MadMaxine

  Two rooms. One shabby thing I could hardly consider a bed. Six hundred odd marks on the wall—had I really forgotten the number of days?

  The salvaged parts of the shipwreck stood out against the bits I’d made with my own cws and fire. Surprisingly neither were really rotting, though the same couldn’t be said for the roof, which was letting in more than enough rain to turn the entire pce into a damp mess. Thankfully, I’d not left any food inside, though something had been using my bed as a nest.

  Out of habit, I closed the door behind us with my tail, feeling the groove I’d worn over so many times of that exact motion. Even the deep breath of wet wood and ash held a tinge of nostalgia. Bitter nostalgia—this was where I’d met Seyari, and also my former prison.

  Which made me wonder something I’d not really put thought to in a long, long time. Why here? Why across the world, on this isnd where a former Sovereign of Wrath had built a community literal millennia ago?

  “We should fix the roof.”

  I looked down. Nelys was smiling up at me, their hands on one of mine. I blinked, and felt wet on my shes.

  “Let’s stay the night here. I can wait another day—but you need to tell me stories, alright?”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. “Alright. The roof’ll be hard to fix in this wind though.”

  They tilted their head to one side. “What about your magic?”

  I blinked. “Oh. I’d… I wasn’t thinking.”

  They nodded sagely. “Mhm. I’ll clean up in here while you…” They watched me walk to the door. “Do that. Mind giving us some dry heat? Oh—and is there anything I shouldn’t get rid of?”

  I paused with my hand on the door and pushed out a rush of dry wind that banished the mildew smell in an instant. It’s so easy nowadays. “No,” I answered honestly. “I took everything with me when I left.”

  They nodded and got to work, and I closed the door outside with a sigh, leaning against it to look up into the roiling dark of the storm. Humans could never see the fine details: the way the clouds wisped and shifted, opening and closing portals into the depths of the storm where star or moonlight reflected off water into a thousand colors that weren’t quite bck. If I focused, I felt like I could almost see the drops forming in the highest reaches.

  Another thought, a wave of my hand, a reflexive structure born of Seyari’s training, and the wind atop the rock stilled. It stilled so quickly that the taller of the trees, the ones who dared to stick their branches above the rock’s protection groaned with relief as they sagged upright.

  One of them would be a sacrifice tonight. Bark for twine, wood for the broken beam I’d seen, and fronds for the roof. Many hands made light work, and I fell into the motions quickly as I pulled and twisted the twine, sliced and fire treated the wood, and stacked the leaves.

  Without noticing, I found myself humming a song I hadn’t in ages, sitting by the edge of a firepit whose ash had turned into a chaotic bloom of first-year flowers and vines. It was a song Abigail had liked.

  She’d approve of me now. Probably.

  It hurt my heart a little that I… well it wasn’t that I didn’t care. It was that I just sort of didn’t need her approval anymore. Memories and bygone days, and a bygone life in a way. I wouldn’t ever forget her or her sacrifice, but if I lived half as long as Lilly, my time with her, the brief, uncertain kiss we’d shared so certainly… it’d all be autumn leaves in a winter storm.

  Truthfully, she might not like that, even as her final words rang out in my head once again. I smiled ruefully as I climbed onto the roof with a stack of leaves, crude twine, four hands, and a purpose. Sorry, Abby, but I guess I really won’t get hung up on you.

  Coming here was a goodbye in a way. Not to my old life—I’d done so many goodbyes for that I could write a novel about them. No, this was a goodbye to any attempt at a return to that life. I wasn’t quite giving up on a cottage fantasy—or castle fantasy as I’d recently been thinking. Just a few alterations here and there, being one of the most powerful beings on the mortal pne and all.

  Frankly, I didn’t think I was doing half bad these days. Provided this little excursion didn’t somehow lead to Astrye finally falling. That poor town had been through an unreal series of events this past year. Season, even.

  Or… I supposed it was the new year wasn’t it? When that happened, I couldn’t quite pce. But the winter solstice was months ago now, so we were well into it.

  Still, though, as I tightened the st of the leaves and prepared to climb back down, I thought of the risk. We’d hurt Envy in Utraxia’s demesne. And had they been in a position to attack, during or right after the siege would have resulted in an easy victory.

  So they’d not been prepared. Which begged the question: why not? They were toying with me and mine, that much was obvious, but why?

  That was a question I couldn’t answer. Not yet at least. So I took one st look out over an achingly familiar view of the ocean and up into the beautiful storm, then headed inside and closed the door with my tail.

  Once inside, I marveled at the quality of my spped-together roof… until I remembered that my magic was still keeping out the wind and therefore the majority of the rain. Was that why Nelys had given me an odd look. Well, I’d rather have the full experience, so with a thought I banished my magic and relished the thwap of the intense rain’s return. I’d weathered worse in here before.

  Nelys had long finished cleaning. And I’d seen them running outside and back a few times so I wasn’t surprised to see two beds of leaves: one on the old frame I’d taken from the shipwreck, and another on the floor. I took the floor, sitting down with a huff that turned into a sigh.

  “You can take your bed,” they said, sitting down on the bed anyway, before closing their eyes and leaning back. “I think I get why you didn’t want to just use magic.”

  I smiled up at them, put my top arms behind my head, and snuggled in with warm tail over legs. “It wouldn’t be the same.And that bed never fit me anyway—it’s even smaller than I remembered.”

  “Pretty sure you’re bigger.” They smiled back. “Cards?”

  I blinked. “Did you really bring—”

  “I knew we’d face some kind of setback, Renna. We always do. And besides, these are my cards anyway.”

  “Oh… yeah that makes sense.”

  Nelys pulled themself to the edge of the bed, staring down with big eyes under a windblown mop of bck hair. “I’ll visit. I promise. More than that if I can convince the right people to ally with you.”

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “I want to.”

  I stuck out my hand. “Alright.”

  They looked at it.

  “Deal with the demon?”

  Nelys ughed and shook my hand, then swung their legs and blue-ringed skirt of tentacles over the edge of the bed. With a flourish, they started dealing onto the magic-dried floor between us. “Let’s py before we sleep. One st lesson on how to cheat properly—and make sure you’re not getting cws in the way this time.”

  “They never get in the way!” I put a hand over my heart with an exaggerated flourish.

  Nelys snorted and took their hand. “Sure they don’t. Nope. Never. Now how about those stories? Did you really erupt out of that mountain?”

  I took mine and… did they not cheat me? “Oh you bet I did. And that’s not even the craziest part about this isnd. Did you know…”

  ***

  Morning came, long after the storm had fizzled to rain. My old cabin had survived the night, but it would need a new roof… again. I caught my cw just before I marked another day next to the others.

  Those marks were older now, faded. Instead, I carved a short message, Visited by Renna and Nelys, and followed it with the date. For now, I let Nelys sleep and wandered into the damp, foggy morning outside.

  A few trees were down, and when I climbed up onto the promontory, I could see the isnd had taken quite the hit, bent and snapped palm trees lined the beach where debris nearly covered the sand. Further innd, the bright green of overturned branches and pockets of downed trees gave the jungle an almost prismatic look.

  Above it all, the mountain was silent, sending not so much as a trail of smoke up into the sky. Still I committed its shape to memory, taking off for a quick flight around the isnd to memorize it from the air.

  There were still answers here, a nagging voice at the back of my mind told me. The murals in that ancient ruin were clearly from the Lost Era, but depicting a sort of harmonic retionship with Wrath, at least on this small, isoted isnd.

  I knew of demonic prominence then, the ruins in the mountains south of Navanaea had shown Seyari and I as much. And those strongly resembled Utraxia—though not an exact likeness. Did Lillith or Utraxia know of the exact retionship between demons and the Lost Era? Did the Church? Would my two allies—potential allies, for Utraxia’s sake—tell me? Was the Church obfuscating history?

  Perhaps if I could uncover some truth, I could halt the upcoming conflict the Church was bringing upon me. Or perhaps they knew and didn’t care. And even if I could, how well could I communicate this to the people—and would they care?

  Sometimes, I missed my naivete. Always thinking the best of people was still something I strived for, but it was no longer such a blind comfort.

  I nded just in time to see Nelys exit the cabin, closing the door carefully behind them.

  “Ready?” I asked, taking one st look around my former home. With the past night’s memories, this pce didn’t seem so stifling anymore. In fact, I think Sey would like the wind currents between ocean and mountain. And there might be a new sort of demonic beast to hunt together.

  “Are you?”

  I looked down and got the feeling Nelys had said something else first. This time, I didn’t fight the urge and patted them on the head, chuckling at their blushing, flustered look. “Thanks for letting us stay the night. I think I needed it.”

  “Of course!” Their bright smile almost made me make the same mistake twice. “But we need to get going now.”

  “...I know.”

  Before long, I’d turned my head to look one st time at the isnd in the distance, its mountain already a vague shadow in the humid haze. Below us, the ocean dipped and rose, brightening and darkening as reefs and shoals dotted the horizon with small, windswept islets.

  One in particur stood out: a rge, ring-like atoll surrounded by a ring of deeper blue. Like the truncated remains of some ancient mountain.

  “We can nd on the atoll,” Nelys said. “They’ll know we’re there.”

  “Human or demon?” I asked back.

  They ughed, the sound bright and pure like I’d not heard tely. “Either!”

  “Demon it is then!” I smiled my comfortable, razor-toothed smile and angled down for the atoll’s shore.

  MadMaxine

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