The Ballad Continues…
CHAPTER 11
Cage wanted to quit.
Smoke wouldn’t let him.
She pulled him into the fourth arena with no argument, and no debate.
“The sooner we finish, the sooner we’re free,” his sister said, trudging through the swamp.
Mud sucked their boots into the bog. Every footstep was a squelching, splattering, disgusting thing. Cage cringed at the foul smell, a stench like spoiled eggs mixed with cow manure. The water, a greasy green, rippled at their passing. An oily haze veiled the lake. Cage’s saber dragged through clumps of reeds and over water-worn rocks, bouncing behind him like a fallen tree.
“You’re angry,” Smoke said.
Cage didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. His anger was not her fault, but if he spoke, if he unleashed his ragtag emotions, they would burn all in their way, and he wouldn’t burn her.
So he plodded forward, step by step. Counted pebbles. Twitched at every bird call. Jumped from every snapping twig. Mangroves arched above and below them, hundreds of roots knit underfoot, thousands of leaves woven overhead. He could only see patches of sky. It was murky. Grayish. Smothered with clouds and dotted with herons. All flew away from him. He didn’t blame them. He would fly away if he could, too.
“Cage,” Smoke pressed. She wiped sweat from her forehead and cut a path through a thicket of vines. “Talk to me.”
Again, he didn’t answer. There was nothing to say. Nothing to do. Nothing to unshackle him from destiny’s cage. Fei had chained him to this path, and he couldn’t escape till he was done.
Sweat pooled in his lower back. He dabbed it with his robes, but the silk was already soaked. His hand almost dropped the saber, drenched from anxiety. Fear gnawed at him, pestering him like bedbugs. They had been lucky so far, but they wouldn’t be lucky much longer. The Fallen Seven had fallen for a reason, were monsters for a reason, and two scrappy kids from the tail end of the universe stood no chance at defeating them all.
Tremors branched from his fingers, up his arms, till his whole body shook like a tadpole in a tidal wave. Chills spilled through his muscles, a flood of icy dread. He was an earthquake, an avalanche, a glacier splitting in two, ten, twenty. Then he was hot, stifling, doused in boiling magma, unable to breathe, move, think. His body tingled everywhere, as if a thousand ants crept over him. He wanted to claw his flesh off, to leap out of his skin, grappling with the buzzing, rattled by the prickling heat.
Water splashed him. Cold water. A jolt. He rubbed his eyes and blinked. Smoke stood near a freshwater stream, hand cupped beneath the flow. Her black eyes held both concern and mischief—a dangerous blend—as she watched him, cautious, bottled laughter quirking her lips.
He shivered. She splashed him again. The cold jerked his body from chaos into calm. He smiled. He couldn’t help it. The game was so childish, so innocent, and they had never been allowed to be either.
Smoke splashed him a third time, her grin fully formed. She snorted back a giggle and welcomed him to join.
Cage paused. It didn’t feel right, letting down his guard, allowing himself to have a sliver of peace amid the ravenous storm. A mosquito tickled his neck, an annoyance, a hindrance, a reminder of all the annoying hindrances he had faced. He smacked it with his palm. Blood oozed between his fingers. It had already fed on him without him knowing, a metaphor for his life till now.
But things could change. He could change. So he kneeled in the stagnant water, the waves lukewarm as forgotten stew. His hands cupped the grimy muck, and he glanced at Smoke, roguish, playful. She could have run away, but she didn’t. Instead, she stayed, playful as well, and waited for his arm to aim.
The muddy water hit her cheek. Her face contorted, disgusted and relieved. “I used clean water on you!” Smoke said, dissolving with laughter, her edges softened for a moment, for a beat. She cut her hand through the lake, spraying him with a bucket’s worth.
Cage ducked beneath the glittering arc, an airborne river, and crashed into a braid of mangrove roots. Collapsing against the tree, he chuckled freely. Crabs skittered around his boots, disturbed by his sudden joy. He was disturbed, too. Joy was vulnerable. Endangered. Extinct.
Still, he played. Still, he let go. Every doubt that had bled, every anxiety that had festered—he released them all with each splashing throw.
Smoke and Cage became kids again—became kids for the very first time. They skipped through the marsh, rolled in the reeds, leaped over turtles and snails and small fish. It was euphoric. Exhilarating. And they shouldn’t be playing, shouldn’t be messing around, pretending hawks were spaceships and pelicans were submarines, but they had so little time left, so little time guaranteed, that this moment of chaotic peace meant everything.
It ended.
As everything did.
The fourth Fallen—the Marroca—emerged from beneath a Mangrove tree. The swamp beast prowled to them on six legs made of stone. Amphibious, carnivorous, it sniffed the air with slit nostrils, then homed in on Cage like a cat with a mouse. He shrank back, tripping over reeds as the cursed monster advanced.
Smoke shielded him. She always did. With a twirling leap, she landed before the Marroca, water spraying off her like jewels.
The swamp beast growled, a guttural roar. Fog curled off its feather-duster tail. Scales shone like liquid turquoise along its head, haunches, and spine. Its body was a blocky, edgy conglomeration of mismatched parts, an abandoned junkyard made monstrous. Its talons swiped the air, teeth small and sharp as nails.
Smoke didn’t step back. She should have, but she didn’t. Because if she stepped back, she couldn’t protect Cage, and Cage’s wellbeing was her stake on the hill, her stick in the mud. Something she would never, ever negotiate.
Someone she would willingly, gladly die for.
The Marroca lunged.
Smoke hissed.
Cage screamed.
The beast caught his sister’s robes and pulled her under. Cage dove in after. The murky water stung his eyes. Reeds chained his arms and legs. He heard muffled thrashing, saw bubbles rise before him like diamonds. A scream wrenched from his throat and tore through the water, but no one heard. No one helped.
There was no one coming to save him but himself.
Gasping, he surfaced, blinking his eyes clean. Then he leaned over a mangrove root and vomited mud. Smoke was still out there, still under, shouting bubbles. He pushed himself toward his sister’s flailing form. The Marroca coiled around her, an amphibious tourniquet squeezing away her life, her fire, her—
Cage dove. He clawed his way through the slimy mud at the bottom of the lake and used mangrove roots to find Smoke again. She was fighting, still. Of course, of course. But her lips were blue, and her face was slack, and her dagger hung limp in her hand.
Cage didn’t think—he should not think more often, or at least not think in circles—and punched the Marroca’s temple, stunning the beast. Smoke wriggled free, kicking the monster in the eye, and broke the surface, gulping air as if it were a milkshake. She followed a path of water lilies, dragging herself away branch by branch.
The Marroca burst from the lake. Teeth bared. Talons sharp as mistakes. It growled again, furious, incensed.
Smoke lifted her dagger. She had to draw, but there was nowhere it would last. The mud was too soggy. The lilies were too frail. Water wiped everything away.
“The trees!” Cage called, pointing at a mangrove. “You can—”
Water swallowed his next words. The Marroca caught his ankle and hauled him under. He shrieked, strangled, as he tumbled through angry turbulence. Kicking his legs, he squirmed till he hit something squishy—the underbelly of the beast. For a moment, peace. Same as before. Then, as before, the end of reprieve. A surge of scales and tail, of teeth and talons, slammed into him, and he sank.
And sank.
Above, beyond the watery veil, green pulsed. Sol Chrome. In a hexagon. Smoke had done it. Had carved the tree’s bark. Had drawn hello so he could draw goodbye.
His saber banged against his leg, tangled in his belt. Just one cut, one slice, a stab of rage and pain would do it. But he was so far down, and it was comfortable here. A heavy, billowing calm.
“Cage. Caaaaageeeeeee.”
It should have been impossible to hear her down here, but impossible they were and had always been.
Smoke needed him.
That was all that mattered.
All that he fought for.
As he kicked and swam and roared.
The Marroca chased him. Hunted him. But it was too late.
Cage broke through the water and slashed Smoke’s symbol. Light exploded, a rain of chartreuse.
The monster died.
Cage didn’t feel guilt.
Not like before.
That scared him sick.
YESSS!!! BRILLIANT! Loved that they had a moment of levity, but alas it was ripped away!