Steven Montano: Crown of Ash

Danica Black’s spirit heals him. S he mends the warlock’s broken body. Veins fuse closed. Muscles twist and right themselves. Internal organs that had been bruised and gashed pump o ut hostile fluids and eject them from the rents in his flesh before his injuries seal shut.

The process is agonizing. He feels every muscle shift, every ventricle fall back into place, every bone re- set and every inch o f broken skin pull back together. He screams.

His eyes open. He can’t be su re how long it’ s been.

Danica looks down at him. She is so beautiful. Her eyes glimmer in the half light. Her hair is paler, faded, but it feels like silk in his fingers. One arm is encased in armor, and it feels cold against him, but the rest of h er smooth skin feels so warm. She hovers just inches over his face.

He wants to tell her how he feels, but he can’t find the strength.

Something looms over her shoulder, something pale and monstrous. Glittering onyx eyes hold the reflection of he and Danica, many versions of the two mages as they rest there on the ground. They are happy and together in some reflections, and they lie dead in others. In the largest eye, the one he can best see as the massive spider silently twists in the air behind Danica, the image is clear. H e is alone.

The spider snatches Danica Black and rips her backwards into darkness. Ice tendrils and webs of iron wrap around her body. She doesn’t even have time to release a scream. The spider falls away and fades into the shadows.

It was her, he realizes. All this time, all of these events it manipul ated…it wanted Danica all along. B ut not just Danica… the transformed Danica. Whatever happened to her, whatever was done to her, it had to happen before the spider would take her.

He tries to rise, but he can’t. He’ s still far too weak. Tears pour down his face, and his heart pounds with loss. Wracking sobs overtake the warlock as he lies there, alone in the dark.

He looks out from the void.

He is nothing. A ghost presence. A phantom.

He has been t here for so very long.

He can’t be sure how long it’ s been since Azradayne took Danica. He can’t begin to imagine what the spider wants with her, or how Black was changed. He remembers her armor arm, and he somehow knows that her spirit is bound to it. He ’d felt the change in her, the shift in her life force. S he’d been prepared for some dread purpose of the spider’s design, even if whoever had altered her had n’t been aware of what that design was.

And it’ s his fault.

H e stands at the edge of worlds, finally given a way home. To get there he will pass through the Carrion Rift, a place where no human or vampire has ever returned from. He doesn’t doubt that the place will likely be his end, but he has to try.

He can’t return to the Whisperlands. He knows the spider is no longer there. It has plans for Danica, and he has to find out what they are.

If I have to search for you for the rest of my life, I will.

He stands next to the Obelisk. The wavering shadow curtain marks the final bound ary, the tapestry between realities. Everything is uncertain behind him, fading shadow s and repeating moments, tangents of himself folded one over the other. Everything ahead is solid.

The Obelisk isn’ t safe there. Not anymore.

H e throws his body against it. M uscles strain. His calves and shoulders ache, and he fears he isn’t strong enough, but finally the stone shifts, the dirt cracks and parts, and the Obelisk pitched forward into open air. The atmosphere was toxi c. Cross gagged on the scent of burning bodies and hex rot, and he fell against the canyon wall to catch his breath.

The Obelisk plummeted. The artifact struck the dark and jagged walls before it vanished into cloud s of black fog below. Cross heard no impact, and knew that he wouldn’t — it was just stupid luck that the Obelisk had ever landed t here and been lodged in that fissure in the Rift wall. I t had dangled there for years, stuck between worlds on a crumbling ledge.

M onstrous calls echo ed all around him. The ledge he stood on climbed up wards at a steep angle, forming a rough path along the canyon wall. When he was in the Whisperlands h e’ d spied clefts in the Rift’s wall s, shallow rock shelves and steep slopes, walkways and ancient ladders. If he was lucky he might be able to find his way to the surface.

Cross held the blade in his leathery fingers. He felt the beard on his face, and he ran his hands over cracked and aging skin. He shook as he stood t here, burdened with regret. He had n o idea what had happened to the rest of his team. He didn’t even know if any of them were still alive. He had no idea how to find Danica, or how to even start.

For a moment his eyes went to the black smog below, to the void of shadows and screams and vented cold fumes. I t would be so easy to go there, to drop down into that utter darkness. To be done with it all.

The notion only crossed his mind for a moment. He shook himself. He would n’ t take that easy path. All his life Cross had tried to do the right thing, to make the right choice.

And that means pain sometimes, he told himself. That means walking the difficult road and finding your way, even when there’s no one there to help you. The dead have the easy road: they know the way, because that decision has already been made for them.

Only the living are lost.

He held the image of Danica’s face in his mind, then turned and started the arduous climb up the narrow ledge. He had a long way to go.