34
MOHE'NA
🙜
With a whistling, creaking breath—like the forest swaying beneath a heavy wind—the shadows compressed and vanished. The world ceased its trembling, the stone on his belt flared back to life, the weapons dimmed and the lanterns flickered.
Ember’s muscles ached and his joints felt stiff, as if he had just run a great distance without pause, but there was no time to dwell on the discomfort—for Ky had already slipped halfway down the treasure pile. She dug her hands into the mound, toes splayed to keep from slipping any further.
All rational thought flew from his head.
He scrambled to the top of the mound and reached down.
But it was too late.
The dusty black cowl swiveled to face her, stinking breath emanating from its depths.
Ember gagged, but Ky slid a bit further down the slope, and the further still, until at last she crouched directly opposite the tattered phantom. It tilted its head unnaturally far to one side, and then the other, observing her from every angle with an eerily singular focus.
Half his instincts warned him to hide, to shelter himself from the sight of that thing. The other half screamed at him to protect the sirena—a creature from whom he could not even defend himself…
Gritting his teeth, he dragged himself and Fishbiter over the pile, clambering painfully down to the other side. By the time he reached the bottom, Ky had already glided across the floor.
"Don't—"
"Mohe’na…"
Ember stopped short, blood chilling and thickening in his veins. That voice—it echoed all over the room, like a hundred baritone men speaking as one. Deep, ragged, with a sibilant current which swept beneath, as if his words were about to crack into a full-throated hiss at any moment.
Ancient, powerful, otherworldly.
What hope do I have against such a beast? he thought slowly, squeezing Fishbiter. What hope has she? Maker’s breath sustain us, or we are surely doomed…
Though what sort of doom had not yet been determined, the delay brought him little comfort: it would not be pleasant or wholesome; of that he was already certain.
Gripping the sword, Ember willed his legs to move, to carry him forward one step at a time. The creature's clawed hand lifted, touched her face—several of its knuckles were gnarled and crippled, and thin lightning-like scars formed a hollow trough down the inside of its arm. The wound grew thickest at the crook of the elbow, and disappeared beneath a ragged sleeve. Countless glittering rings adorned those twisted fingers, and Ember glimpsed human runes on a few of the metal bands.
Ky stood rigid as it traced the thin silvery blemish down her left cheek, coming to a stop just under her chin.
"Mohe’na…" it breathed, and the all lanterns flickered. "The shadow of the past has returned to me once more. I feared you were but another fleshless spirit haunting my dreams."
Ember listened, shocked, to the creature's words: they were perfectly articulated, perfectly intoned. Even Sil had a peculiar accent to her speech, and Ky often made do with simple words. This fiend must be human, or had been human once upon a time… else it had spent so long wandering these halls, encountering naught but human things, that it had molded itself to become like one in speech.
"I am no spirit,” Ky said slowly, a bit of indignation creeping through. "But that is not my name, nor am I knowing you. I would be remembering such an encounter."
The smile that quirked her lips seemed perverted, drawn from her by those insidious words. Ember glared at her, aghast.
The cowled creature recoiled slightly.
"Indeed… how strange. And yet you are Mohe’na in face and voice… ah, my love!" And its hand fell from her chin. "You will not forget me again, Mohe’na, of that I will make certain."
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Flushing with anger, Ember lifted the sword, regaining some mobility through sheer outrage.
And the figure turned to him—quick, like a snake.
"Touch her…"
Ember's mouth dried out and the words died on his tongue as the creature tilted its head again, granting him full view of the shadowy abyss of its cowl: something lay within, but it was unclear exactly what. He had an idea.
After a tight swallow, he licked his lips and managed, "Touch her again, and I'll kill you."
He had not the slightest inkling how, of course, but he was compelled to say it anyway. In hindsight, it was likely a mistake… but the sight of its pale hand on her face made him ill.
It observed him quietly for a moment. And then—
Back went the hood, swept off with a flick of his wrist.
Ember choked, stupefied.
A single black eye, dark as a cloudy night sky, bored into him. To its right lay an empty, twisted socket, charred and shadowed. Webbed ears, much larger than Ky's, rested on either side of his ridged neck, tattered almost beyond recognition. Dark hair hung in leafy patches around his gaunt face, roughly shorn with a knife or a dagger. His white skin looked particularly thin and bruised, and though it appeared soft and glittered faintly in the dusky light, he noticed greyish lines that resembled broken pottery; as if the skin had cracked and healed, cracked and healed again, a thousand times or more, leaving him with only those faint scars beneath the surface.
"You."
More power resonated in that single word than Ky's entire song which had driven the shadow-birds away. Ember stilled, and even his heartbeat slowed at the sound of it.
"A gift, Mohe’na? A costly gift indeed…” His lips trembled momentarily, and then curled into a sneer. “He who would shatter the hearts of our brethren as they slumber. Or was it you, Mohe'na? Have you finally betrayed me?"
"We did not mean to wake the spell," Ky murmured sleepily, her focus still fixed on the other siren. "We did not know…"
The siren's gaze sent cold tingles through Ember's entire body. His eye was lifeless, like black ice. It wandered over him, void of emotion, flickering here and there—until it alighted on Fishbiter.
A shadow fell across his face, and he sucked in his already-gaunt cheeks.
His mouth moved slightly, whispering words that Ember might have missed had he not heard them before.
"A pretty sword…"
It was plain from the quiet sourness, the disdain upon his face, and the sudden tightness in his bearing that this was not his first encounter with Fishbiter. The siren lowered his chin ever so slightly, black-ice eye pressing into Ember's mind.
Behind it lurked a dreadful nothingness.
At last (to Ember's great relief) he shifted his penetrating stare to Ky and growled, "He will suffice. You are wise, Mohe'na, to have brought such sustenance on your journey. I confess that I was angered by your delay… but think not that I am ungrateful, for the nights grow ever longer and the seasons pass as one beneath my mountain. We shall partake… together."
A faint, bothered hmmh made Ember look at her as well.
Ky’s face was drawn and her eyes hooded. Some of the hazy uncertainty had lifted from her, and she licked her lips, glancing from Ember to the siren and back again.
"You did bring him for me, did you not?" the creature purred, slipping two fingers under her chin and tilting her head upward. She gazed into his single eye, utterly lost.
Ember lifted Fishbiter, staggering forward in a kind of hopeless horror—and Ky put out a hand, forcing him to lower the blade. When she turned, it was with a serenely beautiful smile that melted his resolve.
"No, Ember," she crooned. "Do you not see… it is for the good of all."
"I don't see," he snapped, pleased to see her twitch backward at the sound of his voice. He felt cruel as her smile faltered, in spite of himself, but even those three rough words had cleared some of the siren's foul enchantment from the atmosphere. "Would you care to explain?"
Ember's head throbbed with a rush of blood.
So, this was it.
This was how it all ended.
"He is not knowing," she mourned at last, her eyes misting again as she turned to the siren. "But he will understand. I can see that you are as much enamored of him as I. Fear not: the secret of his people will be ours. For my Ember shall give it to us freely."
"I—"
He had no idea what she meant, yet her words compelled him to agree.
I shall… of course I shall…
But that was not what he wanted to say.
Far from it.
The long row of skulls and crude etchings on the pillar flashed through his mind, and with great effort of will, he fixed his gaze upon the disfigured siren—who eyed him with a look of such intensity that Ember knew he was already dissecting him, deciding which part to eat first—and huffed, "I shall do no such thing. Nor would I… do any service… for this murderer… and no manner of torment or t-trickery… would persuade me otherwise."
The siren's fathomless eye flickered to his 'Mohe’na.' And then he unleashed a booming caw of laughter, like thunder and rain and jackdaws in the morning.