7744

Year of the Fire Lily.

It sat squat and sturdy-built, a fortress of raw stone with trees sprouting from the ragged cliffs like living spires. Half the darkening sky lay hidden beyond the stone monoliths looming over him. The Ta'varyh mountains.

A yawn cracked between Zekarian's teeth. He released the hilt of his sword, covering his mouth to keep the dust hanging off the road out. The scabbard's tip tapped hard against his burning calf as he moved. Hissing, he snapped his hand down to stop it. A persistent throbbing forked its way up from his blistered feet on each step like lightning sparks. He should have taken a gryphon, the danger of flying be damned.

It had been eleven days of walking, but he was almost there. Close enough he could see it, and taste the mountain breeze. If there'd been a mountain breeze to cut through the sweat soaking dry heat of this place. Zekarian squinted at the dull sky, now nearly void of any light. It would be twelve days before he made it.

Twelve days without seeing Ce'ara. His fingers brushed over his lips. It seemed her kisses should still linger there, a presence against his skin. He could almost taste them, if he focused. Zekarian shut his eyes, drawing in a slow breath. Honey and flowers, sweet like nectar and soft like feathers.

She'd been angry. At him. At not being able to stop it. Ce'ara and powerlessness mixed poorly. But mostly, she'd been mad at the god, and at the war which made even a few weeks' travel perilous.

The message had been simple, and the human who'd been sent with it wary, he'd been from the Kingdoms after all. It was good to watch your enemies with fast eyes, sometimes it was all that kept you alive.

The name at the end of the letter had changed his life. Elegant and graceful, almost delicate, so odd it would be when it came from him.

Eshengael.

Zekarian hadn't even know his father knew he existed.

The closer he grew, the more his mind crowded itself with thoughts of it. That, and her. He let his fingers drop from his lips as he looked up. The mountains drew slowly closer, filling up the whole northern horizon.

In a few hours he would meet hid father.

Zekarian felt his lip pull into an almost too wide smile. He was finally going to meet the man he'd heard of only in stories and fables, soft tales whispered around the fire lest they somehow bring bad luck.

He was going to meet Death.

 ╗─╔

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╝─╚

Dawn's fingers hadn't yet begun to touch the cloudy sky when his hand first touched the side of the mountain, too sheer to walk up. He began to climb, still cloaked in near darkness, and the thick shadows clinging to the sides of the cliff.

Sweat slicked his palms in a slippery coating as he worked his way up the bluffs. Excitement buzzed tense in the tips of his fingers and along his spine, as if he were a bow string someone had plucked. Gripping the rough rocks above his head, he pulled himself up over a small ledge and stood, reaching up again with a shaking hand. Fear of the fall battled against the need to move faster.

He set a foot and pushed himself higher, clinging to the rocks. He wouldn't fall. He'd rather fall then keep the god waiting, anyway. Each foothold came quicker than the last, each fingernail's grip a heartbeat faster than the one before.

By the time he dragged himself up the last bluff along the side of the mountain, he could hardly breathe past a fierce burning inside his chest. Blisters covered his hands from the climb. Broken ones oozed a sticky, clear liquid over his palms. Zekarian stared at them for a moment, flexing his fingers. He watched as blood made a slow track down the edge of his palm. his side pressed into the roughness of the chilly stones. Sucking in a stinging breath, he sat.

Zekarian leaned over the side, looking down the way he'd come. The sheer rock led down to the sharp hills far below in ragged shelves. Clustered dry-forests stretched back along the road he'd followed, moving at its sides as it passed by and around the mountains.

He was almost to the top. Zekarian took another breath, trying to still the spinning in his head. The air tasted empty. Arms shaking from the exertion, he pushed himself up.

A man stood silently behind him.

Zekarian jumped, his right foot slipped off the edge and he lunged forwards to catch himself on reflex. Embarrassment tinged his cheeks, settling hot into place against them. He sank to his knees as gracefully as he could against the shaking in them. His hands shook against the stone. Zekarian curled his fingers into a crack, forcing them still.

He was here. He was really here. Part of him hadn't believed the god would come, all the long, lonely walk here. His stomach twisted, looping up around itself in time to the solid thump of his pulse against his ears.

Lifting his eyes a fraction, he glanced at the god. His black leather boots stood perfectly still, as if they belonged to a statue. The tip of a sheathed sword hung down beside them, dark as a starless night. Black pearl eyes pinned him in place from a bone pale face, pale even compared to the light skinned Kingdoms' soldiers he'd seen. Stark white hair framed his delicate features. His eyes seem to almost absorb the touches of early light that reached him.

He swallowed, mouth suddenly too dry to speak. His tongue stuck gritty as sand against the sides of his mouth.

"Rise." The god's voice was smooth and resonant, with a deep richness any minstrel would have killed for.

Zekarian scrambled up, the jagged movement sending spots dancing through his eyes, pulse a rattle in his ears. Eshengael spoke his mother tongue. He held back a childish grin.

"Father—my lord," His voice caught in a near stammer. Swallowing back the swirl of emotions, Zekarian straightened his back. Treat it like a fight. Be controlled. Be in control. Don't think, just do. Don't think just be. Zekarian wiped a sweaty palm on his pants, hand shaking still. He turned his gaze up to meet the god's eyes. Eshengael regarded him in silence, expression unreadable.

"Son." The word was formal. Taking a slow step towards him, Zekarian lowered his head a fraction.

"I came." What should he say to a man like this? No, not a man, a god. His presence hung off him like an unseen cloak of darkness.

The god snorted. "I didn't doubt you would." His white hair fluttered in the passing breeze. Behind him, color spread across the sky like spilled paints.

Zekarian shifted in place, looking at his feet for a moment. "Why..." The god's presence washed over him in a harsh wave, cutting against his breath with a knife's edge. It felt like standing in the middle of a battlefield full of the dying. Breathe. Be calm. Be still.

"Why did you want to see me?" His voice tightened around itself.

"I make it my business to know when I have sired a child." The god studied him with a harsh openness, Zekarian caught his breath snagging against his chest. Breathe. He could almost smell the death. He could smell the blood on his hands, and the bodies he'd left at his feet, broken and battered. See their cold, unmoving eyes. Eshengael's eyes were staring straight into him as if they could see his soul and take it apart to examine like a child's puzzle cube.

His stomach fluttered. "I see." Foolish, to hope he'd simply wanted to know him. Zekarian's gaze flicked away. Some of the weight of the god's presence lifted, just a fraction. "My lord," he added belatedly. The god's hand waved dismissively in the edge of his vision. Zekarian steeled himself before turning back, pressing down the writhing in his stomach. It didn't matter what foolish dreams he'd let himself dwell on, reality was here, and the rest was nothing but hopes he shouldn't have had.

"No need to call me that." Eshengael's eyes remained on him. The god took a gliding step forward. Zekarian jerked back reflexively.

Eshengael chuckled. "What is your name, and who was your mother?"

"Zekarian Moonadder, my Lord. My mother is Frella Darktouched." He winced. "You would have known her as Frella Whisperwood."

Something in Eshengael's eyes changed. Just for a moment, less than a heartbeat, then the look was gone. "Ah. Moonadder?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Do," he swallowed, "you remember her, my mother?" he asked, voice strained. Did you know about me?

"Vaguely. Moonadder?" the god asked again.

Zekarian nodded almost too fast. "It's for my..." He gestured vaguely towards the black locks of hair dangling around his chin. The god followed his hand with quizzical eyes. "It's white, like yours, but I dye it. White isn't exactly stealthy."

Eshengael smirked as he took another step forward. "Of course. And the adder part?"

"Speed."

Zekarian held his ground as the god moved closer, fighting against a slow turning in his stomach. This close the death radiating from him made it hard to think past a slowly budding, instinctive panic telling him to run. It felt like Eshengael was moments—seconds—from dying, and so was everything around him.

He swayed. Eshengael frowned, eyes following him.

"Well, I cannot say I have been looking forward to this," he said, once rich voice going flat and void of emotion.

Dread coiled around the panic, forming a gnarled knot around the inside of his chest. It clenched harder as he took a breath to speak.
"Can I ask why, my Lord?" The words had a breathless edge. Get away. Get away from it. His foot slid back involuntarily.

Eshengael passed stony, black eyes over him. The wind pushed against them, whistling in the sharp silence. Zekarian's dyed black hair fluttered against his face, stinging his cheeks.

"I hate having to do my duty," the god muttered, rich voice a whisper.

The dread formed an icy pit in his stomach. "Your duty, killing people?" The words barely escaped.

"My duty."

Eshengael moved, a lithe motion so fast the eye couldn't keep up. His fist grabbed the front of Zekarian's shirt. He recoiled, muscles nearly seizing as he forced his hand to stop inches above his sword, fingers quivering tense above it.

He took as casual step back as he could. The god tugged him in closer, tunic front choking into his throat.

"My Lord..." His voice came out, but only just. Panic swelled against each hammer of his pulse, echoing it deeper and deeper into him. Eshengael's aura pushed over him, cutting into his breath like an acrid smoke. You're going to die. His finger's edged closer to the sword.

Eshengael jerked him back, face stopping inches from Zekarian's. The god's warm breath brushed over him in a cloud. The smell hit him an instant later—oddly sweet, like rotting undergrowth. His eyes were hard and searching.

A gag struggled to escape. Zekarian's hand moved slowly to the sword, fingers touching the side of the hilt and curling around it.

You're going to die. Feel it? You're going to die.

Wind whipped up around them, tugging Zekarian's travel worn clothes. Their hair danced and snapped in it, black and white, mingling together. The sky bled out reds and pinks above them as the sun rose to kiss the side of the mountains in a far off distance.

He shifted his grip silently on the familiar hilt, fingers digging into it. He jerked it free.

The god grabbed his hand before it came out more than inches, slamming it in again, face going even colder. He swore, fingers still clenched on Zekarian's arm, unmovable as steel. "I had hoped I was wrong." The words were less than half a whisper. Zekarian strained against his hold. A bolder had more give.

Warmth began to radiate from the fist still tight against his tunic. "You are my son, blood of my blood, so I cannot kill you," he said, voice flat as an undisturbed pool. "But I can bury you."

Heat blazed up from the fingers locked against his clothes. Zekarian threw himself back, a strangled swear escaping his lips as the front of his shirt rent with a jagged, tearing sound too long in the emptiness.

He tumbled backwards, hand smacking in a burst of pain against the stones beneath him. Then the world pulled violently back upright, the god catching the tattered remains of his clothes in a searing fist.

"Father, I swear I will honor you! I have honored you. Lord, please!" His voice shattered over the lest words. The air on the mountain was so much thinner, almost not there at all. He gasped, choking from a breath that didn't come. His chest burned where Eshengael's fingers touched it

"I do not take pleasure in this."

"Please!"

"Words cannot help you." His hand pressed into Zekarian, hotter than coals. Hotter than standing beside the sluggish lava falls of his home. It seemed the sun itself had condensed its might down into Eshengael's fingers, coiling around his chest in burning, unseen bars.

He screamed, the sound rung off the silence. Gasping, Zekarian clutched at Eshengael's wrist. He pulled at the hand, desperate and so terribly feeble against the weight of the god's power. Pain buried, digging into his chest, then his neck and arms as it spread over his entire being. His hands still clutched at the god's wrist but he couldn't even try to fight anymore through the fire locking his muscles.

Eshengael thrust downward. Zekarian's knees buckled. His shins slammed into the stone, a distant echo of pain drowning alongside him. Blood soaked his pant leg.

The god loomed over him pressed, dark eyes glittering. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. A weight as strong as the oceans were deep fell atop him. Zekarian struggled to move beneath it, hands twitching against the god's.

You're dying.

The world swam, stretching up around him.

"S... stop. Please. Please!"

Not stretching. Sinking. Tingling ran up his left knee, pin pricks of freezing cold against he heat. Tears blurred the world till he could hardly see. But in the corner of his eye, he saw his other knee sink down into the stone. Horror rushed up over him, his stomach flipping.

I'm really about to die.

He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

Eshengael's face contorted in a look of anger. He shoved downward again. Zekarian sank, legs vanishing. The mountain rushed up at him in a devouring quagmire.

Lifting his hand, the god stepped back. Eshengael's eyes held a dark, festering anger. Zekarian's met them for a desperate heartbeat.

The mountain closed over his head.

The world plunged into darkness.

He couldn't breathe. The thought came to him first through the panic, followed only by the overpowering need to struggle against the liquid stone.

He couldn't breathe, but he could feel himself sinking like a rock in a pond, tumbling down, and down, and down.

His arms thrashed, legs kicking as if to swim through it. The liquid rock clung to him thicker than honey, each move seeming only to speed the fall. Faster, faster.
It became a wild sort of plunge he couldn't see, only feel in the way it pulled him and lifted his stomach.

Zekarian screamed, the last of his air escaping. It formed a pocket around his face as he slowed.

Slower. Finally, the fall stopped. The stone gathered around him, growing growing thicker.

The air inside his little bubble bounced the heat of his frantic breaths back at him, already stale and hollow in his lungs. His head spun. Zekarian choked down another breath of the empty air. The bubble crept up against his face. He tipped his chin into it, feeling as it sluggishly slipped over his mouth and away, clinging against his nose a heartbeat before it was simply gone.

"No..." the word had no sound, nor breath to carry it. Curling inward, he drew his knees up to his chest, struggling through the hardening stone.

You are my son, blood of my blood, so I cannot kill you, the words echoed in his mind. But I can bury you.

Zekarian shut his eyes. He sobbed, mute in the darkness.

The stone turned unmovable around him, and Zekarian knew it had been a lie.

He would die.

Everything was darkness behind shut eyes, but somehow the world dimmed more, a slow fading towards purest black. Nothing. No sounds. No smells. He couldn't feel his fingers, or the boots against his feet. Then his arms, and legs. Nothing. The panic tickled away from him, melting into the rest of the emptiness.