba said, hearing his voice, his being, entwine with Darcia's.

He opened his eyes.

They were standing in that very garden beneath a clear sky. Kiba was suddenly more-than, the human shade he was wrapped in more solid than what he used to evade the humans and walk this world. When he and Atra had held each other, there had only been the slight, wonderful suggestion of her body. But now, in this too-bright, too-perfect world, he held a woman, real in all her weight.

Hamona. But no—it couldn't be. Hamona's eyes had been nothing but kind. The world she stood in was warmer, full of life. Not this empty shell of beauty. Not this woman, armored in obsidian and gold with a dark hunger lurking behind her smile. By instinct or by the knowledge Kiba now shared, he understood her to be Jaguara.

"Liar," she said, the vitriol in the word at odds with her peaceful expression. "You've been deceiving yourself from the beginning, never once giving your heart over to the truth. Even now, when what you long for is right before your eyes."

"It is meaningless," Kiba felt himself—this man—say.

"Because of Hamona?" His—their—heart skipped a beat. "You are not so ignorant. You have always known who it was for, haven't you? That eye, your blood. They have longed for Paradise."

There was anger brewing in Kiba. There always had been. An anger against Jaguara and her greed, against Darcia for rewriting their cruel story, against luck and fate for conspiring against him. With borrowed eyes, he looked upon Jaguara and felt hate.

"You're wrong," they hissed, "This world is not Paradise."

Jaguara gasped, wrenching herself away, her hunger giving way to plain fear. "Who are you?"

Kiba took a step forward and was rewarded with a flash of recognition in her eyes, a confirmation that she was beginning to see the truth. But as he readied himself to attack, to finally lash against all the machinations working against him, the sweet scent of spring filled the space.

His breath caught as a figure appeared behind Jaguara, blinking into place. A copy of the Lady in appearance, tumbling hair framing curves and shielding their beauty from prying eyes.

Hamona was a shade of the woman Kiba had once met. Her cheeks were sunken, her body bare. Her torso was marked by the shadows bones beneath the pale skin, and Kiba understood that this is how she must have left the world, sapped of her health in a slow death. But behind the mask of humanity, there was another. Fur the color of night. Pale gold eyes.

"It's you," they said.

Jaguara whirled on her heels, her own beauty corrupted by her disdain. "What trickery is this?" Hamona—Atra—stepped forward, holding Jaguara's gaze. "You can't be. You're gone."

"Stop this," the apparition said, Hamona's voice interwoven with Atra's. Though the words were firm, there was a plea in it, a softness that might have been mercy. She reached for Jaguara's hand. "Paradise isn't yours to find."

A crack split the air. Hamona fell to the ground, knocked off her feet by Jaguara's gloved hand. Hamona lifted her head to look up at her, her cheek red with the sting. "You will not tell me what is mine," Jaguara hissed. She reached for the sword at her side.

"No!" Kiba sprung forward, sinking his jaws into Jaguara's neck.

With his bite, the garden fell away, the Great Hall taking its place. Kiba landed a short distance from where Atra lay. He ran to her, quickly scanning her body to check for greater wounds. When he found none, he turned on Jaguara, baring his fangs when he found her standing, sword in hand, stunned and still alive.

Jaguara lifted the hand she'd placed at her throat, revealing a shallow wound, blood drawn within the imprint of a human bite. Beneath her, the floor of the Great Hall had become a patchwork of concrete and grass, the stone broken by the emergence of sprouting leaves. The walls groaned around them, water weeping through quickly spreading cracks and coating the floor with the shine of glass. If Kiba allowed himself to entertain the thought, he might felt a breeze blew through the room.

Not a garden, nor the keep they once knew. Something in-between.

There was the sound of footsteps. Then, Kuri's voice. "What—What is this?"

There was much to marvel at. But in spite of all the wondrous sights, Darcia's attention was solely locked on Atra.

"I know you," she said, her voice weak. Kiba glanced at her over his shoulder, finding that she'd lifted herself from the floor on a shaking arm. She was speaking not to him, but the Noble. "Why do I know you?"

Whether Darcia saw Atra as a demon who had adopted Hamona's guise, or a simple wolf that had interfered in their tense dance, his wolf's eye lit with a hunger that struck even Kiba with fear.

As he drew his sword, Kiba bent low to the ground with a growl, readying himself to attack. Darcia charged forward with inhuman speed, but didn't make it very far. It was Jaguara who stopped him, stepping into his path and plunging a dagger into his chest.

There was an awful moment of silence before Darcia's scream. He fell to his knees and braced himself upon the floor, his breaths sharpening with every second. Behind him, the crown of a wall tumbled to the ground, revealing a cloudless sky.

Jaguara stepped back and watched as he pulled at the hilt of her dagger, taking pained breaths through gritted teeth. "But why? I did it all for you." Her expression crumpled into one of anguish, jealousy. "Why do you love her and not me?"

As Jaguara drew her own sword and launched herself into battle, the rest of the group rushed towards Cheza and her broken sphere. Kuri, Toboe, Blue, two humans. They ran to a dashboard at the base of the sphere, and within moments, Cheza fell to the ground. They met her on the bed of lunar flowers that caught her, whispering soft comforts into her ears.

Satisfied with her safety, Kiba took a step back, each of his nerves buzzing with the knowledge of who he was moving towards. "Atra."

There was a rustling, the sound of Atra trying to meet him halfway. He turned only to see her struggle to stand, only for her legs give out beneath her. He gasped, moving to catch her. As they made contact, Atra flinched.

He paused, stung by the reaction, before pushing on and propping her up against his side. Up close, he could see how pale she was, the hollows of her cheeks. "It's okay," he murmured against her ear, ignoring how stiff she was against him; how she had yet to call him by name. "I… We're here now."

Her eyes, half-lidded to begin with, slid closed. The ounce of strength that had carried her back to him was gone. No answer came beyond her shallow breaths.

Kiba threw his gaze about the room. The water quickly spreading across the floor. The grass creeping at the corners. He thought of the piercing recognition in Darcia's eyes, how easily Atra and Harmona had slipped into one another.

It was enough to lay any of his sheepish, lingering doubts to rest. Hakik had said four actors were necessary to realize Paradise. With Atra in the room alongside Kiba and Cheza, even Jaguara's false Paradise had nearly become whole.

Darcia fell once more to his knees, his grip loose along his sword's hilt. While he was momentarily disarmed, Jaguara chuckled. Her voice became a cheap imitation of Hamona's, taunting him. "Do you feel it, my darling? The sword was poisoned."

Her fingers tightened around her weapon. "It's marvelous, isn't it? You have this mutt to thank. It was made from her cursed blood." She lifted the blade, aiming its point at Atra. "What a wonder it was, to find that your blight in the heart of a wolf."

Darcia turned, his eyes spearing past Kiba to Atra once more. A fire raged behind them both, the man's eye and the wolf's. But nothing came of it. He fell to the floor with a groan.

Jaguara looked down upon him, and for the first time, all her cruelty fell away. She raised the sword above her head in mourning. Then, Hige pounced.

Jaguara narrowly dodged the attack, his claws breezing just past her ear. Before she could find her footing, Tsume leapt at her, sweeping across her body in a blur of gray. She toppled to the ground, armor clanging against the concrete. Still, it wasn't enough to distract her from Rafe's charge. He lunged, aiming for her throat. With a growl and little difficulty, Jaguara rolled out of the way.

"You," she seethed, standing and tracking Rafe's turn about the room. "I thought I was rid of you."

Tsume attacked at her flank, a distraction as much as it was an earnest shot. Again, Jaguara dodged. He landed on a soft patch of grass spreading across the Hall's floor, slipping on its dew as Jaguara raised her sword above her head. "Don't interfere!"

"Tsume!"

The sword soared through the air. Upon its landing, there was a pained yelp.

Kuri whimpered, her sprint to Tsume cut short. She twitched as her body tried to make sense of the intruder at its shoulder, the blade that had burrowed through her and pinned her onto soil and stone.

"Kuri!" Tsume shouted, rushing towards her.

Toboe followed suit, the two of them pulling feebly at the sword. Meanwhile, Rafe and Hige launched themselves at Jaguara, the Noblewoman managing to evade their attacks with twists and turns.

As Kiba watched Kuri struggle to stand, stumbling on her feet as her sister had not long before, he took a breath. That spark of fury, banished at the sight of Atra in the garden, flared. He set her down, careful to lay her head upon a patch of grass, before turning towards battle.

"Hige!" He waited for Hige to pause, to meet his eyes across the way. There was the slightest pause. A hint of reluctance before Kiba firmly said, "Take care of Cheza."

Then, without hesitation, he dashed into the fray.

Jaguara whirled on her heel as if she'd sensed him, stepping out of the way of his first attack. His landing didn't slow him—he made a sharp turn to round on her again. But she was ready for him, her hand outstretched as she summoned a circle of runes to hold him in place.

"I'll take it all," she snarled. "Every last ounce of your strength!"

It was the same old trick, the one she'd used to restrain him in the first place. But he was the only one in danger then. Not Tsume, Toboe, Kuri, or Hige. Not Cheza or Atra, the two of them laying just meters away. Now, in this mess of violence, he felt his rage growing. The magic that sapped at him only fed his wrath.

His first step was rewarded by a look of pure fear.

Jaguara's hand lowered with uncertainty as he took another step, and another. "Impossible," she gasped. And in the narrow window of time that she was seized by her shock, Rafe leapt at her, knocking her off kilter.

The glow of the runes disappeared. The force upon him was snuffed out in an instant. Before Jaguara could find herself again, balancing once more on her own two feet, Kiba finally and truly sunk his fangs into her throat.

Silence filled the room. Kiba looked to Rafe over Jaguara's cooling body. The two of them regarded each other, knowing that their success could not have been possible without the other but resistant to gratitude nonetheless.

In their silence, Toboe's meek voice sounded from the other side of the room. "Is it over?"

He wasn't sure. Kiba did a quick scan of the anomalies. The water had only risen at their feet, the grass slowly but surely had spread. None of it had faded with Jaguara's demise. In no time at all, there was a rumble through the castle, confirming his suspicions.

"What's happening?" Kuri said, turning frantically.

In his periphery, Kiba saw Darcia rising from the ground. His baritone cut through the din as cracks quickly spread across the hall. "What have you done?"

The earth trembled beneath them. The lights, steady throughout their battle, became erratic as the crucible pulsed below.

Without warning, a fissure opened up beneath their feet. Kiba leapt back, watching as water poured into the abyss and took Jaguara along with it. As the chasm had cleanly cut the room in two, he looked across the gap and saw the pack's panicked faces, Cheza reaching for him from her bed of flowers as if that would be enough to retrieve him to her side.

Rafe started towards them as if to jump across the gulf. "Atra!" If he had any hopes of crossing the distance, they were dashed by the crack of the ceiling, a falling stone.

Kiba followed Rafe's line of sight and found Atra coming to consciousness, a crack spidering beneath her. Darcia peered at her from a short distance away, his hand on his sword. Kiba ran, narrowly managing to pull her into his arms and out of the range of Darcia's slashing blade, its edge cutting into the stone floor.

"That girl," Darcia seethed, his wolf's eye glaringly bright. In his arms, Atra's breath hitched.

There was another rumble as the cracks spread wider, forcing Kiba back. Still, Darcia advanced. "That girl," he hissed, "is no normal wolf."

Darcia darted forward with a thrust of his sword. Kiba held Atra tight against him, narrowly avoiding the attack and wincing at the screech of metal against stone. "Stay back!"

Another blow. Another dodge. Another hunk of debris falling from the ceiling, obscuring the pack from view and exposing a night sky.

Atra whimpered in his arms.

"Kiba!" Tsume cried from across the way, his call smothered by another crash.

Kiba managed to stand. In Darcia's wolf eye, he was unsettled to find the same hate that had driven him to kill Jaguara not long before. "What are you?"

Darcia raised his sword and charged. Kiba sidestepped the attack, leaping back to put more distance between them. The floor creaked as he landed on unsteady ground. "You're not a wolf," Kiba continued, "Or even a Noble."

Darcia was unfazed by the sound of another crash, his focus steady upon them as he stepped over a crack that opened beneath beneath his feet. "You felt it, didn't you? There, in that doomed place. Paradise is calling for us, you and I." His grip on the sword tightened, his stride smooth as a morning stroll. Slowly he lifted it at his side, his cloak falling away.

Kiba took a step back, his heartbeat wild. With another step, his back came into contact with cold stone. Darcia's mask of calm broke with a cruel sneer. "That cursed beast has no place there."

He raised his sword. As it came down upon them, Kiba let Atra go, darting into the attack and catching the sword on his shoulder.

There was a shout at his feet. Atra, trying and failing to push herself up from the ground as Kiba cried out beneath the blade. He had no hope of seeing her reach for him, his vision overcome with his pain. Drawing on the last of his strength, he placed his hands against the flat of Darcia's sword, preventing it from going any deeper as much as he prevented Darcia from pulling away.

Darcia roared before him. "What is she to you?"

There were too many ways to answer, and none that Kiba could vocalize with the world breaking apart around them. Just as his resolve began to fade, Darcia's grip on the sword went slack with a cry.

Atra was clinging to the Noble's ankle, her fangs digging deep. His precision lost in his shock, Darcia pulled the sword from Kiba's flesh and swung down. She yelped as a gash was drawn across her ribs, her jaws loosening. Without missing a beat, he kicked at her wound, the force of it pushing her across the floor.

Kiba dove to her. He pulled her against him, the two of them struggling to catch their breath as Darcia approached. They watched him, by all appearances at his mercy. There were no words left between them. He raised his sword to make the killing blow.

Then, as all wounded creatures do, they bled.

A drop. Then two. Beneath them, Kiba and Atra's blood clouded the sheen of water over stone.

The earth shuddered beneath them. Heat spread quick beneath their feet and up. That strange sun returned with a force, colors and shadows and life—oh, all of life—setting the room ablaze.

It was not unlike the fire in the crucible, that vast expanse Kiba had traveled to become Darcia, to find Atra, to crawl his way here. In this alien place, Darcia turned on his feet. "What is this?"

The Great Hall was gone. There was a stone high above them. The heart of the crucible. A pupil peering down.

In the distance, Kiba could hear his companions, their screams of fear and their worried cries. But this burning world only shone brighter. Their blood glimmered in its light.

"It's over," Kiba said, only to hear another voice joined with his. He looked down to find that Atra was watching Darcia, her lips barely parted.

He watched them move, rising and falling around her words. Her whisper carried through the vast space. The keep fell. The world was split apart. And they, in the middle of it, were consumed until they were nothing but water, but fire, but wind and earth. They were the most fragrant of flowers, the tallest of mountains, and the cool breeze. They were everything and yet nothing at all.

"This Paradise," they said, "has been closed."