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That point had come again, as it had twice before, though none of the little world’s inhabitants knew it. As expected as evening, and yet always too soon, always too suddenly.
Cleo was vaguely aware of blood pooled around her boots, just sticky enough to not let her forget it. The steady pulse of a heart clinging desperately to life had subsided into a lifeless trickle, every tributary adding to the steadily growing red pool that irrigated the arid mountain soil.
Joel’s body lay only a few feet away. He had tried to run in the wake of Cleo’s vicious sword stroke to the back of his knee, but hadn’t gotten far before his leg buckled and he collapsed in the rocky soil with a wailed curse, curling in on himself in the final frail defence of human instinct. Why hadn’t Etho been with him? That was unusually bad planning for him. She wondered vaguely what it felt like for Etho to die of blood loss, wherever he was now. Scary, probably. But she’d felt the terror of unexpected agony too. She was sorry for his death, but knew he’d understand better than anyone - the two of them had always been survivors.
Ragged panting and the scatter of rocks interrupted her thoughts and she glanced up to see Martyn, who’d evidently just crested the cliffside and was out of breath, sword in hand in preparation for a fight. Cleo saw shock and dismay cloud his expression before he could hide it. He chuckled, clearly forcing his usual flippant manner. “I came to see if you needed help - I see you’ve handled it!”
“Yeah,” Cleo agreed flatly. We both know you’re only here for your own sake.
She remembered what he’d done only too well. It was Martyn who was responsible for Scott’s death, when he’d been caught in the wildfire Martyn - alongside Etho and Joel - had started to kill Grian and Scar. She had watched the birch forest blaze across the ravine from her, spilling plumes of black smoke that dulled the clouds. She remembered the panic when she’d realised Scott had been to see them, the desperate hope that he’d saved himself. She had longed for a bond with him then, if only to know if he was hurt. She could still picture his body, soot smeared and singed, drowned in smoke he couldn’t expel from his lungs.
“Come on now,” Martyn said, a smile in his voice, “this means we win, right?”
Cleo blinked. Something about sharing a victory with the partner she’d never wanted tasted sour on her tongue. The partner whose life had been chained to hers, though he’d always disregarded the pain he’d subjected her to through his own mistakes. She still recalled the panic of their first day, when she’d suddenly felt flames consume her, unseen heat cauterising her open flesh as she’d screamed, Scott standing by with the knowledge he could only watch, green eyes agonised.
The anger had never left her. It had only built - rage that with each injustice had mutated, rage not only against Martyn but against fate itself. She’d had enough of following the rules of fate, a sentiment she’d only shared with Scott. Neither of them were cowards - if only Martyn and Pearl had made an effort to find them, to explore the dangerous world together. But they hadn’t cared to say a word, and the scorching flames had welded Scott and Cleo together in pain and betrayal. It would be a disservice to his memory now to abandon that.
She realised that Martyn wasn’t smiling anymore, that he knew what she was thinking.
His gaze was pained now, agony creasing his features and shining in his eyes. “I’m sorry!” He cried, voice cracking with grief, “Do you think it was on purpose? I killed Pearl, too! Don’t you think I wish I could’ve died instead? I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt Scott, either! You know it was an accident, Cleo, you know what it’s like!-“
He broke off, and his tragic expression silently pleaded that she understand.
Cleo’s axe hung heavily at her side and her wrist grazed a lump in her pocket. Even seeing Martyn’s distress, she couldn’t summon any empathy for him. She felt drained of all kindness and only wanted now to drive the knife deeper.
“Do you think I care?” She hissed, “What you wanted means nothing to me. You’re an idiot if you think I have any intention of being loyal to an ally I was chained to from the start, rather than the one who actually cared for me; whom I chose.”
“I know,” Martyn agreed quietly. She heard the heartbreak in his voice and knew he was thinking of Pearl. “I know we chose our own soulmates, but they’re gone now. All we can do in their memory is accept victory.”
Cleo never lifted her cold gaze from Martyn as she took the golden apple from her pocket. His eyes widened in panic as the fruit glinted in the failing light of the evening.
“Don’t you dare!-“ he snarled, leaping towards her even as she bit into the glimmering flesh - too late. Pain ripped through Cleo like white-hot barbed wire, and Martyn staggered with a cry of pain, falling to his knees on the rocky ground. Refusing to react at all to the moment of agony, she wasted no time and swung her axe up with all the force she could muster, the immaculately cut diamond meeting with Martyn’s jaw and cleaving a terrible ravine in its wake.
He didn’t have a chance to cry out, but slumped on the rock as blood poured from his head. Cleo looked away in distaste, reflecting that she had made it quick, if not clean. She dropped her axe with a clang and sat on the edge of the cliff within arms reach of Martyn’s body, watching the black water churning far below. The sun was no more than a purple glow on the horizon now. She didn’t feel a sense of victory, nor any anger, now. She waited in the quiet, feeling tears trickle gently down her face, though she did not know why she was crying. In this world, there was no glory or riches for the victor - the only prize was death, ironically granted last of all to the winner.
The air was choking with the cloying scent of metal. She realised suddenly that she didn’t want to wait for fate again. What right did it have to hold this final thing over her? Cleo closed her eyes and leant forward until she fell from the cliffside, and the air that rushed by her clung to the fleeing warmth of day, comforting as an embrace.
We won, Scott, she thought, it was never really us versus them, but you and I against fate. And we won.