This is what she will remember as she stays awake, stays aching on humid nights: she did nothing.
She did nothing as the monster took his lambs to slaughter, broke bones, broke skin, broke souls. And maybe that would be acceptable – who is she to judge, a woman with blood on her own hands? – but then the monster had invoked His name, and her hip had burned hot.
It had felt almost like a dream – a nightmare – except the stench of blood was too thick, His smile was too wide to be anything but real.
He did not look her way but she’d known He could feel her.
It’s a vision, she’s there and not-there, watching the display unfold before her sinking eyes but unable to act, to save them, unable to scream.
“Good,” He says, sweet praise, and the monster preens under it. The monster says his name.
There is a girl, says a voice, sing-song, a girl who’s dead and not-dead.
The voice sounds like Him, but she listens. She can’t help but listen.
Who would win, do you think? The girl’s like this boy – malleable, but powerful.
A laugh, from somewhere, from everywhere, and then the laugh turns to crows, a whole murder of them, blacking out the sky.
She watches the crows, puzzles over the voice, the one compelling her to listen.
There is a girl, she muses, a girl who’s dead and not-dead.
Cordis herself has died a hundred times, always at His terrible hand.
Where is the girl? she asks but the voice is silent.
Dead, and not-dead.
Cordis has time, handfuls of it stretching before her. So she wanders. She looks for a girl who is dead and not-dead, but when she looks too hard the crows come, shrieking, and she knows it’s not the right place.
She’s on the beach, now, all dark sand and death. She hasn’t been here for years and years, not since she’d first come to Beqanna. Ka was conceived here, in one violent act that had left her violator burnt dead on the sand, left Cordis silver and in the family way, a fact she didn’t realize until too late.
The crows are there – they seems to always be there – but they are quiet, save for the churn of their wings. Her own raven, the thing half-electric, flies among them, bright and strange in the dull sky. The raven flies on, then disappears. She feels the tug of it, her odd forged connection, and watches as the crows try to follow.
She hones her thoughts on her raven, connects to her. Her body fades and she transmutes, passes from one realm to another. She feels a moment of cold, like death, but then the sensation is gone. She’s back on the beach, but not the same beach.
The crows are gone, but there is a girl there, a girl of flesh and blood, surrounded by ghosts.
Dead, and not-dead.
In her head, she hears the crows, but it’s simply one rough noise: Caw.
Like a cry and a laugh combined.
She walks closer to the girl, hesitant. She looks like a ghost herself, silver-colored, still half-faded from her trip.
“Caw?” she says, and wonders if this is all so much foolishness. But then she remembers the voice
(who would win, do you think?)
and decides she will not turn back, not yet.
I’ll touch you all and make damn sure
Cordis
that no one touches me