Chapter 29. Copper and Blood

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As Veronica went into the entrance hall of Dukemot’s mansion, she grabbed a poker off the fireplace and went to the royal portrait of her parents and sister, a painting that stood almost ten feet tall. She screamed as she swung the pointed tip at their faces, making a deep slash in the canvas across the eyes of Shaleah and Dukemot. She screamed and slashed at them again, making another deep cut across their chests, then another across their legs. “What did I do wrong? I never asked to be hated!” She looked at Manie’s innocent smiling face as a young girl, her blue hair bright and shiny, her eyes glowing with blue flame. “You took everything from me!” Veronica screamed. She shoved the poker into Manie’s eye and pulled back again, leaving a dark hole in one half of her face. “And now you’re trying to do it again?”

Veronica drew her knife and cut an outline around the life-size portion of the painting where she was standing beside Manie and ripped herself out of the frame. “I never meant anything to any of you.” She crumpled up the canvas and threw it into the mouth of a brazier near the entrance, watching her face uncrumple and vanish into a tongue of flame.

Tears ran down Veronica’s face as she panted and stumbled away, letting her knife clatter to the floor. “After everything I’ve done. Everything I’ve given up. I brought Darko and Tonila back to life even after they killed Molly and Dylan… After they tried to kill me! And this is how they repay me? By abandoning me? They’re no different than my family.”

Shawn went to Veronica and grabbed her shoulders. “Veronica, stop… It’s not your fault. You’re trying to do what’s right. They aren’t. It’s just like you said–everyone else is afraid. Only you are brave enough to make the right choices.” Shawn felt nauseated by his own words after the warning Darko and Tonila had given him.

“You’re the only one who’s stood by me,” Veronica said, tears glinting green. “The only one who’s here just for me. Not for the power, or something to be gained…but for me. Not even my sister can live up to that.”

“I think you’d realize you're wrong about that if you talked to Manie yourself,” Shawn said.

“Talk to her?” Veronica asked, as if the suggestion was a betrayal. “After all she’s done to me? All she’s still doing?” Veronica turned to the destroyed picture frame hung on Dukemot’s wall, staring at her sister’s disfigured face. “No. She’ll be lucky if I leave her alive when this is done.”

Shawn felt a wave of panic stir through him. “You promised not to hurt her.”

Veronica stared at Shawn like he was an idiot, freezing in the contemplation of his stupidity. Then her frustration took over and she turned away, breaking free of his arms. “You really are naive sometimes. I care about you, Shawn but I feel like sometimes you can’t even grasp what planet we're on.”

“Yeah, well, you’re wrong. I know exactly what’s going on. And I know that if you keep making enemies out of your allies, it won’t be long before I’m the only friend you have left.” Veronica glared up at Shawn, her stare a veiled threat. “I think Manie would help us if she knew what you were doing,” Shawn said, trying to overcome the panic building inside. “She wants to do what’s right as much as any of us.”

“Do what’s right? By returning to Denengear seventy years after her disappearance just in time to steal my throne?”

“Manie didn’t return, she was resurrected by Mikhail’s Crystal, which only happened because I activated it when I found her bones at the bottom of a cliff in my world.”

“Mikhail’s Crystal can do that?” Veronica asked, confused.

“I guess so–because she died just like you did, Veronica. Manie has suffered too.”

“She didn’t go to the Death Realm,” Veronica said. “I know she didn’t, I would have found her.” She sounded furious that Manie had escaped the punishment she had been forced to endure.

“No, I guess not. But she was still dead. And she regrets what she did to you all the same. If she knew that you were alive, she’d tell you how sorry she is for what happened that night in the tower. I know she would.”

A rumble of thunder shook the stones, and a flash of lighting erupted outside, lighting all the windows in a white flash. Veronica slowly twisted her neck and looked through the glass above and saw Manie’s tower rising high over the city like a giant’s staff, its windows dark and empty. The rage on Veronica’s face melted back into her skin like a toad sinking into a murky lake. “Can you imagine what it feels like to be struck by lightning and fall from a height like that, day after day, hour after hour–for decades?... Come on. I want you to see it.”

“See what?” Shawn asked.

“The place where I died,” Veronica said, looking up the neck of the tall tower as its stones dripped with rain.

***

Veronica had sweat on her arms and neck. Shawn could feel himself panting like a dog as his lungs burned with every breath. The shadows along the walls crawled and crept as Veronica clawed her way to the top of the tower, the torch in her hand bending away the darkness as they rose. The stairs felt endless, like they’d become trapped in a broken reality where they could never get any higher no matter how long they climbed.

“Do we really have to do this?” Shawn asked. “What are you expecting to find up there?”

“Answers to questions I’ve had for too long.”

“What kind of answers? Manie killed you seventy years ago, Vee. That place is gone, forgotten. Like a memory. There’s nothing left.”

“I’m still left,” Veronica said back. “We’re almost to the top. I remember these cracks in the stairs. Only two more turns.”

Twisting shadows opened away into a short hallway where a single door stood off to the side. The stones were black and sooty around the old torches. It was clear no one had lived in this part of the mansion for a long time, likely since Manie herself had occupied it. Veronica went to the door and opened it, stepping inside her sister’s old room. “Here it is. The villain’s den.”

Shawn followed her inside, looking around. Just a few empty shelves without a dresser remained. A mantle with half-burned logs. A candle on a nightstand beside some papers and a book. But nothing else. Just dust.

Veronica took a deep breath. “I haven’t been here since I was first Reborn.” She slowly moved across the polished tiles towards where the outlines of dust marked where Manie’s bed had once been. “It wasn’t long ago when I was here in this exact spot, sharing secrets with my sister while we laughed and practiced the powers from our Crystals. Manie had her Purple Crystal for lightning, and I had my Silver Crystal for wind.”

It was strange for Shawn to see this place. He had imagined it so many times when Manie told him stories of how she’d been imprisoned here, but to see it for himself was different. It was like stepping into a museum. Like he was staring at a piece of history. A history he was now part of. The place where it all went wrong for Manie and her family, and the rest of Talmoria along with them. “Was Manie ever scared when she was locked in here?”

“Scared?” Veronica asked, her voice dim and hollow. “No. She had everything she ever wanted. Servants, guards, chefs and seamstresses, instructors to teach her how to paint and sing and swing swords. She had it all.”

“But I thought she couldn’t leave?” Shawn asked.

“That was only after I…” Veronica didn’t finish her sentence. “Manie was always their favorite, like Tonila said. I was just sort of…there. The daughter of a king who couldn’t wield Mikhail’s Crystal. The un-chosen one. The daughter my parents would have rather forgotten about.”

Veronica wandered over to the window and unlatched the frame. She pushed apart the stained glass that showed a bleeding rose, opening the tower to the night.

“See the blue glow beyond the mountains? Those are your people–the Protectors–coming to steal our future.”

Shawn looked out across the Rims of Denengear and the Teeth of the Earth, past a wave of mountainous, black rock that bit the sky with black fangs. He could see a tide of blue light smeared beyond the mist and clouds as wide as a city. It was Jarod’s army, coming to unseat the King. But would it be the King they unseated when they arrived? Or Veronica?

“They’ll be here soon,” Veronica said, sounding as if she was witnessing the approaching end of the world.

“I can protect you,” Shawn said. “If I tell Jarod what we’re planning, he won’t hurt you… He might even help you.”

Veronica turned to Shawn. “Do you really believe that?”

Shawn looked away. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s better if we just hurry up and get the Black Crystal before they get here.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Veronica said.

A storm was coming into the city from the sea, pouring over the land from the ocean beyond the cliffs and melting into a wall of fog and mist. The tall towers and thousands of tiny wood buildings at their feet glowed like a roaring kiln, burping up sparks and smoke from the alleys and squares where merchants sold their wares, and corpses from victims of the Gray Death were burned in great pits and piles. Denengear seemed to go on and on for miles, stretching far away into fog and shadow before Shawn’s sight could reach its end.

“I remember when this city used to be full of life, and beautiful sunsets, and music, and food, and love. It was the most magnificent city on the island–a place where anything could happen. People used to sail here from thousands of miles across the sea just to see it. Now it’s a ruin of fire and disease… The last night me and my sister spent together was down there in that city, and it was the happiest night of our lives…”

Veronica turned back to Shawn. “And the last time I was here in her tower I came to kill myself. It would have been the seventh time I’d done it.”

“What?” Shawn asked, stunned to hear her say that. “Why?”

“Because I…didn’t know I was alive. Somehow, I found my way up here to my sister’s tower after being Reborn, and right when I was about to jump and reenact my nightmare in reality, I realized It wasn’t a dream. It was real, and I was in control of my own destiny again. And it was the first time since my sister killed me that I truly felt alive. That was the moment I decided to live, at the place where I was killed.”

“Why, though…? Didn’t you want to live before that?”

“I did, but I.... I thought I was still in the Death Realm. I couldn’t tell apart my dreams from reality.” Veronica’s sorrow was replaced by a devious smile. “I remember once–I think it was the third time–I was in the kitchen waiting for cooked lamb and boiled crab just minutes after my father had brought me out of the Death Realm. I grabbed a big knife off the counter and stuck it into my throat–right in front of him and the chef.” Veronica looked at Shawn and laughed. “Pretty fucked up, huh?”

Shawn was horrified. He forced a laugh that sounded as fake as it felt. “Didn’t it hurt?”

“Yeah,” Veronica said, raising her eyebrows. “It really hurt. I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re thinking about ending things. Not a very pleasant way to go.”

“Yeah, doesn’t sound like it,” Shawn said, letting a small laugh come out that wasn’t forced. “What did your dad do after?”

Veronica raised her shoulders. “I guess he went downstairs and brought me back again. I didn’t always kill myself right away. Sometimes I made it months before I found a new way to die.”

Veronica wandered to the book on the nightstand and picked it up. “Lectures on shipbuilding. I wonder who left this here.” She tossed it over her shoulder and out the window. Veronica slid her hand along the edge of the nightstand and pulled on the corner of the wood, making the edge lift up and unlock a secret drawer at the back. “There you are…” Veronica pulled out the drawer, revealing another book. This one was leather bound with no name on the cover. Veronica untied the cover and opened it, revealing handwritten pages dated over seventy years before today. “My sister’s journal. I bet she thought she was the only one who knew it even existed. Wrong again little sister.”

Veronica started flipping through pages, reading a few lines here and there. “I caught a big toad with green spots today. Father said I could keep it.” Veronica squinted, looking nauseated. “Too far back.” She flipped more pages, finding another entry. “Father told me that Mikhail’s Crystal is dangerous, and that I have to keep it secret from bad people who want to hurt me and use its power for evil, but he doesn’t know it can let me see the Torch-Wings. They’re so pretty and nice. I wish I could live with them forever. But Veronica told me not to tell anyone about them, because if I did, more bad people would show up to take them away. But why would someone want to hurt them? All they do is grow trees and flowers and build their cities out of glass.”

Veronica shook her head, disappointment icing her eyes. “Oh little sister. If only you’d listened to me.” Veronica flipped forwards more pages and found another entry, continuing to read. “Veronica tried to take the Crystal today.” Veronica paused and read ahead silently. Shawn began to read too, before Veronica could flip the page. She said she was trying to save me from father. When I told her I didn’t want to go, she tried to make me, so I bit her, and then she hit me. Really hard. She made my nose bleed for an hour. Marcus saw and told Father and he got really angry, and now Veronica can’t visit me anymore. He said she’s just as selfish as–

Veronica flipped the page. “Not what I’m looking for.”

“What are you looking for?” Shawn asked, letting out a breath. He imagined Manie as a young girl, her nose bleeding from Veronica’s strike, hair as blue as it had been the day they met. Veronica kept flipping pages until landing on one much further into the book.

“This…” Veronica read the words silently to herself, and Shawn read with her.

We rescued thirty more Torch-Wings today. Father sent them to the healers to be given their medicine and then set free, just like all the others. If we keep going at this pace we’ll have cured all the Torch-Wings in the south, then they can spread their immunity to the ones in the North. Gray-Wing is a horrible illness, but I know we’ll be able to stop it if we don’t stop trying. I just wish Veronica were still here. I miss her more everyday, but I know she’d be proud of me if she could see what me and Father have accomplished…

Veronica snapped the journal shut, her lips bending into a frown of suffering. “Proud. She thought I’d be proud of her.” Veronica slung Manie’s journal out the window, making the pages flutter open as it fell into the night. “She’s such an idiot. She always has been. But at least she didn’t know…”

“What’s Gray-Wing?” Shawn asked. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“There’s no such thing. It isn’t real. Clearly it’s something my father made up so he could convince my sister to help him capture Torch-Wings. I always wondered how he got her to do it.”

“So he tricked Manie into helping him by telling her that they were saving the Torch-Wings?”

“That’s the way it seems. She should have known better. I told her to keep the Torch-Wings a secret. I told her what would happen if the world found out that they weren’t just fairy tales. And they would have stayed fairy tales forever if she’d just come with me that night at the festival…”

“Maybe you’re right, maybe she should have listened to you… But Manie didn’t know what she was doing. You can’t blame her for what happened to the Torch-Wings.”

“Oh yes I can. I’ll hold my sister responsible for their destruction until the day I disappear from this world.”

“Your father is the one responsible for that. Not Manie.”

“There’s a lot more that my sister is responsible for, Shawn. What does it matter if she was the one to give the orders for their destruction herself, or if she simply helped make that destruction possible in the first place–it still led to the same outcome: millions of dead Torch-Wings and dozens of forests burned.”

“I don’t understand why you hate Manie so much, Veronica,” Shawn said, staring out the window. “It doesn’t make sense. You were so close.”

“It doesn’t make sense?” Veronica asked, huffing out a breath. “Do I really have to explain it to you? She was my sister. She ended that bond here, when she squeezed a bolt of lightning into my veins and dropped me from a height that would have killed anyone.”

“She didn’t mean for you to die. It was an accident. She’s never stopped regretting what she did, Vee. It was always a mistake in her eyes.”

“How do you know? You don’t know what thoughts were going through her mind that night. Maybe she was trying to take my throne even then and I just didn’t know it.”

“What was it like before that night?” Shawn asked.

“Before?...” Veronica turned back to the open window, the anger in her eyes melting into sorrow. “She meant everything to me. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done for her… She was my sister.”

“That’s how I know,” Shawn said. “You and Manie were too close for that, Veronica. She wouldn’t have done that to you. She looks up to you, even now.”

Veronica shook her head and put her palm against her forehead. “I tried to save her, Shawn. I did. I was going to run away and take her to the North to find our mother. But she wouldn’t listen to me. She’s too stubborn. My father must have poisoned her against me.” Veronica held up her hand and stared at her knuckles, where a row of scars like teeth painted her skin. “She’s an idiot.”

“Why would you want to take her to your mother? She created the Gray Death.”

“Yeah well, I didn’t know that back then,” Veronica said, crossing her arms. “I thought she was the only one who could help us. We probably never would have found her anyways. But we would have found the Turquoise Crystal eventually. That I know.”

“What happened after Manie refused to go with you?” Shawn asked.

“I was forbidden from seeing her without guards present, ordered by the king himself. They thought I wanted to steal Mikhail’s Crystal that night, but it was never about that, it was about us–about me and my sister–about being happy. Maybe we really could have been happy if she’d just come with me that night. Maybe we could have gone off together and had adventures in new lands–as sisters–like I’d always dreamed. Maybe it would have been us who saved the North from Goroth. Maybe it would have been us who stopped the Gray Death before it destroyed the entire island…” Veronica’s hair was dragged off her shoulder in the wind, drifting into the breeze outside the window.

“But she didn’t. She chose fear. She chose weakness. And I chose strength. And now here we are, standing on the edge of two worlds–hers…and mine.”

Shawn looked out across the glowing streets of Denengear. The city was spotted with patches of broken light and the dying life that clung to the shadows and empty windows across Copper Lanes. Streams of black smoke in alleys like chimneys were burping up from the wood and glass towers below, shedding flesh and bone from the dying and dead and leaving only ash to blanket the world left behind.

“All I’ve ever wanted was to see what a world ruled by the right people could look like. People who really care about the ones at the bottom… The ones who were forgotten. Like me. If we make this world of Reborn, we’ll never have to be afraid of weak men getting control of the future ever again. We could rule Talmoria forever. Together.” Veronica turned back to Shawn, eyes twinkling in the reflection of the blue light burning in his eyes. “Like me and my sister should have.”

Shawn stared for a moment, unable to speak as he fell into a hypnotic daze from her beauty and the words she’d spoken. He looked up to her and her visions. She was strong and fearless. But lost underneath. “There’s two people in you, Veronica.” Shawn said. “One that misses her sister and the future they might have had. And the one that hates her sister for what she took away…”

“No… There’s only one. I can never forgive her for what she did,” Veronica said, shaking her head. “The Death Realm tore at me for decades until there was nothing left. I lost my happiness, my hope… Sometimes I wonder if everyone is right when they say that Veronica is really dead, because I surely don’t feel the same as I used to… But if that’s true, then who am I?” She looked at Shawn, eyes a thousand miles from where she stood. “I have to be someone.”

“You are her, Veronica. You have her memories, her strength, her thoughts. You have her beauty.” Shawn took Veronica’s hand, making her look at their fingers before their eyes met. “But you also have her weaknesses. I know you care about your sister deep inside. After everything you’ve been through together, you have to. She is your weakness. But she could be your strength if you let her be. If you and Manie were as close as you were, then you have to give that future a second chance. If Manie knew you were alive, she’d tell you she was sorry, Vee. And she’d tell you how much she missed you.”

Tears welled up in Veronica’s eyes, then she got angry. “I can’t! My sister is going to destroy everything I’ve created. Just like she did the first time. She’ll never do what I want!”

“She can’t hurt you, Veronica. You have to believe in yourself. Look how far we’ve come since you found the Turquoise Crystal. I wasn’t sure about your plan at first, but… I am now. This is your destiny. This is who you were meant to be. The Queen of the Reborn. No one else can save these people except you. You have to do this.” Shawn almost bit his tongue after saying the words. It felt dangerous to even suggest it could become real, especially to her. Was it even a lie? If it was, it was a dangerous one.

Veronica looked hypnotized by Shawn’s words. “I know,” she said, her voice lifted and bent by frustration. “That’s why I never gave up. They need us, Shawn. No one outside my father’s mansion even knew the Reborn could be real until I showed them. And now that they’ve seen it, they know the solution as clearly as we do. The Black Crystal is the key to the future of the island. The key to undoing the past. To saving everyone. We have to do this. This is what the world needs, whether they can stomach it or not.”

She was believing the lie. “You’re right. And we have to take it from your father. Who knows what he or The Protectors might do to it if we don’t act fast. But we need your sister’s help, Veronica. She’s closer to your father than anyone. She can help us get the Black Crystal and then we’ll be even stronger than we are now. No one would be able to stop us.” If I can convince her of this, I can keep Manie safe. Shawn felt the sweat on his neck cooling in the breeze. And then I’ll have to convince Manie.

Veronica looked out the window again, towards the North, past the biting teeth of the Rims of Denengear, where the sparkling mountain range broke into a flatland of sparkling snow, painted blue by the burning eyes of the Protectors. Shawn guessed there were at least ten thousand fighters out there. Jarod had grown his army strong on its march south. He only hoped Jango was having as much success with the vaccine he and Tess had come up with as Jarod was with his war plans.

“You still love her,” Veronica said, her voice soured by sorrow. “She’s all that’s ever mattered to you, isn’t she? You never cared about the Torch-Wings or the Crystals or saving the North. It was always about her.”

“It was,” Shawn said, feeling caught as his heart hammered inside his chest. “I don’t… I didn’t have any connection to this place back then. If you saw the world I’m from, you’d understand. I never wanted to come here in the first place. Manie asked me to help her, so I did.”

Veronica turned back to Shawn. “My sister brought you here?”

“Yes,” Shawn said, looking across the North. “Well…actually it was more like a kidnapping until I decided to stay on my own. She threatened to hurt me if I didn’t go with her…” It felt foul to admit.

“She forced you to help her?” Veronica asked, sounding furious. “With what?”

“She needed my power over Mikhail’s Crystal to see the Torch-Wings.”

“Why couldn’t she do it herself?”

“She lost the power over Mikhail’s Crystal after she killed you.”

Veronica let out a sigh of anger. She looked like she would have stabbed her sister if they were near enough to reach each other. “So she needed your help to see the Torch-Wings that she was the one to imprison in the first place?”

Shawn didn’t answer that. “Fitzel would have died. That’s why Manie needed me. We took Fitzel to Milly’s forest and Milly revived a piece of Fitzel’s birth tree. Now she might live just as long as the other Torch-Wings.”

“But the others died? Bree? And Julius?”

Shawn shrugged and shook his head. “They turned to stone, like Fitzel nearly did. We were too late. It had been seventy years since Manie disappeared.”

Veronica looked like she’d tasted rotten water. “My sister only pretends to care about things when our world has come to the edge of disaster. If she really cared, she’d prevent things like that from happening in the first place. Now you and I have to clean up the mess.” Veronica took Shawn’s hands, letting out a breath. “She’s taken so much from both of us, Shawn. She took my life, and she took everything from you but your life. We don’t need her. We never have and we never will. Just like Darko and Tonila–people like my sister are only going to hold us back. There’s no room in our future for her. We can do this without her help. All we need is each other.”

Shawn’s eyes fell and he let out a long breath. “She cares about us, Vee. Both of us.”

Veronica shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you and me, here and now. If we let my sister in, she’ll just lie to both of us to get what she wants. She’ll trick you, manipulate your thoughts and actions, spin your desires and goals until she’s the one sitting atop Talmoria’s throne and you and I are forgotten pages in her history. That’s all it’s ever been about for her. It was never about family or doing what was right. She’s returned home to claim what she thinks is hers.”

Shawn looked away, out the window towards the marching Protectors. “That’s never what it’s been about for Manie.”

“You say that to me now, but look at what she’s doing behind our backs. Preparing to take the throne with my father and the rest of his used-to-be inner council members. She’ll never let our world of Reborn exist. She’s a coward like the rest of the people hiding in the Sky District. Always afraid to do what has to be done. Everything you know about my sister is a lie, Shawn. She’s never been brave, or smart, or strong. She’s never been who you thought she was. She’s never even been who I thought she was.”

Shawn didn’t try to hide the fact that he disagreed. He crossed his arms and continued to look out the window.

Veronica grabbed Shawn’s chin and turned his face towards hers. “We aren’t going to let her win. We will destroy anyone who stands in our way–including my sister. This island belongs to us–and us alone. No one is going to stop us from doing what’s right.” Shawn saw no fear in her eyes, nor resistance to do what was necessary to win this war. No ceiling to her endless ambition. “You have to promise me, Shawn. Promise that this relationship between you and my sister is over after tonight. It can’t exist in the world we’re trying to make. She’s not compatible.”

“What are you going to do to her?” Shawn asked, terrified to even hear what she would say.

“She has to be kept in a cage,” Veronica said. “I won’t kill her. I wouldn’t want her blood on my hands. Watching her turn old and gray while everyone else stays young and fresh would be its own unique flavor of torture. Maybe not as bad as the Death Realm, but it’s something...”

The idea of that was comforting to Shawn. At least he’d have plenty of time to rescue Manie if it came to that. “I think that’s a good idea. It’s a fitting end for her considering what she did to the Torch-Wings.”

“Exactly,” Veronica said, growing excited. “What could be more poetic than the imprisoner to become imprisoned? She kept the most beautiful and magical creatures on our island in cages with my father’s help. She sent her own sibling to a prison worse than death. I’ll make her her own…”

Shawn reached out and swept hair out of Veronica’s eyes, making her look up and smile. “You’re like no one I’ve ever met before.”

“In a good way?” Veronica asked, laughing like a child.

“In your own way,” Shawn said. He watched the green fire in her eyes snap and dance, growing as excited as his own heart was. He leaned forwards and Veronica’s eyes grew wide. Shawn held her cheek and kissed her. He could feel the electricity in their veins meeting and exploding between their lips. Veronica closed her eyes and kissed back, putting her hands on Shawn’s shoulders before she playfully pushed him away.

“We’re in the room where my sister murdered me, not on some romantic voyage across the sea. Pull yourself together.”

“I couldn’t help it,” Shawn said, trying not to blush. “You’re beautiful.”

Veronica leaned forwards and gave him a second quick peck on the lips. “I think we need more of that.”

“So sweet,” a deep and quiet voice echoed out from the shadows.

Veronica gasped as she and Shawn turned towards the voice in the doorway. There was a large figure standing in the inky blackness beyond where the torch’s flame could reach. There was no face to see, no eyes to meet, just a dark shape.

“Who are you?” Veronica shouted at the darkness, her fury underpinned by terror.

Shawn felt a blanket of ice settle over his skin, like the temperature had dropped a-thousand degrees.

“Death,” the man replied, as an arm came down out of the shadows wielding a long dagger. The metal shimmered and sparkled in the orange of the torch-light like it was about to sprout flames.

Shawn froze as the blade twisted and let him see Veronica’s face reflected in the steel. “Get back!” Shawn shouted as he threw up his arms to defend her, but just as quickly as he spoke, a fist rocketed out of the darkness and slammed into Shawn’s cheek, knocking him off his feet. Shawn rolled over his shoulder and looked up from his back as the man raced towards Veronica, going for a gut-punch with the tip of his blade.

Veronica screamed and twisted away as the dagger whipped through the air beside her. “Shawn!” she yelped.

The attacker grabbed Veronica by the arm and slung her against the wall beside the open window, making her grunt when her back hit the stones.

“Get away from the window!” Shawn shouted as he struggled to get back to his feet.

The attacker swung up the blade again but Veronica redirected his arm and made the point dig in to the wall beside her cheek with a stream of bright sparks and red blood. Veronica screamed as a bleeding slash appeared across her face. She grabbed her own dagger from the sheathe on her hip and shoved the tip up into the attacker’s chin, making the blade reappear inside his mouth amidst a fountain of spraying blood. A shower of hot red blood washed across Veronica’s arms and over her chest as the assassin gurgled and coughed, swaying in her grip.

The attacker dropped his dagger and stumbled back, holding Veronica’s wrist while she clung to the handle of the blade in his mouth. “Fuck…ing… bitch!”

“Let go of me!” Veronica screamed, her eyes closed.

Shawn aimed his hands to blast the man away with his powers, but he’d stumbled too close to the open window with Veronica locked in his grip. If Shawn tried to save her, he’d send them both rocketing out the window to fall to their deaths. “Get away from the window!” he shouted again, desperately looking for another way to help.

The assassin backhanded Veronica, making her lose grip on the handle of her blade and scream. Shawn ran for the assassin’s knife on the floor but the attacker saw Shawn coming and kicked his own weapon, making it skitter across the room and into the dark corners. He put his boot against Shawn’s chest and kicked him off his feet. The Assassin then turned and grabbed Veronica by the hair and shoulder, dragging her to the edge of the window.

“No!” Veronica screamed, swinging her arms and kicking him when she could. “Stop! I’m the Queen!”

The Assassin roared like a bear and threw Veronica out of Manie’s window head-first.

Shawn reached out and screamed, “NO! Veronica!”

As she fell, Veronica managed to grab the assassin’s ankle and her weight yanked his feet out from under him. The intruder flipped back and knocked his head against the tile floor of Manie’s bedroom, then his heavy body slid out of the open frame like a slick leech, screaming as he went out.

Veronica managed to cling to the bar beneath Manie’s window to halt her fall, but as the assassin tumbled over her, he grabbed her leg to stop his own descent and jerked down on her body with all his weight. Veronica’s bloody fingers slipped from the bar as she lost grip with one hand, her body swinging in the howling wind.

“Shawn!” Veronica screamed, her voice strained. “I can’t hold on!”

Shawn crawled to the window as fast as he could, his knees sliding in the hot blood across the floor. “I’m coming!” When Shawn got to the edge he looked down and saw Veronica hanging by one arm from Manie’s window, blood pouring out of the wound in her face.

Veronica grunted as the man used her legs like a ladder, climbing up her body to get back to the window, knife still protruding from his jaw. Her clothes were tearing and sliding under his bloody fingers as he went up. He reached and grabbed onto Veronica’s shoulder with one hand, staring at Shawn with begging eyes. “Her!” the assassin gurgled. “Only her!”

Veronica grabbed the dagger in the assassin’s chin and screamed in primal fury as she ripped the blade out of his jaw, then instantly stuck the blade forward again and into his throat. She gave a tight twist, then removed the point from the assassin’s flesh. This time, he fell, his grip on Veronica’s body coming loose. Veronica and Shawn watched him descend all the way to the ground below where his corpse shattered against the stones in a sickening crunch, leaving a smear of red across the white road.

“Pull me up!” Veronica shouted, voice shuddering.

“I’ve got you!” Shawn said back as he grabbed her arm in both hands. He grunted as he raised Veronica up and pulled her back inside. When she was on her knees, Shawn’s fingers slipped from her bloody wrist and he tumbled back to the floor, soaking his back in blood again.

“I can’t believe that just happened.” Veronica said, whimpering as she crawled away from the window and leaned against the wall, chest rising in and out. She raised up her hand and felt the cut across her cheek, wincing as she touched the blood.

“Are you okay?” Shawn asked as he crawled to her side, panting as sweat dripped from his brow.

Veronica turned to him, lip shaking. Tears ran down from her eyes and carved a clean pathway through the blood, revealing a deep slash in her skin that went bone-deep.

Shawn sucked air through his teeth. “You have to get that cleaned and stitched or it’s going to get infected.”

“Someone just tried to kill me and you’re talking about stitches?” Veronica said, her voice on the edge of anger. She covered the cut on her face with her palm, shivering.

“I want to make sure you’re okay first… but no…that’s not the only thing I’m thinking about. I’m also thinking about how that guy who attacked you looked familiar.”

“He’s not going to be familiar to anyone anymore. No one will ever see his face again!” Veronica shouted, whipping the blood from her cheek off her hands. “He’ll stay in the Death Realm for all eternity! He will never be Reborn. Not as long as I’m the one who decides who lives and dies.”

Shawn recoiled from Veronica’s fury, trying not to let it affect him. “No… I mean I’ve seen his face before. He was there in Darko’s office when we went to ask them why they hadn’t come to the meetings.”

Veronica’s eyes turned to Shawn’s and she froze. “You’re right. Now that you mention it, I remember him, too.”

“What does that mean?” Shawn asked. “Do you think he acted on his own? Why would anyone want you dead?”

“Darko sent him,” Veronica said, her voice growing numb. “It had to be him. He’s the only person who knows about our plan that can be negatively affected by its outcome. He knows his power is slipping away.” Veronica’s eyes closed into slits. “I knew he’d be angry, but I never thought he’d want to kill me.” Her eyes wheeled across the room. “After all I’ve done for them… I could have left them to ROT in the Death Realm! And this is how they repay me? With a knife in the shadows?”

Veronica pushed herself off the bloody floor, gritting her teeth as she held the cut on her face, blood spilling between her fingers. “They’re going to regret that mistake until the end of time.”

Shawn stood with her, panic rising in his heart. Darko and Tonila felt closer to allies than almost everyone else Shawn found himself surrounded by now. He didn’t want to see them get hurt…or worse. “What are you going to do to them?”

“Find Marcus and Silvan,” Veronica ordered. “Tell them to meet us at The Forge. I’ll get Molly and Dylan.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“What are you going to do?” Shawn asked again, the dread in his voice even heavier on his tongue than before.

“I’m going to make them pay for what they’ve done,” Veronica said in a rage-filled voice just barely louder than a whisper. “They’ve avoided their fates for too long.”

***

“It’s the Queen of the Reborn,” said a man to a dirty-faced woman kneeling in the gutters at his side. “She’s bleeding.”

A pair of children pointed at Veronica and whispered in each others’ ears as they searched the pockets of a dead man floating in the canal.

“Out of my way,” Veronica said to the crowd building in front of her.

“What happened to you, my Queen?” a red-haired woman asked.

“She’s hurt,” an old woman whimpered.

“Curse the gods–what have they done to her?” A man lamented as he fell to his knees at her side in the garbage and rotten vegetables around him, the light of the fires painting half his face as black as shadow.

Veronica froze as she came to the intersection where the city broke into two halves by the canal. There stood a building made of wood and glass and stone, purple braziers burning at an entrance beside the river of green water and rotten flesh, buried behind a half-a-thousand moving bodies that made up the mass of a dense crowd before her. On the sides of the road were heaps of corpses rotting in gutters and alleys as packs of rats and murders of crows feasted on the remains–others being burned or being carried away by masked men to be burned later. The Forge was before them. A monument to the dark deeds and whispers of bitter betrayal that had corrupted the lower city since Darko and Tonila had first made Talmoria their home; a place where coins passed hands and innocents died on a whim, always in the pursuit of one thing–power–whether it be built through fame, or fortune, or blood. And tonight it would come to an end.

Veronica rose her arms and made a river of green flame wash into the sky above the crowd, drawing a thousand eyes to her magic like moths to a lantern. The world in the green inferno crackled and roared over wooden roofs and between tall towers like a toxic cloud, creating a living picture of the Death Realm for all to see, bending and melting as wind and smoke dragged through it like clawing fingers. In that world of green fire were tens of thousands of faces staring back into the world of life, watching the living watch them, begging and reaching out to the world beyond the Death Realm’s shadow. The people of Copper Lanes looked into their burning sky with shock and awe glazing over their eyes, terrified by the magnificence of what they saw.

Veronica clapped her hands and made the image of the Death Realm and the green faces explode into a field of millions of green sparks, creating a percussive shockwave that rolled down and snapped across the streets like an earthquake, shattering dozens of windows and making the crows and rats abandon their rotting meals, making many of the women scream and children flee, making many others fall off their feet. The hundreds of onlookers ducked and slowly rose as the sound and force of the explosion dissipated away.

“The monsters who live in that building tried to take your future away from you!” Veronica screamed, her voice echoing off the cobblestone streets. “Darko and Tonila, the kind, generous rulers of Copper Lanes, sent an assassin to kill your queen! To put an end to the hope to see your lost families ever again! But here I still stand!”

Shawn came up beside Veronica, looking out at the hundreds of faces watching her every move. He turned his eyes on The Forge, seeing a tall shadow standing in the porthole window on the third floor. Another shadow soon came in to join the first. Fierce muttering and dark whispers washed across the crowd, discussing what Veronica had just told them.

“They are never going to help anyone in this city. Only themselves! Their goal has never been to save you or build a better world for us all. Their only goal is to preserve their choking grip on Copper Lanes. At whatever cost. Even if that cost is the lives of every single person that has been sent to suffer in the Death Realm. Your fathers and brothers and sisters and mothers–none of them mean anything to the king and queen of Copper Lanes.”

Madness erupted amongst the crowd as shouts and cries of fury descended over the streets. “Murderers!” a bearded man screamed. “Child killers!” another woman added. “Lets go kick down their door and cut off their fucking heads!” screamed another.

Veronica smiled, the cut in her cheek shedding a tear of blood as her skin grew tight. “The time has come for justice to be given to those who have spent an eternity hiding from it. Tonight we march to our future, to a better world, to a world–that will be–Reborn!”

Veronica’s voice echoed across the streets, drawing a chill up Shawn’s spine. Marcus smiled and looked over the crowd, then raised his fist in the air and roared, “For the future of Talmoria!” Drawing up a furious echo of his words as the people of Copper Lanes chanted with him, “For the future! For the future! For the future!” Over and over again, until the towers and stones of copper lanes began to vibrate and hum the words back at them.

Shawn felt Molly grab his hand, and he looked down at her, his mouth stuck open in awe, the breath in his lungs cold and short.

“Shawn, you can’t let her do this… She’ll never be the same after this.” There were tears in Molly’s eyes as she looked up at him. Shawn turned to see Silvan. He was watching Veronica’s crowd with terror reflecting in his burning eyes.

“They tried to kill her, Molly. They sent an assassin to kill Vee,” Shawn said, for once understanding Veronica’s anger. “She’d do the same for you.”

Molly’s eyes fell, then she looked out across the chanting crowd. “It doesn’t matter who’s responsible for hurting her, she’ll never stop fighting. It’s the only thing she knows how to do. She has to forgive her enemies to have peace, but she can’t. It’s impossible for her to forget…the Death Realm took that part away from her.”

Shawn tried again to think about what was right, but the panic from the assassin’s attack was still raging in his mind. “Forgive them? Molly, Darko tried to have Veronica killed! Those same people actually killed you, and Dylan. Some people don’t deserve forgiveness. Whatever she does to them tonight, they’ll have earned it a long time ago.”

Molly grabbed Shawn’s arm with both hands and started to cry. “You can’t believe that, Shawn! You’re a Protector. You’re supposed to protect people–not help kill them! You’re supposed to be the one who knows what’s right!”

Molly’s words bit into Shawn’s heart, making him question who he had let himself become, but he drove the feeling away before it took hold, using his anger like a shield as he shoved Molly off his arm, making her fall back into the mud and garbage. “I never even knew what a Protector was until I found some stupid rock buried at the bottom of a cliff!” he shouted down at her, unleashing his rage. Molly winced and put up her hand to protect her face. “Before that day, I was just a normal teenager with normal problems–like you used to be. I never even wanted to come to Talmoria in the first place. Manie made me come here. If not for her, I’d still be sitting at home watching movies on my t.v. and hanging out with my friends, enjoying my life. Instead I’m here, in this fucked up world where I can’t tell nightmares from reality. I don’t give a shit about being a Protector, and I never have. It’s just an unexplainable blue flame in my eyes that I have no control over.”

Molly sat there beneath Shawn, whimpering in the rain and muck as the crowd beyond Vee shouted and chanted, “For the future! For the future!”

Shawn peered back and saw Veronica drinking in their fury like a drug. He looked at Molly, crying and sniffling beneath him as Dylan and Marcus stepped past her and took their places beside their queen. Shawn looked down at the blood staining his hands, causing a sheen of blue light to wash over them. For the first time since defeating Goroth, he didn’t feel like a Protector anymore, he felt like no one. Just a lost teenager in a world he barely understood. And here he was about to take the side of a girl who’d clearly lost her mind.

Silvan came over and kneeled, taking Molly’s hand. “Come on,” he said softly. “Don’t sit down there in the muck.”

“We have to stop her, Silvan,” Molly whimpered as she came up. “We have to do something.”

“We can’t,” was Silvan’s response. “It’s too late.”

“Are you coming, Shawn?” Veronica called back, looking at Shawn from over her shoulder as the army behind her chanted her name. “I need you with me.”

Shawn looked back at Molly as Silvan marched her away. “We can’t let this happen,” she begged. “We can’t…”

Shawn swallowed and turned back to Vee, knowing he was making the wrong choice. I should have let the assassin finish the job. Only her, the assassin had pleaded before he died. Only her.

“I’m coming,” Shawn called back as he went to her. When he got to Veronica’s side, she smiled an evil smile and took his hand.

“The city will remember this night forever,” she said. “I want to make sure they remember your name alongside mine.”

She began to march towards Darko’s den, The Forge, where Tonila and the rest of Darko’s band of dangerous goons and slimy cutthroats were holed up. As the crowd parted and allowed Veronica to go through, Shawn saw the shadows in the window upstairs hover out of sight. He looked around the streets and saw people lighting torches and producing weapons–spears and sharpened sticks, knives and clubs and hammers. Rocks began to fling through the air, pelting the face of the building and making tiny cracks wherever there was glass to touch. It sounded like a hailstorm had descended over Copper Lanes as hundreds of projectiles flew in to strike the building from every angle imaginable.

Darko and Tonila appeared inside the entrance of The Forge downstairs, slowly coming out to face the crowd, joined by four armed men and one woman, wearing iron and steel armor and wielding swords.

“Do you hear that sound, Darko?” Veronica shouted over the furor, putting a hand against her ear. “That’s the sound of your reign over Copper Lanes coming to an end! The time has arrived for our city to have its true Queen!”

“A queen?” Darko asked back, sounding furious but restrained. “Is that what you’ve taken to calling yourself now? A queen? Of what? A queen of an idea? You have nothing to give these people, Veronica. You lied to them. Talmoria already has a ruler.”

“You’re the one who lies and cheats and pays monsters to rob and kill!” shouted an onlooker. “Everything you touch turns to blood and gold!”

“You’re the past, she is the future!” screamed another. “Time has come to wash away the filth!”

“The future she is offering is a fantasy!” Darko shouted back. “Wake up and see that truth before she takes your city by its throat! The people she brings back from the Death Realm will be forgeries of their past selves. Lies wearing familiar faces. They will be bound to her and her alone! The people you remember are gone! And they will stay gone forever! It’s time to wake up from this dream she’s put into all of your heads and accept reality!”

A rock flew out of the crowd and struck Darko in the temple, dropping him to his knees. Blood trickled down the edge of his face and dropped onto the stones below, mixing with the water. The crowd swelled around The Forge like a snake wrapping itself around its prey. Tonila ripped her sword from its sheath as she stepped out ahead of Darko with the rest of her guards. “Get back!” she screamed. “Or I’ll send you all to join your families tonight!”

“Has everyone let themselves be so easily convinced by a child?!” Darko asked the crowd gathering around him as he rose up from his knees, taking his fingers away from the bleeding wound on his head. “Have you all forgotten that I was the one to bring order to Copper Lanes in the first place? It was me! Not that girl. Not her father. I did! Without me, you’d all still be begging for crumbs and coppers at the feet of the ones who spit down on you from the Sky District! I raised these streets up from mud and filth, enriched your world since the moment I first set foot in this city. I saved you! I saved all of you! From a king and queen who would rather see their lands burned and poisoned than find a way to help the people living on them!”

Veronica came to the front of the crowd, making them part to let her in. Shawn was with her, and so were Marcus and Dylan. Marcus pushed a man out of his way and shouted, “I never thought I’d see the day where a nauseating parasite like you could dare compare themself to a hero. You murdered my only daughter! Burned her alive in her own home and made my wife watch so that you could prove a point!”

Darko paused as he turned to face Marcus. “You cut down plenty of my men before that day became necessary,” Darko said as his eyes squeezed nearly shut.

“My wife hung herself because of what she saw that day,” Marcus growled. “I wish I could make you hear their screams like I had to…I know I’ll never forget them. I can hear them even now.”

Darko looked at the wet stones below, then smiled as his eyes went back to Marcus’s, full of fury and dark rage. “I wish I could have heard them scream. Nothing would have brought me more pleasure than listening to your wife and daughter die. But knowing that you did, is enough for me.”

The crowd had gone almost silent after Darko’s words. “Kill him where he stands!” A woman screamed, breaking the quiet.

Dylan came up beside Marcus and smiled. “Tonila’s just as bad,” he added, looking in her direction. “I remember when she beat me with a wooden club on Darko’s orders to find a key. Every time she swung, I watched more of my teeth come flying out of my mouth. And blood too, lots of blood and pain. Those were the last things I remember before our queen rescued me from the Death Realm and brought me back to life–just after she herself was Reborn following decades spent trapped in that nightmare. Let me ask you a question, Darko–do I look like a lie to you?” Dylan raised up his arms and looked at them before turning his eyes back to Darko’s. “Do any of us look like lies to you? Because this looks pretty real to me.” Dylan smiled as rage spread across the faces of the crowd and they continued to close in, readying their weapons and rocks for battle.

Tonila watched the people around her with a mixture of fear and rage in her eyes. She bared her teeth and stepped towards the crowd. “I’ve heard enough! Kill them! Kill everyone who doesn’t run!” The crowd seemed unafraid, but the front row hesitantly staggered back as Tonila and her guards came towards them. “And five-hundred gold slivers to whoever brings me the new queen’s head!”

Tonila swung her blade with a grunt at a man wielding a stone in one hand, slashing off the arm that held it. He fell back screaming as blood sprayed from his wrist, caught by the crowd behind him. Tonila swung her blade to the side and decapitated a man rushing towards her with a knife. A shattered brick came flying up from the streets and exploded on the ground at Tonila’s feet, then a glass bottle whirred past her cheek.

One of the guards in armor stabbed a man through the chest as another cut down an old woman who was trying to run. A man from the crowd threw a spear and stuck it into the neck of one of Tonila’s guards, dropping him to his knees in a puddle of blood. He choked and gagged as he fell, then the crowd descended on him.

“Stop them!” Veronica screamed, pointing. “I want Darko and Tonila alive!”

Marcus drew his sword and went at the first guard he could reach, hacking and swinging, meeting the man steel with steel in furious clangs and ringing screams. Marcus kicked the fighter in the chest, and as he stumbled back, Marcus drove his sword down into the front of his shoulder and out his lower back.

A man who seemed twice as tall and twice as wide as anyone else who had gathered approached Tonila’s fighters and brought up a giant hammer over his shoulder with a furious roar. The woman in front of the giant screamed and dropped her sword as she fell onto her back, and the giant threw his hammer down against her helmet, exploding the steel and the woman’s head inside it. A gory spray of red erupted from all splits in the metal as the steel crumpled around her skull, leaving nothing but a crushed, metal stump between her shoulders.

A flake of gore flew out and stuck to Shawn’s cheek, making him gag as he wiped it away with the back of his hand, smearing sticky red across his face. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The entire block had turned to madness. People were cheering and screaming as death and blood filled the streets around them. This is insanity.

The giant pounded towards Tonila, reeling back his hammer as he approached, then swung. Tonila roared and dove over the hammer’s head, landing on her shoulder after it swept beneath her. As the giant recovered, Tonila ripped out a small dagger and slashed the back of his ankle, making blood spray across the street. The giant fell to one knee and screamed in furious pain, using his hammer like a cane as he went down. Tonila rammed her dagger down into the giant’s fingers, cutting off three digits in the middle. As blood sprayed from his hand, the giant used his other hand like a club and smashed Tonila across the cheek, sending her back to the wet stones with a grunt.

Blood poured from Tonila’s lip as she sat up and shook the rain from her face. The giant dove at her with both hands, but Tonila grabbed her sword and swung, cutting off his unscathed hand in one swipe. The giant fell to his knees with a groan and whimper as he examined what remained of his hands. He looked up at Tonila and screamed in furious pain. Tonila bared her teeth and reeled back her sword, swinging it with all her might at the giant’s neck. When the steel hit flesh, the screaming stopped and his giant head tumbled off his shoulders, smacking the ground with a heavy thunk.

Tonila screamed and raised up her bloody blade in one arm, pointing the tip around the crowd that had formed a circle around her and the giant’s corpse. “Who’s next?!” she screamed.

Shawn heard a commotion behind him. He turned and saw a young boy straddling a chimney on the roof of a building as a cloud of cawing crows streamed by him. He turned his body and drew back an arrow against the string of a bow. With a whistling hiss, the shaft took flight, sailing over the heads of the crowd. The arrow came down with a meaty slap into the heart of another of Tonila’s fighters. He tried to choke down a breath of air as he grabbed the shaft in his chest and fell. As he hit the ground, a group of people descended on him, tearing off his armor and anything of value he possessed.

The last of Tonila’s fighter’s threw down his sword at the feet of the crowd coming towards him. He dropped to his knees and put his hands together in front of his face. “Mercy!” he shouted as the crowd washed over him. “Mercy, I beg!”

A pudgy faced man with a goatee grabbed the last of the fighters by his temples and jabbed his thumbs into the man’s eye sockets, gritting his teeth and squinting as he pressed. “How’s this for mercy?” the man asked as the fighter screamed and wrestled beneath him. With a horrifying pop, the fighter’s eyes exploded into blood and he let out a final gurgling gasp, then died, leaving Tonila and Darko on their own.

Tonila swung her sword with a furious grunt, whipping the air with her steel. The crowd around her kept their distance, eyeing her for their moment to rush in. “Stay back!” she shouted, panting as sweat and blood ran down her face. She swung her sword at them again, her blade finding nothing but air. “Get back!”

A wooden chair came flying out of the crowd and Tonila swatted it away with one arm, making it fall to pieces as it crashed against the ground. A bottle came next, exploding into blood and shards as it struck the back of Tonila’s head.

Tonila screamed and went to her knee, glass showering off her neck and shoulders, sparkling in the rain and torchlight like a blanket of sparks. She hesitated, then the fury came back to her eyes. Tonila twisted back at a man who was rushing towards her and cut off both his legs in a heavy sweep. He screamed as he smashed into the cobblestones and came to the realization he no longer had a lower half.

“Shiela!” Tonila screamed. “Where are you!” She got back to her feet, wheeling around the crowd, her eyes searching the faces for a way out. “Gremka! Deen! Get to me, now!”

“They’re all dead!” came a response from the crowd. “And soon you will be too!”

Tonila looked unsettled by the woman’s response. A red brick came flying down from one of the roofs and cracked against Tonila’s hands, making her shout and drop her sword. Within a flick of her metal clanging against the ground, the crowd’s rage became ignited and they rushed in. Fists and boots rained down on Tonila from all sides, knocking her from side to side and over again. As blood poured from her nose and lips and her eyes slipped shut, she looked like she was going to lose consciousness. Someone from the crowd produced a blade and held it high above the others who had come to participate. The steel shone in the flames of burning bodies like a red star being born.

“Stop!” Veronica screamed. “I want her alive! Darko too!”

The man with the knife grabbed Tonila’s face in one hand, squishing her bloody cheeks between his fingers. “Ready to die, sweetling?”

Marcus rushed ahead of Veronica and grabbed the blade, bending back the man’s wrist until he was wailing in misery. Marcus then gave a stern yank on the man’s arm, making the bone inside crunch as his shoulder bent backwards and broke out of its socket. As the man cried and screamed, Marcus retrieved the knife from his fingers and kicked him back down to the mud.

“Get back!” Marcus shouted, shoving people away. “You heard the queen! She wants them alive!”

As the crowd retreated, Tonila was left in a crumpled heap at the center of boots and dirty feet, panting in the rain and blood. She looked up at Marcus from the corner of her eye, the rage still boiling inside her even though she was wounded.

“How does it feel to be one of your own victims?” Marcus asked. “Looks like it hurts.”

Tonila spit out a mouthful of blood. “You think this is going to end with us?” she asked as she pushed herself up and got back to her knees, arms shaking from the effort. “She’s going to take down everyone who’s ever betrayed her…and that means you too, Commander Marcus… You were the first.”

“I’m not afraid of my past,” Marcus said as he leaned down and picked up Tonila’s sword, admiring the designs in the blade and handle. “But you should be. Get her back on her feet.”

Two men came out of the crowd behind Marcus, both of them dressed in armor from the Royal Army. They went around Tonila and took her under the shoulders, hauling her back up from the ground. As Tonila stood there, swaying in their grip, Marcus slammed his fist into her gut, making her cough up blood and lean over their arms. “That’s from my daughter,” he whispered in her ear.

Veronica came out of the crowd and stopped in front of Tonila.

“Hey, T. Didn’t think I’d be seeing your face again so soon.”

“You think you’ve won?” she asked, coughing as blood ran down the corners of her mouth. “You’ll never win,” Tonila said, spitting venom as she barely clung to consciousness. “Deep down inside you know you’re just as broken as we are. And all the people you bring back through those doors will be the same. You’ll never be the queen of the Reborn. You’ll never get your happiness back. You’ll only ever be what you’ve always been: a worthless rat.”

Veronica got close to Tonila’s face, letting the scar on her cheek be easily seen. “I’m not a rat anymore,” she whispered once again. “And you’re about to be nothing.” Veronica turned her head to see Darko not far away, the crowd parting to let Marcus’s guards bring him over.

“Stop,” Veronica said, holding up her hand. “There’s no need. Take them both upstairs,” she trained her eyes on The Forge.

“Upstairs?” Marcus asked, looking at Veronica. “Why?”

“I’m going to burn down The Forge with them inside.”

Tonila turned her eyes on the ground and snickered as she shook her head. Darko’s eyes widened with fury. “You’re going to burn us?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Veronica said, sounding unbothered by the idea.

“After all I did for you…I saved you after your father turned you away. I taught you to survive on the streets. I gave you a place to sleep, to eat, to play your little games with your friends!… and this is how you repay me?” Darko’s voice was quieted by rage. “By taking everything from me?”

Veronica paused for a moment, her eyes betraying a hint of doubt. “You tried to have me killed!” She screamed, when it seemed her guilt had taken over. “You sent an assassin to murder me with a knife!” Veronica threw the blade from the tower down onto the ground at Darko’s feet. “You’re the one who tried to take everything from me... I thought we were friends,” Veronica said, hiding a bitter shake in her voice as tears glinted in both her eyes. “You and Tonila, and everyone else at The Forge…You were my family. I thought I could depend on you to be there when I needed you most. I would have shared everything with you... I would have given you the city and everything in it! Now what do you get? Nothing! No, worse than nothing: you have to return to the nightmares, to the land of shadows and death. To the place I rescued you from when I had no reason left to do so, other than for the memories of what we used to have. And now you’ve destroyed even that!” Veronica screamed, pointing at the scar on her cheek. “Because you refused to let yourselves believe in my future!”

“Your future is worth less than the dreams it was born in,” Darko said, poison spilling between his teeth. “These ideas are fairy dust. Magic on the wind. Ramblings of a sightless, dead girl and her sightless, dead friends. You’ve betrayed everyone who’s ever cared about you now, Vee. You’ve lost.”

“You call this losing?” Veronica asked, her voice boiling with rage.

“Your father hates you, your friends hate you, you have no place left to call home–”

“Take him upstairs,” Veronica said, biting her lip. “I don’t want to hear his voice ever again.”

“–your mother only ever used you like a pawn.”

“Take him upstairs!” Veronica screamed, glaring at Darko as the green flame in her eyes grew larger and larger. She ripped the dagger from her hip sheath and pressed the blade against Darko’s throat, the assassin’s blood still drying on its edge. “Don’t ever talk about my mother.”

Darko smiled. “You’re just like her, Vee. And now your sister is going to take the throne from you before you ever get the chance to taste what it’s like to have real power.” Darko shook his head at Veronica. “I almost feel sorry for you. There’s only one person left in this world who’s foolish enough to care about you now.” Darko trained his eyes on Shawn, and for an instant the fury left his eyes and was replaced by desperation as he silently begged and pleaded for Shawn to not forget what he’d told him before. “An idiotic orphan boy who can’t remember which girl he loves.”

“Shawn loves me!” Veronica screamed. “No one else!” She squeezed her fingers around the handle of the blade until her knuckles were turning white, making the edge slide across Darko’s throat, forcing a line of thin blood to appear.

Darko smiled with half his mouth. “What’s the matter, Vee?” he asked, sounding impressed with himself. “Lose your nerve?”

Veronica bared her teeth, making her lip tremble, then she shoved Darko away from her blade, making him stumble back into the arms of the guards who held him.

“My sister will never take my throne,” Veronica said back, her voice quieted as she aimed the tip of her blade towards Darko’s face. “Not while I’m still alive.”

Shawn felt a cold chill rise up his spine as she said that.

“Take him to his office where he belongs,” Veronica said, her voice almost a whisper. “I don’t want anything left of this place except ashes after tonight.”

Shawn grabbed Veronica’s arm and stopped her. “Veronica, you’re really going to burn them alive?” He looked around the crowd, watching as people began to light torches and fling them inside the Forge and at the base of the walls. It didn’t take long for the fire to catch and start spreading up the wood. Shawn stared at Veronica in shock, waiting for her answer.

Veronica’s courage seemed to shed from her mind like a curtain being drawn. “I have to do something, Shawn. They tried to kill me. I’m their queen.”

“Yeah, but…” Shawn tried to argue back with her, but he couldn’t find the words. “This is…cruel…”

“They’ve done far crueler things than this. They killed my friends. In ways I’ll never forget.”

“But Molly and Dylan are alive,” Shawn said, his grip on her arm loosening.

“Yes, they are,” Veronica said, pulling her arm out of Shawn’s fingers. “And pretty soon, they’re not going to be.” Veronica turned her back to Shawn and stared at Darko and Tonila. “Take them upstairs,” she ordered for the final time.

Marcus nodded at his men. “You heard the queen. Upstairs.”

As the guards turned Darko and Tonila away from the crowd and began pushing them towards the stairs, Tonila started to laugh. “Have to make your men do the dirty work for you. Coward!” Tonila screamed. “Rat!”

“Don’t worry, T. I’m going to come see you off to the next realm.” Veronica looked over her shoulder at Shawn. “Let’s go.”

Shawn let out a breath. He almost thought he was going to start crying, though he couldn’t understand why. He looked around the crowd as they whistled and hollered and screamed in joy. An uproarious applause took over the entire square, echoing out of the alleys and down the streets. “Clean the filth from the streets!” they screamed. “For Queen Veronica!” The sight and sound of it all was like being trapped under the crushing depths of an ocean. As he turned back to Veronica, he forced himself to take a breath. “Okay,” he said, though it felt like his mouth had barely formed a word.

Shawn frowned at Veronica as he came to her side.

“I need you,” she said again.

“I need you, too,” Shawn replied back, his heart so full of fear and doubt that her confidence almost made him feel safe, even strong. This was the truth that no one else could stomach but her. And it was horrifying.

***

“You’ll never be the queen of this city!” Darko shouted as he fought and struggled in the arms of the guards every step of the way, making them push him up the stairs. Tonila went much more quietly. “You’re a fool to even try,” Darko continued. “You’ll never have the discipline to keep these people in line, never have the knowledge or wisdom to make the right moves! You’ll always be a lost girl fighting for daddy’s approval. That’s all you’ve been since the moment I first saw you.”

“After tonight, you’ll never see me again,” Veronica said back as she slowly followed him and Tonila up the stairs, Shawn and Marcus by her side, boots thumping against the wood. “Aside from in your nightmares.”

When they reached the door to Darko’s office, the guards kicked it open and threw him and Tonila inside, making them drop and tumble across the floor. Smoke was already pooling in the rafters as sparks and flames fluttered up the stairs. Darko turned back and looked at Vee as Tonila rolled to her side. “Veronica, don’t do this,” he begged, the orange of the flame making the scarred half of his face glow like gold.

“You made your choice,” she said back.

One of Marcus’s guards came around Veronica and smashed an oil lantern up against the wall inside Darko’s office, and the flames immediately caught on with a burst of gold and red sparks, igniting half the room in an instant. The fire traveled up Darko’s desk and consumed all the papers and trinkets he kept on its surface. The hourglass in the corner, with its few grains of sand left, exploded in the heat, sending a wave of sand across the floor.

“Veronica!” Darko shouted as Tonila pushed herself up on one knee.

The guards grabbed the door and rammed it shut, using a spear to pin the ring handle to the outside of the frame. One of the men grabbed the door and pushed on it with all his strength to be sure it was secure. “They’re not getting out of that,” one of them assured.

“Good,” Veronica said. “Wait for us downstairs.”

The guards looked at each other, then Marcus, who nodded his approval. After his guards had gone out of sight, Marcus turned to Veronica and said, “Don’t take too long, the canal has rotted this place to the bone. The building won’t last.”

“I won’t,” Veronica said. She turned to the door and slowly went towards it. On the other side, voices could be heard.

“This isn’t good,” Tonila said with a grunt.

“I know it isn’t,” Darko said back.

Veronica smiled. She reached out and lightly knocked on the door. “Hey guys, it’s me… I just came to say goodbye, and to thank you again for all the help you gave me back before everything. You really saved my life. I couldn’t have done any of this without you… And I really mean that.”

“That’s right,” Darko said, moaning as he came to the door. “I did save you, Vee. And I spared your life after you stole my key. I should have killed you that day for how you betrayed me, but instead I let you live.”

“Yeah, after you killed my friends in front of me,” Veronica said, sounding offended.

“Tonila did that,” Darko said.

“Nothing in Copper Lanes happens without your orders, Darko. Everyone knows that.”

“You can’t seriously believe that, Veronica! I’m only one man!”

“So you deny it?”

There was a pause. “No, I don’t deny it. I ordered Tonila to get rid of your friends to teach you a lesson. I had no choice after what you’d done! There has to be consequences for breaking the rules.”

“And now I’m teaching you a lesson about breaking my rules,” Veronica said. “This is goodbye, Darko. Best accept it.”

“VERONICA!” Tonila screamed as she pounded on the door with all her strength, making it rumble and shake and scare Veronica back a few steps. “Open this damn door!”

“No!” Veronica shouted back. “That room is where you’re going to spend the rest of eternity!”

“Veronica, please let us out,” Darko begged, coughing. “The smoke is getting thick in here. The flames are almost to us.”

“Maybe one day, Darko. Maybe one day I’ll change my mind and bring you back as one of my Reborn again, once the world has been changed in my name, but for now it’s time for you to sleep.”

“If you kill us, this city will descend into chaos,” Darko pleaded. “You saw what those people can do tonight. They will destroy anything you put in front of them. There will be riots from Copper Lanes to the Cloud District! You think the Gray Death is bad now? It can get much worse! Fear has saved these people from themselves. If you disrupt that balance there will be no fixing it. You need us alive.”

Veronica leaned against the door with her shoulder as flames and sparks rained down from the ceiling above, pondering on his words, the beams creaking and moaning as the inferno bit away at the building’s supports. A giant crack shook the entire tavern, making the hallway jolt down and lean as the building sagged under its own weight. Shawn stumbled into Veronica and pushed her against the door before he recovered.

“Veronica, we have to go,” Shawn said, tugging on her arm. There were ashes on her cheeks, mixing with the blood.

“Darko, you’re wrong,” Veronica said through the door, ignoring Shawn. “Maybe you don’t realize it now, but you need me alive. Everyone in this city does. I am the future, the only one this island has left. But no one needs you. Not anymore. Your time has passed.”

“Veronica!” Darko shouted, pounding on the door with his fist. “I do not want to die like this!”

Veronica’s eyes snapped shut and she pushed her fists against her forehead, gritting her teeth and bending over as if someone had sent a bolt of lightning tearing through her body. Tears began to squeeze out of the cracks in her eyelids as she fought to hide a whimper. “Well maybe you should have thought about that before you tried to fucking kill me!” Veronica screamed at the door, running her voice ragged as her rage erupted and tears exploded from her eyes. “You were my sister!” she accused, the words like knives coming up from her throat. “You meant everything to me!”

Shawn was confused at first, but then he understood. Veronica was back in the tower with Manie, fighting for Mikhail’s Crystal. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, making her twist in his direction. “Shawn,” she said with a gasp, her eyes snapping open like she’d just been woken from her death all over again.

“Veronica…” Shawn grabbed her face and pushed her hair back out of her eyes. “I’m sorry…” He thought about all Veronica had been through because of what Manie did that night, and it was not difficult to pity her. “For everything that’s happened... But we need to get out of here before the building collapses,” he said, as tears broke and ran down from her eyes.

“Can you break the window?” Darko shouted from behind his office door.

“Those bars are forged steel!” Tonila said back.

“There’s a sword under my desk,” Darko replied.

“A sword isn’t going to cut through metal!”

“No, but it will cut down that door. Hurry!”

A wooden beam cracked and fell from the ceiling, spilling a river of sparks over the stairs as it clattered down each step to the dining room at the bottom of the tavern. Shawn and Veronica stumbled towards Darko’s door as the building groaned and shifted beneath them. When they regained balance and stood, twelve inches of steel exploded through the wood in the door before them, reaching out towards Veronica’s heart but stopping just short. Veronica bounced back with a gasp of terror, looking angry and afraid as she stared at the tip of the sword. “Haven’t you figured it out by now?!” She screamed back at them. “You can’t kill me! This is my city. And you’re about to be forgotten!”

The sword slid back into the door, revealing a wide slit where Tonila’s eyes could be seen against a silhouette of raging fire. “She’ll turn on you one day, Shawn, just like she turned on us! Don’t let her win!” Tonila’s warning was overtaken by her screams as the flames began to bite up her legs. The pounding on the door grew furious as the flames engulfed the gap in the wood.

“Veronica!” Darko cried in fury as the flames overtook them. “Veronica!!”

Veronica began to cry loudly, releasing her rage, screaming at the sword slit in the burning door as flames began to hiss and pour through it, making the wood sweat out its sap and oils before it reddened and turned to ash. The death cries had gone silent and now only the roar of the fire remained.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” Shawn said, feeling sick.

“I… I had to, Shawn,” Veronica said, panting and coughing on the smoke.“You have to believe me, I didn’t have a choice,” Veronica grabbed her forehead and pushed back her hair. “There was no other way. They would have just kept fighting us every step of the way. They killed themselves with the lives they lived, the people they became, just as much as we did...”

“I know,” Shawn said, believing she was right. “They were evil people. They’re gone now, though,” he added, not hiding the urgency in his voice. “It’s time for us to get out of here.”

Veronica paused, her whole body violently rejecting the reality of what was happening around them. She took a shuddering breath and fell over Shawn’s shoulder, squeezing him as she closed her eyes and cried. “Why does everyone hate me?” she asked, begging for an answer as if her heart had just been ripped out of her chest. “I’m just trying to do what’s right! If everyone would just believe in me, things like this wouldn’t need to happen.”

“I know, Vee,” Shawn said, taking her into his arms. “They just don’t understand what’s at stake like we do. And not everyone hates you.”

He held her for a second and then pushed her off his shoulder, the building roaring with flames around them. He looked into her burning green eyes as the flames of the dying Forge reflected and glinted from her tears. “No one loves me,” she said to him, looking like a girl attached to a sinking ship.

“Yes, they do, Veronica,” Shawn said, feeling uncomfortable to admit it, the overwhelming heat pouring up around him like they’d fallen inside a Renjin’s mouth. “I do,” he said, feeling a wave of tingling warmth burst through him. “I love you, Veronica.”

“No you don’t, you love my sister,” she said, beginning to cry again. “I’m just…a broken piece of the past. Like they were… No one can love me because I’m a monster now. The Death Realm destroyed me. I should stay here and die with what’s left of my world and just put an end to all this madness. I’m never going to get better. Talmoria is never going to get better. Darko was right, it’s all just a foolish dream.”

Shawn took Veronica’s face in his hands and made her look at him, wanting to cry himself. He heard Milly’s voice in his mind as he looked into Veronica’s eyes, sparks and flames falling around him, telling him again of Manie’s love. To her, you mean everything. He kissed Veronica with all his love as the building groaned and shook then leaned as if The Forge was about to tumble into the canal, pretending she was Manie standing before him. Their lips came together, but there was no electricity in Shawn, no love, just a cold and lifeless kiss.

“I love you,” Shawn said with all the conviction in his heart as their lips parted. “And I’m going to prove it to you. But first we have to save the people trapped in the Death Realm together. And in order for us to do that, you have to live, Veronica. Talmoria needs you to live. I need you to live.”

Veronica’s pain seemed to wash away, as if all her hurt had melted off like ice in the sun. Before Shawn’s eyes, the courage and strength returned and she took a deep breath, wiping the tears and ashes from her cheeks with closed fists. “You’re right…” she said, taking a few rapid breaths. “You’re right, I’m sorry, Shawn. I shouldn’t give up. Too many people depend on us.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, Veronica,” he said, holding her face in one hand. “But now it’s time to go,” he said, taking her by the shoulders.

“Thank you, Shawn.” Veronica turned and looked through the hole in Darko’s door one last time, where all that could be seen was wrapped in a cocoon of flames. “Okay,” she said, turning back to Shawn, nodding. “Let’s go.”

***

Shawn and Veronica pushed their way through the wall of smoke and flames rising up the stairs and down into the main room. The roof was falling to pieces, boards clattering down and exploding into traps of flame when they struck the floor. Veronica screamed as a beam came down and nearly smashed into her head, bouncing off the bar’s railing and rolling towards her feet. She and Shawn dove over and hit the floor, sliding through a field of burning embers near the tables. Veronica’s shoulder caught aflame, but Shawn quickly patted it out.

“Thanks,” Veronica said, looking stunned.

“We’re almost out of here.” Shawn coughed and looked ahead, to the archways that lead outside. Most had collapsed into flames and burning debris, but one was left unbroken. “This way!” He grabbed Veronica’s arm and dragged her back to her feet. He pulled her towards the exit, but just as they got to it, the roof crumbled, shedding a river of burning wood into their path. Veronica gasped as Shawn twisted her away to shield her from the flames.

“We’re trapped!” Veronica screamed, looking around the tavern for a way out. The exit by the canal was an ocean of fire licking up into the dining room from the stone stairs above the water, like a tide of burning breath washing in. The trap door behind the bar was breathing flame, and the bottles of alcohol on the shelf above began to burst, igniting into bursting clouds of fire. Veronica ducked away as the inferno reached towards her, screaming. “Please tell me this isn’t real!”

“We’re not trapped! Get ready to run!” Shawn threw his hand out towards the debris blocking the last archway and created an explosive wall of golden energy. The debris exploded like a bomb of wooden shrapnel, showering sparks and flaming scraps across the night. The archway crumbled like its frame was built of twigs and the building leaned towards it, then jolted down, crashing through its supports like a man falling to his knees with explosive force. Each beam cracked around the room from end to end, throwing whistling shards of wood across the tavern like bullets.

“Go now!” Shawn shouted.

He and Veronica sprinted and dove through the exit as the tavern came down behind them, growling and whining as the building crumbled into itself and smashed against the ground, pouring sparks and smoke over Shawn and Veronica’s backs like a fiery blanket being tossed over them. She and Shawn landed in a dirty puddle with a deep splash, extinguishing all the flames on their clothes.

Shawn could hear the wood crumbling and clattering across the stones, the glass shattering as flames exploded from every crack like The Forge had become an erupting volcano. Shawn got up, letting the rain from the street fall from his body. As he helped Veronica, she whipped back her hair and made a stream of water fly up into the sky. Veronica stood up and stumbled towards Darko and Tonila’s tavern as it released a final moan and sputter of roaring flame as it died, hissing and snapping as rain fell in thick blankets to cover its corpse. Copper Lanes was lit by the flame, every stone for half a mile glinting like it had been forged of liquid gold, every eye twinkling like a field of stars blinking in the night, reflecting back the burning image of their queen.

“This didn’t have to happen!” Veronica screamed at the wreckage. “This was my home, too!”

The crowd behind her was silent, standing like shadowy gravestones in the rain. Lightning flashed in the sky and lit a thousand faces, each of them as dead as the ones in the Death Realm.

“I… I wanted us to have what we’ve always deserved… What the rest of the world took away from us,” Veronica lamented. “And now that dream is gone…forever.”

Shawn went up beside her, watching the sparks and smoke drift up into the sky. “It’s over, Veronica…”

Veronica rubbed her eyes and held her chin, covering the cut in her cheek with one hand as she whimpered. “We’re alive,” she said, sounding like she could barely believe it.

Veronica paused and looked around at all the faces surrounding her and Shawn, taking a high breath. No one said a word, they just stood in the darkness and fire-light and stared. Marcus came up to Veronica and wrapped a black cloak around her shoulders. “Good job,” he said, the pleasure in his voice as thick as honey. “Those monsters got what they deserved.”

“Maybe one day we will too,” Veronica said back, adding a darkness to his celebration, her outline pinned against the collapsed and burning remains of The Forge, where Darko and Tonila would now stay for all eternity, reliving that nightmare even now as their flesh flaked away to ash and their bones became white-hot. Shawn wondered how far this would go on before Veronica finally felt satisfied. Maybe she would never stop, until everyone who had wronged her had been righted, including Manie. Shawn could see Manie and her father’s heads on spikes decorating the mansion’s outer courtyard in his mind even now. But he shook the thoughts away, hoping against his own fears and worries that something like that could never come true. Veronica would never go that far, he told himself. Would she?... And then he told himself, If she does, I’ll stop her. I have to. He heard Darko’s voice in his mind, warning him of Veronica’s future. He heard the voices of the ghosts in the Temple of the Dead, reminding him of how much blood had to be spilled to reseal this future the first time.

“It’s over!” Veronica screamed to her audience, her voice weak and exhausted. “Copper Lanes is free…” The reaction was slow at first, but quickly grew into an overwhelming applause like the rumble of thunder, outlined by flashing lightning and the actual rumble of thunder, booming across the city. Veronica turned her head and looked at Shawn, her eyes dark and full of fear around the burning green flame. “Next we take the city,” she said. “And then all of Talmoria will be Reborn.”

An explosive cheer was returned to her as people whistled and screamed and hollered. Fists rose into the air as people began to chant, “The future will be Reborn! The future will be Reborn! The future will be Reborn!”

Veronica smiled and took Shawn’s hand. “Without your help I never would have gotten what the world owed me. This is all thanks to you.”

What have I done, Shawn thought inside. “Aww heck, it was nothin’,” Shawn said as he smiled back at her. “Besides, we haven’t crossed the finish line yet. Maybe we should wait to celebrate…”

Veronica laughed. “I know what our future holds, Shawn. Not even an assassin’s blade could stop us. Not when I’m with you.” She slowly leaned towards Shawn and kissed him on the lips. When the kiss happened, the crowd went wild with approval.

“Looks like our Queen has found a King!” Someone shouted.

Dylan crossed his arms and diverted his gaze, looking as if someone had just stabbed him in the back. When Veronica pulled away, Shawn’s smile was gone. He couldn’t feel happy about a kiss with her now, not knowing what was going to happen if Manie ever found out.

“What’s wrong?” Veronica asked.

Shawn shook his head. “Nothing…” He looked out across the hundreds of faces watching and clapping and whistling. “I’m just thinking about how crazy it’s going to be when you’re in charge of the whole island. The crowds will be ten times this size.”

Veronica smiled deeply. “When we’re in charge of the island, Shawn. Both of us.”

“Yeah, I know,” Shawn said, laughing nervously as he scratched the back of his head. “Almost forgot.”

“Don’t ever forget again,” she said, leaning in for a second kiss.

She closed her eyes and pressed her lips against Shawn’s, and the only words he could hear inside his mind were, What have I done?