All the ramblings and anxieties whirling around my mind didn’t bring an argument to my tongue. I had no better alternative. I wasn’t the one with the plans around here. I was more of a follower—not because I wanted to be, but because I simply couldn’t be bothered with the burden on my shoulders. The less weight to carry in this world, the better.
But now the weight of the world was raining down on us. Well the weight of Tours was, at least.
Beneath my feet, the shudders were starting to slow. Tremors were dying out. My breath hitched audibly and I dug my hold even tighter onto the stretched t-shirts I was gripping onto—Paul’s and whoever else’s. It was impossible to tell with the faint torches aimed down at the cobblestone.
I watched the stones.
Elsa was crouched over, hands pressed against the nape of her neck, shoulders hunched and head buried between her knees.
Bowed over her, we waited for the last shudders of the earthquake to dissolve, disappear back into the earth.
And when it did, we moved fast.
It might have come back. It very well should have since none of this could have been predicted, and the world is now just the opposite of that; it is wholly unpredictable.
The group jumped into shambles.
Hands snatched onto shoulders and fingers clutched the back of t-shirts and cardigans. The rapid thumps of our shoes smacked against the stones as we jogged in a line down the middle of the street. Unsteady, torchlight swerved over glimpses of debris and abandoned cars (whose roofs wore dents) and the glitter of pulverised glass on the ground.
Instinctively, we followed our plan and headed south. Well, back south. For months, we’d been moving around in circles, but it was time to circle around the dark fae when we could and find an already destroyed place by the coast. That was our plan. There, we might be able to rebuild some semblance of a life, with the sea to provide fish and nearby water to keep us alive.
So down the main road, we picked up the pace, sharp breaths and some gasping sounds starting to rise up from our single file. Bags slapped against backs, but mine just bounced against my hip. Lost my main backpack in the grocer’s store, left behind. Now, all I had with me was my shoulder bag, too small to carry much of anything important. In it were some tampons, a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and a lighter, a small keychain torch, painkillers, a serrated kitchen-knife and a handgun that I’ve yet to use. But I’d lost everything else; clothes, washcloths, shoes, socks and underwear, books, a pack of kindling—and food. Tins and cans and packets, all crammed into that backpack, all gone.
There was no going back for it, either. Not without parting ways with the group, and I’m no fool. I stuck with them all the way down the sloped street, until it happened all at once—
The force of the tremor was enough to knock me off my feet. Like dolls cut from strings, we all went toppling over. Few still stayed standing.
As I smacked onto my side against the cobblestone—even with the quivering beneath me that rattled me like an explosion of shudders in my body—I couldn’t tear my eyes off of it.
At the bottom of the cobblestone downhill road, amber light shone up in warped rivers. And my heart sank all the way to my watery gut at the sight of them—at the sight of the dark fae army.
Let me take you back there, to the last time I almost died…
3
WHEN THE FAE CAME
The dark fae haven’t spotted us yet.
Preoccupied by the violent tremors downhill at the cusp of the town, they focus all their attention on the earth. It’s worse down there—even beasts like the dark fae wear unease in the thinning of their lips, the tilts of their mouths, the uncertain steps back that they take, as though fighting the urge to retreat—an urge I doubt comes naturally to these warriors.
Each time I lay my gaze upon these creatures, I’m stunned still and silent. Never before has anything in this world been so beautiful yet savage all at once. Not our lions, our tigers, even our storms.
These beings are something else entirely with their ghost-white faces, flawless as though they are sculpted marble; others with beige tones to compliment honey-brown eyes so deep that even from this distance, I think fleetingly of pools of fresh mud and riverbanks. I catch amber eyes, like the early kisses of flames that come from their fire-torches.
And I spot among the masses of them that they have captured a group of humans somewhere along their travels.
The humans are unmistakable in their decrepit appearances next to such creatures. They huddle together, clothes turned to rags that hang off their bony frames, faces hollowed out by hunger and terror, sunken in and illuminated by the hot orange fire-torches.
In contrast, despite the fae’s obvious beauty, the savagery of what they are shouts louder than the earthquake. It’s in the almond-shapes of their blade-like eyes, the cruel pinches of their brows and mouths even while eyeing the dangerous earth with creases of worry, and the sheer size of them. They are towers next to a tall human man, that’s for sure.
Most look around the mid-six-foots, but some stretch up even taller than that. But it’s more than height; it’s the pull of their leather armour over bulging muscles, the circumference of their biceps thicker than my thighs in some of them.
Each of them carries an abundance of weapons. An American’s dream, I think bitterly to myself. Belts of knives and blades, swords sheathed at their backs, razored whips coiled around muscular forearms.
The terror at seeing them so close to us—so close to where we were resting not long before—has our whole group motionless. We have turned to statues, all flattened to the ground, hands spread out, heads down, eyes darting around.
One wrong move, and all attention of the dark fae could fix right uphill—on us. For the moment, they watch the tremors wrack the earth. But that could change with a too-loud breath or a shift of the body. We are mere heartbeats away from being discovered.
But then, for the first time in a long while, fate seems to look kindly on us—or at the very least, with pity.
The earth splits.
At the edge of the dark fae army, where hundreds of them are gathered, the most ground-wracking tremor strikes through the whole town. Dirt and tarmac are speared with a crack too fast, too sudden, too violent.
My heart leaps up into my throat as some of the captive humans go tumbling into the widening crack. One has managed to grip into the earth at the edge, keeping herself up. But no one comes to her aid; not even her own kind. And it’s a mere ragged breath loosened from my tight chest before she’s falling into the opening pit.
Fleetingly, I wonder if there is lava down there, if it runs that deep into the earth, and the girl burned alive or melted. But the thought is hit right out of me when it happens; the crack is spearing uphill. It’s headed right towards us.
I have barely a moment to see the dark fae spread out, backing off from the earthquake and the area, and that a handful of them are trapped on the other side of the crack. They separate, and the handful are riding what looks to be hairless horses adjacent to the crack, coming our way.
I launch myself up from the ground. And I go sprinting down the road.
Everyone else in the group has the same idea. No more single-file lines, organised movements. We sprint, as fast as we can, and I know someone is too slow when I hear a gurgling cry and the split of earth behind me.