​​​​34 Grim Revelations

THREADFIN’S MIND FIT the pieces together and did not like what it came up with. ‘You’re trying to tell me ...’

She nodded. ‘I am a fragment of Astra’s soul, as is the little girl you found. The difference is, she is the last fragment, and she is gathering the others to her. It has come full circle.’

‘What has?’

‘My spell, or to be accurate, Astra’s spell. I am sorry, but it is difficult even for me to process sometimes.’

‘What does it all mean?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘Then explain it better.’

Lorn scowled. ‘She shouldn’t have sent you after me. She should’ve known better. Being fragments of the same soul, you’d think I’d know what she’s thinking, but it doesn’t work that way.’

Threadfin reached down to the pouch on his belt, and pulled out the wrapped dagger hilt and blade fragment. ‘One piece you gave me, the other ... from her.’ He unwrapped the halves and placed them together. ‘They fit.’

Lorn’s eyes widened. ‘What is she trying to do? What is it she wants?’ She lunged for his hand but Threadfin had anticipated her. He stood and stuffed them into his belt pouch. ‘You gave me the broken half, I think unintentionally. Until recently, the image remained the same. Every time I looked, it was of you, sitting behind me.’ He left out the part about her smiling. He didn’t think it the right time to mention it, considering her current glower. He also left out what Astra had said.

‘You shouldn’t be here.’ She seemed disturbed, anxious.

‘Tell me about these soul fragments.’

She searched his face, as though deciding what he could handle. ‘I have unfinished business, or rather Astra has.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘I am a fragment of her soul, but sometimes ... I cannot remember if I’m her, or me.’

Threadfin knelt and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Well, what he hoped was reassuring. ‘Look, I realise this is hard. I can see the pain in your eyes, but I need to understand.’

She lowered her hands from her face, and offered him a faint smile. ‘Yes, you’re right. Well, what I know is that each fragment is unique. Apart from the broken memories, it is a different person. I am not the original Astra. I’m a piece of her. I am also a whole new person too with my own memories of this life. This girl, in a manner of speaking, is like my sister I suppose. The real Astra is long dead. When the spell comes full circle, it will be a whole new Astra, because every fragment has had its own life too. There is no way to know what type of person she will be, but her power will be as it was, if not greater. Her knowledge will span a thousand years.’

‘Did Scatter know all this?’

She reached out and clutched his arm. ‘The Aidari are a cabal of wizards and witches much diminished, who once served the mages. Their magic was always lesser. I believe they are descended from Nalrost’s own acolytes for the most part. He never included them in his ritual. Maybe some of them are true, but don’t trust anyone. It’s too dangerous.’ She let go of him but remained close, eyeing his belt pouch. Threadfin covered it with one hand.

‘I guess he thought he’d have need of them, again,’ she added. ‘Not all of them are willing to serve you.’

‘Are you certain?’ He had trusted Scatter. Could it be his trust in her hadn’t been natural?

‘They’ve always served Nalrost,’ said Lorn, ‘no one else.’

‘Then, they serve a dead man.’

Lorn sighed. ‘Not exactly. He survived and escaped. He chose another world to hide in.’

‘You’re talking about here, the Styx, aren’t you?’ Then, he got there with a mental wallop. ‘No, no, it couldn’t be.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Lorn. ‘Rasnal Nalrost is the Grim.’

‘Of course he is.’

‘I’m serious. He dwells here in the Styx, in a constant state of war. Always trying to reclaim our world. You’re the Key he created, and if he gets the Stone and you, he’ll do what that Harpy failed to. Don’t you see? They all serve Tartaros in some manner, whether they wish to or not. Oh, they scheme and fight one another. It doesn’t matter. Whichever of them gets the Stone, Tartaros wins.’

He felt stunned. The Grim had been a myth for so long no one had stopped to wonder if he was real. Something else occurred to him as he fit the pieces together. ‘You never entered a mirror world when you escaped with the Stone, did you. You couldn’t, no more than Nalrost could a thousand years ago. Neither of you would’ve had my ability, else he wouldn’t need me.

‘The Styx, it isn’t a mirror at all. It’s a shadow of our world. Mania, mentioned something about shadow being the darker form of reflection.’

‘The Darklight,’ she said. ‘What you saw taking the Shathra Stone, was my soul. The Grim rewarded me with this body for my trouble, a good duplicate of my original one, although I think he regrets his generosity now. In a way, I’m already dead. I guess I’m fortunate he didn’t turn me into a revenant for my trouble. He would have brought me straight to him, but I managed to cheat him.’

She looked down at her hands, unwilling to meet his gaze, and he knew. ‘You were meant to bring me here, weren’t you?’ Oh, he didn’t like this putting stuff together bit. ‘The Shathra Stone was the bait. You lured me here. Stone and Key, that was the pact you made with Nalrost.’

‘I didn’t fulfil my part, not entirely. I couldn’t go through with it.’

‘No, you didn’t. Astra, the last fragment, did it for you. What I can’t understand is why?’

She grabbed him by both hands this time. The look in her eyes was feverish. ‘Why do you think I’m warning you? He wants it, but I haven’t brought it with me.’

‘No, you brought me.’

‘I’ve been leading him on, buying time. He ensnared my soul, like Tartaros ensnared Liviana’s.’

Liviana Avitus, thought Threadfin. Wait, she was a soul fragment too?

Lorn let go of him. ‘The harpy took her and Nalrost took me. Soul fragments can be vulnerable to those with the power to abuse them. After all, we are not whole. Besides, they knew the spell was close to completion. They all want to control Astra. I’ve been trying to get free ever since.’ Tears were flowing down her cheeks. She seemed desperate, not for an escape, but for him to understand.

Silence from the streets below, as though the ghost-like people who stood there like statues of flesh were listening too.

‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ He saw it in her eyes. ‘Something I don’t want to hear.’

She pulled away, retreating into an almost foetal position, arms about her knees.

‘You’re going to tell me anyway.’

She nodded. ‘My fate is sealed, so telling you changes nothing. But the girl, her fate is yet to be decided.’ She gave him a pleading look. ‘Understand, it was a much earlier soul fragment, not me exactly. She’s long dead now, but I was born with certain memories of what she did.’

Threadfin waited, saying nothing. He knew he wasn’t going to like it. The fear in her eyes, her face, told him that much. He felt pain for her but apprehension too. ‘What happened?’

‘You must understand your kind were created to destroy, and to enslave our world and thousands of others. You were created for a terrible purpose.’ She hesitated.

‘Lorn ...’ he whispered, finding it hard to acknowledge her words.

‘My ... I mean, Astra’s counter spell did more than damage her and the other magi. It also changed what virals would become.’

‘Which was?’

‘Individuals, no better or worse than any. Except, by the time this other soul fragment I mentioned realised this truth, it was too late.’

‘No,’ said Threadfin. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’ He knew what she was about to tell him.

‘Her name was Rade Wyn, and her memories are in my head. There were two fragments like always, named Antipa and Rade, but I just have Rade’s memories for some reason. I can see it with my own eyes – I remember creating exemplars. I remember beginning the purges.’ She bit back a sob. ‘I am glad you exist. You and your sister. I’m glad in the end, I ... they didn’t succeed.’

‘They came close enough,’ he muttered. ‘Look, it was an earlier you like you said. It wasn’t really you, anyway, right?’ This soul fragment business had his head in a spin.

‘Antipa, Rade, Liviana, there’ve been so many. It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see? We’re all fragments of the same person, and she is too powerful.’

‘Where is it?’ He didn’t trust himself to comment on what he’d learned. ‘Where is—’ It struck him like a Nephilim’s gauntleted fist in the gut. ‘She has it, doesn’t she?’ His whisper was a loud hiss. ‘All this time, the girl had the Stone.’

Lorn was about to answer when the sound of shuffling feet reached them. Thousands of revenants had drawn closer. Perhaps they’d heard them or sensed them, or maybe they were changing position.

She rose and risked a glance over the wall. ‘I’ll distract him. Hate me, forget me, whatever, so long as you go.’

Threadfin felt a pressure in the air, a heaviness. Lorn wilted. He forced himself to rise, to look over the wall. The streets were empty. A lone rider approached along the main thoroughfare. Threadfin knew the heaviness came from him. The man, or what might have been a man once, rode a strange beast. Larger than a sydarag, scales covered it’s hide, a single curved horn below its three eyes. Its jaws slavered, iron teeth gleaming in the sickly glow. A snaking tail licked the air.

The overlarge rider was bald with a somewhat odd shaped head, half the face skeletal, the other carved with strange runes. Horns protruded from his neck and shoulders, which bore the weight of a heavy cloak. Strips of dead skin flapped from its arms and legs in the breeze.

The rider’s glowing eyes pierced the swirls of blackness surrounding it. It looked up at him, but little of its face was visible. In its right hand, which possessed more flesh and skin than the other, it held a long black sword. The iron gleam was bright, too bright considering there was no light source.

Threadfin dropped back down. ‘Oh, that’s who you meant.’ He avoided meeting her eyes. What she’d told him had stung. He realised his feelings for her hadn’t changed. He didn’t want her to die. ‘Who is that foul son of a ... well, whoever she was, she was damned ugly or had no taste in grolgs.’

Lorn’s voice sounded stronger, determined, but it held an undercurrent of sadness. ‘In a way, he’s you.’

Threadfin glanced over the wall a second time. The smoke-like darkness parted for half a second, and he saw the face. He pulled back, unwilling to see more. ‘My reflection, or well the face is, sort of. Kind of got the rest of me screwed up.’ And those weren’t his eyes. Knew my reflection was up to no good. What’s it doing here?

‘Your Fetch,’ Lorn corrected. ‘It possesses other reflections beside yours, but the face is the most important. That is why it’s yours.’

He remembered then, the little girl and her ominous prediction. ‘I’m supposed to destroy that thing?’ he muttered. Yes, destroy my own reflection, and why not? He realised it might be the only way out, but without his magic it wouldn’t be easy.

‘Fin, whatever you hold, it can hold too if it chooses. If you touch the Shathra Stone, the instant you do it will take it.’ She shivered. ‘Why do you think I stole it in the first place? I wasn’t just keeping it from Nalrost. I was keeping it from you.’

Had he a heart, it would’ve been hammering through his chest. My soul has an evil core, he thought. I was created to destroy and down there in the street sits the bloody proof wearing my face. ‘We need to run.’

‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘My time is done.’ She took his hand and held it. She leaned in close, and caressed his face with her fingers. ‘There is no escape for me. Maybe you can find a way out. I never wanted to see you hurt.’

‘I came here to save you.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m not giving up.’

‘Protecting the Stone, keeping it out of their hands, is all there is. It is why I am here and why you must go. The Shathra Stone was never your responsibility.’

Threadfin felt the weight of her words like a grave stone. The weight of duty, of doing what was right no matter the cost. It was too much. ‘This is crazy,’ he said, knowing it was futile. ‘I will kill it.’

‘You can’t.’

‘I’ll find a way. We’ll figure out all the other stuff later. You don’t need to do this.’ He couldn’t believe it was happening. First, Pole and the others. Now, Lorn too?

She fingered one of his horns and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

He got to his feet, turned, and took a few steps towards the stairs, searching his mind for a solution. He could stop her from going down there. He could try and fight it.

A shriek sounded from below, which sent shivers through him. He turned back to plead with her, but instead cried out, ‘What are you doing?’

She was clambering onto the parapet. ‘Goodbye, my undeader,’ she said in a low voice, turning to look back. ‘I never needed you to save me. I never asked you to, but you did it anyway. You cared for me when no one else did. This is all as I have planned it or near enough. If you want to do something for me, then protect our world from all of them ... and her too.’

‘Lorn ...’

She took one step and fell from sight.