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“Come now, my girl, open your eyes.”
His breath flowed over her lids, twisted back into her nostrils - warm, fragranced, desperate. She could feel him, barely an inch from her face, feel his heat prying around her eyes, feel his tongue move the air as it stroked across his lips.
“Come on, my dear girl. I just want a look, just a quick look - a blink, just a flicker, nothing more. Then I’ll be away.”
Lies streamed away with the deep, hot sigh that followed. Then silence again.
She stood up straighter still, taking small, silent breaths. She clenched her hands into tiny knots at her side and squeezed her eyes tighter shut.
His tongue slid further from his lips and onto hers - a whisper of touch, leaving the barest shadow of moisture behind. She struggled to remain still, breaths coming a little more rapidly. Contact bred contact. A knee brushed against her thigh as he leaned in even closer, a palm rested on her hip.
His sweat hung in the air between them, adding a thick, solid texture to the atmosphere. It pressed into her, a wave of sick humidity, and she felt it - felt his long, pristine fingernail trace along her delicate eyelashes.
A tear crept under the pale creases of her lids.
And it was cooled on her cheek by the sharp winter wind that tumbled in as the door swung open.
He drew back, taking his heat with him, and she felt her glasses being pushed hastily back on - the dark metal frames applying soothing pressure just behind her ears. Every part he had touched - hip, knee, lashes, lip - burned a steady flame on her skin, but he was away, his narrow breath off her face.
She opened her eyes.
A figure stood hunched in the doorway, still bowed low to the harsh winter gods, heavy furs wrapped tight around his whole body. In the failing light, the city was a sharp black needle across the snow fields - all buildings razed up higher and higher towards the core, and at the centre a single obelisk of steel and glass, half missing through the storm clouds and the dusk.
He didn’t look up until the door was shouldered back into place, a drift of snow already building on the threshold, and then only saw what was expected - his brother, waiting patiently in a chair; his daughter, stood to greet him.
He saw what he expected, but not what he wanted.
The tear on her cheek caught the solemn sunlight and held it there - reflecting a gentle, soft sadness around the room. Too much emotion for a girl so young.
He moved over to her and knelt down, first checking her glasses were on tight as he always did - seeing her eyes shine blue through the glass - then slowly wiped the tear away with a shaking thumb.
“Dad ...” A small, sorry voice slipped out into his furs as he held her tight - his one love left, his beautiful child. She pulled away, her little mouth set in a worried frown, as though he had failed to notice something, but she would not speak and risk upsetting the moment. All he wanted to do was pull the heavy glasses from her perfect face and look again into the true, beautiful eyes of his wife - fall backwards through time, all the pain and sorrow shrinking back into tiny pinpricks of light, and live as his heart required.
“Erin, you know your mother never liked to see tears.” He held her gaze until they both lapsed back into memories, easy smiles across both faces, good times in the air between them. “And she’s watching, you know - she’ll always be watching us.”
A small sigh broke the silence - of impatience, amusement, or simply effort as his brother rose quickly from the chair, it was impossible to tell.
He stood, meticulous, reserved, and observed the pair with calm eyes, pinching one long, white fingernail between two others, until the warmth had fled from the room as if chased by the first frost. There was no past, no future, just the slow, steady beat of the present.
“How did the meeting go, Sigurd? Well, I hope.”
Her father ran his hand down the back of her chestnut hair and she squeezed in tighter to his side, a thin arm around the small of his back, her head resting gently just above his hip. They would share the warmth, the love and the memories between themselves, no matter who wished them away.
“It’s always hard to tell, brother ... there’s two meetings going on in there: one from what is said, and one from what is left unsaid. I’m no politician, it’s hard to follow the line of things, but, yes, Starkad, I think it went well enough. We’re on the way.”
“I am glad. And I think you are further along the way than you suspect. A friend of mine, Doctor Ceres - a man with considerable, private, respect - told me that the laws are on the brink of change. It could be a lot sooner than you imagine.”
“Truly? Is this right, Starkad?”
“So I’ve been told. But just because it will become officially illegal, does not mean it will stop. Remember that.”
“I remember well enough. Well enough for everyone.”
Erin hugged him tighter.
Starkad looked away for the first time since he started speaking, a slight bow of the head.
“I apologise, of course - if not for you, things never would have begun to change. But this battle will not be won in meetings and court rooms. The city-folk are scared - these are powerful people: deadly and unpredictable. They can’t control what lives inside them. Half-human, some say, with half a soul - the spaces filled with reckless power.”
Sigurd’s hand was tight on her shoulder, his round fingers white and shaking. She looked up at him, trying to catch his eye, to calm him down. His breaths filled the room - deep and strong, resolute.
“I know what some say. As did my wife, as she crossed into death, blood flowing from countless knife and bullet wounds. All she did was love me, love her child - but she knew what some people said, knew it with her last breath. The only danger I see is inside the city-dwellers, narrowed and guided to a single, sharp point. Don’t tell me what some people say - it echoes in my every breath, in every beat of my empty heart.”
Starkad said nothing, just stared out of the window deep into the forest that hugged the little house and framed the view north back to the city. The trees were dense, tight and dark - a shadowy place hated by the city-folk for its secrets.
“I can see you are upset. I best get back before night draws in proper. Tomorrow night, I will bring Doctor Ceres back to see you, he may be able to tell you how far along things are, calm your nerves.”
He pulled down sharply on his short black coat - meagre protection against the winter night, even fastened to the neck - snapping out the creases, and moved to the door.
“Until tomorrow ... “ He waited a few seconds for a response, but gained nothing, and stepped outside - only Erin saw him wink one cold, grey eye as he disappeared.
She finally caught her father’s eye, found it brimming with tears. But he didn’t come down to her, as she expected - didn’t lift the glasses from her face, as he often did - didn’t even let the tears fall. He walked away, heavy frame under heavy furs knocking a solemn beat across the floorboards, and into the bedroom.
She didn’t move until he returned, clutching something in his hand, his eyes dry.
He took her hand and drew her over to a chair, sat her down and then knelt down beside her.
“Now, Erin ...”
His voice was quiet, gentle, pulling back the emotion. He opened his hand and lifted what he held up in the air. The final, weak winter rays slid through the window and lit it up - a set of five perfect diamonds strung out on a silver chain. As sharp and clear as moonstruck icicles, each as large as the tip of her thumb, they seemed to draw everything inwards, into five pure, crystal specks of light.
“You see these?” He rolled one of the diamonds between his fingers, “Do you see? See how strong your tears can become? There is nothing stronger in the whole world. These diamonds will never be broken, never be controlled.”
Sigurd placed the bracelet in his daughter’s tiny hand and closed her fingers over it. He held her hand in both of his, then finally let go and pushed the bracelet back to her chest, where she held it tight against her heart.
“We’ve both cried a lot, I know. But now it’s time to be strong, as strong as those diamonds your mother loved so much. No more tears, Erin, no more sadness - we won’t forgot her, but we’ll be strong for her, just like she always said we should be. Our tears have changed to diamonds now, nothing can break them - no matter what happens, we cannot be broken, no matter what changes, there is nothing stronger than you and me.”
He stood and seemed taller, lighter, more assured.
“And things will change. I’ll make sure of that. Your mother ... Aravella ... she never wanted to hide like this. And we won’t for much longer. She’ll be watching as we walk away, proud and strong.”
He slipped his great fur coat from his shoulders with a sigh and moved back into the bedroom.
“Goodnight, Erin.”
Erin clenched the diamond bracelet in her fist, felt the sharp edges bite into her skin, and wiped her eyes under her glasses until all the tears were gone.
*
Starkad didn’t return the following night.
Dreams hounded Erin’s sleep - she could never settle deep enough to rest properly. She was suspended in the air, floating, and colours - red, black and brilliant white - sprang up all around. There were voices, inaudible, far-off, mumbling, and someone was choking. Then the cold, a deep, bottomless cold, crept over her and froze her in place.
A pain so deep it had no source rippled over her small body. Barely eight years old, she convulsed and shook in sleep, consumed by the darkness, the cold, and the rending pain. her limbs kicked out, but didn’t move more than an inch, and she screamed through the nightmare.
Her eyes flicked open and she closed them again instantly, as she had been taught - her glasses not in place. But in the second of sight, she had seen two people leaning over her in curiosity - one of them Starkad, and another man she didn’t know.
She tried to move away, to roll over on the small bed she slept in, but couldn’t move her arms or legs. Rope bit deep around her wrists and ankles, pulling them outwards to the bed frame so tight that she was lifted from the mattress.
She strained to hear anything through the night. The bindings on her left arm pushed the diamond bracelet deep into her flesh.
“We know you are awake, my girl. We saw those devil eyes. Don’t try to hide.”
Erin didn’t recognise the voice. Someone placed a hand on her chest and pressed down sharply, sending her down to touch the bed covers, then springing back on the ropes which twisted sharply against her skin, rubbing out thick red marks.
She opened her eyes with a tiny whimper, feeling venerable, unprotected without her glasses.
“Ah yes ...” the man started - short and sharp-featured, underdressed for the weather with bright white hair cut tight to his scalp. Doctor Ceres. He pencilled in a small, green book as he spoke, seemingly to himself.
“As expected, subject is found to be in the very early stages of development. Eyes are extremely bright, almost fluorescent, pink. Flecks of purple - darker than I’ve ever seen - are few. Excellent condition. Whites remain clear and free of scars. Subject poses no significant threat to others as yet, but neutralisation will go ahead.”
Erin’s uncle stared on impassively. He gave her a tense, private nod as though she should understand what was going on. Through clear eyes, free of tears, she could only watch on as the Doctor made further comments. Frightened, confused, she wondered why her father had not stopped this. Blood was drawn in silence and the child, silent, brows creased up into worry, shock, anger, unconsciously folded herself up inside.
She understood little - except that all her father’s care to keep her safe had failed, that something was going to happen to her, and that Starkad was behind it all. She folded her senses inwards, as tightly inwards as her limbs were spread outwards, keeping only three things in her mind.
His hot, oppressive fragrance.
The Doctor’s steady drone.
And the bite of the diamonds on her wrist.
That was all, as the metal was pressed in around her head, as the blades were cleaned and as the little green notebook was tucked away. Slipping inwards, to the tight centre of her folded self, she entered a black, self-wrought glass chamber where silence ruled. The steady beats of pain were registered, not felt, against the polished walls. Half fragments of speech slipped through.
“Procedure started. Time ...”
“This one would be very ... good job you called me.”
“Very ... Just like her mother ...”
“She fights it! ... So young ...”
“Time, 03:19. Hereditary line 414 eradicated at 3rd generation.”
*
The polished, black-glass walls unlocked and slid away. Consciousness unfolded itself, straining towards a warning sign, instincts flaring. Erin opened her eyes - it must still have been the middle of the night, she couldn’t see a thing.
Then the pain hit.
She sprawled sideways under the impact - it ripped through her, unimaginable, consuming. She screamed so hard something ripped in her throat - 8-year-old lungs never meant to cope with such bottomless torture - her tiny body trying to lift the pain, trying just to express the hurt. Her thin legs thrashed in the freezing air so violently the bones cracked and ripped from their sockets, but muscles still worked impossibly, unable to register anything but the pain in her head. Still tied to the bed, the ropes cut deeper and deeper through flesh.
Still the pain rolled on - until she gagged on blood clots and could scream no more, until some dim corner of her mind forced her ruined legs to stop working, until the smell of burning filled her senses. In the blackness she coughed and writhed into true consciousness above the pain, sobs rippling through her, body twisting on the bed to try and escape.
The most base instincts, those which guarded the glass solitude, forced her to move. Her legs had thrashed themselves free of the ties, and the diamond bracelet on her wrist had cut through the rope around it. Her right arm slipped through the noose as she was forced onwards - a dull crack registering in her mind, dim senses warning that her hand was folded in half.
Her legs gave way under her as she touched the floor, instincts not letting her realise why, and her left arm dragged her across the floor to where she knew the door was. He consciousness let her have one thing - the stinging smell of smoke, and the pricking heat at her back.
The door was open, something wedging it there - a large, soft object warm to the touch. Her fingers traced familiar shapes, a jaw, a nose, but her instincts dragged her over and out into the perishing cold.
Twenty feet from the door, out over snow and ice, night-dress ripped to useless rags, she collapsed, out of danger. All senses, hounded by her instincts, fled inwards again, away from the pain. It gave a final jolt before the black-glass walls slid in around, rolling her another few feet towards the city.
As the small house was consumed by flame, fresh snow began to fall, covering the two sets of footprints leading back north, and the twisted, fragile girl lying on the plains.
The flakes settled and the drifts deepened. She gazed up to heaven with empty sockets - her beautiful, guarded eyes removed, leaving shadowed hollows behind. The snow fell in deep, melted among the crusted blood behind the soft eyelashes and cooled the bitter fire of hate and pain.
*
She moved through the forest on still-stiff legs, stepping lighting over branches and around trees. She could feel them around her - thin lines of life spreading out under her feet and above her head, growing, breathing, talking to each other.
The black-glass walls appeared ahead, straight-edged, shimmering sides so clear among the soft twisted loops and imperfect lines of the forest. Anyone else would have walked right through the structure - only she saw it, with a blind sight tuned to a deeper spectrum.
The walls slid softly apart as she held her left hand up, the diamond bracelet sending out its gentle, loving light. The haven of solitude closed behind her, and she drifted out, free of all conscious ties and physical restraints.
Past, present and future lost their places, images swept past and emotion swelled and ebbed among the tide of life.
Back ten years, and that broken girl inched from the snow drifts - a blue-white figure, frozen to the core, dragged along on one arm and unworldly strength, a mother’s gift. She experienced again the heart-ripping feel of charred bone and the smell of burnt flesh. She felt again the steady warming of a icy body amongst the still-hot ashes of her home. She saw again, from a higher place, that innocent child push her fingers past her useless eyelids and back into nothingness. She knew again the slow, steady slide of the bolt across the door to sight, colour, and childhood.
The view switched north, and swooped down among the blackness of the city, through the shadows and under the dirt. One man centred all the images as past raced through to present - two lives’ debt pulling him into perfect focus.
He let the Doctor’s body fall, and slid the green note book inside his coat. He stood in front of desks, stripes of rank building on his arm, badges blooming on his chest as his hair thinned and greyed out. He walked the streets, whispering, preaching, killing, experimenting. He sat behind the desk, drawing plans of blame and recrimination.
The deaths he caused, overlooked and uncared for, were paid back in tiny fractions from the few who fought back. Raw, brilliant outbursts of power against those who hunted them, beat them down, locked them up, chased them out - only riling the city against further against them. One in a thousand fought back, but they were all to blame. They must be controlled, they must be restrained, they are destroying the city.
“Erin ...”
Aravella called into the present, dragging her daughter back to the physical, the heavy weight of limbs and the empty sight. The black-glass walls closed in around, tight and warm.
“Erin, I’m so proud of you. You’ve come so far, so quickly, and your power grows still within you. But now it is time to act.”
Erin slipped the diamond bracelet from her wrist, into the palm of her hand. She saw the jewels gleaming, back the last time she had seen her father - catching the last evening rays, glittering like tears. Tears she had not shed in ten years.
“Yes, you have stayed strong for me. Your father was right, Erin, I was always watching. And now I can help you.” Aravella’s voice trailed around the smooth walls, her flickering image - fragments of memory - dancing through the glass.
“Together, my daughter, together we will right a great wrong. Things have not progressed as they should have. But we can set that right. No more tears.”
Erin nodded and drew the bracelet through her fingers. She snapped the diamonds from their fixings, keeping two in her hand. Her mother came round and embraced her - guiding her hands, a spark of light in each, up to her empty eye sockets.
“Do you see, Erin? See how strong your tears will become?”
*
She stepped from the forest, nineteen years old, and stared out towards the city. Things had spread far enough. She tucked the three remaining diamonds deep into the rags that clothed her. Strips of cloth, hide and fur wrapped every part of her body tight in to the bone and gave support to weak legs, badly healed. A crimson strip of silk covered her sockets and the jewels within - ragged ends streaming out behind in the wind with her hair.
“I’ll keep the haven safe for you, my child.”
Erin turned - through the miles a dense forest, the black-glass glowed out to her sight, a beacon on her return. She felt the three diamonds tight against her side. The city loomed ahead, piecing up through the clouds. The past flickered up, pressing his image close to her mind.
“I won’t be coming back.”
*
This close to him, this far from the black-glass haven, images still flashed past.
He sat in the core building of the city, looking out across the roof of the world.
He wore the uniform in the streets.
He bought up empty lots, flat tarmac, deserted sites.
As the past crept up to join the present, she moved silently through the city - eyeless sight picking up every life, however weak, through the darkness. She let the racing images guide her - his actions broken up with scenes of blood, fire, and thousands of violet eyes, nicked through with pink. And out of the shadows of an alleyway she came, to a deserted school on the edge of the city.
Authority barked commands, and heavy boots stamped out their rhythm. She scaled the heavy fence in seconds, nimble fingers tracing up the chain-links, slim body twisting through the wire, and dropped down onto a short building at the edge of the training grounds.
A batch of new recruits - 500 in total, stretched in a single, disorganised line across the grounds - were being broken in. She felt each one of their lives - most angry, eager for blood, some confused. A man appeared from a square brick building - his life knifed sharply into her, scoring the deepest tissue with white-hot memories.
She stood, walked right to the edge of the building and stared on, a hard piece of metal digging into the small of her back, under the tightly-bound rags.
Starkad. Uncle.
She stood unnoticed for a whole minute, taking gentle breaths, and letting the present settle in one place - drawing the past and future back in around it, so they would feel the change instantly.
He ripped a pair of glasses from a man’s head and stamped them into pieces under his heel. He leaned in close and stared deep into the man’s eyes, searching, checking. With a small nod, he turned and froze.
The world contracted.
Everything reduced down into a single point of light.
There was shouting, and gunfire, but she registered nothing.
Now fifteen years since her eyes were taken, Erin reached up and pulled the silk cloth from her head. The world burst into brilliant colour, everything streaming into her peripheral vision. The brightest colours went unnoticed, her new eyes were for one man - dressed in black, anger, disgust flickering across his face.
The flesh had twisted around inside her eye sockets, holding the two diamonds in place. The finely cut tips pierced Starkad in place. The troops around him moved - recruits away, officers towards, and bullets sprayed towards the half-human, standing proud on the edge of the parade grounds.
She pulled the gun from her back, and took a diamond from her side.
A faint glimmer in the air, then a streak of red sprayed up into the air - his left eye sliced right through, a pulped mess of blood and tears.
The second diamond took his right, and he fell silently to his knees.
The past flickered in place and she him kneeling in front of her, tongue tracing across her lip, a fingernail sweeping her eyes. She jumped down from the building and began the slow walk to a fallen man.
The power within her strained to be loosed, her own strength mixed with her mother’s.
The officers collapsed where they stood, pools of blood from their ears, hands crippled back into claws as the pressure built.
Starkad looked up at his niece, the clotting, cloying mass of red in his sockets seeing nothing - but his mind placing her exactly, feet planted firmly in front of him, crystal eyes staring down, the gun placed neatly to his forehead.
The blood dripped from his eyes - great strings of vivd red streaming from his chin, webs of clots across his chest, the life bubbling as he struggled to breathe. As he stared emptily up, the past jumped forward again. She was eight again, standing by her father’s side, the conversation making little sense back then.
The final diamond found its resting place.
These are powerful people: deadly and unpredictable. They can’t control what lives inside them.
The weak winter sun burst through the clouds and reflecting infinitely from the countless pools of blood across the parade grounds. Erin let her shoulders drop, but the power inside kept growing. Her mother’s spirit mixed with hers - both straining for their cause, straining to be released.
The new flesh in her eye sockets cracked and split, sending more blood to the smooth tarmac.
The power strained to be focused, and failed. There was no release, no way out, and fifteen years of preparation raged around her body. She gave a small sigh, and turned away.
The air was filled with red and white, an explosion of life and power.
The bone fragments split the windows and cracked the brick, the blood mist drifted on the chill wind for days. The red silk cloth floated high in the air, drifting slow circles around the grounds - eventually, it came to rest, covering up the two perfect diamonds that lay in the middle of it all, lapped by a red tide.
These diamonds will never be broken, never be controlled.
His breath flowed over her lids, twisted back into her nostrils - warm, fragranced, desperate. She could feel him, barely an inch from her face, feel his heat prying around her eyes, feel his tongue move the air as it stroked across his lips.
“Come on, my dear girl. I just want a look, just a quick look - a blink, just a flicker, nothing more. Then I’ll be away.”
Lies streamed away with the deep, hot sigh that followed. Then silence again.
She stood up straighter still, taking small, silent breaths. She clenched her hands into tiny knots at her side and squeezed her eyes tighter shut.
His tongue slid further from his lips and onto hers - a whisper of touch, leaving the barest shadow of moisture behind. She struggled to remain still, breaths coming a little more rapidly. Contact bred contact. A knee brushed against her thigh as he leaned in even closer, a palm rested on her hip.
His sweat hung in the air between them, adding a thick, solid texture to the atmosphere. It pressed into her, a wave of sick humidity, and she felt it - felt his long, pristine fingernail trace along her delicate eyelashes.
A tear crept under the pale creases of her lids.
And it was cooled on her cheek by the sharp winter wind that tumbled in as the door swung open.
He drew back, taking his heat with him, and she felt her glasses being pushed hastily back on - the dark metal frames applying soothing pressure just behind her ears. Every part he had touched - hip, knee, lashes, lip - burned a steady flame on her skin, but he was away, his narrow breath off her face.
She opened her eyes.
A figure stood hunched in the doorway, still bowed low to the harsh winter gods, heavy furs wrapped tight around his whole body. In the failing light, the city was a sharp black needle across the snow fields - all buildings razed up higher and higher towards the core, and at the centre a single obelisk of steel and glass, half missing through the storm clouds and the dusk.
He didn’t look up until the door was shouldered back into place, a drift of snow already building on the threshold, and then only saw what was expected - his brother, waiting patiently in a chair; his daughter, stood to greet him.
He saw what he expected, but not what he wanted.
The tear on her cheek caught the solemn sunlight and held it there - reflecting a gentle, soft sadness around the room. Too much emotion for a girl so young.
He moved over to her and knelt down, first checking her glasses were on tight as he always did - seeing her eyes shine blue through the glass - then slowly wiped the tear away with a shaking thumb.
“Dad ...” A small, sorry voice slipped out into his furs as he held her tight - his one love left, his beautiful child. She pulled away, her little mouth set in a worried frown, as though he had failed to notice something, but she would not speak and risk upsetting the moment. All he wanted to do was pull the heavy glasses from her perfect face and look again into the true, beautiful eyes of his wife - fall backwards through time, all the pain and sorrow shrinking back into tiny pinpricks of light, and live as his heart required.
“Erin, you know your mother never liked to see tears.” He held her gaze until they both lapsed back into memories, easy smiles across both faces, good times in the air between them. “And she’s watching, you know - she’ll always be watching us.”
A small sigh broke the silence - of impatience, amusement, or simply effort as his brother rose quickly from the chair, it was impossible to tell.
He stood, meticulous, reserved, and observed the pair with calm eyes, pinching one long, white fingernail between two others, until the warmth had fled from the room as if chased by the first frost. There was no past, no future, just the slow, steady beat of the present.
“How did the meeting go, Sigurd? Well, I hope.”
Her father ran his hand down the back of her chestnut hair and she squeezed in tighter to his side, a thin arm around the small of his back, her head resting gently just above his hip. They would share the warmth, the love and the memories between themselves, no matter who wished them away.
“It’s always hard to tell, brother ... there’s two meetings going on in there: one from what is said, and one from what is left unsaid. I’m no politician, it’s hard to follow the line of things, but, yes, Starkad, I think it went well enough. We’re on the way.”
“I am glad. And I think you are further along the way than you suspect. A friend of mine, Doctor Ceres - a man with considerable, private, respect - told me that the laws are on the brink of change. It could be a lot sooner than you imagine.”
“Truly? Is this right, Starkad?”
“So I’ve been told. But just because it will become officially illegal, does not mean it will stop. Remember that.”
“I remember well enough. Well enough for everyone.”
Erin hugged him tighter.
Starkad looked away for the first time since he started speaking, a slight bow of the head.
“I apologise, of course - if not for you, things never would have begun to change. But this battle will not be won in meetings and court rooms. The city-folk are scared - these are powerful people: deadly and unpredictable. They can’t control what lives inside them. Half-human, some say, with half a soul - the spaces filled with reckless power.”
Sigurd’s hand was tight on her shoulder, his round fingers white and shaking. She looked up at him, trying to catch his eye, to calm him down. His breaths filled the room - deep and strong, resolute.
“I know what some say. As did my wife, as she crossed into death, blood flowing from countless knife and bullet wounds. All she did was love me, love her child - but she knew what some people said, knew it with her last breath. The only danger I see is inside the city-dwellers, narrowed and guided to a single, sharp point. Don’t tell me what some people say - it echoes in my every breath, in every beat of my empty heart.”
Starkad said nothing, just stared out of the window deep into the forest that hugged the little house and framed the view north back to the city. The trees were dense, tight and dark - a shadowy place hated by the city-folk for its secrets.
“I can see you are upset. I best get back before night draws in proper. Tomorrow night, I will bring Doctor Ceres back to see you, he may be able to tell you how far along things are, calm your nerves.”
He pulled down sharply on his short black coat - meagre protection against the winter night, even fastened to the neck - snapping out the creases, and moved to the door.
“Until tomorrow ... “ He waited a few seconds for a response, but gained nothing, and stepped outside - only Erin saw him wink one cold, grey eye as he disappeared.
She finally caught her father’s eye, found it brimming with tears. But he didn’t come down to her, as she expected - didn’t lift the glasses from her face, as he often did - didn’t even let the tears fall. He walked away, heavy frame under heavy furs knocking a solemn beat across the floorboards, and into the bedroom.
She didn’t move until he returned, clutching something in his hand, his eyes dry.
He took her hand and drew her over to a chair, sat her down and then knelt down beside her.
“Now, Erin ...”
His voice was quiet, gentle, pulling back the emotion. He opened his hand and lifted what he held up in the air. The final, weak winter rays slid through the window and lit it up - a set of five perfect diamonds strung out on a silver chain. As sharp and clear as moonstruck icicles, each as large as the tip of her thumb, they seemed to draw everything inwards, into five pure, crystal specks of light.
“You see these?” He rolled one of the diamonds between his fingers, “Do you see? See how strong your tears can become? There is nothing stronger in the whole world. These diamonds will never be broken, never be controlled.”
Sigurd placed the bracelet in his daughter’s tiny hand and closed her fingers over it. He held her hand in both of his, then finally let go and pushed the bracelet back to her chest, where she held it tight against her heart.
“We’ve both cried a lot, I know. But now it’s time to be strong, as strong as those diamonds your mother loved so much. No more tears, Erin, no more sadness - we won’t forgot her, but we’ll be strong for her, just like she always said we should be. Our tears have changed to diamonds now, nothing can break them - no matter what happens, we cannot be broken, no matter what changes, there is nothing stronger than you and me.”
He stood and seemed taller, lighter, more assured.
“And things will change. I’ll make sure of that. Your mother ... Aravella ... she never wanted to hide like this. And we won’t for much longer. She’ll be watching as we walk away, proud and strong.”
He slipped his great fur coat from his shoulders with a sigh and moved back into the bedroom.
“Goodnight, Erin.”
Erin clenched the diamond bracelet in her fist, felt the sharp edges bite into her skin, and wiped her eyes under her glasses until all the tears were gone.
*
Starkad didn’t return the following night.
Dreams hounded Erin’s sleep - she could never settle deep enough to rest properly. She was suspended in the air, floating, and colours - red, black and brilliant white - sprang up all around. There were voices, inaudible, far-off, mumbling, and someone was choking. Then the cold, a deep, bottomless cold, crept over her and froze her in place.
A pain so deep it had no source rippled over her small body. Barely eight years old, she convulsed and shook in sleep, consumed by the darkness, the cold, and the rending pain. her limbs kicked out, but didn’t move more than an inch, and she screamed through the nightmare.
Her eyes flicked open and she closed them again instantly, as she had been taught - her glasses not in place. But in the second of sight, she had seen two people leaning over her in curiosity - one of them Starkad, and another man she didn’t know.
She tried to move away, to roll over on the small bed she slept in, but couldn’t move her arms or legs. Rope bit deep around her wrists and ankles, pulling them outwards to the bed frame so tight that she was lifted from the mattress.
She strained to hear anything through the night. The bindings on her left arm pushed the diamond bracelet deep into her flesh.
“We know you are awake, my girl. We saw those devil eyes. Don’t try to hide.”
Erin didn’t recognise the voice. Someone placed a hand on her chest and pressed down sharply, sending her down to touch the bed covers, then springing back on the ropes which twisted sharply against her skin, rubbing out thick red marks.
She opened her eyes with a tiny whimper, feeling venerable, unprotected without her glasses.
“Ah yes ...” the man started - short and sharp-featured, underdressed for the weather with bright white hair cut tight to his scalp. Doctor Ceres. He pencilled in a small, green book as he spoke, seemingly to himself.
“As expected, subject is found to be in the very early stages of development. Eyes are extremely bright, almost fluorescent, pink. Flecks of purple - darker than I’ve ever seen - are few. Excellent condition. Whites remain clear and free of scars. Subject poses no significant threat to others as yet, but neutralisation will go ahead.”
Erin’s uncle stared on impassively. He gave her a tense, private nod as though she should understand what was going on. Through clear eyes, free of tears, she could only watch on as the Doctor made further comments. Frightened, confused, she wondered why her father had not stopped this. Blood was drawn in silence and the child, silent, brows creased up into worry, shock, anger, unconsciously folded herself up inside.
She understood little - except that all her father’s care to keep her safe had failed, that something was going to happen to her, and that Starkad was behind it all. She folded her senses inwards, as tightly inwards as her limbs were spread outwards, keeping only three things in her mind.
His hot, oppressive fragrance.
The Doctor’s steady drone.
And the bite of the diamonds on her wrist.
That was all, as the metal was pressed in around her head, as the blades were cleaned and as the little green notebook was tucked away. Slipping inwards, to the tight centre of her folded self, she entered a black, self-wrought glass chamber where silence ruled. The steady beats of pain were registered, not felt, against the polished walls. Half fragments of speech slipped through.
“Procedure started. Time ...”
“This one would be very ... good job you called me.”
“Very ... Just like her mother ...”
“She fights it! ... So young ...”
“Time, 03:19. Hereditary line 414 eradicated at 3rd generation.”
*
The polished, black-glass walls unlocked and slid away. Consciousness unfolded itself, straining towards a warning sign, instincts flaring. Erin opened her eyes - it must still have been the middle of the night, she couldn’t see a thing.
Then the pain hit.
She sprawled sideways under the impact - it ripped through her, unimaginable, consuming. She screamed so hard something ripped in her throat - 8-year-old lungs never meant to cope with such bottomless torture - her tiny body trying to lift the pain, trying just to express the hurt. Her thin legs thrashed in the freezing air so violently the bones cracked and ripped from their sockets, but muscles still worked impossibly, unable to register anything but the pain in her head. Still tied to the bed, the ropes cut deeper and deeper through flesh.
Still the pain rolled on - until she gagged on blood clots and could scream no more, until some dim corner of her mind forced her ruined legs to stop working, until the smell of burning filled her senses. In the blackness she coughed and writhed into true consciousness above the pain, sobs rippling through her, body twisting on the bed to try and escape.
The most base instincts, those which guarded the glass solitude, forced her to move. Her legs had thrashed themselves free of the ties, and the diamond bracelet on her wrist had cut through the rope around it. Her right arm slipped through the noose as she was forced onwards - a dull crack registering in her mind, dim senses warning that her hand was folded in half.
Her legs gave way under her as she touched the floor, instincts not letting her realise why, and her left arm dragged her across the floor to where she knew the door was. He consciousness let her have one thing - the stinging smell of smoke, and the pricking heat at her back.
The door was open, something wedging it there - a large, soft object warm to the touch. Her fingers traced familiar shapes, a jaw, a nose, but her instincts dragged her over and out into the perishing cold.
Twenty feet from the door, out over snow and ice, night-dress ripped to useless rags, she collapsed, out of danger. All senses, hounded by her instincts, fled inwards again, away from the pain. It gave a final jolt before the black-glass walls slid in around, rolling her another few feet towards the city.
As the small house was consumed by flame, fresh snow began to fall, covering the two sets of footprints leading back north, and the twisted, fragile girl lying on the plains.
The flakes settled and the drifts deepened. She gazed up to heaven with empty sockets - her beautiful, guarded eyes removed, leaving shadowed hollows behind. The snow fell in deep, melted among the crusted blood behind the soft eyelashes and cooled the bitter fire of hate and pain.
*
She moved through the forest on still-stiff legs, stepping lighting over branches and around trees. She could feel them around her - thin lines of life spreading out under her feet and above her head, growing, breathing, talking to each other.
The black-glass walls appeared ahead, straight-edged, shimmering sides so clear among the soft twisted loops and imperfect lines of the forest. Anyone else would have walked right through the structure - only she saw it, with a blind sight tuned to a deeper spectrum.
The walls slid softly apart as she held her left hand up, the diamond bracelet sending out its gentle, loving light. The haven of solitude closed behind her, and she drifted out, free of all conscious ties and physical restraints.
Past, present and future lost their places, images swept past and emotion swelled and ebbed among the tide of life.
Back ten years, and that broken girl inched from the snow drifts - a blue-white figure, frozen to the core, dragged along on one arm and unworldly strength, a mother’s gift. She experienced again the heart-ripping feel of charred bone and the smell of burnt flesh. She felt again the steady warming of a icy body amongst the still-hot ashes of her home. She saw again, from a higher place, that innocent child push her fingers past her useless eyelids and back into nothingness. She knew again the slow, steady slide of the bolt across the door to sight, colour, and childhood.
The view switched north, and swooped down among the blackness of the city, through the shadows and under the dirt. One man centred all the images as past raced through to present - two lives’ debt pulling him into perfect focus.
He let the Doctor’s body fall, and slid the green note book inside his coat. He stood in front of desks, stripes of rank building on his arm, badges blooming on his chest as his hair thinned and greyed out. He walked the streets, whispering, preaching, killing, experimenting. He sat behind the desk, drawing plans of blame and recrimination.
The deaths he caused, overlooked and uncared for, were paid back in tiny fractions from the few who fought back. Raw, brilliant outbursts of power against those who hunted them, beat them down, locked them up, chased them out - only riling the city against further against them. One in a thousand fought back, but they were all to blame. They must be controlled, they must be restrained, they are destroying the city.
“Erin ...”
Aravella called into the present, dragging her daughter back to the physical, the heavy weight of limbs and the empty sight. The black-glass walls closed in around, tight and warm.
“Erin, I’m so proud of you. You’ve come so far, so quickly, and your power grows still within you. But now it is time to act.”
Erin slipped the diamond bracelet from her wrist, into the palm of her hand. She saw the jewels gleaming, back the last time she had seen her father - catching the last evening rays, glittering like tears. Tears she had not shed in ten years.
“Yes, you have stayed strong for me. Your father was right, Erin, I was always watching. And now I can help you.” Aravella’s voice trailed around the smooth walls, her flickering image - fragments of memory - dancing through the glass.
“Together, my daughter, together we will right a great wrong. Things have not progressed as they should have. But we can set that right. No more tears.”
Erin nodded and drew the bracelet through her fingers. She snapped the diamonds from their fixings, keeping two in her hand. Her mother came round and embraced her - guiding her hands, a spark of light in each, up to her empty eye sockets.
“Do you see, Erin? See how strong your tears will become?”
*
She stepped from the forest, nineteen years old, and stared out towards the city. Things had spread far enough. She tucked the three remaining diamonds deep into the rags that clothed her. Strips of cloth, hide and fur wrapped every part of her body tight in to the bone and gave support to weak legs, badly healed. A crimson strip of silk covered her sockets and the jewels within - ragged ends streaming out behind in the wind with her hair.
“I’ll keep the haven safe for you, my child.”
Erin turned - through the miles a dense forest, the black-glass glowed out to her sight, a beacon on her return. She felt the three diamonds tight against her side. The city loomed ahead, piecing up through the clouds. The past flickered up, pressing his image close to her mind.
“I won’t be coming back.”
*
This close to him, this far from the black-glass haven, images still flashed past.
He sat in the core building of the city, looking out across the roof of the world.
He wore the uniform in the streets.
He bought up empty lots, flat tarmac, deserted sites.
As the past crept up to join the present, she moved silently through the city - eyeless sight picking up every life, however weak, through the darkness. She let the racing images guide her - his actions broken up with scenes of blood, fire, and thousands of violet eyes, nicked through with pink. And out of the shadows of an alleyway she came, to a deserted school on the edge of the city.
Authority barked commands, and heavy boots stamped out their rhythm. She scaled the heavy fence in seconds, nimble fingers tracing up the chain-links, slim body twisting through the wire, and dropped down onto a short building at the edge of the training grounds.
A batch of new recruits - 500 in total, stretched in a single, disorganised line across the grounds - were being broken in. She felt each one of their lives - most angry, eager for blood, some confused. A man appeared from a square brick building - his life knifed sharply into her, scoring the deepest tissue with white-hot memories.
She stood, walked right to the edge of the building and stared on, a hard piece of metal digging into the small of her back, under the tightly-bound rags.
Starkad. Uncle.
She stood unnoticed for a whole minute, taking gentle breaths, and letting the present settle in one place - drawing the past and future back in around it, so they would feel the change instantly.
He ripped a pair of glasses from a man’s head and stamped them into pieces under his heel. He leaned in close and stared deep into the man’s eyes, searching, checking. With a small nod, he turned and froze.
The world contracted.
Everything reduced down into a single point of light.
There was shouting, and gunfire, but she registered nothing.
Now fifteen years since her eyes were taken, Erin reached up and pulled the silk cloth from her head. The world burst into brilliant colour, everything streaming into her peripheral vision. The brightest colours went unnoticed, her new eyes were for one man - dressed in black, anger, disgust flickering across his face.
The flesh had twisted around inside her eye sockets, holding the two diamonds in place. The finely cut tips pierced Starkad in place. The troops around him moved - recruits away, officers towards, and bullets sprayed towards the half-human, standing proud on the edge of the parade grounds.
She pulled the gun from her back, and took a diamond from her side.
A faint glimmer in the air, then a streak of red sprayed up into the air - his left eye sliced right through, a pulped mess of blood and tears.
The second diamond took his right, and he fell silently to his knees.
The past flickered in place and she him kneeling in front of her, tongue tracing across her lip, a fingernail sweeping her eyes. She jumped down from the building and began the slow walk to a fallen man.
The power within her strained to be loosed, her own strength mixed with her mother’s.
The officers collapsed where they stood, pools of blood from their ears, hands crippled back into claws as the pressure built.
Starkad looked up at his niece, the clotting, cloying mass of red in his sockets seeing nothing - but his mind placing her exactly, feet planted firmly in front of him, crystal eyes staring down, the gun placed neatly to his forehead.
The blood dripped from his eyes - great strings of vivd red streaming from his chin, webs of clots across his chest, the life bubbling as he struggled to breathe. As he stared emptily up, the past jumped forward again. She was eight again, standing by her father’s side, the conversation making little sense back then.
The final diamond found its resting place.
These are powerful people: deadly and unpredictable. They can’t control what lives inside them.
The weak winter sun burst through the clouds and reflecting infinitely from the countless pools of blood across the parade grounds. Erin let her shoulders drop, but the power inside kept growing. Her mother’s spirit mixed with hers - both straining for their cause, straining to be released.
The new flesh in her eye sockets cracked and split, sending more blood to the smooth tarmac.
The power strained to be focused, and failed. There was no release, no way out, and fifteen years of preparation raged around her body. She gave a small sigh, and turned away.
The air was filled with red and white, an explosion of life and power.
The bone fragments split the windows and cracked the brick, the blood mist drifted on the chill wind for days. The red silk cloth floated high in the air, drifting slow circles around the grounds - eventually, it came to rest, covering up the two perfect diamonds that lay in the middle of it all, lapped by a red tide.
These diamonds will never be broken, never be controlled.
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Nope, just a twinkle in this one.
None in the next one, either.
Feel the power. Your imagination is mine.
Anywho .... thankyouverymuchindeedAsh - to be praised is one thing, to inspire someone back again is another. Yey. I was wondering where you'd got to.
But now you have to work.
Go.
Now.
Work.
None in the next one, either.
Feel the power. Your imagination is mine.
Anywho .... thankyouverymuchindeedAsh - to be praised is one thing, to inspire someone back again is another. Yey. I was wondering where you'd got to.
But now you have to work.
Go.
Now.
Work.
I have had this with past FFF stories a lot, but didn't get it so much this time.
For some reason, I pictured it as animé.
Tremendous.
Despite not following it every step of the way the description and way with words was just amazing. At points you didn't even have to describe the surroundings, just the warmth between the people. It felt spot on.
As you've probably noticed, I haven't posted stories much, or been on SR much, recently. I'm thinking this might have inspired me.
Well done.
Despite not following it every step of the way the description and way with words was just amazing. At points you didn't even have to describe the surroundings, just the warmth between the people. It felt spot on.
As you've probably noticed, I haven't posted stories much, or been on SR much, recently. I'm thinking this might have inspired me.
Well done.
Yup. Twice.
Then I stuck my tongue out.
Then I stuck my tongue out.
FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> So there.
:D
Did you stamp your foot at the same time as posting that little comment?
> So there.
:D
Did you stamp your foot at the same time as posting that little comment?
*great sigh of relief*
So glad all that work paid off in the end. Almost gave up at one points.
Thanks to everyone for putting in the reading effort, 'preciate it.
About that, Sleepy, there was going to be more about her in the city for a few years before the ending, but it was half-past 11 and I was knackered, so I didn't. So there.
So glad all that work paid off in the end. Almost gave up at one points.
Thanks to everyone for putting in the reading effort, 'preciate it.
About that, Sleepy, there was going to be more about her in the city for a few years before the ending, but it was half-past 11 and I was knackered, so I didn't. So there.
Seriously the best story I've read on here. Maybe on anywhere. You should really think about doing something with this.
Just... amazing.
:O
Just... amazing.
:O
Oh brilliant! Fabulous. I loved this but, sadly, do not have the vocabulary to express it.
The phone rang three times while trying to read this and even with the interruptions I never lost the flow. It may just have toppled 'My Wonderful Creation' off the top of my favourites :D
One tiny question. How did 10 years become 15?
The phone rang three times while trying to read this and even with the interruptions I never lost the flow. It may just have toppled 'My Wonderful Creation' off the top of my favourites :D
One tiny question. How did 10 years become 15?
Good grief!
I think I'll make a cup of tea and come back to this :)
I think I'll make a cup of tea and come back to this :)
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