Steven Montano: Blood Skies

He sees his spirit. She emerges from the trees and walks towards him.

I’m sorry. I’m finished. And with me gone, you’ll die, too.

It’s time, she tells him. It’s the way of things. One goes. Another stays. I want to go.

No.

It’s my choice. Not yours.

And so it ends. A unicorn horn pierces her torso from behind, and it punches through her chest. She gasps, and her hands cling to the bloody spike. She looks at Cross, and smiles.

I love you.

A beam of light from above takes hold of her. She is lifted out of the glade and into the silver sky, where she will fall forever in the company of other lost souls.

Steven Montano

Blood Skies

Cross woke to a cold and cloudy night.

His back ached like he’d been stabbed, and his joints and muscles were sore and stiff. Every last part of him felt heavy, except for his head, which felt stuffed with cotton. But he was whole. The wounds he’d suffered were somehow all gone: the plagued hand, the blade and claw wounds, even the broken leg. All he was left with was fatigue.

A deep chill gripped his skin, and when Cross took a breath he was struck with a fit of coughing that went on for what felt like hours.

Slowly, he sat up, and looked around.

He was in the graveyard.

She sent me home.

The industrial fires of Thornn lit the deep night and turned the clouds to copper. The vastness of the Reach stretched out behind him, a dark and endless field of shadowed frost. Just to his right, dangling from the lonely tree, was the featureless doll he and Snow had seen the last time they’d been there.

It was the last place he and Snow had visited together before he’d found out she was to be a part of Viper Squad. Before he found out she’d accompany him on what ended up being her first and only trip away from Thornn.

Cross understood what had happened, even if there was no logical reason why he should have. Somehow, there at the end when he’d used the plague on his hand to detonate the bombs and destroy the Necronaught, his spirit had found him. She’d broken though the walls of her prison in spite of Margrave Azazeth’s power and made it so that he could defeat Red when she tried to escape, right there in that prison of souls.

And then, she sacrificed herself to rescue his body and his soul from doom, and in the process she’d sent him home.

Cross put his arms around himself to fight off the night’s chill. Moments later, he was warm. Something enveloped him — it took him in its spectral hold, and it smothered him in a glaze of unseen energies. He heard incomprehensible whispers, and he sensed a presence there beside himself.

It was a spirit. But it wasn’t her.

Somehow, for reasons he felt sure he’d never fully understand, he’d been given another. He sensed her. She felt entirely alien to him, and he could tell that she was just as uncomfortable as he was. She might have even been the slightest bit resentful towards him, or even hostile, but the bond that had already cleaved them together meant that he had nothing to fear from her, or she from him.

I don’t understand. I’m sorry…you’re stuck here with me, stuck with my pain.

Snow…I’m so sorry. I miss you already. I always will.

For a time, Cross just sat there in the cold and wept. The weight of all he had lost came crashing down, and it almost crushed him. His tears froze in the bitter and uncaring wind.

His spirit tugged at him, impatient. Restless. Somehow familiar.

Could it have been her? Could it have been Snow?

Likely, he could never know. But he could hope.

Whoever his new spirit was, she was with him now, and he hoped that in time he would come to feel for her as he had for the spirit who’d saved his life, who’d been the other half of his soul for almost as long as he could remember.

How he’d loved her.

He walked the streets of Thornn, bound for the graveyard. It had been some weeks since his return. The world seemed strangely the same in so many ways.

But it wasn’t the same, and it never would be.

Cross had been debriefed and congratulated on a successful mission. There had been many questions regarding the loss of his squad and the airship that had deployed them into the Wormwood. There were even more questions about Viper Squad’s unauthorized engagement in Rhaine, and the fate of that remote town.

In the end, Cross was commended. They gave him a medal, a shiny white platinum ankh on a chain, a symbol of courage and valor. He stuffed it away in a box somewhere and lost the box in his apartment.

There was no talk of reforming Viper Squad. The general consensus was that it would be an ill omen to resurrect a unit that had seen all but one of its members killed in action. Elias Pike, a grizzled officer that Cross would report to from that point on, informed him that he had a place on any Squad of his choice.

Cross asked about reassignment, about helping the Southern Claw in a different way. Pike wanted him in the field.

I’m not sure if that’s where I belong.

Southern Claw scouts confirmed the destruction of the Necronaught bound from Koth to Rath, and arcane reconnaissance verified the presence of an obelisk buried at the bottom of the Carrion Rift. Because the sacrifice had not been properly carried out, the artifact remained unharmed. Now it was buried somewhere beneath tons of iron, rubble and debris. Better yet, it was being unwittingly defended by the shadow hounds and other mutated monstrosities that called the Rift their home, creatures that were hostile to all other things living or dead. Teams would be assembled to recover the obelisk and bring it into Southern Claw hands before the Ebon Cities could acquire it, but in the meantime the source of mankind’s magic was safer than perhaps it had ever been before.

In the end, nothing had really changed, at least not in the grand scheme of things. That had been the point, of course, which meant that Viper Squad’s mission had been a complete success, even with the terrible casualties that had been suffered in the hunt for Margrave Azazeth. She had ultimately failed, and had been eliminated. The Old One was gone. The vampires of the Ebon Cities had gained no new advantage over the Southern Claw. The outcasts of Koth, in the meantime, remained a threat, and in time they would have a new leader.

Life went on.

Cross tried to adjust to his spirit, but it was clear from the start that things would be difficult between them. She was anxious and headstrong, reckless with abandon. He feared when he’d first have to go into combat with her or, worse yet, when they’d come into the presence of the recently dead. It was like playing with fire.

In many ways, Cross was a novice again. He and his spirit had been together for most of his life, had grown to know each other. She’d been an integral part of him.

There was a stranger inside of him, now. He had to start all over.

Cross knew that he would have to make a decision soon regarding his future with the Southern Claw. Retirement wasn’t out of the question, considering the short life expectancy of warlocks. He hadn’t ruled out the possibility of returning to the field, either. His spirit wanted to roam wild and free.

Cross had nightmares about Snow, trapped in that burning train as it plummeted over the cliff and into a canyon filled with nightmares.

He saw to it that a grave marker was placed for her, right next to their mother. The other members of Viper Squad had been interred in a separate section of the graveyard, but Cross managed to get a special plate made to commemorate the squad as a whole, which he placed right next to Snow.

He wanted to remember them all together.