aliferous (adj) to have wings.
At first glance, he might have been forgiven for mistaking the thing by the fire for a druj; certainly it was built so, a behemoth thing of feathers, two dark wings hanging limp from sharp shoulder blades, with a wickedly serrated beak curving from whatever place, deep within its mass, lay its maw.
It took him a second glance to perceive more clearly that this thing was dead, certainly dead, utterly dead – no subtle movement of muscle, no light glowing beneath its skin, no tell-tale quiver of energy lingering around its head like a halo.
And then, as he took his third and final glance, he recognised that the thing was not a druj, and nor was it dead – it was a shell of a thing, an empty carcass, a husk, a shed skin still standing upright out of habit alone.
He set his messages down on the workshop table, next to the screwdriver that the Hanged Man had driven into its stone surface, next to the little signature she had hammered into the rockface using the broken arm of Eero's favourite clock. Behind him, the wind had slammed the door shut, rattling the wooden foundation of the narrow townhouse; the light from the fire flickered and danced with the movement of air. A long trail of blood led from the threshold to the fireplace.
The thing sitting by the fire said, "where are they?" Its voice was elemental – as though a wolf had learned to speak.
It ground out like something visceral, drawn low, scraping as though speech was new and unnatural and unwieldy for the creature who now attempted to wield it.
The World said, "in bed."
It didn't believe him. No – it believed him. It didn't trust him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two edges of it overlapping as the thing within leaned forward, leaving its husk still sitting upright, pulling itself from the mass of scales and flesh in which it had encased itself. It was more druj than he remembered it being: two birdlike dark eyes, a mouth too wide to be mistaken for human, braids matted into long tendrils that, when they caught the light, were obviously more feather than hair. It rose, and swayed, and went to the stairs, dragging its shadow behind it like a millstone.
The World said, "don't wake them."
Thud. A boot landed heavy on the stone step. Thud. It was doing this on purpose. He was almost amused.
"You could always just take my word for it."
It was gone. The thuds were ominously tracking across the hallway upstairs, like some strange fairytale villain on the prowl. The World silently unpacked the measures he had purchased at the market, silently grateful that butchers were willing to dispense little vials of pig blood to those with whom they were on good terms, if you asked nicely, if you visited early in the day. A small amount of this went towards packing the totems in a manner such that the curse was at no risk of withering before it could be passed on. He knew that, traditionally, Champions used human blood for such a task – but he supposed that needs must. He wasn't sure how the other xrafstars had managed to survive for six months so, cut off from all resources upon which a warrior might usually depend… more than survive. Thrive. They had burrowed deep into the kingdom and embedded themselves into its heart. The previous generation would have swung in with fire and blades and gun blazing; the relative subtlety here was well-served, though it made for rather a slower burn, all things considered.
The rest of the blood was set aside for the Hanged Man, whose voice quietly drifted downstairs now, thick with the confused haze of sleep.
The Sun was still in her bed, still and still in all senses of the word. A thin layer of sweat lay heavy on the surface of her fair skin, creating a subtle rainbow effect across the bridge of her nose and the edges of her knuckles, her fingers lightly curled as a spider's legs curled in death. Her chest rose and fell, but slowly, languidly, as though it was an action performed for her by another – and another with a tendency to become distracted intermittently from this important task, no less. She looked so young, so little, lying like this – Eero could not help but view her as something somehow vulnerable, no matter his cognisance of the power and fire that burned beneath her skin. On her forearms were carved the bright symbols of the World, carefully etched in a vain attempt to rouse her from whatever stupor into which the Devil had plunged her: 𓇵 and 𓇽 and 𓁹 and others, far more esoteric, far more ancient, far more mystical – symbols that Eero Hämäläinen had certainly never known.
Alas. Nothing had worked. Nothing had happened. They were contending with a very powerful Devil indeed – though, thankfully, it had not yet recognised itself as such. That accorded them some amount of time.
Thud. The dark shape loomed on the bottom step and demanded an answer. "Ina?"
Eero carefully tipped out some of the newly-purchased cichy leaves into the teapot that the Hanged Man had pilfered from one of the abandoned homes nearby. "She's gone out."
Total silence from that particular corner of the workshop. It was an ominous, looming kind of silence – one which portended a particular kind of doom in most situations. Eero had encountered it many times; Eero knew this silence very well.
The World managed to resist rolling his eyes. "With Ilja."
It was an awful, strangled voice – like the words themselves were barbed, and caught in the throat, and choked fast. "The palace?"
The World kept his gaze cast downwards, focused on his work as he carefully warmed the cup over the fire. "Perhaps." His voice wry. The Chariot and the Lover together – it was quite certain that, if they were to discover the Radiance at all, that it would be tonight. They were a particularly apt pair, more acute and more sly than many of their compatriots: experts at blending in, which was a particularly strange characteristic to ever attribute to a Lover. Experts at getting by, perhaps, was a better description – for it was quite certain that the Lover had never made a friend of the background before. "Pardon me – were we meant to keep you up-to-date with our plans?"
"Ilja knew where I was."
"And now you are here. Should we be concerned?"
He placed the cup of tea on the edge of the work-counter, and retreated a few steps. The light flickered around his edges, as though he could be lit alight merely by proximity. Again, he had the peculiar impression that it was being almost dragged back by its own shadow as it moved forward, towards the table, and lifted the cup apprehensively, as though anticipating some poison might be lurking within.
It had taken the World so long to adjust, again, to the simple reality of perception. In even a simple stone table was so many million molecules, so many different minerals co-mingling, a thousand years of history and a thousand-thousand invisible fingerprints stained dark upon its surface.
It was unnerving to look at the dark thing in front of him as well, a little destabilising to perceive all of its layers and see, each time, only more curse, more xrafstar, more druj. Layers of curse, all the way down – even in its blood, even in its marrow. It had blood on its face, on its hands, despite the shell it had worn, despite the shape it had taken. It looked so much smaller than it had seemed before. Like Pekka after a scrap, looking up shyly from under a bleeding forehead, defending his performance and his lost temper, knowing he should not have lost his temper, knowing that his beloved principles were not steadfast enough to sway Kaapo's instinct to scold, knowing that to be half as strong as others thought him was still to be twice as strong as he was.
Eero said, softer now, "is something wrong, Kinga?"
Her face was slowly regaining its usual features, her familiar strong jaw, the vein beneath it juttering out an unsteady heartbeat, and thick eyebrows slowly darkening as though she had greyed into fogginess during her time as a beast; the mask of cold anger that had momentarily possessed her had dissipated utterly. She said, slightly dazedly, "I think I killed someone."
"Did they deserve it?"
"Probably." She shook her head. "It didn't help."
He indicated the cup again; for a split second, her instinct was to demur. He said, soothingly, "it is only tea of Saint Brygida. Good for you."
She seemed to have sense some change in him; she accepted the tea, and nearly drained it in a single swig.
His voice was soft. "Was it one of ours?"
"No." The words spilled from her with a violence – she seemed shocked, hurt, and angry that he had even asked. "Of course not."
"Then," Eero said, gently, "I think we should be okay."
She nodded.
"Are you?"
One thick eyebrow rose.
Eero hastened to elaborate. "Okay, I mean."
"Oh," she said. She said no more.
"You haven't been around." Eero turned the cup over in his hands and chuckled wryly. "Ina was starting to think that you were avoiding her."
"Yeah," she said. She said no more.
He hated to pursue the point. "Are you?"
She looked at him. Her hair hung over her face, concealing whatever had replaced her lost eye – for he knew that something must have replaced it, that a curse rarely allowed a xrafstar to remain anything other than whole, even if in that wholeness was a new kind of awful horror. He wasn't sure how anyone could ever have mistaken her for her sister. Not when she looked like this. Not when she sounded like that. But they were both Szymanska, that strange aberration of history. The Champions could pretend that they alone held the secrets of the xrafstars, but the Szymańska girls passed their knowledge down to each new Moon in turn, from childhood, learning the follies of the generations before, learning how they had died and how their fates could be avoided – and the fates of their comrades alike.
So Eero could tell, looking at her now, that she had figured something out, and that she rather wished that she hadn't, and that she wasn't sure if she should tell him as well in case he rather wished that she hadn't.
She said, thoughtfully, "they keep dying, don't they?"
"Loving her is not a death sentence." He said it with much feeling. He meant it.
If that were true? It would break her. So much had tried to do so, and she had resisted. But this – yes, that might break her.
"No," she said, "and I'm glad. But if it was… you could control it. Instead –"
She shrugged. They were, for a moment, both silent.
And then, he said, "I thought I was the only one who had figured it out."
"And you're still living with her." She smirked. "Foolishness runs in the veins, then."
"Foolishness," Eero said, "is that the word for it?"
It shook its head and smiled. "Perhaps I'm just being polite."
"I'm not sure you know how, little savage."
Pekka had always teasingly referred to her as Atlas, behind her back, when he though she couldn't hear – though it had always carried a particular note of admiration and approval. Eero could perceive that clearly now: the peculiar way she looked at him, like she was trying to decide if he was an obstacle to overcome or a new responsibility to shoulder, the chains Ina must have perceived weighing her down, the silent grip of tradition on her throat. Trying to carry the world on her shoulders…
Well, he rather expected that she might find him heavier than expected.
The World said, "shouldn't you be at the palace as well?"
It nodded. "Hijikata will be expecting me by now."
"Do try," the World said, "to keep your composure."
It set down its cup; it retreated again, shoulders curling defensively as though trying to fold in upon itself, like it thought that it could again form its strange armoured skin by instinct alone. "Try to stay human, you mean?"
He rather thought it was too late for either of them to worry about that. But he didn't say that. He said, "yes."
The World said, "stay human. Stay focused."
And Eero Hämäläinen said, "make sure you all come back alive."