Into Eternity (The Eternals Book 3) Read online

  “Queen, I beg your…”

  The Marquis' words were cut short by the fingers that closed around his gullet. They choked with the ease of having done so before. They choked with a certain authority, the art of knowing how best to inflict pain. Like a thing of second nature, Serena throttled him with languorous ease.

  “Let him go, Serena.”

  The fingers cracked in the tightening.

  “I need him,” Chantelle pressed, without making the mistake of physical intervention. “We need him.”

  The Marquis found his globular self lifted higher until he towered above all the others, his face suffused to lingonberry red.

  “He issss needed, you know thissss.” Chantelle's blackened self stood in sharp contrast to Serena's imperial white. A yin and yang of contrasting death, the two waged a war of wills.

  The Marquis' fingers twitched.

  “Serena!” barked Chantelle. “He needssss him.”

  Like the outgoing tide, the threat of submersion over, Serena dropped her burden on his bulbous backside. She looked at the Marquis as though he was something she'd stood in and then turned her attention to Chantelle.

  “I shall say this once, Princess Chantelle, and only once.”

  To Serena, Chantelle would never be a queen.

  “This man is needed, but by you and I in seismically different ways. I already regret this shared need. There is even the chance I may decide I do not require the aid of he or others any longer. On that day you shall regret raising your voice to me, young one. You shall regret it very much.”

  In a twirl of snowflakes and frost, she returned to her corner and the musings of a would-be goddess. She spared not a glance for the others, not even her kin. Queen Serena's mind was elsewhere and for too long so had been mine.

  I beheld it all from my eyrie, as those others assembled made note of finding other things to hold their attention, how Chantelle's broken features suffused in absolute hate. All this and more I noted as someone who'd used the scent of wafting lavender to mask her approach launched me over the parapet. Yes, I observed it all, as I twisted in mid-air to see Princess Ekatarina, she who I'd forgotten, sneering at my descent.

  I landed in a disgruntled heap. Even then with the odds stacked so against me, I fancied myself able to flee, to charge the door and wreck semi-permanent havoc amongst the Baltic Guard. Ekatarina ended that hope. Demonstrating her own prowess, she landed beside me catlike, her fingers around my throat as her mother's had been about the unconscious Marquis'. She had me.

  Chantelle smiled, a sick and twisted thing, as her hollow eyes devoured me. When she nodded to the others, all hell broke loose.

  Raphael was the first. Like the marionette he resembled, his head lifted pulled by some unseen string. I met his gaze, refusing to buckle; memories of his once handsome face quickly dispelled. The tan procured by the Marquis' talents had blistered from his face as though a true vampire of old, one exposed to the sun for far too long. But it was his eyes, his maddened, bloodshot eyes that revealed the Raphael of old. He was barely contained.

  The foot to my chest hurt, the fists to my face, more so, the raking talons that sliced my chest more savage beast than the fighting of a man. Raphael Santini was no longer himself.

  I took his barrage, his crazed bombardment; I had no other choice, they might have killed my love. I dispelled thoughts of breaking free, retaliation, and worse. Merryweather's words had struck home, I was not about to commit myself to something stupid. I took it. However…

  “Alba,” I whispered.

  Raphael froze.

  “What?” His voice was ragged.

  “Alba,” I repeated, and spat great globs of blood to the floor.

  “What? What are you trying to say?”

  I looked him in the eye, man to man, and whispered, “How she detested you.”

  He hit me so hard I flew from Ekatarina's vice-like grip and careened into the far wall, landing at Verstra's feet, who just smiled and stamped. He did not stop. His anger rippled right through the sole of his boot, as Raphael joined him in my destruction. And, for an instant, I thought it my end. I was wrong. Was I not always?

  “Stop!” came the voice of she who could've torn down the palace if she'd wished.

  Serena caught me under the jaw and lifted me into the air.

  “Look what you've done, boy.”

  She twisted her wrist and faced me to Violante, who lay cradled in her father's arms.

  “You forced her betrayal when you rejected her love. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

  “Someone else told me the selfsame thing,” I struggled to reply.

  “You can say that again,” laughed Verstra. A dagger-like glance silenced him.

  She twisted me further.

  “The Marquis, fool that he is, lies incapacitated because of you. Yes, because of you!”

  “Pfft!” I spat more blood.

  “And most of all,” she said, cracking my neck so I gazed upon the staring Chantelle, or what remained of her, “you are responsible for this abomination.”

  I was unsure if she directed her venom at me or Chantelle, either way, it was effective. However, I did not respond for there was nothing I could say. Instead, I looked to Narina who stood to one side, her eyes full of slush. I thought she would have aided me if she could. I knew not why but suspected it. She looked so sad. Even as the world trembled anew, and the palace shook, she looked so disheartened.

  “What issss happening?” Chantelle hissed in her snakelike way.

  “The planet, Your Highness,” said the Marquis who stirred from his slumber. “The planet shakes again. There is not long,” he warned.

  The palace roof split straight down the middle. Great chunks of masonry smashed to the floor giving even greater credence to his words.

  “No!” cried Gorgon lifting Violante in his arms. “This is not right, not yet.”

  “Cease your mewling, whelp,” snapped Chantelle.

  Another tremor and part of the roof gave way, a slab the size of an orca crushing the Baltic Guard, who'd held their posts at the great doors unmoved from when first I'd spied them. Serena never moved an inch, just squeezed; I screamed.

  I thought my life over at the hands of the Nordic monarch. My eyes wandered as all around me darkened. I saw Gorgon's grief, the Nordics' malcontent, Chantelle's hatred. But as all was about to end, the only thing I could think about was my darling Linka. Those emerald eyes pierced the oncoming night like twin grass blades in a field of snow. And, as I felt myself leaving the world I hated so much, I heard a voice. It came as in a dream, yet not. As my world span, the iced whisper of the forgotten one brought hope.

  “Jean, I have her.” Aurora's words freed my soul.

  It is said when one is most desperate, they may find hidden reserves of strength otherwise unknown. I did. And the room rocked at my rage.

  Serena screamed, as I broke her wrist. Raphael perished, as I crushed his head beneath a rock the size of a carriage wheel; I should have done it years before and was glad to see that sickest of my extended family freed from life. Ekatarina fled in a ghostlike blur. Narina backed away into the falling debris, her beautiful features ashamed of the monster I was. The Marquis cowered as part of the falling ceiling ended Gorgon's misery. Chantelle, unbothered, croaked a wicked laugh.

  As for me, I burst from the room, the great doors splintering into a million, wooden shards, the outer guards' faces aghast as they fled before my rage. I ran, and I ran, despite the pain, despite the desire to kill, to finish them all. I ran because I knew it would be what Merryweather would have advised. I ran because of the iced hand upon my elbow and the protruding bloodied corpse carried by my unseen other. I ran because I was guided to do so out of that damnable palace and beyond. I ran because I knew if I did, I would live to fight another day. But most of all, more than anything I'd ever done in my non-life, I ran for another. I ran for Linka, and if she'd willed it, would never have stopped.

  Chapt
er Eighteen

  -

  Reunited

  We ran in one endless loop of agony. Pain wracked my every joint, every muscle, every movement, the beast within taking charge, for it was too much for a rational mind. In primal slurs of indistinct hurt, I swept the pain aside, for deep down at my core, I knew I would soon be with my love. I just had to escape those who would prevent it.

  I stumbled many times, almost falling to the ground face first, but my invisible assistant was always there to hold me upright. If not for Aurora, that dazzling princess in white, I might not have made it, but never for a second did she stray.

  The further we raced, the more of a daze set upon me, the world a blur and my mind more so. The barren rock, which still raged and rolled like a granite and sandstone sea, seemed as pillows beneath my feet, the world gelatinous and soft. I lost all sense of time and place, the chasms in our way just shaped shadows, snarling mouths in tanned faces, a landscape formed by the horrors of the mind. Aurora saved me from perishing a thousand times over, lifting me here, steering me there. There was no way to thank her, repay her kindnesses, so I didn't even try. And although life would have had rid of me, cast me into oblivion like ash on the wind, it couldn't. The Earth would not be free of me so easily.

  * * *

  Her tears cracked the hard shell of my subconscious. Aurora's pain, not mine, dragged me back from the brink. Eternity would have to wait, for the girl needed me, and I, her.

  We had stopped. Aurora wept as I would not have thought possible, she of the silent strength. She huddled over a still form, inconsolable. Ever selfish and much to my shame, as I stared at the crimson and white patches of colour, I only hoped the figure sprawled on the ground was not that of my beloved. However, as my eyes readjusted to the light, the fogs of my mind clearing, it became evident a princess passed and that princess was not Linka. I observed the death of a Nordic and her heartbroken kin.

  I should never have witnessed those final moments of Narina's life, it wasn't right. The last images carried into eternal oblivion were supposed to be smiles not tears. Yet, despite her grief, her almost departure, there was something so gentle in the way Narina's fingers stroked her sister's own, something beyond tenderness. With steady assuredness, those porcelain digits defied their imminent end and continued to travel backwards and forwards as the aftershocks of the world's pain ebbed away. Even then, Narina reached out one last time: she was dead, her body just hadn't caught up with her mind. Her ruby eyes flicked open and stared to heaven as though she sought for someone to lead her there. But angels weren't meant for such as we.

  When Narina's hand slipped from Aurora's own, I crawled over and put my arm around her waist. In such ways are small comforts offered though small they be. That is how we stayed, two lost souls and one lost kin locked in a shard of forever.

  Narina had been the gentle one, the kind one, though I had not realised it until too late. Where others had looked to themselves, she'd stood up for what was right, never once hiding her true feelings. Where others had offered punctual respect, she'd shared genuine kindness, or at least tried. In the simplest terms, Narina was a good person in a world that strove to make her bad. It failed.

  I clasped Aurora tighter as though our lives depended upon it, she remaining motionless like Narina's body was an extension of herself. She did not turn away until her sister's life-force had long since extinguished. A child with almost nothing was robbed of a little more.

  Staring at Narina's peaceful corpse affected me somehow. My mind churned, looked to rekindle a memory forgotten. I dredged through faces friend and foe alike and only when clarity and consciousness rebalanced did I remember. I'd have ripped out my heart and fallen to Narina's side if I'd had the energy. How could I? How could I have forgotten him? What a demon I was. What a pathetic excuse for a would-be man. Narina was not our sole loss; Sunyin, I'd left him to that butcher. The Marquis had won.

  “She was a good woman,” said the voice of an angel. My angel. “She was, as you are, my love.”

  “Linka!” I yelled, uncaring of who heard. I staggered from the ground, fell, and tried again. Aurora caught and steadied me as did another.

  In a breath, she was there, holding me. Linka materialised out of the ruby light like the angel she was, my everything returned. Those two most wonderful creatures held me upright and turned me away from that damned sickening light to another unexpected wonder.

  “I didn't think you'd want to leave him behind,” said Merryweather, his arms full of monk.

  “Hello, Jean,” said his burden, as my strength gave out.

  * * *

  I came around to the enveloping bliss of obsidian night. Everything was black as my eyes reset to the world of the nocturnal.

  “Ah,” said a voice I recognised. “Sleeping beauty awakes.”

  I ignored Merryweather's joviality and looked about, the world coming into slow focus. The sky was one of rock, not stars and moon, the horizon solid stone. Then Linka wandered into my vision and I prayed I did not still dream.

  “How do you feel, my love?” Her breath kissed my skin as her words kissed my lost soul.

  “Bemused. Amazed. Relieved.”

  “Is in love anywhere in there?”

  “It encapsulates all else.”

  “Ooh, you're even smooth when you're half-dead.”

  “I've almost died too many times. I think I'm mastering the skill.”

  “Oh, he's definitely feeling better,” Merryweather cooed.

  “Do you mind, I'm having a private moment.”

  “Nothing's private these days, I keep telling you. There are eyes and ears everywhere.”

  “Where is this everywhere?”

  “We are in a cave,” Linka said, her emerald eyes twinkling through the darkness.

  “Thank you, my love. If not for the fact I thought I'd never see you again, and therefore not being at my witty best, I should have said I guessed.”

  “Tee-hee, what would we have done without him?” Merryweather said, whilst throwing a steady stream of small stones over my head and against the rear wall.

  “Do you have to?” I grumbled.

  “I don't have to.”

  Linka shook her head, her long, raven hair swishing from left to right and back again. It swept aside enough stale air to stir me from my semi-slumber.

  “Who did this?” I said, scooping up a handful of dark locks and holding them from the purple welt on her right cheek.

  “Later. Later, my love. For now, until Aurora and Sunyin return with provisions, you must rest.”

  “Return from where?” I asked, my head already swimming as she pushed me gently to the ground.

  “They're hunting,” Merryweather answered on Linka's behalf. She gave the dandy a dagger glance.

  “Hunting?” I repeated.

  “Yes, Jean. Sunyin is as us now.”

  “As us?”

  “Yes, my love. Now Sunyin, too, is Eternal.”

  My world spun and I collapsed back into the abyss.

  * * *

  I woke to the sight of the old monk reborn. He looked no different and smiled at my stirring.

  “Would you like some deer, we were very lucky to find it?”

  “Venison,” corrected Merryweather.

  “My apologies, venison.”

  Sunyin held out some organ or another that leaked blood all over the place. I took it and thrust the limp mass into my mouth, although it disgusted me to do so. I needn't have worried as he did the same.

  “Who'd have thought it,” said Merryweather. “According to Aurora, old Sunyin here is quite the hunter. He spied and caught our dinner, didn't you, Sunyin.” Merryweather patted the old man on the back.

  “I used my eyes,” he replied.

  “You are blind,” I said.

  “I was blind. You, my good friend, have cured me. Thank you, Jean,” he added. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  Being condemned to immortality was bad enough, but to h
ave it done when the world would give you no time to enjoy the few plus points was even worse. So, despite considering beating around the bush, I just apologised. “I'm so sorry, old friend.”

  “Why?”

  “For this. For what I have done to you. I promise I had no idea. You were dead when I partook of your blood and remained so as far as I was aware.”

  “But, I like it. My aches have gone. My eyesight is cured. I am no longer deceased. Why would I complain? It is wonderful. I can never repay you, Jean.”

  I looked to Merryweather, who just shrugged.

  “How did it happen?” I asked.

  “I do not know. I stood basking in the bright light of the divine when suddenly, I was flying.”

  “Flying?”

  “I moved beneath the clouds as an angel whispered reassurances in my ear. At least, I thought her an angel, Jean. Really, I did.”

  Merryweather, who sat cross-legged behind the monk, pretended to throw a hood over his head.

  “Aurora,” I guessed.

  “Yes, that is she, a wonderful, heavenly creature. I don't believe I have ever seen anyone with so pure a spirit. And she was so kind to my other self.”

  “You know about that!”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I am surprised.”

  “You are a strange fellow at times, my friend. Just when I think you have reached enlightenment, you take a step back. I was as aware of my twin as he was of me.”

  “Clone,” Merryweather corrected.

  “Twin,” Sunyin reaffirmed.

  “So you know of his death?”

  “I do.”

  “And of the other Sunyins, your children?”

  “I do,” he replied in a more sombre tone.

  “That is a heavy burden for a man brought back from the dead.”

  “Death and rebirth are a continuous cycle. It is only a matter of time before I shall see my brothers again.”

  “You sound so sure.”