Lanie Bross: Fates

It wasn’t working.

And then he thought of Corinthe. He saw her lips in her head, her vivid eyes, the way they went from stormy gray to the subtle softness of violet. He felt her soft hand in his, the tangle of her hair on his cheek.

He felt a sudden explosion of light, a bright burst in his mind.

Still he held Jasmine tightly in his arms.

And then the light went out, and they were on an island in the middle of the sky.

Luc could hardly breathe. It wasn’t exactly night—closer to dawn—but they were surrounded by more stars than he had ever seen when he and Jas snuck up onto the roof and made a game of spotting constellations.

“Jas, look,” he whispered, but his sister didn’t stir.

He knew he had to hurry, but instinctively, he sought out the familiar constellations—Andromeda, Pegasus, Orion. For companionship. For luck. They were all there, just like in his world, but none were in the correct order, as though a great hand had reached up into the sky and rearranged the puzzle pieces, and for the first time since he was a very little kid, Luc almost felt the urge to cry.

“Which one is the flying horse, again?” Jasmine asked.

Luc pointed out Pegasus, ran his fingers over each star, and drew a picture for her in the sky.

“That looks nothing like a horse,” she scoffed. “The only thing that even looks close is the Big Dipper. I mean, this one is supposed to be a bear. Seriously?” She pointed a finger at the constellation in the library book they’d checked out earlier.

“You have to fill in the blanks with your imagination. See how they show you a real bear here, and then where each of the stars falls inside it?” He traced the outline on the page.

“It still makes no sense,” she said. And then, after a pause: “Show me another one.”

Luc went through the book, page by page, illuminating the drawings with a flashlight, pointing to the corresponding stars in the sky. They stayed on the fire escape until dawn. Jasmine had nodded off earlier, but Luc tucked his sweatshirt around her and let her sleep. Then he sat there in the quiet, staring up at the stars.

Luc inhaled. Strangely, he no longer felt afraid. He felt peaceful, certain.

He would save Jasmine.

Maybe Corinthe was right after all. Maybe it had all been fated this way.

Tiny fireflies darted around over his head—and yet they were not just fireflies, and seemed to be filled with light far too bright for their tiny bodies. Flowers in colors Luc had never seen, never even imagined before, bloomed everywhere. Their aroma made the air feel thick against his skin.

He heard the faint echo of girls laughing, and it seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. He heard, too, the sound of rushing water. He shouldered through a wall of lush, unfamiliar plants, and found himself standing at the top of a majestic waterfall that seemed to flow directly off the edge of the world.

Hundreds of tiny silver marbles bobbed in the waves.

This was it—the place Corinthe talked about.

Pyralis Terra.

His chest hitched. “We did it,” he said to Jasmine. Her breathing was shallow, barely audible. “Just hang on, okay? For me. Almost there now.” His voice broke and he cleared his throat.

At the edge of the stream, he laid Jasmine down gently on a soft patch of moss. He hated to leave her, but they were running out of time; she was so pale, and her lips were almost purple. He had to find the flower quickly, and he could move faster if he was unencumbered.

He reached out and smoothed a lock of dark blue hair away from her face. For a second, his throat tightened up. He remembered how she used to fall asleep on his shoulder on the car rides back from San Jose, when they went to visit their grandparents.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him. “I promise.”

Then he straightened up. He was close—so close. He just needed to find the flower.

A makeshift path of white rocks was studded in the ground, and he followed it. It was as though he knew, instinctively, where he needed to go. Everything about this world felt intuitive, fluid, as though he’d been here before, or seen it in a dream.

He pushed deeper into the crowded growth. Enormous ferns brushed his shoulders, like the touch of gentle hands. He accidentally nudged a pink, bell-shaped flower, and the air filled with a heady, sweet scent that made his head swim—like the pine tree on Christmas morning.

He felt almost drunk and had to force himself to concentrate.

The path ended abruptly at a gated entrance between a pair of enormous stone walls. Seven huge statues confronted him, three on one side of the walkway, four on the other, towering above him like sentries. They had to be over ten feet tall, and all had women’s bodies, but their faces were completely blank except for half-crescent slashes to indicate mouths.

Despite the fact that they had no eyes, Luc got the sudden impression that they were watching him, and he shivered as he passed under their shadow. Beyond the gate, he saw a riot of blooms; this must be where the flower grew. He pushed hard on the gate, but it wouldn’t budge. He shoved harder, leaned all his weight against the heavy iron fretwork, and still it held strong, although he couldn’t see any signs of a lock. He stuck an arm through the gap in the bars but lost hope of slipping through the gate—he was far too broad, even turned sideways.

If he couldn’t open the gate, he would just have to climb it. Luc jumped and grabbed hold of one of the iron bars.

Then it began to shake.

No. The ground began to shake.

There was a heavy grating sound, and for one wild second, he thought he’d found a way to make the gate open. Then he saw an enormous shadow passing over him, and all the hairs on his neck stood up.

Luc dropped back to the ground. He turned. His heart stopped.

The statues had moved.

The statues were alive.

Their stone mouths had opened to reveal two rows of sharp, blackened fangs. Luc took a step back and stumbled, fell, scrambled backward like a crab until the gate stopped him, then pushed up to his feet.

One by one, the statues dropped to their hands and knees, snarling and snapping their stone teeth. And as they did, they changed; rounded stone fists became hands with terrible claws, digging through the earth. Luc felt the vibrations through his feet, all the way to his head. Three of the statues crowded him, so close he could have reached out and touched one of their blunt, blind faces—faces that knew, somehow, exactly where he was.

By smell.

By taste.

Luc was helpless. He had nowhere else to go. In his panic, in his terror, he couldn’t even think of trying to climb over the wall. He was rooted, frozen, watching them advance, inhaling the foul smell of wet stone and turned earth. The shadow of the monsters swept over him, blotting out the stars.

He edged a few inches to the right. Big mistake. Immediately, the monsters launched forward.

“Wait!” he shouted. “Wait!”

It was instinctive, desperate, but suddenly, they obeyed. The enormous stone beasts stopped advancing, but they moved, restless, pawing the ground with feet the size of tree trunks. One careless swipe would be enough to crack his skull.

“Okay, listen.” He didn’t know what he was saying. He was terrified, babbling, playing for time. He thought of Jasmine lying near the flowing water. He had promised that he would never let anything happen to her. It could not end this way. “Look, I don’t know if you can hear me, all right? I don’t know if you understand.” Those blind faces. Christ. What was he doing? Still the words kept coming: “My sister is dying, and I need a flower inside this gate to save her.”