Chapter 6C: A Glance into the Underworld

With a callous glare, Bellaina lowered her left hand and stepped briskly across the dark space. Her henchman stared disinterestedly at the morbid display, almost as if he had seen this same tragic scene unfold countless times before. He offered Bellaina the two swords stained with the inscription I had earlier noticed, and then she plunged each sword into a victim. As soon as the symbol struck their shredded skin, it illuminated with a golden glow. Her victims continued screaming, but I watched in silent shock as black fire manifested on their skin. I even rubbed my eyes to verify that I saw this correctly, but Aeliana did not dare to watch. It was only seconds after the black fire appeared that they both stopped screaming. A faint glow illuminated from Bellaina as if she had somehow devoured their life force for herself in an act of spiritual cannibalism.

“Regular fire burns bodies, but black fire burns the soul. The Array of Black Fire merely reverts their spirit back into the primary energy from which we were all born – quintessence itself. The perfect fuel for the ultimate weapon. The black fire begins with this one mark,” said the bloodstained queen of the dark.

I gazed to Aeliana with a look of horror, but I saw a heartbroken stare in her hazel eyes. It was almost as if the mere sight of this had somehow slashed open an old scar. I had to practically reconfigure my perception of reality itself, given that I had never seen this power or the source of its fuel. Almost like the aftershock of a bitter memory buried in my brain, I realized that the tall woman in the sandstorm was very much the same. She could practically steer the swirling sands with just the motion of her hands. But as I rebuilt reality on the shambles of what I once believed, Bellaina noticed the shock searing through my eyes.

“You can dare to detest the darkness in this dungeon, but it’s in your best interest to understand that this crime is not confined to the basements of my underworld. Even before I came along, my clients knew the secrets of the weapon we with black fire forge. I merely simplified the process and took a small portion of the spoils for myself. But make no mistake; this malice pervades and poisons the world inside the walls. And as the outsider can probably tell you, it’s even worse out in the badlands. Denounce me all you want, but your effort is better spent decrying a remorseless reality which readily rewards this carnage in the first place,” Bellaina explained as her victim’s blood shimmered on her face.

Aeliana and I exchanged a silent glance to convey our concern in the presence of Bellaina. We mutually agreed to comply with whatever words she summoned if for no other reason than to avoid igniting some short fuse. Though the queen of the dark did not seem irrational or overemotional, to the extent that her heartless humanity predicated her brutality, it was best for now to not incite her wrath. So we simply agreed with her relative morality and fumbled our way through an inane conversation. I was saddled of course with burying these soulless bodies beneath the city, but I complied and continued moving. Aeliana helped me load a wagon, and then we escaped with it into the quiet streets of Bones City.

In an attempt to stay inconspicuous, Aeliana and I traveled primarily on empty roads where we minimized the chance of encountering city security. I kept fruit and assorted wares atop the wagon so that I would look like a merchant or a customer, but I held my sword closely in case a patrolman discovered her identity or the true purpose of my mission. We encountered many passersby on our sojourn to the sea, but we reached the ocean in the end without incident. Ember Bay shimmered with starlight, though its sand was touched with snow. I carefully inspected the area, and then I dug through the beach with my sword.

Aeliana stared at the stars from the shore and said, “I keep reliving the same scene inside my head. Monsters roam the windswept plains in the form of tall humans, but I never knew that they infected the city as well. It is a tragedy I’ve seen too many times before. I made this journey for myself in the guise of a flight I once dreamed with my eyes closed. Those monsters are the ultimate terror in the badlands. They wield powers which warp reality itself. They run so fast that an ordinary person can never outrun them. Even if someone dares to strike back, they are invariably slain and then burned with black fire. My sister said that that is the ultimate finality. If a soul burns in black fire, there is no hope for another incarnate. There is no chance at any afterlife. There is no wandering spirit left to watch over this world. It is infinite emptiness and nothing more.”

I said to Aeliana as she stared over the sea, “I think that I am inclined to agree. I believe that we both have an odd situation; I believe we are bound by reincarnation. Our souls cycle in all directions – both forward and backward in time. We echo across lifetimes so that I can hold your hand in mine. But if black fire is all it takes to burn a soul, then that can end our eternity whole.”

She said after a pause as if she questioned her remark, “I think it’s better for now that we have friends in the dark. The strongest people in this city are blinded by their opulence and avarice; they want you to live so that you can serve them. The shadows are safe since the shadows side with us, but it cannot last forever. Their loyalty will not withstand the trials of time. I think that in the end, they will pose a threat to our eternal love.”

“If they endanger you in any way, then I will kill them with their own Array. I’ll break their bodies with my blade and burn their souls with black fire. I think you may be right that all roads end at that same destination; it’s the inescapable convergence of a geometric series. Anything that stands in our way is destined to die by my hand. The stars themselves will cower at my madness; they’ll never dare cross us again,” I whispered to the woman at the edge of the sand.

Aeliana nodded slowly and confessed, “I think I once thought that this life is a test. Even when I had nothing and no one, I forced myself forward as if I were working toward some future I could not see… almost like a listless letter left by a past life. I think it’s similar to the tunnel-vision you mentioned before, except that you could see your destination whereas I could not. For years of my life, I wandered in silence toward something I could not see. All I knew was that I had to survive so that I could someday see the something for which I was striving. I knew in the moment we met that you are the unknown ambition; you are the ambiguous future for which I fought. I sacrificed enough blood and sweat to send waves across this starlit sea. I devoured enough other wanderers that their bodies could double the cemetery beneath us. As callous as it sounds, I forgot their faces after I left them in the sands. I think in that way, I am the same as your underworld queen. We both used other lives as steppingstones toward the future for which we both were destined.”

I felt a paralytic surge of ice crawl through my veins in that moment, almost as if my body understood her admission even before me. Perhaps it was the lingering essence of Aziel inside my head, exerting the implication into my silent mind. I didn’t even start to understand until I covered the burial with sand at the ocean’s edge. It struck me like a sword that I had found a small emerald among her belongings, and I only realized at that moment that it was the same emerald as the necklace which was pilfered from Alyssa’s body. I had found her corpse in the desert, partially devoured by a human attacker, and here Aeliana had admitted to killing and eating countless other wanderers. The truth was undeniably obvious, but I could not stop myself from asking the question. I asked Aeliana because I had to know, “Did you kill a woman thirteen weeks ago? Her hair was shaped like a cloud and dark like the sea. Her eyes were hazel, and she had a bent knee. She wore an emerald right around her neck, and she was clearly never meant to go on that trek.”

Aeliana said slowly with a somber stare, “I killed the woman with the cloud-shaped hair. I usually left my victims with their belongings intact as if it were some small consolation to their dying dignity. Even as she died, she clenched the necklace as if it were an emblem to the life she lost. An emblem of love and loss. An emblem of the star-crossed lovers. I pilfered the emerald from her necklace, though I did not know why at the time. The emerald itself looked like a little glimpse of the unknown future for which I was searching. I was transfixed by its beauty for reasons I could not describe. I did not understand the reason until we met, when I saw the same emeralds inside your eyes. I thought in that moment that fate had brought us together for a reason.”