Chapter 3
Ria hated the long waits for Tor.
She sat on the stone bench in the cairn, pouring over the things he brought from the village to store there. The other Flames were laid out on a stone table, covered by a thick beige leather hide. Beside them was a lantern, which flickered with candlelight. Even during the day the cairn was quite dark. On the edge of the table was a stack of parchment papers, some of them looked like the birch trees they had been harvested from. Some of them had cracked edges and black score marks along the outer side. She ran her hand over them and let out a sigh, not knowing how much longer he would be. She took a deep breath, smelling the haunted forest around her, and hearing the pin pricks of moans through the trees. The dead were restless. All of them wanted to escape their nest-like prisons and go to the shores.
When Tor wasn’t around she’d spend the day walking the narrow and trampled paths, listening to the calls of the dead. Most of them wanted to find the shores, pay the Ferryman and visit the afterlife. Some of them had the will to live, as though if a reason came they would break free of the branches and stand on solid ground, the way she did. She turned her shimmering hands over and back again, tracing the patterns of thin amethyst veins spreading through her form. A deep ache formed in her bones, the need to do something other than wait caroming through her. She glanced around the cairn and spotted a heap of metal. Tor had called it armor when he’d last visited her. Crossing the cairn she looked over it, wanting desperately to be able to touch something, affect something on the physical level. She knelt, and tried to put her hand on the armor but her form went through it the way it did with everything else. She hung her head in frustration and glanced at the far wall. Tor had created a makeshift smithy and when he wasn’t writing notes and experimenting with the other Flames he was heating and cooling the armor, reshaping it. She didn’t know what he was trying to do with it, Tor never explained himself. He did things and she watched, often learning more from his actions than his words.
Standing, she moved to the table and ran her hands over the Flames. They lit up underneath the canvas and sang their notes before going dormant again. She narrowed her eyes and tried again, focusing more on the canvas than on the Flames. In a grand gesture it whipped off the table, knocking the lantern on the ground, snuffing out the candle. Aria let out a cry and jumped back, curious about her telekinetic abilities. She whipped around and glared at the armor. It floated seamlessly into the air and she thought about the fire, about melting it down. Tor wouldn’t be back for another few hours and she had all day to do nothing in the cairn. The least she could do was amuse herself by making pretty things. The breastplate entered the large stone fire pit and flames rose to engulf it. Aria kept her attention on crafting something truly original and beautiful. She stepped forward, and without a thought to the heat, stuck her hands into the fire pit, feeling a tingle move up her arms. She giggled as the melted metal slipped between the cracks in her fingers and she moved them like a harpist, defining small points, and shaping a simple band. For a few seconds she forgot that she could touch nothing in the physical world, and pulled her hands out of the fire, bidding the former armor to come with her.
It obeyed, and though lopsided and malformed, it was the beginnings of an elaborate crown. It had a simple headband and what looked like a feather shooting up from the front of it. Aria frowned, she wanted it to look like a flame, like a crown of fire. She lost her focus and it clattered to the floor like a dead thing. Aria’s shoulders slumped.
“You’re quite impressive little girl,” a voice said from the opening in the rock.
Aria jolted, startled and sent a spark along the walls, lighting up every nook, cranny and crack with violet colored energy. Her stomach dropped as an abominably tall woman with long straight whitish blonde hair stepped into the cairn. Aria could barely make out her clothes, but they were a darker blue color, the dress falling to her ankles and showing off her chest. She angled her chin to the air and Aria, without thinking, moved the canvas so it would cover the other Flames. She stepped back, unsure who the woman was or why she was there.
“You’re not Tor.”
The woman laughed; a loud and shrill sound that made Aria cringe. “No dear, I’m Cassareece.” She cocked her head to the side, staring at the canvas. Her fingers went to touch the edge but Aria stepped forward.
“Tor didn’t tell me about you.”
Cassareece looked pained by the comment. “I can’t imagine why…he used to love me.”
Aria watched Cassareece with a careful eye, not wanting her to unveil the Flames and not wanting to reveal herself as an unnatural thing. What Skeld said melded into her form and made her fear herself on a level so deep she couldn’t fathom it. “Tor loves Desaunius.”
“The wretch.”
Aria had nothing to say. She looked at the ground and shuffled foot-to-foot. She had so many questions in her mind she didn’t know which one to pick. Why was the woman there? Who was she? Why wasn’t she afraid of the haunted forest like the villagers? While she was thinking Cassareece glided into the cairn and took a look at the smithy, setting a blaze off in the innards and lighting up the cairn. She picked up the crown Aria had made and inspected it. Aria watched frost cloud Cassareece’s hands as she cooled the metal, turning the feather into something solid. She placed it on the canvas on the table, on top of the other Flames and Aria found her tongue.
“How did you do that?”
Cassareece shot her a devilish smile. “I could do a lot more if Tor would only join us.”
“He—he doesn’t want that.”
Cassareece fixed her with a look and her blue eyes turned to lightning storms. Aria stepped back her own amethyst enflamed eyes surprised. “Do you have a name child? Tor didn’t tell me he had a child with the wretch.”
Aria felt faint. “I—I’m not his…or hers…” She felt an affinity towards Tor because he was her creator, but father, mother, these things were more foreign to her than the Lands Across the Stars. “Tor calls me Aria.”
“What do you call yourself? Where are you from, child?”
Aria refused to answer the second question, and the first baffled her. “I—I don’t know.”
Cassareece squinted in the wavering light from the fire pit, casting half her face in orange light and the other half in darkness. “If I mark you with a name, all will remember it for eternity.” She held up her hand ready to touch Aria’s shoulder, but the girl moved away.
“Tor will always call me Aria.”
Cassareece laughed. “You peculiar girl. I am only here to help you. I brought you some food.” With a flick of her wrist, a bouquet of flowers appeared on the table, the same ones Aria had seen in the haunted forest. They were all sorts of colors, salmon reds, cerulean blues, and golden rod yellows. There were pastel purples and sea greens, and even mercurial blues. Aria’s mouth watered though she didn’t want it to and she stepped forward. There was a glint in Cassareece’s eyes as though this was a test—if Aria didn’t pass the woman would be angry.
Aria focused on the petals and reaching out she pretended to detach one with her hand. Her mind moved it to her mouth and she forced it into her mouth. Her lips clamped down on the substance and something changed. A thrill moved through her, taste exploding through her mouth like a symphony. She savored the sweetness of the petals and forced more into her mouth.
“I like them, why do they taste so good?”
Cassareece smirked. “It’s a secret. Now, for a name…” she tapped a perfect finger on her lips, the fingernail adorned with a sheen of sparkles. Aria took another of the orange petals in her mouth and clamped down on it, but the taste that went through her was disgusting. She tried to spit it out but it was impossible, the petal melded into her form and coursed through her and she shuddered as the feeling passed. Cassareece seemed to watch her reaction with full perplexity.
“Kali Elle,” Cassareece said.
“What?” Aria asked while trying not to gag on the petals. She glanced at the bouquet, which was mostly picked through, a few orange, sea green, and salmon red petals left. All the blue and purple ones were gone. She didn’t want more, but she didn’t know what to do with the rest of them.
“The name that will follow you for eternity.” Cassareece pointed a finger at Aria’s sternum an elaborate emblem appearing above the white dress she formed onto herself. The emblem turned gold and as it touched Aria’s energy she screamed, feeling like a sharp lance was carving the name into her soul. She wanted to slap Cassareece, but she couldn’t reveal her secret, she couldn’t let Cassareece know she was a Flame. She breathed deeply, attempting to withstand the pain until it was over, the mark forever etched onto her form. She wobbled on her feet and fought not to fall over as Cassareece let out another vile laugh.
“Do you not like the name I chose?”
Aria took a gulp of air, feeling lightheaded, from the flowers, the mark, the crown she made. “The flowers. What do I do with the rest of them?”
Cassareece shrugged. “The children should like them, if you’ve had your fill you could share.”
Aria nodded, moving to the table and carefully levitating the bouquet into her arms. She stole a quick glance at Cassareece’s blue lightning eyes, not knowing what to make of her. “I should go.” She moved to the door, expecting Cassareece to follow her but the woman didn’t move. “You should go, too.”
Cassareece seemed pulled out of a daydream. She followed Aria out of the cairn to the fading light and the skeletal trees with their puffs of cotton. “Don’t you want to know what the name means?”
Aria stopped in her tracks, curiosity getting the better of her. She didn’t know why Tor called her Aria or why Cassareece chose Kali Elle, but she couldn’t deny that defining herself was important. She felt so young, so naïve, and so foolish all of the time. She couldn’t afford to be that way if she were to help Tor win the war. “Tell me.”
“You will not tell Tor of our meeting?”
Aria shook her head. If that was the only way to get the answer, she’d obey. “He won’t know you came.”
Cassareece sized her up. Nervousness flitted through Aria as Cassareece stared her down, inspecting everything from her violet tinged skin to her long violet swathed white hair. “It means the girl who will bring death.”
Aria was speechless. Her insides burned and her head throbbed and she wanted to bring death to Cassareece, but she couldn’t even touch her, let alone cause the woman harm. She tried to smooth out her expression and seem indifferent, but of all the things she could have been named, a destroyer wasn’t what Aria wanted at all.
“You don’t like it do you?”
“I—”
“Keep our end of the bargain and do not tell Tor. I will return someday, Kali…Elle.” She winked and she was gone.
Aria trudged through the forest, the bouquet of flowers dragging along the floor behind her. It was like she had them by some invisible string. They skipped over the bumps and cracks, twisting and shaking off leaves until she broke through the tree line and spied the flower shaped lake in the middle of the low cut green grass.
Laughter interrupted Aria in her tracks. On the edge of the lake, behind the village and far from the shores, were the bluffs. Thick vibrant trees, full of orange and yellow leaves wavered in the wind. Their trunks were beige and below them the grass grew almost two feet tall. She found the children climbing trees and jumping into soft grass. Their faces glinted with the shimmer from the silver quenny fruit, a sign of their youth. Their mouths were painted rosy red on the girls and faded beige on the boys. They wore simple summer dresses, tunics and breeches, leather sandals strapped to their feet. They looked up when they saw her and stopped playing. One jumped out of a tree and landed at Aria’s feet, a sheepish expression crossing the young boy’s face.
Aria held her hands out and commanded the bouquet into her arms. She curtsied and held a sea green petal out to one of the young girls in a light blue dress. “I came to share these with you.”
The boys and girls gathered, the boys brushing grass off their tunics, the girls kneeling to get a closer look at the petals.
“They come from the haunted forest,” one of the boys said, authority and fear in his tone. He crossed his arms and glared at the other children.
Aria pulled her mouth to one side in a frown and took the last blue petal off the bouquet, carefully guiding it to her mouth. She pressed down on it, closed her eyes, letting it flood her, forcing a shower of sparks to color her aura with spires of amethyst flames. “They taste very good.”
The children were awestruck and before the boy could stop her, the young girl in the light blue gown held her hand out. “I want the orange one,” she said. Aria detached it from the flower and held it to her.
“Afton,” the boy said, but the girl in the light blue gown flitted away, while others stretched their hands out, waiting for a petal. Aria appeased each of them in turn, giving away the sea green, orange, and salmon colored petals until there was nothing but the deep greenish stems and sharp leaves. She watched them press petals into their mouths one by one, their eyes lighting up with the energy therein.
A shout sounded from across the field and Aria stepped through the tall grass. The boy who didn’t take a petal stood over Afton, the girl in the light blue gown. Her fragile frame rocked like a stormy sea. “You hurt her,” the boy accused. “The petals are poison!” he shouted for everyone to hear.
In minutes the children were on their knees, clutching their stomachs. Some of them retched, spitting, and choking, while others shivered and shook like Afton. Aria’s eyes widened as her good fortune turned to nightmares and cotton-like substance rose out of Afton’s little body.
The boy backed up and fell on his back, shielding his face, and reciting an incantation.
“They tasted good…” Aria whispered unable to conceal her shock. The boy regained himself and stalked over to her, swinging a heavy fist in her direction. Aria stood silent as his fist went through her and he stumbled, landing on his hands and knees. He shot a reproachful look in her direction.
“You are an unnatural thing!”
Aria felt something cold near her, and glanced to her left only to see the cottony substance of Afton beside her. She was no longer the malformed white wisps, but a fully transparent version of her living self.
“You weren’t wrong, they tasted good until the storm began,” Afton said.
The boy stood and pointed at her. “Go, before I bring the elders.”
Aria glanced at Afton, a sickly feeling spreading through her. “Come, we must call the Ferryman.”
Afton followed Aria through the haunted forest. Unlike Skeld the girl was fascinated by everything the forest had to offer. She wanted to taste more of the poisonous flowers, and she wanted to play in the branches. She wanted to unravel the cotton from the trees and make friends with the other ghosts. She almost got caught in fourteen different trees, and Aria found herself using her odd abilities to free her. By the time they reached the shores, Aria was exhausted. She glanced at the sea and hated the sight ahead of her. The usual yellow line of the horizon had become a streak of red, black clouds roiled over the sky while the water below reflected their menacing intent. She neared the grassy shore and tried to dip her fingers in the water but felt nothing. She raised her hands to the sky and recited the incantation. Afton didn’t deserve to lose her life but she was gone, and she deserved to return.
“Nobody knows how to call the Ferryman,” Afton whispered when Aria was done. They stood side by side, Aria in her white gown and Afton in her light blue one. They didn’t hold hands because Aria couldn’t feel her, living or dead, and Afton clasped her hands together, whispering other things to herself.
“Tor told me how.”
Afton dared a sidelong glance at her. “You must be very special to know the secrets of the land.”
Aria laughed. “I know nothing.”
“You know more than I.”
Aria was going to rebut her, but the boat appeared on the horizon and glided towards them cutting through the shapes of the clouds on the sea. Moments later it fetched up against the shore and the Ferryman glared at Aria.
“You bring me one so young.”
Aria couldn’t take her eyes off him, fighting the urge to burst into a shower of sparks. The same feeling she experienced the first time she saw him cut through her from head to toe as Afton stepped forward.
“It was an accident. I ate the poisonous flowers,” Afton said boldly.
The Ferryman didn’t dare a glance at the young girl, his hooded face focused on Aria, but his next words were meant for the girl. “Do you have a coin to pay me?”
Aria caught Afton biting her lip out of the corner of her eye. “No…but I beg you, please take me.”
The Ferryman extended his skeletal hand towards Aria. “Will you pay the fee for her?”
“I—I don’t have a coin…” Aria could barely speak, her tongue feeling three times its usual size. The Ferryman withdrew his hand and went to push off the shores when Aria stepped forward and without thinking, caught him by the arm. Lightning shot through her fingers as she gripped the fabric of his cloak hard, the sensation of it under her fingertips surreal. She couldn’t help it; tears sprang to her eyes and slid down her violet tinged cheeks. The Ferryman wrenched his arm out of her grip and looked at Afton.
“I will take you,” he said, his voice hoarse compared to its gravelly quality moments ago. When Afton was safely in the boat, the Ferryman turned to Aria. “You owe me. I will return to collect.” He pushed off from the shores and disappeared in a cloud of mists.
Aria couldn’t think straight as she watched them go. Had she really touched him? Was that what it was like to touch something? She expected her form to move through his the way it had with the ghosts and the people and the trees, but with the Ferryman it wasn’t like that.
Where he was, he was solid.
And it made her giddy.
Tor stood over the Flames when Aria returned. He had the feather crown in his hands, fingers worrying over the intricate pattern. Aria recalled Cassareece and her frozen hands, and shuddered to herself. “Where were you?”
“I took a walk,” Aria said not wanting to talk about Cassareece, the poison petals, the Ferryman or the name etched onto her soul, the name that turned her into something terrible for all eternity.
Tor picked up the wand and waved it in the air, but nothing happened. “They won’t work for me, but I created them.”
Aria shot him a half smile. “You need to invoke them,” she said, not entirely sure how she knew the answers. She saw the other Flames as beings like her, but trapped inside inanimate objects. “And you have to let them be who they are.”
“What they are,” Tor said, correcting her. He flexed his gray scaled hand and gripped the wand harder. “These are weapons.”
“I’m not a weapon.”
Tor looked at her, apologies in his gold lightning eyes. Aria hadn’t noticed it before but Tor wasn’t like the children. He was more like Cassareece. She didn’t like the thought and to distract herself she commanded the crown out of his other hand. It floated to her and rested on her head, the feather sticking up. “Do you like what I made?”
Tor pursed his lips. “You took my breastplate to make that.”
“You took too long in the village.”
Tor put the wand down and picked up the lantern, opening the inner chamber and touching the orb inside. It reacted and Tor winced, pulling his finger out like it had bit him. “The people are going to die. I couldn’t leave.”
“Tiki doesn’t like being in the lantern.”
“This is the Kuliana Kulnindom.”
“It doesn’t matter what you call her, she prefers Tiki.”
Tor put the lantern down and faced Aria. “You have me confounded. Tell me Aria, how do I use them?”
Aria was going to tell him everything he needed to know when another thought entered her mind. Names. Cassareece named her something deadly and terrible, and the Kuliana Kulnindom named itself Tiki, a short and simple name. Aria didn’t know what Tiki meant but she was forever curious as to why Tor named things the way he did. “Why do you call us by these names?”
Tor sighed and sat down on the bench on the far end of the cairn. He ran his hands over his face. “It is customary to name things. Trees, lakes, seas, skies. We name things to know what they are, what they mean, what they do.”
“Why did you name me Aria?” She said it even though she was afraid of the answer.
Tor smiled. “It means songbird.”
Aria felt relieved. His name for her was benign, beautiful even. “What about the other Flames?”
Tor looked at the floor. “I…”
“I cannot help you use them if you do not tell me what you called them.”
“They weren’t like you.…” He moved to the sword and put his hand on the hilt carefully, so it didn’t light up and shoot lightning across the cairn. Aria glanced warily at the crack in the stone the sword had already produced. “This is Cara Najeel, the Ruby Sword. The others are the same. Tineca Maliorn means Citrine Shield, Ortel Nuite means Azurite Crown, Kuliana Kulnindom means Carnelian Lantern, Callen Hyloma means Emerald Shell, Comim Ramm means Quartz Wand, Murr Karraske means Obsidian Scythe, and Mylinn Windall means Iolite Staff.”
Aria moved to the staff and waved her hand over top of it. The crystal lit up and it shone with a deep indigo aura. “You will call her Isadora from this day forward, and she will do as you command.” Aria tried to will the staff to move but found it impossible. Interference caused her to feel fatigued to the point of passing out. Vertigo clouded her vision as she knelt on the floor and something peculiar happened. Aria saw a set of indigo tinged feet hit the floor, and when she looked up, Isadora stood before her, holding the white staff in her left hand. Her form was fluid, the way Aria was when she first formed.
“Isadora?” Tor asked, testing the name on his lips.
Aria gained herself and stood beaming from ear to ear. “You’re here.”
Isadora’s form was humanoid but indigo, no lips or eyes or nose yet. She was the silhouette of a woman. She went to speak and her ethereal form cracked, white lines appearing in jagged crisscrosses along her form until it shattered in a shower of dust and was sucked back into the crystal in the center of the calcified anemone. The staff teetered, but Tor saved it before it hit the ground.
Aria was more than tired from the ordeal. She didn’t think she could stand another moment. She glanced at the other Flames, determination in her to free them from their tiny prisons.
“I don’t understand. Aria, what was that?” Tor seemed perplexed as he placed the staff in its spot beside the other Flames and sat on the bench.
“You need to listen to them.”
“And you will help?”
“I will do what I can.”
Tor stood and nodded. “Good. I need to return to the village.” He stopped at the mouth of the cairn and shot her a cautionary glare. “Do not leave the cairn. Do not come to the village. The war is coming, and I cannot let anyone know about you. Not yet.”
Aria felt the guilt inside of her deepen as she swallowed hard and nodded. She couldn’t tell him that she’d already done so many bad things. He lingered for a moment then escaped into the night.
Aria woke on the floor in the cairn hours later. For a moment she thought she was blind but her hand pulsed and a faint shimmer emitted from her pale violet tinged body. She sat up slowly, the fire in the pit snuffed, the crispy smell of smoke lingering in the air. She wanted to obey Tor’s tenet but she couldn’t deny the Ferryman his payment. She got to her feet, the makeshift white dress scraping along the floor as she quickened out of the cairn and into the night. The haunted forest was alive, poisonous flowers lighting the way as she traipsed along the vein-like paths towards the east shore. The closer she came, the more she buzzed, her form threatening to erupt in fiery tentacles of flame. She slowed, her breathing heavy as she smelled salt, and broke through the last of the rotting trees, beholding the green sea.
The red streak on the horizon had become a deep burgundy, and the black roiling clouds had become peppered with lightning. Aria followed the jagged lines of light, and jumped at the bursts of light behind the clouds. She lost herself in the symphony of light until the land beneath her sizzled and the Ferryman cleared his throat. She dared a glance at him, her mouth open in awe, the familiar blade singing along her form at his penetrating gaze. For a long time she stood there staring at him while he stared at her, not brave enough to speak. Without a word he stretched his skeletal hand towards her palm up. His face was concealed by the large hood but Aria didn’t need to see his eyes to know the expectation in them.
She didn’t bring a coin.
She opened her mouth to speak but it was like a swarm of bees attacked her tongue and she gagged, desperately trying to clear the stinging from her mouth. The Ferryman said nothing until she gained control over herself and shot him a sheepish smile. She definitely wanted less weird things to happen to her when he was around, but she couldn’t help the curiosity. “You’ll need to come ashore to collect. I left all the coins at the cairn in the forest.” She purposefully glanced over her shoulder at the glowing orange and violet petals, marking their way through the woods.
The skeletal hand paused, pulling back involuntarily as if she had shocked him. He seemed to flinch despite his cool composure and she winced. She didn’t mean to scare him. “I cannot step foot on land.”
Aria narrowed her eyes to slits. “That’s a very sad thing.”
“My master wills it. I am to return with a coin, nothing more.”
Aria crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “And if I refuse you?”
The Ferryman seemed to smirk and chuckle under the expanse of his cloak. “You can face my master if you wish, but be warned, he is not kind.”
Aria dug her toe into the ground, entirely determined to see his face, even if it was nothing but bone. “Then we’ve come to a stalemate. I cannot pay you lest you come ashore, and you cannot leave without being paid.”
The Ferryman huffed and pulled his skeletal hands into the ragged folds of his dark cloak. Aria fixed her gaze on him no matter how strong the urge to burst into a shower of flames was. After a long time he nodded and braced himself on the bow as he stepped out of the boat. The transformation was instantaneous. The moment his foot touched the grass the land sizzled, the cloak cocooning him in its tight folds as he changed. Shin-high boots covered his feet, while flesh covered his limbs as though he were dipped in bronze. Golden brown hands emerged from the sleeves of the cloak, while the rest of the transformation remained trapped underneath the heavy folds of fabric. Tattered shreds became polished edges fitted with embroidery. A golden clasp in the shape of a snake held the cloak together, showing off a beige tunic and black breeches below it. Aria stumbled backwards, almost falling over herself as he pushed the wide hood onto his shoulders. The Ferryman had long brown hair, straight as a line, deep black eyebrows, and mismatched eyes framed by long lashes. Aria couldn’t take her eyes off him, the smooth jaw line, golden brown skin, puckered lips. Her eyes gravitated to his, one hazel and one a bright golden yellow. He abashedly averted his gaze when he caught her amethyst enflamed eyes and stalked towards the break in the trees.
“Come, we mustn’t waste time,” he said. Aria’s heart trilled at the cadence of his voice, like water over smooth rocks. She tried to find her footing but the land tilted, and she may as well have been upside down she was so disoriented. She staggered towards him, trying to keep her balance, trying not to crash into him. He took the lead through the path wide enough for one and she followed; all the giddiness in her rising in a steady, disenchanting crescendo.
“Do you have a name, Ferryman?” Aria wasn’t used to being bold, but she had to do something to distract her from the many moans in the trees, and the steady thumping in her heart. If she didn’t know better, she’d say it was a stampede.
He glanced back at her, his gold eye glowing in the dim moonlit night. “It’s very long, and hard to pronounce.”
“Oh. Is there a name you like to be called?” Her fascination with names hadn’t waned since the momentary outbursts with Cassareece and Tor. She was a death bringing songbird girl, and a Flame. All things she had trouble understanding, and yet if she didn’t think about it, she embodied it perfectly. Life was peculiar like that, being who she was, was easier than understanding what she was. She didn’t like the way Tor treated the other Flames, but she didn’t feel like he wanted to hurt them. The battle and the people were important to him. Whatever Cassareece and the rest of them were, she didn’t want them to exist much longer either.
She realized the Ferryman hadn’t answered her question. Because the idea of touching him sent waves of nausea through her, she tried to step in line with him, even though the path was cramped and her feet moved through flowers. She hoped he didn’t notice, the way her feet sunk into the land, and she hoped he wouldn’t call her an unnatural thing. It hurt knowing she’d killed Afton by poisoning her with pretty flowers. “You can recite the full name if you wish.”
Tension seemed to coil his shoulders. “You wouldn’t remember my name if I told it to you.”
“Why?” Aria spoke the question aloud but only because another part of her was working so hard on memorizing every detail of him, from the lines of his face, down to the way the corner of his mouth tightened whenever she opened her mouth. If it were up to her, she’d never forget a single thing about him.
“You ask too many questions, youngling.”
“Aria…my name is Aria.”
The Ferryman huffed, putting his hands into the opposite sleeves of his cloak and folding them across his torso. He changed direction at a fork in the road, and Aria wondered how he knew where the cairn was. “Kallow.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Kallow is the name I prefer.”
“And the long name?”
“Krishani Mekallow Mekelle Tavesin,” he rattled off, slurring the words together so, to Aria, they didn’t make a lot of sense.
She let out a sigh. “I like Kallow.”
“It means hero.”
She hadn’t expected him to anticipate her next question, but she was obviously out of her league with Kallow. She swallowed hard, and glanced up, trying to feel for the cairn. She was worried with all of the tramping through the forest directionlessly, that they had gotten lost.
“The cairn is seven minutes away.”
Aria blushed a deep shade of amethyst, and twisted her hands together, not sure what to do with herself. An awkward ache in her stomach kept her attention, while the loud moans from the ghosts kept her mind alert. “Where do you take the ghosts?”
Kallow stopped. He whirled and faced her, fire and sorrow in his eyes. “I’m surprised you know so little,” he began, his eyes combing over her, the intensity making Aria breathless. “The Valtanyana like the wars, it gives them much entertainment. Of course, there are consequences. Spill too much blood and the land fills with…” he glanced at the trees and Aria suddenly realized why he was so quiet the whole time. She didn’t realize that the moans weren’t for her, they were for Kallow. They wanted him to untangle them and take them with him. She hadn’t even realized what she was asking when she asked him to come ashore and travel to the cairn. In an instant she felt sorry for the grave task he had to perform.
Aria locked eyes with him. “They want to destroy everything.” A wan smile crossed Kallow’s lips and Aria felt the urge to touch him, deepen. She remained stalk straight, waiting for him to continue.
“They want what they can’t have.”
Aria frowned, she didn’t understand.
“Emotion. They don’t know fear, anger, jealousy, remorse, sadness…love.”
Aria’s mouth went dry on the word love. She didn’t know the first thing about love either, she was created to fight, and Tor was elusive, if not rude at times. “Where do you take them?”
“To Hades of course. He gives some new lives and others he torments.”
“Why?” Aria couldn’t fathom being forced to fight in a war and die, only to be tortured in an endless after life. It didn’t seem fair.
Kallow shrugged. “For their pleasure. We’re all pawns to the Valtanyana.”
Aria blinked rapidly, trying to gain herself. Anger gathered deep inside her, and she fought to keep it under control. She understood why Tor refused them, why Tor created her and the others, and why he was willing to put them in danger to stand against the Valtanyana. Kallow dropped his gaze and continued walking. Aria followed until he rounded the large stone cairn and found the opening on the northwest side.
“Let me go first,” Aria whispered, wanting to make sure Tor wasn’t hard at work. He said he wouldn’t be back until morning but she didn’t trust him not to show up when he needed to. She peeked inside the cairn, finding the lantern on the edge of the table, glowing and dimming like it was breathing. She winked at Tiki and silently begged her to act normal for a change. Tiki’s Flame shifted until she was a solid glow and Aria emerged from the cairn, finding Kallow staring at a puff of cotton in the trees.
“Come, the cairn is empty.”
Kallow turned, pointing at the tree. “Do you know him?”
Aria smiled. “I have spoken to him many times. He calls himself wise, but if he were wise, he wouldn’t have gotten stuck in that tree.”
Kallow laughed, following her inside. “If you pay his way, I will show you how to release him.”
Aria turned, wanting desperately to keep Kallow on land, and away from the Valtanyana and their wars. She tossed a spark into the fire pit and it snaked through it, lighting the cairn in shades of orange. “I apologize if this seems barbaric…” she levitated the remaining armor from the corner and guided it to the fire pit. It sizzled as it melted, and before Kallow could speak she plunged her hands into the fire and broke off two pieces of gold, forming them into the coins Skeld held.
Aria commanded the pieces of gold out, letting them cool on the stone bench. They’d be mushy unless she could find something like Cassareece’s frozen hands to cool them.
“You cannot create them that easily you know.”
Aria didn’t know what to say. Kallow stood by the table, looking over the parchment papers Tor always wrote on. He had one in his hand, and Aria could see something etched into the bark. “I don’t know another way to make coins.”
Kallow smirked. “It’s not the making them, it’s the enchanting them that’s the difficult part. Do you know a shaman?”
Aria laughed. From what Tor had said about her and her kind, she didn’t need a shaman to instill an item with magic. “Please tell me what you need the coin to do and I will have it done.”
Kallow looked at her, a challenge in his eyes like he didn’t believe she could do it. He crossed his arms. “It needs to pass between worlds, so it’s physical in mine, and non-physical in yours.”
Aria wanted to smirk but she remembered Skeld and the way Tor had made the coin from his hand turn to smoke, and appear in Skeld’s hand. She nodded, taking the two coins in her hand and tried to replicate what Tor had done. It wasn’t as easy as she originally imagined. For one, she didn’t exist in the same world as the coins, so touching them was impossible. She focused harder, trying to make them turn to smoke and reform but the logistics were beyond her. She lost her focus and they fell through her hands, landing on the floor. Kallow saw everything and his eyes widened.
“Forgive me…” Aria gulped, knowing she wouldn’t be able to pay him, knowing he would return to his master empty handed, and she didn’t want to think about what his master would sentence him to because of her treachery. Kali Elle: the girl who brings death. The name pounded in the back of her mind and she felt faint until something pinched her brow and she glanced at the table. The obsidian crystal on the scythe was glowing, creating a momentary dark spot on the canvas. She pushed past Kallow, who was still holding the parchment and whipped back part of the canvas. She ran her hand over the scythe and a low note escaped the crystal before it exploded into the cairn, black dust swirling into the air, until a silhouette encompassed the cairn.
“Impossible,” Kallow exclaimed as he backed towards the stone bench and fell on it, his hands trailing over the crown.
Aria didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want Kallow to know what she was anymore than she wanted the Obsidian Flame to awaken in the middle of her meeting with the Ferryman. Her heart triturated wildly, and she fought to keep the urge to explode from overcoming her.
“Aria,” the Obsidian Flame said.
Aria couldn’t believe it, he could speak. She looked at the coins and without needing to say a thing the Obsidian Flame took them and as quickly as they had become tiny round pieces of gold they became smoke, then solid again, landing in the Ferryman’s lap.
“You will call me Klavotesi and you will send me to work with the Ferrymen when this is over.”
Aria couldn’t speak. She nodded, half afraid, half amazed. Klavotesi lost his form, crumbling into dust before the crystal on the scythe sucked him inside its prison. Aria couldn’t look at Kallow, the storms in her stomach were too great for her to face him. He would think of her as an unnatural thing and she couldn’t face his hatred for her.
“This prophecy is incomplete,” he said after a long pause.
Aria forced herself to look at him and he seemed pensive, staring at the parchment with intent while running his thumb along the headband of the crown she made. “I didn’t know Tor was writing prophecies.”
Kallow shot her a quirky smile. “He’s writing them about you.” He held up the parchment and Aria stepped forward to get a better look. She leaned closer to Kallow, and felt his eyes on her. Sure enough the crown she created was on her head. Symbols dotted the sides of the parchment but she didn’t understand them. The only other thing on the parchment besides her was the sun, with streaks of light extending from it. One of the streaks of light held a key at her mouth. She didn’t understand the significance in the least, but a shiver ran through her. She pulled away as he stood, the crown in one hand, the parchment in the other. He placed the parchment on the table exactly where Tor had left it and turned to Aria, bracing the crown with both hands.
He neared her and a million sensations shocked her body. He placed the crown on her head and it stayed. She half expected him to put his hands on her shoulders and she tilted her head towards him, wanting to touch him, taste him, inhale the intoxicating scent of him, but he pulled his hands back and stepped away, heading towards the opening in the cairn.
“I got what I came for … if you don’t mind….”
Aria snapped out of it and twisted her hands together. “I can escort you to the shores if you wish.”
Kallow smiled. “I would like that very much.”
The way back seemed to go by faster than the way there. Kallow kept a steady pace and Aria trailed behind him, unsure why she decided to go with him in the first place. Maybe it was all the moaning souls, or the tempting poisonous flowers, or her company. She highly doubted it was the latter, she wasn’t someone to fall in love with, she was someone to be feared, loathed, cautioned about.
Kallow stopped in his tracks and bent down, snatching something from the ground. Aria almost collided with him but changed directions and floated ahead of him, slowing to a gradual stop. She turned only to see him holding a small green garden snake, only it was becoming petrified by his touch, one end turning solid. “Quickly, give me your wrist,” he said as the petrification reached the midpoint of the snake. Aria thrust her right arm forward not quite sure what he wanted. Kallow twisted the snake around her wrist, doubling it until the petrification reached the mouth and Kallow made the snake eat its own tail.
Aria stared at the trinket in awe, the bracelet now fused to her wrist. It felt heavy and she expected it to go right through her, but like the crown, it was instilled with some form of magic and it stayed clamped onto her like the mark Cassareece etched onto her soul.
“What does it mean?”
Kallow smiled. “It symbolizes the cycle of life and death. We call it the ouroboros.”
Aria wanted to be happy that he had given her a gift, but like everything else she had been given it brought her back to death. “I don’t know if I like it.”
Kallow didn’t seem afflicted by her words. “Where I’m from, it means anything that dies will come back to life. It’s a very good omen.”
Aria smiled, joy replacing the sorrow in her heart so fully that she felt like it might color the night sky in violet tinged stars. “Then it is the best gift anyone has ever given me.” She met his eyes and held them for a long time before he shifted his gaze and passed her.
“Come, the shores are near.”
She didn’t want him to go, but she couldn’t make him stay. She trudged along behind him until she smelled sea salt and her chest constricted. Want and need fought a battle inside her and her voice was caught between. She reached out to steady herself and caught hold of his cloak, the first time she dared to touch him since he stepped off the boat. He glanced at her with an expression that could cut glass; but she gripped him tighter.
“We forgot the wise man.” Inside she beamed, thinking he would have to come back with her to show her how to release him from the tree, but Kallow winked at her, and went to step into the boat.
“I know.”
She frowned. “Why would you do that?”
Kallow smirked. “You’re a very peculiar girl, Aria.”
Aria gulped, afraid he would step onto the boat and take off into the mists and she’d never see him again. She glared at the snake bracelet and tried to control the sparks of fire ready to burst. “I need to know, tell me why you left him.”
“All in good time, youngling.” He went to wrench out of her grip but she pulled back and tumbled onto the grass, pulling him with her. She squeezed her eyes shut and cringed as body parts collided, feeling his full weight on top of her. She didn’t move for a long time, and neither did he. When she opened her eyes, his were fixed on her, confusion rattling her to the core. She could feel him, all of him, it was real. Flutters spread through her and she lost control, lighting up like the surface of a million suns, light crackling through her violet tinged skin. She felt hot everywhere, especially where his fingers brushed along her skin.
“It isn’t possible…” he breathed, trailing his fingers along her shoulder blade, her collar bone. His touch elicited a sound from Aria that was between a sigh and a moan. “I haven’t been able to feel a thing in centuries.”
Aria moved her hand from clamping his arm to cupping his face as he leaned into her, his lips brushing her palm, sending another wave of sparks through her. “I haven’t been able to touch anyone but you,” she said.
His eyes tightened. “I’m your first?”
“You’re my only,” Aria replied. Tears clogged her throat as he leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers. And in a moment it was over. Kallow pushed himself to his feet and took her hand in his, tracing circles on her palm as he stole away to the boat. She didn’t know how to feel anymore, elated, heavy, joyful, sorrowful, awestruck. He kissed the back of her hand and stepped into the boat, her hand trapped in his. In an instant, his hand turned to bone, and the cloak covered his face. Aria blinked, surprised by the sudden change, because for a moment, he was nothing but a boy.
“I will return for the wise man,” the Ferryman said, his tone all business. He let go of her and pushed off the shores.
Aria didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as she watched him go. He found a reason to return. It filled her with a truth so powerful she could barely fathom it.
The Ferryman belonged to her.
***