Glass

Chapter Thirteen: All in Flames (Part II)

My eyes scanned desperately at the flaming wasteland. The pounds of serpent flesh and pool of its blood left little else to be seen in its sheer enormousness. With the blood, the flames began to dim away, leaving embers to flicker at the sky, and as the scene darkened, the bodies before us became harder and harder to determine. 

I heard a cry. Limping pathetically out of the soldier's arms, I waded towards it, and climbed over the serpent's severed neck. On the other side, Emiliano's foot was trapped beneath the butchered patagium of the serpent's wing. Wearily, I lifted it away, and bent to see Emiliano's face. He looked at me, terrified for what may have been the first time I had seen. He clutched at one eye, blood pooling between his fingers and trickling down his wrists.

"Help… me…" his voice shook. But all I could think to do at that moment was hug him tight.

"Raúl!"

"Tomás!"

"Felipe!"

Other soldiers yelled and tore away the heaps of flesh to find their fallen men. Emiliano was as cold and as pale as ice, but his shuddering let me know he was still alive. 

Rafael and Zolin rushed to us. 

"Felipe is gone," Zolin said, "as is Tomás, Javier, and Ignacio."

"Four men gone." Rafael spoke at first as though he was asking a question, but by the end, it was accepted as a brutal fact. 

The remaining few stood in a bitter silence. Rafael's breath only sharpened, and his eyebrows furrowed. 

"The feathered serpents were supposed to be dead." He spat. "They're supposed to be dead!"

"What do we do?" I said, unable to hide my terror.

Zolin turned away and pulled his sword out from the feathered serpent's head. With it, he plucked a great feather and tucked it into his pocket.

"He looked at you, Andres. What did he say to you?"

I met the eyes of the mourning men around me, wondering if any of them had heard. 

"I heard they're telepathic. Is that true?" Zolin pressed, letting the blood drip from his sword. He seemed somewhat fascinated in its movement, and in its ungodly scent, and he stared at it, waiting with the others for my response.

"He wanted revenge…" I only just managed to say, "...He said my father killed his."

My mind grew blank of everything else - the investigation, the glass slipper; even Cinderella herself - and all the jeopardy this would throw that all into.

"H-he said… He said we stole his brother. I-I don't know what he means by that."

"So Santos didn't kill the last feathered serpent." The soldier, Raúl, spoke bitterly. I could tell that he, and the others, were stirring with betrayal - the first seeds of anger were planted, and the only thing keeping them from voicing their rage was their respect for the four bodies at their feet. But Raúl dared to speak up. "Santos lied to us! He is a traitor to the queen and to our kingdom!"

"Shut up, Raúl!" Rafael barked. He tore me away from Emiliano and forced me to stand. "What on earth did you just say? A brother? Another one of those beasts?"

I stifled a nod. He gripped my shoulder and dug in his nails. Seeing the fear on my face, he loosened his grip, and pushed me away. 

"We need to tell Josefina about this."

"No!" I exclaimed. He shot me a glare. "We can't. It'll destroy everything."

"Now is not the time to be so selfish!" Emiliano said harshly. 

For once, I despised that Emiliano was right. My stomach turned as I faced the deceased soldiers once again. They had girls they wanted to love but could not marry, and yet they were forced to aid me in getting a bride of my own. They followed such selfish orders, no matter their bitter feelings, until death. They were taken for granted, and all nameless to me until then. But that was the way my father had ruled - with men following his every order, ignorant of their personal needs and wants. Even my mother was prone to not knowing the names of those who were so loyal to her. 

I turned away. I could not pretend that my father was always an honourable man, even in striking down a feathered serpent completely on his own. To even utter the very sentiment risked an uproar from the already confused and angered soldiers. I had no answers for myself; no words that I could use to fight back and make everything alright in one fell swoop. The truth was that I had stood there like a coward, before the very beast my father had valiantly overthrown. I did not even try to help those who protected me. What else could that have been except for selfishness? 

"This is bigger than you! Bigger than all of us!" Rafael could not hide his anger. He swept back his thick brown hair which was drenched with sweat. "There's still a feathered serpent out there. All of Mendessa could be destroyed, if not by the serpent, then by the uproar. When this gets out…"

The consequences were left unsaid, but I heard them clearly. Rafael, not wanting to be without words, approached Zolin and his bloody sword. 

"What's your name again, Squeak?"

Zolin's eyes grew hopeful.

"Zolin. Zolin Gabriel."

Rafael nodded.

"Zolin. You're the one who killed this beast. And for that…" he dipped his finger into the bloody blades of grass and stroked it across Zolin's face, "...you're a warrior, greater than us and our ancestors. Your name will be in legend from now on."

Zolin blinked away water from his eyes, unsure whether to grin at the bloody mass beside him, at the presence of the bodies which had been victims to it. He nodded with the great red stain over the bridge of his nose, looking like the ancient warriors of old, back before Mendessa was anything more than a wasteland of rainforests and deserts. 

With this, his name, not his nickname, would be burned into history. I looked on, witnessing as he stood tall for the first time I had seen, earning the praise that he so deserved as the remaining few chanted his name into the sky. He was finally Zolin, not 'Squeak', while I remained Prince Charming. And as silence dawned again upon us as we clipped away the blood-coated feathers and scales for safekeeping, it occurred to me that Zolin was more worthy of his historical status than I ever would be. He would be named among my mother and father, and my grandfather before them, where I would not. 

I reflected on my cowardice and selfishness as I was dragged away from the gruesome scene by half the remaining entourage, while the other half, Rafael and Zolin included, headed tirelessly in the direction of the palace. I could have been the hero, had I been given the same chances my father had gotten by the time he had reached my age. I thought of how disappointed my family would be to find that I did not continue the tradition of taking down dangerous creatures, and my stomach turned. In one side, a twang of envy squeezed me, but in the other side of me, the awful guilt of being so afraid and self-conscious in the wake of what could have been my final moments stung harder. And when they mixed in my gut, I hurled myself forward, and vomited violently on the charred ground. 

Emiliano, with his eye wrapped tightly in circles of cloth, faced me when nobody else could, and he put an arm around my shoulder, gesturing for me to continue. I turned back one last time at the others, and as the last ember flickered away, I only caught a glimpse of Zolin looking reluctantly back at me. And as he turned away to join the others, shrinking into the darkness, I also saw my hopes leave me behind. The investigation, Cinderella, my safety, and my freedom. It would all be gone from that moment, and it all disappeared just as they did.