Chapter 39: Chapter 39

Celeste lowers her hands. The images thaw, returning to the appearance of ribbon-like clouds drifting through a gentle-blue sky.

The tendrils whip back into the sphere and the four begin to regain consciousness, slowly.

Celeste pitches Irene a terror-stricken look. The recollection unearthed the reason why they were truly spared that night and why one of them had to be taken.

Irene shakes her head, motioning for her to not repeat what she discovered.

“A killer with a conscience. You know what they are, yet still you render aid?” Celeste says with a spiked voice. “There’s no saving them. Content yourself with that and find resolve in knowing what they will become.”

“They are stronger than you know. How else could they resist? They were touched by evil and found themselves unstained. In their darkness lies light.”

Akin groans fully awake, grasping his head. Mia blinks rapidly. Aries breathes heavily, checking on the others, his eyes drawing to a harried-looking Opal.

“~We~ killed Erin?”

“Yes,” Celeste says loudly, ignoring Irene’s punishing glare. “A choosing ceremony. And you chose her.”

“What are talking about?” Aries barks. “Erin tried to kill us without an explanation. Do you think we wanted to murder her? Neither of them mentioned that freeing Shadow meant killing one of us.”

“It wasn’t murder, but a sacrifice,” Celeste corrects, blind to Irene’s silencing signals. “Only by first blood can it be done. Though she was hardly innocent.

“Erin knew what she was doing beforehand. She deceived you just as the Sporkah deceived her. Yes, she tried to kill you. But did you ever think to let her kill you instead?

“Your hard-wired impulses chose survival and the outcome would’ve been the same even if she wasn’t trying to kill you. Because that’s—”

“Enough!” Irene interjects. “We need to leave.”

“You do.” A verdant gleam glistens in her gaze. “The Ecclesia are already at Table Bridge. They will know of what you have done.”

***

Akin paces up and down the wooden pier overlooking the lake.

Aries has his arms crossed, his back turned to all, staring broodingly at the darkened waters. Opal, Mia, and Irene are grouped together, engaged in a heated argument as Opal speaks in a fevered hush.

“So, what, we take our things and disappear? Just like that?”

Irene clenches her jaw. “If you wanted to die, I should’ve just left you in the woods. Because that would be a mercy as supposed to what the Ecclesia will do if they get a hold of you.”

Mia studies her for a brief moment. “Why do you fear them?”

“I don’t,” she snaps. “I know what they are capable of because I belonged to them.

“In other mortal worlds, they are revered warriors. Even on this tier they have limitless resources and a ready supply of trained combatants that are trained to kill anomalies like you.

“As you are now, you are still in the embryonic stages. Until you come to your full power, you are vulnerable, therefore you need protection.”

“I need no-one’s protection,” Aries declares with his back still on them. “I’ve never needed ~powers~ to protect myself.”

“This is not about you—”

“Or anyone else,” he says in finality. “My grandmother and my brother, I need them as much as they need me. And there’s no force in heaven or hell that can keep me from them. Let them come.”

Akin slows to a standstill and scuffles the plank of wood with his sneaker.

“Look, my dad won’t even notice if I was gone but my mom would. And my grandparents. I know I’ve said I wanted to leave Braidwood but I didn’t mean leave~ them~.

“I wanted to get away from the pain this place has caused me and make something new of myself.” He makes a dribbling action with his feet. “Perhaps become something better.”

“That’s~ touching~,” Irene says flatly. “Dreams won’t matter if you have the crows pecking at your eyes.”

Akin pulls a face and waves her off.

“Respectfully, Mia’s mom—whoever you are,” Opal says with a needling tone, “but you need to back off and give us space to breathe.

“If you didn’t just notice, our entire lives just shattered in one night. And now you’re demanding we abandon the life and family we know, even if it was all a lie. So give us a sec.”

“Danger and death don’t sympathize.”

Irene releases a breath, comprehending that a lot has happened to them this day. “But you all need your rest. I know your families are terrified by now and I’m certain Daiyu has called the cops.”

Opal quirks her brow.

“Go home, calm down your parents, reassure them of your safety. Rest. And we will assemble before the day is done to speak.

“I wish I could lend you more time but you have none. Remember, it’s not just your life. You jeopardize your families by staying, blood relatives or not.”

***

Aries sits on his bed, leaning against the wall, rosy light warming his room.

Once the surge of emotions passes, it leaves him emptied and numb. He cannot make sense of it.

He feeds on the belief that his upbringing, his past pain and trauma made him who is. That his strength comes from his grandfather because he beat the weakness from his bones.

He always thought that had fueled his anger, all the unspoken traumas he has gone through, taking root in him like weeds.

His anger has become a vital organ only nourished by anguish—but what if it has been something else cultivating it all this time? Something he longer wishes to explore.

He thinks about Calum. The emotions barrel back to him. How can he ever leave, despite the urgency, when he vowed that he would never abandon him the way their father abandoned them?

Calum has lost a mother, father, and grandfather. How can he lose a brother, too?

~Never~. Aries gets up and goes across the passage to the bathroom to shower. Once he’s done, he comes back to his room to change.

The damage done to him by Akin last night should have left him with internal bleeding, broken bones and ribs with a nasty bruise.

Instead, his ivory silk skin is untarnished and the only pain he feels no salve or tonic can heal.

Aries leaves his room, putting on his long-sleeved black shirt that hugs his torso, and makes his way to the kitchen.

“Morning, ma.”

He goes to the fridge, eyeing the beer bottle, wishing he had something stronger.

He opts for the bottled water and takes up a chair from the kitchen table, facing the stove. Grandma Adeline chops onions to prepare the omelet she’s going to make. Aries downs the bottle, only leaving a few swallows left.

“I promised Calum I’d get him a laptop. So I was thinking we could stop at the mall before our visit.”

She continues, slicing the onions silently.

“That good with you?”

She continues, not acknowledging him at all.

“I told you I was sorry. I’ve come home that late so many times, but ~this time~, you’re mad at me?”

She continues, not heeding to his words.

“I’ll make it up to you, you know I will.” He stands up and discards the water bottle. Aries strolls to his grandmother from behind. “I know you love me too much to stay mad at me. So let’s skip to the part—”

She spins around—Aries darts back, feeling the current of the knife swoosh past his throat. Aries’s eyes zip to hers and it’s like glass marbles have replaced her eyes. Vacant.

“God, no—”

She slashes at him with an agility far too nimble for her age.

Aries evades with practiced ease and disarms her with a fluid motion. The knife goes flying, clattering to the ground. She whips around and slides out a two more knives from the wooden holder.

“Gran-gran,” he begins, purposelessly using the nickname Calum calls her by. “I need you to fight this. I know it’s hard, but Calum is counting on you. I need you, please don’t, ~I’m beggin’ you~.”

She rushes at him. Aries catches her wrists, holding them high and delivers a kick to the gut and she dives back.

Aries races out, but she’s already behind him, hurling the knife at his back. With lightning-swift reflexes, he jerks to the side to catch it mid-air, and he flings it back at her impulsively.

It strikes her stomach, a stain of blood growing around the embedded blade.

“Ma…I’m—I’m…”

She stares at him emptily as she slides out the blade, as if she was just impaled by a mere thorn.

Aries sprints down the passageway and avoids a bloodied blade soaring past his head as he collides with the wall. Aries yells for her to stop but she doesn’t.

He enters his room and slams the door shut, locking it. He goes for his drawer and takes out the gun. The door breaks open and Aries drops to the floor. The thrown knife lodges in the wood right above his head.

His back is on the floor, head and shoulders lifted with the trembling barrel aimed at his grandmother. A butcher knife in her one hand held aloft.

“Please, ma, ~please~. Don’t do this. Stay with me, please, ~stay with me~.”

She aims to throw—Aries fires a fatally precise shot at her forehead.

She falls.

Aries moves up onto all fours, a strain in his chest like something within is choking the life out of him. He engages the safety and leaves it on the ground as he tries to rise to his feet, wobbling like a drunkard.

He approaches his grandma and, for a moment, he’s not Haru’s grandson, not the feared and respected leader he was forged into. But he is the boy that got left on mother’s stoop with his baby brother in his arms. A child.

He drops to a lunge beside her body with blood streaming from the hole in her forehead.

His grief rouses his rage, and he launches to the feet and demolishes the wall with his fists, thunder punches, eviscerating the surface, eroding brick laid walls.

Something malignant in him revels in the chaos, which is why he uses every ounce of willpower to restrain his rage.

He stops and staggers back. Fresh punctures blasted through brick at sporadic intervals. Inky strands cling to his forehead and temples and his hand rakes through his hair to push them back.

Aries returns, steps over her body, and enters his room, going for his business phone. He speed dials a number.

“Ye, it’s me. I need a cleanup crew.”

“What’s your location?”

“My house.”

***

“I’ll talk to them.”

Mia exits the silver car parked on Akin’s driveway.

“Make them understand the danger.”

“I can’t exactly force them—you can’t even force me,” she said, making her start to the front door.

“Mia, I—”

“What?” she answers back with pure insolence. “What are you going to say? I shouldn’t talk back and I should listen because you’re my ~mother~.”

A heavy breath of silence.

“No, because I have your interests at heart. You should listen to me because I want you to keep you safe. And if you care about your friends, you would be wise to make sure they do the same.”

Mia rings the doorbell.

“I said I’d talk to them, didn’t I? I don’t know how I can convince them when I hardly believe any of this myself. And I saw it from for my own eyes…touched it…played with it…cared for it.”

Mad at herself, she rings the bell again, growing impatient.

“~That~ was not your fault. You didn’t know any better, and a primordial creature deceived you. It’s only a miracle you lived to tell the tale and lived, untainted.”

“~Miracle~?” she scoffed bitterly. She knocks on the door this time. “It left us alive because it wants us for something more, apparently more significant than freeing it.”

“The Ecclesia can handle this mess. I need to get you four out of Braidwood.”

“Say it again and I’ll stay,” she says just to spite her.

“You would just be killing yourself.”

“I’d be fixing fate’s error.”

She hangs up and shoves her phone in her oversize denim jacket.

“Akin?” she yells and knocks once, then several times over, but nothing.

“You call me here, then you ghost me,” she mutters in frustration, digging out her phone again.

Mia calls the last number before Irene and waits for him to pick up. She balances on the balls of her heels as the call rings and rings, then her eyes hone on another sound. An echo.

Mia nears the door, angling her ear toward it, and hears his phone ringing inside. He is home. Panic electrifies her insides. She pounds on the door and tries the handle—open.

She stumbles inside, her eyes scanning the crystal clean interior. Mia follows the endless Apple ringtone. She passes the formal living room, dining area and even the living room they were in the last time they were here.

Mia comes into the kitchen. She ends the call and finally hears the whimpering, spotting a splayed body on the floor.

Mia walks past the island counter, tears burning behind her eyes, then she rounds it to see Akin.

He cradles his mother’s dead body to his chest, his tears watering her hair. A steak knife planted in her stomach, the perfect white floor stained with fresh red.

“Akin…” her words evaporate with her breaths. She finds her voice again. “Did she try to…”

It takes a while, but his trembling head nods a yes.

“Akin, you have to know it wasn’t your fault.~ It~ did this.”

“I know,” he says acidly, a lethal look in his eyes, corroding his composure. “And it will pay.”

A grievous look steals across his face.

“But what do I about…” he lapses into a pained silence, burying his face in her hair.

Mia lifts her hand and wakes her phone to call Aries.

“Pick up…you better pick up.”

After a while, a rough voice answers, “What?”

“Aries,” she squeaks, her voice cracking. Unable to stop it. “We need you…here…Akin’s mom…”

Aries makes a fast connection. “She tried to off him.”

“How did you—”

“I’m coming.”

Mia pockets her phone and stands by Akin. Not knowing what to do with herself, she watches over him. He keeps his mom to his heart for the full hour it takes for Akin to arrive.

Mia departs temporarily to open up for him. When she eventually reaches the front entrance, she realizes he’s not alone.

Aries welcomes himself inside with a crew of black-clad individuals gloved in plastic, carrying bags of equipment with them.

“Who are these people?”

“Cleaners. Where’s the body?”

“Mrs. Ballo is in the kitchen.”

Mia escorts them to her, and they all fill the kitchen.

Akin’s eyes dart to them as he holds onto his mother protectively. Mia and Aries enter after them, and Mia quickens her pace to reach him.

“Who are these people?”

“They are going to make sure this doesn’t turn into a crime scene,” Aries says plainly. “Anyone coming home soon?”

Akin tries to think, but his thoughts are lost in a fog.

Mia answers for him. “It’s a weekday, so Mr. Ballo usually comes home late.”

Aries nods curtly. “It will give them enough time.”

The professionals start unpacking their equipment, but they need to contain the scene. Aries doesn’t know what to say to Akin, so he keeps it formal.

“Akin, they need to clean the body.”

“What does that even mean?”

Aries exhales, looking for gentler words.

“There can’t be a crime with no body. It’s why people think Erin is still missing. These men will use hydrochloric acid to get rid of the body. But they need to clean this entire kitchen to get rid of any evidence.”

Akin weeps again, lifting his mom higher to hold on to her more firmly.

“Wait, how will you explain her disappearance? If another person related to us, relating to Erin, goes missing. It’s going to look a little suspicious.”

“It has to be done. Better than finding the body and them linking it to Akin. Do you want him to end up a fugitive or, worse, a convict for his own mom’s murder?”

“But what’s the cover story? A fire?”

“No, because even if the body is charred beyond recognition, they can still do an autopsy. They will find out that the cause of death was a stab wound, not a fire.”

Aries liberates a wearisome breath.

“After what happened on my side, now Akin…we can’t stay in Braidwood, anyway. We’ll let the media decide what they think happened to Mrs. Ballo, so long as the evidence doesn’t point back to Akin.”

After a long time, Akin finally releases his mother. One of the cleaners instructs him to strip off his bloody clothes—evidence. He does.

When he’s in nothing but his boxers, he goes back touches her face delicately in a final farewell.

The three of them leave as Akin hurries out to wash up and change into clean clothes, though he will still feel just as filthy.

Mia and Aries wait for him in the living room.

A thousand questions fill her eyes, both of them standing, neither of them talking.

“What happened on your side?” she asks, referring to what he had said earlier.

Aries stares back at her with quiet fierceness. “My ma—my grandma beat cancer just to be killed by me.”

“It wasn’t you.” She approaches him with caution. “It wasn’t her…it was neither of you. You can’t blame yourself.”

Aries snaps a nod to keep her from saying anything more. He glances at her again, but she is already staring at him with a look that prods at his anger, unnerving him completely.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

She turns her gaze away. “Like what?”

“Keep your pity.”

“~Jeez~, Aries, your grandmother just died and I’m sorry.”

“If I were you, I would rather be ~sorry~ about who yo really daddy is. I’m good.”

He’s just upset, Mia reminds herself, and clearly in unspeakable pain.

Akin returns shortly. Mia wraps him in a hug but he doesn’t respond, like he feels undeserving of comfort. He takes her by the waist and draws her aside gingerly. Mia understands and gives him his space.

“What about you?” Akin asks, his voice choppy, eyes still red, puffy, and misty. “Is your mom okay?”

Mia nods. “Just spoke to her…and she’s not my mom, and she’s not a ~normal~ human either. The Sporkah knows that and—”

Aries’s eyes jump to her and they widen with mirrored panic. He yanks out his phone and calls Opal. He paces frantically, listening to it ring on and on until it goes straight to voicemail.

Aries runs out of the living room and the other two pursue him.

^INTERLUDE: Promise?^

^SEVEN YEARS AGO^

The group sat in silence in the music room at the Chiangs’ house.

All of them waited together, soon to leave for their last group session with Dr. Helena Parker.

They had suffered a slew of tabloids, investigators and doctors, months of enduring both scrutiny and sympathy. It wasn’t over, but it lessened to a low, constant simmer.

The town was still raw with emotions about Erin’s vanishing and every eye was locked on them, the last people who saw Erin Lockwood alive.

Opal sat on the backless bench by the piano, overlooking them, everyone else sitting on the floor. The music room was only place in the house that would afford them privacy.

This was one of the few rare moments where they were given time alone.

Keila hugged her legs to her chest with her chin perched on her knees.

“How you guys handlin’ this?” Aries asked.

Akin released a sardonic scoff. “I don’t think me having an anxiety attack every time cameras and microphones are shoved in my face is me handling anything.”

“I don’t know how long I can do this,” Keila said, sniveling. “I don’t know how…”

“You know the rules,” Mia murmured. “You’re doing good.”

Keila stabbed her with a glassy-eyed glare. “Congratulating me on keeping the truth about Erin? That’s sick.”

Mia’s face distorted into a frown. “Should we tell them the truth, then? No one would believe us, anyway.”

“We could show them,” Keila mumbled.

“Are you stupid?” Aries snapped. “You know the rules. We all do. It’s the only two rules—laws we have to follow, if we don’t want to end up like her. Or anyone else gets hurt.”

He knocked his forearm against her arm. “Swear it.”

A tear slipped, and she nodded meekly.

“We should all swear,” Akin prompted.

Akin extended his hand to Aries, and he clasped their hands together. Mia moved on her knees and outstretched her hand to Keila, over Aries’s and Akin’s bound hands.

Keila hesitated, then stuck out a tentative hand before she clasped it with Mia’s. One by one, their eyes coasted to Opal expectantly

She remained on the bench, staring back at them with an unreadable look. The moment was fraught with tension.

***

“Keep your voice down,” Savio hushed harshly. “I finally got Mia to sleep, and she hasn’t slept in weeks!”

Irene shook her head feverishly.

“No!” she exclaimed. “Because imagine how she will fare once she discovers you deserted her, and I cannot even tell her why. After this thing with Erin, then losing you…it will break her.”

“She is a lot stronger than you think.”

“She is a child!” She shoved him a step back with minimal force. “She shouldn’t have to be strong.”

“You know if I stay they will execute you and I will not be shown such mercy. We both know of the peril. The Ecclesia will not be able to control her when she comes to her full power.

“The Vesturium will see her potential and execute her while they still have the chance, therefore, thwarting their only chance to safeguard the realms they were entrusted to protect.”

“I know—”

He silenced her by cradling her face in his hands.

“You and she may be cloaked, but when her Chrysalis emerges, all the enchantment in the seven realms will not hide what she is.

“For now, they believe her dead. I will lure them away to one of the mortal worlds. We cannot outrun them, but I can buy you enough time.”

Irene’s face twisted into a sob, restraining her tears, breathing heavy. “I wish you and I had more time.”

“We will. My body shall be lost in the abyss, but my heart is yours to keep. And in the void, your spirit shall be my light.”

He released her and fled upstairs, rushing into Mia’s bedroom. Though the nightmare stirred her mind, she was fast asleep.

He was against waking her, but he needed to let her know how much he loved her. It was his love for her that illuminated the true darkness of the Ecclesia, for he had been blind to it for so long.

Though Irene had warned him that they were corrupted, Savio refused to find fault. He believed in its foundations, but even a deeply rooted tree will come to rot.

Savio came to Mia’s side, turned her over so she was facing him, and gently shook her awake.

“Amelia.”

Mia groaned and lifted her head to glare at him through heavy-lidded eyes.

“Dad?” She rubbed her eye, yawning. “Wha-what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” His words wobbled out of mouth. “I was just checking on you.”

“You sound scared.” She yawned again. “Are you sure?”

She sat up straighter, propping herself on her elbow.

“I’m sure,” he said, steadying his voice. “Go back to sleep, ~amore mio~.”

Mia laid back down. He pivoted to leave, but she called out to him tiredly.

“You promise?” She extended her pinkie finger to him.

He rushed back to loop his around hers and they tilted closer to rest their foreheads against one another.

“I promise. Always know that I love you. How much do I love you, how far does it go?”

“Even in a hundred lifetimes,” she recited sleepily, burrowing deeper on her side. “And even in a thousand different realities.”

“That’s right.” He darted forward to peck her nose. “And don’t you ever forget it.”