Our doom bore down on us in the form of a wave cresting over the tops of skyscrapers. Giant sword blades thrust forth from the wave, as if an army of deific soldiers ran behind it. People screamed and pushed past me, running for cover. Neve’s face was pale as the wave’s shadow passed over us.
It took all of my willpower to tear my eyes away and shut them, instead focusing entirely on my sixth sense, trying not to listen to the rumbling getting closer.
I reached out to every seed we had planted, every shimmering star beneath the earth. Would it be enough? There were other sources of light. Bodies. Fallen allies. Hearts that had been beating hours or even minutes ago. They had fought against something so unimaginably larger than them to the last breath. I didn’t know them personally, but I still wanted to thank them for fighting. It was too late to do that, but perhaps I could still pay my respects. I sought out their lights and added them to the network of seeds.
May you change, even after death.
All I needed now was a catalyst. The rumbling grew louder than thunder, shaking the earth, making it hard to stay standing.
I needed power from the Lacuna, more than I had ever asked before. It should have been simple, I was this world-seed’s master, but that didn’t feel right. I didn’t want this control. The potential that was there, the things Nell had crafted inside, I wanted to let it grow how it wanted to. I was simply the steward, the gardener who pruned unhealthy growths and provided dirt for the roots and scaffolding for the branches.
The Flower-Heads I had met inside the Lacuna. Iris. Lavender. Rosemary. I thought of their strange fae demeanours and an idea formed in my mind. I tucked it away for later.
What a relief it was. That there was something for me after Nell, after all.
I slammed my hands onto the ground and urged all the seeds to grow. I didn’t try to control them, I only asked them: do you want to live? Then grow as wild as you can.
The ground cracked around us and shoots of green and silver spiraled out, blooming immediately into starburst petals of black and white.
Massive trees rose to greet the wave from where they had slept as seeds. The wood was torn asunder, petals flayed from branches as they were reduced to dust. The next batch of growth met its fate in turn and a sliver of wood sliced my cheek as it whizzed past.
The forest persisted, growing around us, alien wood full of its own stories to match the ones on Cecily’s armour. Simple images of dancing warriors and suns and moons and stars. Of bodies linked in familiarity and understanding. Of food and sleep and basking under sun-dappled leaves.
More tall towers of evergreen and oak disappeared into the wave. I could see breaks in it, points where the momentum had been broken, no longer a unified wall. The forest crackled around us, growing denser until I could only hear the approaching storm.
“Brace!” I shouted, seconds before the wave hit.
I was thrown. Wood and stone, asphalt and glass, particles mixing in the air. Everything was far too loud to comprehend. All things in my sight dissolved into a dust storm of petals and debris.
Then a hush fell upon the forest in the city.
My body crackled as it reassembled itself, bones snapping back into place like a jigsaw puzzle. I picked myself off the ground.
People were strewn about. Dust painted the trees a pale gray, marked by the flecks of bright red blood of the injured. Many of the trees had toppled, becoming obstacles to climb or crawl under. Yet many of the trunks, stripped of their outer bark and gouged to the point of leaking sap, still stood strong.
I walked through, rousing those that could be roused. Everyone was quiet as they assessed their injuries and rose grimly, knowing the fight was not lost yet.
Then I heard a voice I recognized sobbing.
I followed it, searching under fallen logs, peering through the haze, until I found him.
AJ was curled up against a tree, hugging himself tightly. Blood dripped from a short piece of flesh that hung from the back of his neck like a severed umbilical cord.
I went to him and hugged him.
He looked up, eyes wet. “Sage, I-” he pointed with a shaking hand at his torn Shape. “C-can you fix it?”
I pushed some of my flesh into the stump. The bleeding stopped and skin covered the wound, but the tentacle remained lifeless and limp. I continued a little longer, giving AJ some calming memories of time we’d spent together, playing video games in the quiet times between missions.
“Sorry, AJ. I don’t think it’s coming back.”
“What do I do?!” he asked, voice rising. “If I can’t do this… what even am I?”
My heart wrenched. “Don’t say that. You’re so much more than your Shape.” But I understood his distress. If I lost Shaping, what would I even do? It felt like such an integral part of me.
“I feel so small,” he said, barely a whisper.
I rested my chin on the top of his head. “Yeah.”
“At least you can do something to fight back. I can’t do anything.”
“It sucks. I get it. Listen, before this all started- God, it feels like I was a different person.”
AJ gave a weak chuckle.
“Back then, I felt so utterly powerless. I didn’t know what I wanted, I couldn’t envision a future that would make me happy. And if I could, if I truly looked into the future and saw this path, I don’t know if I would have had the strength to face it. I think I would have run from it, even knowing that it had the potential to give me what I desperately craved. All that hurt, all the loss, the fear, knowing it was coming would have been too much. But here I am on the other side, somehow happier. I want to believe that it will be worth it when we live through this too. The pain was necessary for us to grow.”
I tapped AJ’s forehead. “I just want you to think about it. What kind of future you see, where you would be happy after all this is said and done. I know you’ve been fighting your whole life, so maybe that’s a big ask. I know there’s a part of me that will always be looking for the next struggle. Maybe I like being stressed out…”
AJ gave me a small smile. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good. And I’ll help in any way I can to give you that future. We can Shape you a new Shape, after this is finished. We’ll give you some changes you’ll like.”
Footsteps approached and then Daria and Graham emerged out of the haze of dust.
“We lost the Marquess,” Graham said gravely.
“But he was weak,” Daria said, tapping her nose. “I can track his scent. We should be able to finish him.”
I pulled AJ to his feet. “Then let’s go. All together.”
Daria led the way, sniffing the air.
“Sage, tell us, what was the Lacuna like?” Graham asked.
I shook my head. “That’s difficult. It’s like a dream where everything’s solid and you know you can’t wake up. Reality but… adjacent. Abstract feelings formed into the tangible. It’s not a real place yet, but it could be? The Flower-Heads feel the same, like they’re just in their infancy.”
“Infants that are a bitch to fight,” Daria said. “The rage spawn feel like smarter Aberrants, but the Flower-Heads never felt like I knew what their next move would be.”
Graham nodded. “Based on what we now know about Aberrant behaviour being influenced by the Goddess and her Herald, that makes sense.”
AJ piped up, “Wait, are the Aberrants all gonna like, turn off when we win?”
Daria tousled his head. “That’s the spirit. When we win. AJ’s growing up. Got that big man confidence in your tiny body.”
That seemed to cheer AJ up a bit.
“There’s no telling what the future may hold,” Graham mused, distant.
“We were just talking about the future,” AJ said.
“Oh? And what is it that you want to do after this?” Graham asked us.
“Party. Good food. Bitches.”
AJ frowned at Daria. She shrugged. “Okay, one bitch in particular.”
“As for myself,” Graham said, “I will continue to study how Shaping is changing. What shaky foundation we had, it’s been thoroughly challenged by recent events. Sage demonstrates that the labels of Witch and Wolf are not unbreakable tenets. There’s even evidence of Casts changing their Shape.”
I exchanged a look with AJ.
“Who knows what will become of Aberrants… And you, Sage?”
“I, uh…” I swallowed past a lump in my throat. “It’s something I’ll need to talk about with you guys.”
I couldn’t bring it up right now. Not when we needed to be focused. But it still stung, like a splinter that hung heavy in my heart. All my talk about the future, I meant it, I truly did. I would fight for that future. Even if it wasn’t for me.
We’d been walking for a while. This deep into the forest, there weren’t any others around. The dust hung like mist, clouding out the light.
We came to a great redwood, taller and wider than the others. The roots were strange, full of right angles and nodes that sparkled like gems. A gold tendril had punched a hole through the center of it and it bled dark sap in a line down the trunk.
AJ stopped walking, staring up at the tree. His legs were shaking.
“Get down!” Daria hissed.
“What is it?” Graham asked.
I felt it too. That malignant pressure had returned.
The tendril pulled itself free from the tree, eliciting a wet sucking sound. Through the hole, the sun could be seen, distant and hazy. Then a shadow passed over it. A feminine shape.
I raised my hands. “Can we talk?”
Silence.
A tendril shot out through the trees. I shouted a warning and Daria reacted with cat-like reflexes, jumping and twisting in the air. The tendril tracked her, striking true, straight through the chest. But then Daria landed, unharmed. Her Shape had protected her.
Graham crashed into a tree. I whirled around, the tendril that had struck him already retreating into the haze.
Stop getting distracted. You know what to do.
I launched myself at Cecily’s shadow. Her arms caught mine easily, her face visible for a moment in the dark. She sent me crashing to the ground and then her foot pressed against my back.
My ribs cracked, sending cold lightning bolts of pain through my chest.
Then she seized my hair and pulled my head up, forcing me to look at Daria who charged towards us.
The Marquess spoke into my mind, “I’ve watched long enough. I know what will crush your soul.”
My blood felt like ice in my veins.
“DARIA!” I shouted.
A giant golden limb struck from above like the hammer of a god. The shockwave from the blow cleared the dust from the air.
When the hammer lifted, Daria was there, standing totally still. There wasn’t a mark on her body. I knew her Shape, I knew that she could instinctually shift her body around lethality. It kept her safe.
But there was a limit. Blood poured from her eyes and her mouth and her ears. She tried to speak and nothing came out. Then her legs gave out and she collapsed, face down in the dirt.
AJ yelled, voice cracking as he tried to run to her. At the last moment, Graham crawled to AJ and grabbed him, holding him back. Graham’s head was pouring blood, but he didn’t close his eyes. His expression was calm. “Don’t throw your life away, AJ. Whatever the result. We will ensure a future for you.”
Cecily ground her heel into my chest. I couldn’t breathe. A future? Fuck that. I want my friends to live.
AJ struggled to break free, tears streaming down his face.
Graham held firm. “Listen to me, all of you. You know how the world works. Many of you learned far too young how brutal reality can be. Maybe this was unavoidable. Maybe this is just how the world is. But we can do better. Treasure all your experiences, the good and the painful. The more you run from them, the more we lose ourselves to all the distractions that can ease the pain, the more we simply move that pain on to the next generation. Confront it. Learn from it. And then teach others the paths that have been etched through your suffering. It’s the only way we will move on from this.”
I didn’t want to hear it. My head was full of a piercing ringing as I stared at Daria’s motionless body.
“Just… stop…” I said bitterly.
Despair weighed on my chest like a hungry beast, waiting for the perfect moment to consume me. Get it over with.
The Marquess laughed and I saw his loathsome shape slither out from the shadows like a wet snake. He rushed towards Daria’s body.
“Okay!” AJ shouted, spit flying from his mouth. “I get it!”
“Do you?”
AJ’s eyes shone. He had bit his lip hard enough for blood to run down his chin.
“I’m not running, Graham. I see it.”
Graham let go of AJ and he ran in front of Daria, throwing his arms protectively over her.
I tried to yell but no air came out.
The Marquess entered AJ’s mouth. His head rocked backwards and his arms went limp.
Oh. That’s it. I was done. Game over. Fuck the future. Life sucks and then it’s gone.
But then AJ lifted a finger to his forehead and screamed.
Eyes blinked open everywhere. On the trees. On my arms. Popping into existence on every available living thing. Pupils large and white, eyes staring down at us in a rainbow of eye colours.
Then the eyes blinked in unison and when the lids opened, they were mouths instead.
They all spoke in AJ’s voice.
“FUCK OFF!”
The mouths extended their tongues and bit down. Teeth sank into tender muscle. I felt the shock of pain.
AJ stiffened, facing the sky. The Marquess groaned and spilled weakly out of AJ’s mouth. His body was the size of a slug and he wriggled away, trying to flee.
Cecily watched this all silently as she kept me pinned.
A figure emerged from the trees. It was Neve. Her eyes shook as she stared at Daria. The Marquess lurched towards her.
“Just try and stop me, Witch. Your Wolf is finished. Despair. Wail until your throat bleeds. Know that the result would have been the same as if you hadn’t tried at all.”
Neve spoke, but not to the Marquess. Her voice shook with fear. “I did what I promised. Now do your part.”
The Marquess froze, his voice stifled, his sadistic pleasure halted by an outside force. A hand reached down from behind a tree, scooping up the limp handful of sludge.
“How come no one invited me to the party? You’ve even got Rapunzel here,” Chase’s voice said lightly. “Now come, Marquess. There isn’t a second to waste. We have so much to discuss.”