The Ballad Continues…
CHAPTER 8
Cage stumbled into a cave.
Smoke crouched behind him with a ferocity that rivaled the gods.
Cage blinked and tried to think. Sludge slowed his thoughts, his brain fogged and clogged with fear, worry, concern—
“Breathe,” Smoke said. “Just breathe.”
Cage did. In, out. Again, again. Over and over till his mind cleared for a second before the fog returned with hungry vengeance.
But for a moment, peace.
For a moment, clarity.
Cage straightened his spine and looked around. A lattice of caves ensnared them in its web. Deep. Dark. Navy rock and glowing lichen. Diamonds glittered within the walls. Water dripped from stalactites on the ceiling, towering over the craggy ground. A lava pool gurgled below, red as blood, steaming with heat, a lethal lake. Nothing approached. Nothing attacked. It was…quiet. Serene. The calm before the storm.
“What are we supposed to do?” Cage asked, then cringed. But Smoke never made him feel less, not like the other children had. She encouraged him to ask, to question, to chisel away nerves till only strength remained.
“The impossible,” his sister said. She slumped down on a rock, elbows on her knees, and picked her fingernails with her dagger. Her silver-white hair rippled, a curtain of moonlight in the dark. Smoke was nonchalant about everything, apocalypse included.
Case slumped down beside her, with all of the struggle and none of the ease. He felt like a sham. A fake. Someone shoved into a costume and forced to dance for his fate. But that wasn’t fair. Or it was too fair. He still couldn’t think. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t concentrate. Everything was a shadowy blur, and he couldn’t tell if it was him, or this world, or all worlds, but the air thickened to water. He choked, trying to escape the bramble of his doubts. Smoke patted his back, dislodging his panic, but fear clung to his mind, a parasite.
“Hello.”
Cage jolted. Smoke tensed. Both siblings leaped to their feet and turned toward the newcomer, blades in their hands.
But what materialized from the shadows was hardly intimidating—not at first sight, at least. It was a goat, a man, half of each fused together with the skill of a toddler. Disturbing. Sickening. But not frightening, not yet.
His torso, arms, and head were gray and mottled, sinewy as raw meat. Fur covered his thighs and chin, a dull brown like unwatered leaves. His hooves were blunt, nicked, and scraped. Two great horns curved back from his forehead between pointed ears, above crimson eyes. He had fangs, talons, and a forked tongue like Smoke—all of which should have scared Cage, but didn’t. The boy couldn’t feel anything over the droning in his mind.
Something was wrong.
Fatigue hollowed his skull. Exhaustion smothered him till his saber weighed a thousand pounds. He dipped the blade, forgetting why he came, why he cared, why any of this meant anything at all. The creature crept closer, arms open in welcome. This wasn’t a monster. Wasn’t a beast. How could one of the Fallen Seven accept him so openly?
Smoke didn’t surrender as easily. “Go,” she barked, dagger shaking in her fist. Her movements were slower, sluggish, but her black eyes burned with the wrath of a million scars. “Go.”
The creature stayed. He squatted before them on a dark blue rock, crowned by the lava bubbling below. Lichen pulsed with a blue-green glow, casting his features in soft, friendly light. “You have come to kill me,” he said with the rasp of campfires on balmy spring nights. “Do I not have the right to a final conversation?”
Smoke twitched. Cage crumpled. He didn’t want to be a killer. He didn’t even know why the Fallen Seven had to die. Or if they could.
The creature looked between them. “You don’t agree.” A smirk lit up his rugged features. “You don’t trust each other.”
He was right. Cage didn’t trust Smoke. No. Wrong. Don’t you see, don’t you see? He didn’t. His saber clattered to the rock floor. The cave echoed with his submission, and the sound pierced his skull.
“Cage,” Smoke whispered, but there was doubt in her eyes. Uncertainty. Confusion. A mirror of insecurity that thickened the haze of his thoughts. She lifted her dagger and pointed it at him, her fingers clammy, trembling with indecision. “Something’s wrong.”
He’d had the same thought moments ago, but his brain warped like putty beneath a hammer, disintegrating into senseless blobs. “What?”
“She doesn’t like you,” the creature purred. He reclined on his haunches, using a pearl-dotted comb to untangle his fur. “She never has.”
“It’s true,” Smoke said, brows creased, lips pursed as if she didn’t want to say it but was compelled.
Compelled.
Was that the truth beneath the fog? Were they being controlled? Manipulated? Turned against each other, puppets of fraud? If so, this creature was the worst type of monster, rewriting their minds with his lies, dirtying their hands instead of his.
Cage closed his eyes and listened. Beneath the fog, under the haze, he sensed a worm. A thought that was not his. An invader. A raider. He concentrated on that tiny, slimy traitor and mentally squished. It popped beneath his focus, and the fog dissolved.
“He lies,” Cage said.
Smoke narrowed her eyes, but there was a part of her—a deep, essential, unwavering part—that believed him. Always.
“He lies,” the creature said, now annoyed. He fidgeted from hoof to hoof and jabbed the comb at Cage.
“No,” Cage said. He turned toward Smoke. “You are my sister. The fiercest person I know. Also the kindest. And the strongest. You are my home. My sanctuary. You protect me with a savage loyalty, and I pity all who stand in your way.”
Smoke’s lips quivered. She was fighting back. The creature still burrowed within her brain, tunneling through truth and planting lie after lie, but she didn’t look away from Cage.
“You doubt him,” Cage said. “I see it. And you can reverse whatever he rewrites. Just stay with me, Smoke. Please.” He picked up his saber. It glowed red. He knew what he had to do, but he couldn’t do it alone.
“Badalisc,” Smoke hissed at the creature, twitching as she wrestled the worm. “You are the Badalisc.” With tremendous effort, with jerking, shuddering movements, she aimed her dagger at him. “You are a monster, but I am so much worse.”
She slammed the blade into the navy rock. The cave screeched in pain. The Badalisc lunged in panic. Smoke moved faster. She carved a triangle into the stone. Red light pulsed beneath it. Re Chrome, the first of the Chromes. “Now, Cage,” she yelled.
Cage lifted his saber above his head, then plunged it into the scarlet energy when the Badalisc reached the symbol. A tortured scream erupted from the creature as Chrome consumed him, body and mind, flaking him away like ashes in the breeze.
Then it was over.
Then it was done.
Cage vomited.
Smoke broke.
And the world around them faded.
Ah, this is brilliant, the fact that they are siblings who know each other being the power they really bring to the battle. Fantastic!
“. . . this creature was the worst type of monster, rewriting their minds with his lies . . .” describes so, SO many realms, imagined and real. super ♥️