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Each word burned my tongue and ground against my soul the same as it had when I had first discovered them. When I had found Jack after he had been taken.
“I didn’t know! I didn’t!”
“Being oblivious does not make one innocent. You want me to pay for what I did to your brother?” I laughed with a sound as cold as the ice that was beginning to ripple over my skin. “What about what your brother did to mine? To Jack. Trust me when I say I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
His eyes widened as everything clicked together, the last piece of who I was falling into place. Not the wanderer, not the Fae killer, but the boy who had come into his office so long ago looking for his brother, looking for Jack. He had lied to me that he hadn’t seen him, it was that moment that led us there.
Now he would die because of it.
“No! Don’t!” Yersua screamed, his wide eyes looking at each of the twisted flames that curled through the air around him. His were the only screams left now.
“Oh, I have something much more fun planned for you.” The fire burned even as I released my magic from it, the flames devouring everything of their own accord as I let the heat of my fire burn away, and brought forth my true power.
“Wh–what?” He was still trying to escape as I wrapped my hands around his arms. He flinched at the chill of them.
At the cold that covered me.
“Tell me. What color are my eyes?” He looked from the flames to me, clearly expecting the deep blue of before. His eyes shook with fear as I saw my pale eyes of death reflected in his wide gaze of horror.
“Ice.” He stammered, clearly connecting the color to the feel of my hands against his arms.
“Death.” I corrected, and let my magic flare as I pulled his life from him, pull every scrap of his time. I wasn’t slow like before, I sucked it from him greedily, I pulled at every piece of the wicked life that would have been lived and took it into me.
His scream rattled as I drew him away, the pain of my magic more than a deep stab as it severed his life from him. A scream akin to pure agony ripped from him as his skin began to wilt, his joints cracking and breaking, his body beginning to rot and shrivel into a dried husk of nothing.
I released him, savoring the taste and feel of him and leaving what remained of the man to drop to the ground with a thud. I didn’t even turn to watch what was left of him float amongst the blood and char as I retrieved my knives, wiping them on the damp fabric of my cloak before I sheathed them.
Fire rippled everywhere, the sound of wood snapping and breaking mixing with the crackle of the flames as The Sway broke apart. If I was anyone else I would have to bail and swim to shore, but the fire would certainly be pulling people’s attention by now and I couldn’t be seen.
Good thing I had more than enough time to remedy that.
My magic hummed with life as I pulled at the time I had stolen, my mind pulling right back to the moment before I entered The Sway, the small touch of my fingers against the wooden pier that led to the old Qit.
A single motion I could use to pull myself back through time.
I made the same motion before I entered any building, before any job. It was nothing more than an ‘x’ traced on the doorframe. If I ever needed to move backward through time it always helped to have a mark so as not to get lost.
I had gotten lost before. First, when I had watched Lily slip away and her life sent me back, and again after my first kill when the sudden influx of life had thrust me back even further with nothing to anchor me to.
This time, I pulled at that mark as I let the magic flare. Time sped around me, flames sucking into nothing, water drifting from red to the inky black of the sea.
I knew what I would see if I lingered. See the fight, see the death, and I was sure I would hear Yersua talk about his plans to end me. I cared about none of it.
The world felt heavy and thick as I walked out of the door, everything and everyone moving in reverse as I walked forward, through the hall, and the bar where the sounds of drinks and conversations panged in slow, hollow tones.
Mylly poured drinks, the others looking eagerly at the door as the shadowed figure of myself reversed from the bar to the door.
The two parts of me walked through together, the shadow of myself turning as he reached the end of the pier, staring over waves and into the forest and toward the Runturin beyond before he turned and traced the ‘x’ on the wood of the frame. My own fingers traced the small shape right alongside that shadow before time reversed and I shifted it forward, letting the shadow of myself look again toward the horizon and then slide through the door and into the bar. My own inky cloak vanished through the door as I stood there, watching the door swing, listening to the voices on the other side before I released my hold on time and all of those shadows I moved through unseen became real.
My fingers lingered on the wood even as I released my hold, listening to the voices and knowing what would come.
I stood there, knowing I was also on the other side of the door.
Time would continue on. Nothing would change.
Turning from the door, I began the long walk down the plank bridge that connected The Sway to the shore, the heavy realization I had been avoiding since that moment Yersua called me The Wanderer setting in. The same truth I had felt prickle when speaking to Tayln. The same one when I had heard those Walkers talk about the wedding, about the ever approaching deadline.
Everything had intersected, all of the lives I had been juggling unraveling. The Wanderer would not get to the queen, not in the way I had planned.
