A House Filled With Night
Our Last Hope

Runa had stayed behind. She knew this fight was for the Sons of Midnight, and them alone. But she couldn’t make herself run away from the House. If she ran away from the House, she’d be running from everyone and everything she cared about.

This was how she found herself anxiously pacing through the wooded gardens at the edge of the courtyard. She stayed carefully on the opposite side of the gardens, away from the direction the brothers had walked. When waiting wasn’t enough, she allowed herself to wander a little further into the garden. Just enough to find a familiar, comforting spot: Torin’s bench.

And there, sitting on the bench, looking exactly as it had the first day she gave it away, was her apple.

Runa picked it up, running her fingers over its bright, red skin. It slipped through her fingers and dropped to the floor. She looked at her hands, confused. They were shaking. They were shaking horribly, and she couldn’t stop them. After today, that apple might be the only token of her memories here. And without them, even it would fade much too quickly.

As she bent down to pick it up, something reached her ears. The sounds of battle on the other side of the House. She stood, but it did little good. All she could make out was a puff of smoke above the trees, and the occasional burst of rubble or dust. Sometimes she heard another sound—she could swear it was one of them, crying out in pain. Each time, she was seized with both a strong desire to rush to their aid, and a fearful urge to run away altogether. Instead, she remained: trembling, frustrated, tortured.

When that looming, black form first became visible above the trees, Runa trembled in fear. It had to be Celemine’s work. Then it turned. That’s when she saw them: those eyes, those achingly familiar eyes. She felt her own grow large with the realization.

So this is what you held inside you all this time.

It was as if the last threads of restraint holding her back had snapped. Whatever reservations remained in her mind instantly disappeared in that moment.

She ran. She ran through the trees, toward Torin, ignoring pathways, pushing past branches and bushes, stumbling over undergrowth. The ground had begun to shake. A massive crash reached her ears and she was thrown to the ground from the jolt. She choked. Her eyes burned. She struggled up, trying to clear her head, coughing on the dust clogging up the air. Why was it so blurry? So bright? Where there should have been the dull shades of debris, there was brightness and color. As if the air itself had suddenly become stained with streaks of rainbow. Runa looked up to the sky. Brilliant, sparkling rain poured down from above, drenching her head. The fountain had erupted.

She staggered to her feet, slipping on the slick, muddy ground, stumbling forward nevertheless. She had to reach him.

“Torin,” Runa tried to scream his name, but it just came out in a gasp. “Torin!”

The trees parted, revealing a field of rubble, clouded by hot steam and the dust of the ground. Torin’s dark figure knelt amidst the ruins, hands over his head, face to the ground, heaving in the effort to contain himself in his own body. The black, swirling mists reverberated throughout his back, trembling like the earth itself.

Runa looked wildly about for the other Sons of Midnight. They were too far away, strewn across the ground like ragdolls. Her heart fell. A bone-chilling sound ripped through her. Torin had pushed himself onto his feet and thrown his head back in the air, letting loose a horrible and painful bellow.

“Torin!”

The dark head turned toward her. She almost turned around then. Instead, she stepped closer.

“Torin, it’s over now!”

His eyes flashed, like flames flaring up after being stirred.

“Runa, wait,” someone was saying behind her. Casimir. “You can’t approach him right now—you—”

“Torin!” she screamed again, as loudly as she could, so hard head throbbed and her throat felt like it would give out.

Torin turned around fully now, roaring at the girl who had dared approach him.

“Torin,” she said, more gently now. Her voice wavered as tears pricked at her eyes. “Come back to me.”

He stalked toward her, a massive being which absolutely loomed over the frail one beneath him.

“Come back to me, please. The real Torin, not this. You’re stronger than this thing inside you. I know you can overcome it. Come back.”

Another roar. She couldn’t help it—she squeezed her eyes shut, ducking down and covering her head. He stooped down to reach for her, the air turning cold and rushing around her. She whispered a desperate prayer, holding onto hope, even as fear screamed inside her brain.

Warm arms surrounded her.

“Runa,” came the familiar voice in her ear, soft but quavering. “Why didn’t you run? I could have hurt you again.”

She let out the breath she had been holding in and slid her arms around him. The relief washed over her like warm, fragrant sunshine, and she couldn’t hold back a little laugh.

“No, you would never do that. You don’t hurt the people you love.”

She felt his tears on her shoulder.

“Thank God…thank God you’re alive.”

Someone coughed behind them.

“Ah…Runa…” came Niko’s voice.

She almost didn’t even hear it. She was too happy to notice anything else. Her hand fell flat on Torin’s back and felt warm—skin?

Her eyes popped open, first taking in his face, then his bare shoulders and then—her eyes flew up to the sky.

“T-Torin—are you—naked?”

His eyes moved downward, slowly growing wide.

“Oops.”

“Torin!”

Face glowing red, Runa slapped a hand over her eyes and tried to retreat in the opposite direction. Instead, she stumbled, and Torin had to catch her.

“Let go of me and—and go put some clothes on!”

—

They were alive. Somehow, all of them were alive. Only minutes before, the only home they ever knew had fallen to pieces; but now, they were laughing. Because they were together, and they were alive.

“And then,” said Fiske, “Runa screamed at Torin to go get dressed, and he dropped her because he was so embarrassed!”

“Hey!”

Torin acted the part of a flustered victim of teasing, but he couldn’t get rid of the bright grin on his face. They were all just so happy.

They had scavenged for some surviving boxes of food from the rubble and were nibbling on dried fruit and walnuts, sitting around and joking together almost as if they weren’t surrounded by a scene of total destruction.

But eventually, even the elation of that moment wore out, and the reality of their situation fell upon them like a heavy, dark cloud.

“We’re not finished yet,” said Sylvain. “Torin may have subdued Celemine for now, but we have to find whatever it was that she hid in her grave. If she was so desperate to keep us away from it, we have to find out what it is. And in any case…well…”

“We can’t come back here anymore,” said Torin.

“Oh,” murmured Niko, as if he had just realized it. “But…but Sylvain, how…?”

“How will we live?” Fiske spoke for him.

“I don’t know if we can. Not without the fountain.”

“Where will we go?”

“I don’t know, Niko. It might not matter. But I know we need to rid the world of that creature before we go anywhere else.”

Everyone agreed. Tonight would be the greatest of all party-crashing the Sons of Midnight had ever undertaken.

That night, as the Sons of Midnight were quietly making their way through the back corridors, Lord Cargan was enjoying a private opera in his palace theater. The show was just getting interesting, and it was about to get even more interesting.

The diva sang her aria, notes reaching higher, higher, higher. Just as the music reached its climax, there came a note higher than all others, piercing the air and reverberating through the high vaulted ceiling.

Then again, perhaps it wasn’t fair to call this a note—it was more along the lines of a screech. Murmurs filled the air. Heads turned left and right, searching for the source of this strange, alien noise. Then, through the curtains at stage left, Fiske appeared, singing his heart and soul out.

Lord Cargan jumped from his seat.

“What is the meaning of this?” he cried. “Guards! Guards!”

Fiske bowed deeply. “Allow us to introduce ourselves. I am Fiske. These are my brothers—”

As they filed onto stage, Fiske announced them one by one: “Sylvain, our magnificent maestro. Casimir, our master musician. Torin, a small creature—”

“Hey!”

“—Myself, a dazzling soloist. Niko, probably a demigod. And finally, Runa, our brave and lovely muse.”

“How dare you disturb my home!” cried Cargan. “Get them out of here this instant!”

“Your guards are taking a break, I’m afraid,” Torin said.

“This—this—you don’t know who you’re dealing with! You scum, I’ll have you skinned! I’ll have your heads chopped off and—”

“Quiet,” barked Casimir.

The room went silent.

“Give it to us,” said Sylvain.

“What are you talking about?”

“What that snake Celemine gave to you.”

“Absolutely not! I’m not afraid of you. She’ll take care of you.”

“I’m sorry to inform you, sir,” said Niko, “But, she’s already dead.”

“Dead?”

Niko nodded solemnly.

“No, that’s impossible. Dead? How?

“Oh, um…we killed her. Well, technically, just Torin.”

Lord Cargan’s face went pasty white. Slowly, he fell back into his chair, clutching at the armrests. The room buzzed. “K-k-killed her? You—you k-killed her?”

“That’s right!” said Fiske brightly. His face went dark in an instant. “Now. Give us what we want.”

“I refuse to give in to monsters like you.”

“We may have to kill you too, then, sir,” Niko explained solemnly.

The noble lord was trembling in his seat, his wife’s hand clutching at his. She was wailing something incoherently. His jaw shook.

“I…well, fine! I don’t even care about the thing! It looks like old trash to me.”

“Bring it here,” said Sylvain.

“Don’t order me—”

“Now.”

Cargan’s servants scrambled to fetch the item demanded by the Sons of Midnight. None of the brothers knew what to expect, but they were surprised to be given a small, dirty, wooden box, with a bronze padlock sealing it shut.

“You haven’t opened it?” asked Torin.

“N-no. She would have destroyed us. Please leave now.”

“No problem,” said Casimir. “Let’s get out of here.”

They didn’t open the box until they were far from Lord Cargan’s palace, in a dark, abandoned alleyway. They placed the box on the ground and surrounded it, uncertain what to do with it now that it was in their possession.

“Let’s just smash it,” said Casimir, dragging a large, wooden plank out of a pile of trash.

“Hey, hey—hey, wait!”

The others grabbed him and pulled him away, while Casimir looked very annoyed and confused. “What? Why? What the hell are we waiting for?”

“Aren’t you human?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Aren’t you even a little curious?”

“Alright, alright, fine, I got it! Open the stupid thing, then!”

“What do we do with the lock?”

“Niko,” said Sylvain, “Break it open.”

He grabbed the box and ripped it open, splinters flying.

“Careful!”

“Let me see!”

At first, there was confusion. It looked like a lot of straw and dust. Sylvain tried to wipe it away carefully, but Fiske, tired of waiting, stuck out his hand to grab at whatever was inside.

He screamed and dropped it on the floor.

“Oh my god, oh my god! Sylvain—”

“Seriously,” said Casimir, bending down to pick up the fallen object. “It’s not like you’ve never seen an organ outside of its body before.”

“What on earth…” muttered Torin.

“Is that …?” asked Niko.

“Her heart,” said Sylvain.

Runa gasped and covered her mouth. “What?”

Sylvain crouched down to get a better look. “She’s been keeping it alive with the fountain’s magic all this time. God knows what she was doing before. By now she must have been existing for…for…”

He grimaced.

No one said anything for a while.

“Let’s burn it now,” said Casimir.

“Yep.”

“Yeah.”

“Good idea.”

—

For a time, Runa and the Sons of Midnight tried to survive in the countryside. They lasted a couple of nights before things turned from bad to worse. After four days without drinking from the fountain, the Sons of Midnight were becoming sick and weak. They needed beds and proper care, not tents and scraps of food.

“We need to go into town,” Runa announced. “I know a place where we could stay.”

Fiske looked at her knowingly. The other brothers exchanged glances. They were too tired to argue.

Runa packed up their haphazard tents and gathered all their things. They hadn’t taken much with them from the House. The brothers covered themselves with cloaks and moved into the city with the same solemnity of a funeral procession.

They found the city strangely calm—no more soldiers looking out for strange men, no flickers of Celemine’s presence. It was as if the city had moved on. How tragic that the Sons of Midnight couldn’t do the same.

Runa stopped walking.

“This…” said Fiske softly, looking up at the place where she stopped. “I was afraid you would bring us here.”

“Where are we, Runa?” asked Niko.

She didn’t know what to tell him, so she just knocked on the door. Footsteps, a click, and the door cracked open.

“Hello, Auntie.”

“Runa, Fiske—are you there? Who are all these other people?”

“Please, Meriel,” said Runa, “Save us one last time.”

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~ A/N ~

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