IRON GOD | 2: Empyrean

[25] Kolo: Know and Love and Curse You

Kolo bolted faster than she could think. She didn't dare slow or look back. If she looked back, she'd have time to regret this. She didn't have the luxury of thinking it through, not now.

If her hunch was true, Valielit could be after her any second now. That was good, right? She knew her cousin. She knew how to handle this. Right?

Damn it! Stop thinking and RUN!

Kolo plunged herself into Styzia's bluehole.

She crashed ashore somewhere else entirely. A gray stony shore shrouded in mist.

Her thoughts jumped back to her comrades. Would Magpie hurt them? She hoped not. But hope wasn't a strategy. She stared at the crystal-clear water and waited for her cousin. Surely she'd follow, right? Surely Kolo could get at least half a clue of what was going on.

Something stirred out on the water's surface. Kolo's eyes darted toward the motion. Two puffs like steam rose up with two long, toothy snouts.

The blind crocodile-looking dolphins she'd just read about. What timing. Even if they didn't have eyes, she couldn't help but feel watched. With a heavy shudder she turned and kept running.

Kolo made it as far as the tree line before an overwhelming sense of deja vu hit her. This place felt familiar. Too familiar for peace of mind, even if no one lived here anymore.

She sat down on a half-rotted log and rubbed sweat off her forehead. She tried to tell herself it could've been coincidental that this stretch of forest looked just like one she and Vali used to play in. How could she be certain she even remembered the old days right?

Kolo took a deep breath. The haze from the lake was creeping up into the woods now. Droplets condensed and then froze on the trees' needles. She couldn't resist reaching up and flicking a low-hanging branch just to watch the little beads of ice fly off. A small laugh escaped her.

Valielit used to sit on a log like this and laugh at seemingly nothing. Sometimes for several minutes at a time before snapping back disoriented. Vali's smile and laugh were infectious, but also empty and joyless, Kolo had long since realized. Like a bird obsessively preening itself naked.

Vali cried too – with just as little feeling and just as much contagion. That day – their last day together as children – she'd cried long and loud. Kolo pictured it vividly, as if she were right back in that moment.

Ami's arrival in Howl Hollow had caused quite a ruckus immediately, given the usual lack of visitors.

"Is that our big cousin?" Kolo clutched Vali's hand and looked up at their grandmother, more confused than sad. She hadn't really known him, so there wasn't much to mourn. Still, the body in Ami's cart looked like an older male version of herself, visibly and viciously wounded by what her little mind could only imagine to be storybook monsters. And it horrified her.

"What happened?" Grandmother growled at Ami. "How did our Khohet die? How could he?"

"He fought and he lost," Ami answered. "And though he'd been after me for a long time, I took no vengeance when I found him wounded. I swear it. I treated him like any other patient. The least I can do now is return him to his family."

Vali cried long and loud. Then she laughed, then cried some more. It sounded like something was twisting in her head, scrambling to break out. Kolo squeezed her cousin's hand until she quieted.

"Who defeated him?" Grandmother demanded. "And how do we avenge him?"

"That information will cost you," said Ami.