Aris
IF THERE WAS ONE THING THAT ARIS HATED ABOVE ALL ELSE, IT WAS swallowing
his pride.
He folded and unfolded his arms, unable to get comfortable as he paced the floor of his study. Signa had arrived moments ago to visit Blythe, and he could feel his brother lingering nearby.
Waiting.
Expectant.
A complete and total nuisance.
Death, too, must have known there was something wrong with Blythe, and if his persistence was any indicator, the fool likely wanted to help. Every cell in Aris’s body told him to ignore his brother. Told him that he could figure this out on his own, and that Death could fall into a ditch and never emerge for all Aris cared.
But then he thought of Blythe. Of how long it had taken for her to trek through the hills of Hateno, trying and failing to mask her breathlessness and how easily her skin flushed with exertion. Her illness was becoming worse with each day. She’d been half delirious when she’d spoken of Chaos, but if it was true that the demon had somehow involved herself in Blythe’s life…
Aris may have been arrogant, but he was no fool. Against Chaos, he stood no chance. He clenched his fists, steadying his rage as he prowled to
the door and threw it open.
“Come in,” he demanded, rolling his eyes as Death swept inside not a second later. His shadows leaked into the study, dimming the light so profusely that Aris sighed as his eyes readjusted.
“It’s bad enough that you have to come here to drop off Signa,” he grumbled. “Why haven’t you left?”
“Because Blythe is sick and you need my help.”
Aris’s tongue burned with the threat of words he did not wish to speak aloud. Words that would have him indebted to his brother and build a bridge between them that he wasn’t sure he was ready to cross. Once, Aris might have let pride make the decision for him. But with the memory of Blythe’s laughter on his mind—as soft and lovely as a spring gale and plaguing his thoughts like an inescapable song—he turned to his brother and forced out the truth despite how much it pained him.
“It’s Solanine,” he said. “She’s the reason Blythe has fallen ill.”
“Solanine?” The shadows sank from Death’s body, revealing hair as white as bone and a face that Aris struggled to look at. “Do we know why?” Aris turned away, focusing his attention on the corner where the fouled tapestry lay. Its song was grating even then, causing a persistent throbbing
along his temples that Aris couldn’t shake.
“No,” he said. “But I believe it has something to do with that.”
Death followed his gaze and slipped over to the tapestry, bent like a crow to inspect it.
“Your quality is slipping, brother. This is hideous,” Death noted without inflection. He was met by Aris’s incredulous scoff.
“I didn’t make it.” Aris grabbed the tapestry from the table and grimaced at the feeling of it between his hands—like he’d spent hours digging around in the dirt and would need to scrub them clean. “I found it not long before Solanine showed up. She threatened Blythe—told her that she’d ‘disturbed the balance’ or some crock.”
Aris had wanted to know every excruciating detail, but Blythe had been so weak when they’d spoken about it that he hadn’t wanted to push.
“I’ve only seen one like it before, and it disappeared before I was able to uncover its origin.”
Death remained unmoving as he examined the heinous black threads that forever stitched themselves but never grew. An abomination.
“The last time Solanine got involved in our lives—”
“Hundreds of millions of people died,” Aris finished for his brother. “I’m aware. Which is why we have to stop it this time. So long as Blythe is breathing, we have a chance to fix what we once failed to.”
Death straightened, determination hardening his resolve as he met Aris’s gaze. “I suppose our thoughts are aligned?”
A war of emotion flooded through Aris, but he showed not even the barest hint of it as he nodded.
“I suppose they are,” he admitted. “It’s time we pay Chaos a visit.”
 |
Chaos was not an easy person to find.
She did her work swiftly, upturning nations, pitting lovers against each other, and otherwise brewing up one trouble or another before she hurried on to the next thing. She’d never been capable of settling in one place for an extended period, and typically stuck to larger cities and flashier towns where word of her destruction could be more easily spread. If there was a single truth Aris knew about her, it was that she had no appreciation for quiet work. When it came to her preferences, the louder the better.
Death, likewise, had never cared for Chaos, but had come to understand the inner workings of her mind given all his years cleaning up her messes and guiding the horrified souls whose lives she took without remorse. He had learned to decipher which deaths had been brought about by her hand, and after three attempts following Death’s lead, the brothers found Chaos not lording over a looming war nor with her eyes aglow as she watched destruction unfold. To their surprise, they found her posing as a student, uniform and all, at a finishing school.
It was called Hellebore House, and they arrived not upon its grounds, but in a dimly lit room with two small beds. Solanine sat contentedly on one of them while two other girls bickered nearby. They were walking tentatively across the floor, several books stacked atop their heads to practice their posture. Aris hadn’t a clue what was going on, but his brows lifted toward the ceiling as one of the girls whipped a book off her head and
spun to hurl it at the second young lady behind her.
Aris stilled time before they could notice his arrival, grimacing at the spine of the book that stopped a mere inch from the girl’s face.
Solanine, who’d been leaning forward in eager anticipation, groaned at the interference. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for her to snap? We were finally getting to the good part!”
The moment she spoke, Aris felt his stomach plummet. It was as if someone had taken a knife and carved out all that was good within him. Any sense of hope or light disappeared as dread weighed his body down, making each step toward her feel like he was climbing the world’s tallest mountain.
In the end it was Death who swept forward in his torrent of shadows. He was larger than he’d been moments prior, and Aris couldn’t understand how he was able to get so close to Solanine when she was in one of her moods, bombarding everyone with despair that festered like a disease. And yet Death’s voice did not waver as he asked, “What are you doing in this place?”
Solanine’s smile was predatory.
“I’ve been inspired back here by recent events.” Her voice was so light. So deceptively cheerful that the grief and pain slicing through Aris’s heart felt nonsensical. “Young minds are so malleable. It’s amazing how much fun it is to devastate them.” Solanine tilted her head to peer around Death and observe Aris. His body stiffened at her grin.
“They’re sisters,” she told him. “Twins, actually, and if all goes well, then the argument should be irreparable. Would you like to stay and watch?”
“I’ll pass.” It took a great deal of control for his words not to sound as pained as he felt. He puffed a slow breath from between his lips. It’d been ages since he’d last seen Solanine, and still he could not look at her without instant regret for all his past self had done with her.
He and Solanine had burned hot and fast, together only a few short months. Practically seconds in human time. He had not known Life back then, nor had he learned to give thought to the fates he crafted. He did try now, despite what anyone wanted to believe. But back then Aris had cared solely for a good show, and if there was one thing that Solanine could be counted on to provide, it was that.
“I am not the same man I once was,” he said. “I have no desire to harass the humans.”
“It’s not harassment, Ari.” She slipped around Death, sauntering forward. “It’s inspiration. Humans cannot exist in a stagnant world. They always need something to feel angry or righteous about. It’s what keeps them going, and the world spinning. I’m certain this moment will fuel these girls’ minds for years to come.”
The thrill in her voice had Aris wondering whether Mila had ever had the misfortune of meeting this demon. He had no doubts that the two of them would have become fast enemies. Even Aris believed that the world would be a better place without Chaos, but what did he know? In the end, she believed in her job the very same as he and Death believed in theirs.
“Release your hold on them,” Solanine said, her eyes sparking a devilish red. “I won’t tell you twice.”
Even back when Aris had known her intimately, Solanine had never been patient. She always needed to be involved in something. Always needed the dramatics, and to be in the center of flaring tempers. He should have known better than to hope that some part of her would have changed after all these centuries.
“Do whatever you wish to these girls,” Aris said flatly, ignoring a sharp warning hiss from his brother. He didn’t care what Death thought of him; there was but a single soul that Aris was here to protect. “I’ll free them as soon as you tell me what business you have with my wife.”
He realized too late the danger of his words. Realized as Solanine’s spine straightened and her lips pulled into a slow grin that he’d made a grave misstep.
“Your wife?” How joyous she sounded as she shifted closer, moonlight shining wickedly upon her. “Well, this just keeps getting more interesting.”
Aris had no plan as he matched her steps to close the space between them, fueled by his terror. But one step too close and his knees buckled. He clutched his chest as she halted his breath with images of Mila drowning in a lake. Of white hair floating around a pale face and rosy lips that were struggling for breath. In his mind’s eye Aris tried to save her, but no matter how much he ran, he couldn’t reach her.
“It’ll be a shame when she dies. If she’s anything like her mother, I’m sure she would have been one to watch.”
Her mother?
Though Aris knew she was standing there before him at Hellebore House, Solanine’s voice echoed as if she were miles away. He could see only an endless lake with towering evergreens that surrounded a clearing he’d once spent much of his time in. It was the clearing he’d brought Mila to, the one in the portrait that hung outside his study.
He hadn’t been able to bring himself to it since her death, for it was at that lake on a warm summer day that Aris had realized his heart belonged to him no longer. He had watched Mila venture into the water, her dress billowing first around her ankles, then around her waist. He’d stared, stuck by her beauty. By the gentle swaying of her hips and the happiness she found in every lily pad and wisp of wind against her skin.
She’d turned back to look at him from the water, and when her smile was like lightning to his heart, Aris realized for the first time that he was in love.
Now the ghost of Mila’s face stared up at him from beneath the water, but she wasn’t alone. Blythe was in the woods, staggering against the trees. Her fingers were pressed to her neck, unable to stall the blood that pooled down her throat and stained the collar of her white dress. Her desperate eyes caught sight of Aris, and she reached a hand for him at the same time that Mila’s pale hand shot out of the water, both of them begging for his help.
But he could only choose one.
Aris knew he should run to Mila. She was the obvious choice; she was who he had waited centuries to find, if only to hold her in his arms once more.
So why couldn’t he get his legs to move? Why did his eyes keep straying across the clearing, to where he prayed Blythe would not die?
He couldn’t move, frozen by his indecision.
“Aris.”
Aris clutched his chest, knocking his fist against it to seize control of himself and force breath into his lungs. He needed to move. Needed to hurry. He could pull Mila out and then run to Blythe. He could make it to both of them—
“Aris, get ahold of yourself.”
The voice wasn’t gentle but a hurricane that shook the trees and struck
him square in the chest. Aris realized vaguely that it belonged to his brother.
His brother, who stood beside him in reality. Who gripped Aris tight by the shoulders until Mila’s body sank below the depths and Blythe crumpled among the trees as the vision disappeared.
Whatever noise Aris made hardly sounded human as he came to, left with the image of both Mila’s and Blythe’s envisioned deaths plaguing his mind. He whipped his head up to face Solanine, the gold in his eyes glinting as a million threads shone around him. “Meddle with my mind again and I’ll slit your throat.”
Solanine remained unfazed, standing before him with her hands on her hips.
“It seems that even Fate has fears,” Solanine mused as she observed his struggle. From the drumming of her fingers to the bouncing of her heels, Chaos was forever moving, unable to exist within stillness.
It took everything in Aris to resist the urge to strike, not wanting to give the monster any further reason to go after Blythe. “What will it take to get you to leave her alone?”
Solanine didn’t require so much as a second to consider. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Your wife has upset the very balance of nature itself. She breathes only because of whose blood she carries in her veins, but that won’t protect her for long. Like Rima, I am giving this girl a single chance to fix her mistakes. You best pray that she’s not as foolish as her mother.”
Rima? Aris slid a look at Death. Did Solanine believe that Blythe was a Farrow? If she did, he wasn’t about to tell her otherwise.
Instead, he said, “Tell us what she needs to do and we’ll ensure that it happens.”
“I’ll do no such thing.” Solanine was perilous in her delight. “If she fails, then she fails on her own merits. That’s part of the fun.”
Aris clenched his fists. She may have believed she had given Blythe a chance, but the truth was that none of Solanine’s marks had ever survived. This game she was playing with Blythe was simply another show. Another way for her to weave chaos into their lives in the form of hope.
It was Death who lashed out this time, his shadows sweeping into a large scythe he sliced down upon her. It carved clean through Solanine’s body, but she only sighed as her skin pieced itself back together and blood as dark and thick as tar soiled the carpet.
“You will not harm her,” Aris hissed. “Keep away from my wife, or this time I swear that I will find a way to destroy you.”
“Good luck with that,” she said with a gentle laugh. “People like us can’t die unless we go willingly. And even then, we’ll always come back.”
The room shone a brilliant gold as Aris’s threads snapped toward her, but Solanine was gone before a single one could wrap around her.
Murder was at the forefront of Aris’s mind as he forced his bones to straighten. They’d gone weary in Solanine’s presence, every muscle aching. “That girl is the devil,” he snapped. “I’ve no idea how you can get so
close to her.”
“You’ve been much closer to her than I have,” Death said with a knowing look. His shadows encompassed the book that was still floating in midair in front of one of the student’s faces, primed to strike. He pushed it to the side, ensuring it would miss its mark.
“An appreciated reminder, thank you, brother.” Aris smacked invisible dirt from his clothing, despising how easily he’d been brought to his knees. “I should have known what a spectacular waste of time this would be. She’s not changed one bit.”
Once, long ago, Aris could have always been counted on to know what Death was thinking. Now, distracted as he was, he didn’t notice that Death had not immediately agreed with him. He did not recognize the glaze over his brother’s eyes as a plan took shape in his mind.
Aris may have regretted this visit, but for Death, perhaps it had not been so useless after all.
