Ep. 13: What is Broken Can Be Mended
Ep. 13: What is Broken Can Be Mended
Dark as Dawn, Bright as Night, a novel
DARK AS DAWN, BRIGHT AS NIGHT is a dark fantasy novel serialized in seventeen episodes. This is Episode Thirteen.
New to the story? START HERE.
Previously: Hesper remembers her life before becoming a shademaker and the events that inspired her to leave her mortality behind.
Up ahead: Bram regains the power that was lost to him while Mae comes to terms with her role as riona.
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MAE
The sky is orange here, an odd watery ochre that stretches from the horizon to just behind where I stand in the castle ruins before fading into troubling anthracite clouds.
The sea below roils in great grey waves, the whitecaps are honey-tinged, reflecting the sky. It’s an arresting view, captivating but not exactly comforting.
The ruins offer little protection from the elements. There is no roof and hardly any walls left, just a crumbling arch that must once have been a window and, on the far side, a dais with a black throne, the only thing in the place that isn’t crumbling.
Luckily for me, the weather never changes. The sky stays orange, the clouds remain threatening. No sun brightens the sky. No moon edges the perpetually damp stones with silver.
It’s that stasis, I think, that troubles me, more than anything. I’m used to change. My life was never so predictable, and my death has hardly been so peaceful. Maybe that’s the problem. It feels like a place for the dead. Because it is, I suppose.
Bram tells me this is the Queen’s Seat. And it’s my throne back there on that dais, but I have yet to sit on it.
Bram.
Beyond the disconcerting inertia, Bram’s constant attention is enough to drive me insane. My parents never coddled me. Dad was a solider. He believed in tough love. Mom was kind but firm, with a dancer’s dedication to her goals, one of which was raising me to be an independent woman.
Bram seems to think I am a delicate flower in danger of wilting. True, I was hardly myself when he first brought me here. But this place suits me, it seems. It didn’t take me long to regain my strength. In fact, I feel better than I have in some time. Stronger and more substantial, more real than I have maybe ever felt, actually.
Yet he’s hardly left my side. Case in point, he’s here now. Skulking in the background, sitting on the dais and looking generally miserable. I would have thought there might be some other urgent Sluagh business to attend to but apparently the ‘health and welfare of our sovereign,’ as he likes to say, overrules any other concerns.
I stare out at the sea. I think about leaping into the air, unfurling my newly discovered wings, and flying off into that strange, unchanging sky, but I know he would follow. Still the idea makes the skin sliding over my shoulder blades tingle in anticipation. My lips curve into a tiny grin.
“It’s good to see you smile.”
I jump at the sound of his voice so unexpectedly close to my ear.
“Jesus, Bram,” I cry, bringing my hand to my heart. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“Sorry, I suppose it’s one of the perils of being of a ghost. Scaring people rather goes with the territory, doesn’t it?”
He grins sheepishly at me, and despite my annoyance, I can’t help but notice the dimple in his cheek. It lends a note of boyishness to his otherwise sharp features. But, remembering his seeming commitment to being dour and serious, it’s gone before I get a chance to fully appreciate the change.
“I suppose,” I murmur. I study his face, try to gauge his mood. I decide that flash of a grin is the happiest I’ve seen him. Now’s as good a time as any. “Ghosts are also known for disappearing, aren’t they?”
As soon as the words leave my mouth his face clouds. He knows where I’m going with this unsubtle joke because it’s been the subject of all our conversations since arriving.
“Mae, we’ve been over this. The riona can’t simply disappear. You have duties, responsibilities. There are centuries of souls in this world between worlds that need a leader.”
I sigh and roll my eyes, striding away from the ruin’s edge toward the throne. I stand before it, arms crossed, and study the raven heads carved from the lustrous stone that cap the arms, the two great wings that form its back.
The detail is incredible, but it looks slick and cold, unforgiving. I step closer, see my reflection in the liquid sheen of the rock, so glossy and perfect it may as well be a dark mirror. I look healthier than I can remember, but I can’t stand seeing myself in there, trapped in those obsidian depths.
“I don’t want this,” I whisper, turning away from the throne to meet Bram’s eyes. “I don’t want any of this. I just want my freedom.”
“Your freedom,” Bram says, his tone derisive. “Is that what you think you had when I came to you on that rooftop? Freedom? Did you enjoy floating from one place to another, aimless and alone?”
“No, actually,” I snap. “That wasn’t freedom at all. I had a votary tying me to the Wright the whole time, and now, if you recall, Blythe has it. One of your minions told us that. It’s a leash they can tug on whenever they want, and I have to come running. And now not only do I have to answer to them, I have to answer to a, what? A people? A horde? A tribe of spirits?” I laugh but I’m close to crying and it comes out more like a sob.
“The Sluagh need you, Mae,” Bram says, his voice hard.
“Do they though?” I ask. “I don’t see them now. I’ve barely seen any of them since that night in the club when you sent some to rein me in. Real nice welcoming committee, by the way. Nothing says ‘enjoy your birthright’ quite like being chased down by grey-faced, voiceless lackeys that have followed me around for as long as I can remember. Nothing creepy there!”
“They were meant to protect you,” he says. He’s maintaining his composure, but only just.
“Yet you couldn’t protect me from a childhood haunted by death, from the misguided actions of my desperate mother, from becoming a pawn in an ancient feud? Great work, Bram and company.”
I’m seething. All my frustration, all my worry and stress have condensed into something hard inside of me. How dare Bram foist all this on me? How dare any of them use me for their schemes, for their needs and wants? The itch under the skin of my shoulder blades intensifies, and without thinking I let my wings unfold.
“Stop, Mae,” Bram growls.
“I don’t want this,” I cry, throwing my arms out and turning around so that my wings sweep the remaining walls of the ruin. Bram steps out of the way, only just avoiding being knocked from his feet. His mouth is a grim line, his eyes hard and sparkling.
“You’re acting like a spoiled child.” Bram’s voice is low. I can tell he’s working hard to control himself, and I find I don’t care. I want to see him seethe. “You’re not flying away. Fold your wings and listen. We don’t have time for this foolishness.”
I only spread my wings wider. I’ve been pacing the floor without realizing it, and now the arch that was behind me is across the room. Bram follows my gaze and reads what must be clearly written across my face. He’s closer to the opening and moves to block it, letting loose his own wings.
A hoarse cry escapes my throat. I want out. With both our wings unfurled, the space is suddenly too small, and the feeling of being trapped grows stronger with each strangled breath I take.
I cast my gaze around. The walls are crumbling in most places, but they’re high enough to make it hard for me to take off. I’m still getting used to the wings. I need a level surface to launch myself from. Then I can catch the wind and glide a bit before I even need to move a feather. Lifting off from a standstill requires power and coordination that I’m not sure I have.
Then my eyes land on the throne.
I don’t think; I just run at it.
I leap, get one foot on the seat, then let the thick air lift me high enough to plant my other on the lower raven’s head. Here, above the jagged edges of the broken keep, the wind is strong and steady, and it catches more of my wings.
All I need is one final thrust up. I focus on exploding up and out, but before I can, the firm surface of the throne shatters beneath my foot.
I fall hard. My knee collides with the stone floor, my left wing twists awkwardly beneath me. Sharp stabs of pain radiate up my leg and through my shoulder as I roll to a sitting position. My wings fold, but instead of sliding away beneath my skin in one graceful motion as usual, they shudder and jerk, the final feathers disappearing with a disconcerting stabbing pain that takes my breath away.
I glare up at Bram from the floor, but instead of finding him rigid with anger, he’s crumpled on the floor, holding one shaking hand in front of his face like it’s betrayed him.
And maybe it has because there’s a crack in the floor where he kneels. The fissure extends across the room to the base of the throne. It travels up the leg and then disappears into a shattered mass of shining black shards that once formed the raven’s head I stood on just seconds ago.
“It looks better broken,” I say.
It’s childish, and I know it, but I don’t care. Pain radiates from my bones. Humiliation heats my face. And finally, the hot tears that I’ve been fighting back since I saw my dad near-death in Hesper’s cavern come spilling out in great heaving sobs.
Bram just stares at me. It’s hard to see him through the blur of tears, but the disgust is so deeply written into his face and body that I can feel it more than see it anyway.
“You are not what I thought you were,” he says. He’s quiet, still crouched in the same position, like he wants to take it back, as if speaking or moving will make the damage permanent.
I gulp down a final sob, scrub my hands over my eyes. Then I stand on shaky legs. I gasp as my knee straightens, and for a moment, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to walk. But I take one small step and then another until I reach the broken arm of the throne. I reach into the shattered remains and pull out a large fragment of the raven’s head that remains intact.
The ragged edges of the brilliant black stone sparkle in the orange glow of the sky. One perfect eye, smooth and untouched, shines up from my palm, eerily lifelike. I fold my fingers around it, ignoring the pain as the sharp rock digs into my skin.
“Who did you think I was, I wonder?” I surprise myself with how calm I sound, even as waves of anger lap at the edge of my composure. “A good little girl? Young, innocent, easy to manage? Sick and weak? Traumatized?”
Bram watches me from his position on the floor. His expression is unreadable, but his eyes are bright and wary.
“Did you think I was broken, Bram? Poor, poor Mae. She lived a tragic life, but now she’ll be redeemed by a glorious hereafter.”
I limp across the room and, with difficulty, lower myself to the floor so that I’m eye-to-eye with him. “Well, as it turns out, I have been broken. Over and over. And each time, I’ve remade myself stronger. That’s a kind of magic they can’t teach. It’s not a kind of magic you’re born with. It’s magic you make for yourself.”
I rise up from the floor, gritting my teeth against the pain. A steady stream of blood drips down my wrist from where the raven’s head has sliced through my palm. More gashes bloom on my hand as I sink my fist into the rubble of the throne’s arm.
I release the fragment of the raven and it sinks down into the splintered rock before rising up, buoyed by the rock below that is mending itself, slowly becoming solid once more.
When I step away, there’s no blood on me, no scratch on my palm, and the arm of the throne is whole once again, just as it was before, except for thin veins of gold that trace the outline of the mended fractures. The rock shines, shot through with a gilded web of my creation.
It’s beautiful.
I stare at it, transfixed, until a small sound from over my shoulder reminds me that I’m not alone. I turn. Bram is on his feet. Amazement has eased the hard lines of experience, and with his lips parted and eyes wide, he looks young—younger than I would have thought possible.
“How…” Bram begins, but he falls silent as he reaches the throne and runs a tentative finger along the arm. He’s silent for a moment longer, his finger still gently pressed against the black and gold stone. He turns, meets my eye. His expression is a complicated mix of wonder and resentment.
“Have you always been able to do that?” he finally asks.
“Shouldn’t you know the answer to that?” I counter, though even I didn’t know I was capable of what I just did until I felt the fire of it in my fingertips mere moments ago. “You’ve had me under surveillance since I was born.”
Bram bristles, most of his childlike awe draining away, his face regaining its hard lines. “You don’t have to be so antagonistic,” he says. “I’m not your enemy.”
“You’re not my friend either. I hardly know you.” I look from his eyes, sparkling with anger, to the crack in the floor by his feet. “I mean, you seem pretty dangerous to me. Have you always been able to crack solid stone?”
Bram blinks, seemingly wrong-footed by my earnest question. I meant for it to be more of an accusation, but my tone belies my genuine curiosity. He waits a beat longer, then sighs and crouches down, running a hand over the damage.
“Not for a very long time,” he says. “It’s been so long, I’d almost forgotten what I’m capable of. Otherwise, something like this,” he indicates the floor, the throne, “would never have happened.” He stands once again, but his eyes remain on the ground.
When he finally looks up, I’m surprised by the tenderness in his gaze. It’s the kind of look I remember my mom giving me when I did something that made her particularly proud. It makes me uncomfortable to see it in Bram’s eyes.
“You did this,” he says.
“You can’t be serious,” I say, my anger spiking again.
“No, I’m not blaming you,” he says, throwing up his hands.
“Sure sounds like it,” I sneer, crossing my arms over my chest.
“It’s because of you that my power has returned.” He thrusts his hands forward, and I take a step back, not eager to have my bones shattered by an errant touch. He sees me shrink away and seems to remember his composure, putting his hands firmly in his pockets and adopting a measure of his former nonchalance.
“I won’t hurt you,” he says, his voice quiet, more composed. “It’s been a long time, but I remember how it works.”
“I’m not sure about that,” I say, eyeing the crack.
“I was angry.” Bram’s voice is a whisper.
“Oh, so I only have to worry when you’re angry. What a relief.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” he starts, then stops and sighs. He takes a moment to compose himself before beginning again. “I’ve told you before that the Sluagh are special souls, right? We feel more keenly the world around us. We are sensitive, complex, full of dreams and ideas. Our lives can be richer for it, but they can also be filled with the pain of not being understood.”
I nod, interested despite the anger that continues to simmer below my skin.
“Well, when these special spirits die we do our best to find them and bring them here to the realm of the Sluagh. They find that this place feels right in a way that the human world never did. Their spirits, soul and shade together, manifest this newfound sense of belonging in different ways.”
He pauses at this, and I see his fingers flex inside his pockets. He’s looking at me like he wants something. Validation, maybe? Or awe? But all I feel is impatience.
“So you can break things.” I say. “Wonderful. I’m happy to leave you to your tearing and rending. All I want is to be left alone, to not be harnessed to other people's demands or insecurities.”
“But we need you,” Bram says, and I’m startled by the plaintiveness of his voice. “I’m trying to explain. My power, and the power of all the other Sluagh, has been dying. We have been dying. And let me tell you, a second death is much more final than the first.”
He takes his hand from his pocket and reaches out to touch the arm of the throne again. I let out an involuntary gasp when his fingers brush the burnished stone, but he either doesn’t hear or doesn’t care. The throne remains intact under his touch, and I find myself strangely relieved.
“The Sluagh need a riona to act as a touchstone. Your presence ignites us. We need someone to bring out the best in us, someone that can make us believe in the power we carried with us in life and that we can only fully express here, among our own kind, in our own home. Otherwise, we disappear.”
“Disappear,” I say, incredulous.
“Yes. The weaker among us succumbed long ago. The stronger of us have been much diminished. And in recent years, our home has been slowly vanishing as well. It’s a steady retreat preceded by a strange slowing of time.”
He glances up at the unchanging sky, the clouds that constantly threaten but never release their storm.
“This is the Queen’s Seat, Mae. As this place goes, so goes the Sluagh.”
“But how can an entire place just cease to exist? Where does it go and why? There must be a logical explanation.”
Bram looks at me with pity and exasperation, and I suddenly feel my age. My shoulder blades itch again, but I will myself to stay. I need to understand what I’m running away from.
“Logic matters less here than belief,” he says. “Belief in the Sluagh used to be plentiful in the human realm. Now it is all but gone, yet we have sustained ourselves on self-belief, and perhaps we have been stronger for it. But our self-belief is hard to maintain when we see our home slip away, our powers diminished. When no riona finds her way to the throne.
“And we are not the first to suffer this cruel fate. It has been whispered for some time now that Blythe’s own home, the Dawn itself, is no more. If such prideful, cruel creatures who made themselves gods can’t survive…”
Bram trails off and turns away from me to stand before the arch, eyes on the changeless, sparkling sea. I try to think through what he’s just told me, but it’s impossible to digest it all. My mind is muddled with this strange place and with an obligation I was apparently born for but that I neither understand nor desire.
Everything in me strains against what Bram has told me; his words are like a vice around my heart. I’m tired of everyone telling me what to be, of remaining beholden to the wishes of others, of constantly fighting people who see me as a tool or that only care for what I can do for them, not for who I am.
Bram is talking again, but I’m hardly listening. Words pour from his mouth, a stream of sound. He tells me to forget about Blythe and Hesper, to let them destroy themselves. To forget my father, a lost cause. This is who I am meant to be. This place is my home. The Sluagh my people and the throne mine. Finally, I can stand it no longer and hold up a hand. Bram sees the gesture and quiets.
“You tell me that this place is built on belief,” I say, “but what if I don’t believe I’m the riona?”
Bram looks stricken, like such a possibility never occurred to him. I can’t stand his face, the look on it somewhere between disappointment and desperation. The tingle under my skin intensifies, but there’s pain there too. I’m not sure I could fly away now, even with the healing powers of this place speeding my recovery.
“I knew it was too soon,” he says more to himself than to me. “You’re just a child.”
“I am a child!” I shout, my voice breaking on my rising anger. “I’m a child that never learned to live because I was always about die. I don’t know who I am or what to believe, and I need to figure that out before I can be anybody’s touchtone. I’m not a magical object, Bram. You can’t just tell me what to do or who to be.”
I look at him, try to see past the contempt I’ve inspired and the countless years he wears like an invisible weight on his shoulders.
“Do you remember,” I say, my voice softer now, “what it was like to be young?”
Bram’s eyes meet mine, and I brace myself for what I’ll see there. But underlying the scorn and frustration, there’s a hint of understanding, a softening of his defenses. I choose my next words carefully.
“I know you need me here, but I need to go back before I can move on and be who you say I am. There’s a whole piece of myself that’s trapped in the human realm, that’s held captive by Blythe. And as long as it’s under her control, I’m broken and vulnerable. I can’t just leave my dad either. He needs my help, even if you think he’s already beyond it. I won’t give up on him without at least trying. I owe this much to myself and my family, and then I can consider the Sluagh with a clear head and heart.”
Bram’s face hardens and for a moment I think I’ve lost him, but then he heaves a deep sigh and shakes his head, and I catch one more glimpse of the boy he used to be before it disappears behind the mask of duty he wears like a shield.
“Fine,” he says, and I feel the python grip of helplessness ease around my heart. “But I’m coming too. You are just a child after all.”
He smiles a bit and I’m glad for a little teasing, even as I try to hide it behind a massive eye roll.
“Fine,” I say, “But please tell me your power to break things extends to the human realm.”
He shakes his head, and has the good sense to look embarrased.
“Two ghosts against two gods,” I say on a sigh.
“Those are your kind of odds, aren’t they?” Bram’s grin widens and this time I match it with my own.
“Let me see, is there a high probability of danger followed by my imminent demise?”
Bram nods. “Check and check.”
“Perfect.” I unfurl my wings, the pain of mere minutes ago fading into a minor stiffness that melts away as I flex them in the orange light of the perpetual sunset.
“Let’s go.”
It’s a privilege to share my work with you! Thank you for taking the time to read the thirteenth episode of DARK AS DAWN, BRIGHT AT NIGHT.
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I love that image, by the way! Very evocative. Just like this episode...