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For all the many places I’ve been to all over the globe, this is my first time flying through the outer atmosphere into space. It’s very cold. Not to mention the whole lack of air thing.
It feels strange at first to not breathe and feel my feathers crystalize in the beyond freezing temperatures.
My flight slows as I struggle to adjust to the darkness lit only by a million stars. I can’t imagine the warmth of the woman I just left behind. But just the thought of her is enough to spur me forward in spite of the discomfort.
I am a Horseman of the Apocalypse, and a little discomfort is nothing to me. Finally, I have a worthy opponent.
Not that I have any idea how to fight them. I don’t have sword or spear, and I don’t think they’re capable of language, so I doubt I’ll be able to persuade them to turn back. But I am rage, and I am chaos, and there is no turning back now. So, I press on.
Ten more minutes, and I cannot feel my legs, arms, or face. But my wings continue to propel me, and what is the point of feeling one’s limbs anyway? My tail has curled around my legs as if that can stave off the sub-freezing temperatures, and I’m vaguely afraid it might snap and break off completely.
The thought doesn’t deter me.
I am made of eternal material. My father grew back to full strength from a mere ember of ash. Granted, my brothers and I are not the same as him—he was merely our architect.
But surely being eternal means being able to survive a little interspace travel? Too late now, anyway. I’m closer to the sun now than I am to the Earth, and I can just see the tail end of the Devourers. I press myself to move with even more speed.
I hear the crack but don’t look back. All feeling is secondary, but I think it’s what I feared. I think I’ve just lost my tail. By the time I reach the back of the line of glowing Devourers, my mind has started to grow fuzzy.
I may be eternal but I’m starting to suspect that doesn’t mean indestructible. Maybe there is something beyond hell-metal that can kill us. Huh. All this time, it was waiting in the deep sky above our heads, and we simply didn’t realize it.
I mean, even I had heard the story of Icarus. The storytellers just got it wrong. He didn’t die because his wings melted off. They froze, and then he fell from the sky. But there’s no gravity here. I won’t fall back to Earth, my body to be mourned by my beloved in the moments before her sky goes dark forever.
At least I will have finally killed Romulus. Which is what I wanted all this time, isn’t it? Saying I wanted to get rid of the parasite and other euphemisms was a coward’s way out. I wanted to kill him. Like Cain and Abel, I wanted to fight him to the death, standing over my brother as the sole owner of this body.
If I get the both of us killed, will that give half the satisfaction?
I’m too cold and exhausted to even laugh.
Chaos reigns to the end.
I can’t flap my wings anymore; it’s just the propulsion I began that continues me forward in the airless void of space.
My mind blinks in and out of consciousness, but at least the vampire’s blood allows me to stay in the barest of control. I’m glad for that. It would feel even more cowardly to sleep now and give this final battle to the tactician. Even if he’s better suited to coming up with some brilliant last-minute strategy. This will have to suffice as my final victory. Being in control and stealing the last moment with Lo-Ren that was mine and mine alone.
I reach the front of the line of Devourers, so bright from their internal lights, as we all approach the burning ball of the sun.
What will I do now that I am here and can barely move? I have no idea. They take no notice of me, their attention solely on the combustible sun in front of them.
They are strange creatures now that I see them up close. They are huge, obviously, with eight bulbous sections to their long torsos, covered with filaments propelling them forward at incredible speeds through space.
Here, at what feels like the end of all things, it seems as ridiculous as anything else in my chaotic life to pause and take in the strange beauty of these luminescent creatures. They aren’t filled with the spark of life fire that my father first stole from the Great Hall. Instead, they’ve turned one of Earth’s most destructive forces into nourishment, conquering without intent or greed. Just the simple fact of hunger.
The line of them glows as bright as the stars in the distance. For another moment, right before the creature at the head of the line gets to the sun, all its filaments reaching toward the bursting fire that leaps forth from its surface, I feel completely calm. Absent of rage. Absent of want. Absent of greed or jealousy or any other thing.
For one stretching, infinite-feeling moment, I feel peace within myself.
And then I blink and realize that the warmth of the sun has brought feeling back into my limbs and, with it, the memory of her. The woman waiting for me back on Earth, and what will happen to her if I let these Devourers eat this star.
My eyes widen, uncrystallized and regenerating as memories and fire and fury rush back into my blood.
No. I will not let this happen. I have come all this way to stop it.
Suddenly, everything sparks at once. Thought and purpose connect. The witch told Kharon he could do much more than he ever thought. He only ever traveled to one other plane because it was all he thought he could do. Because our father told him it was his only purpose.
We saw it with our glamours. We can do so much more than we ever thought. We were limited only by our own beliefs about ourselves, holding us in manageable leashes for our father.
