Naked, bloody, smelling rot and his own vomit, smelling his own sweat and terror and rage and exhaustion, Lukas starts screaming.
Nothing happens. The snake does not magically re-form and heal itself. The Sphinx does not appear to stroke his hair back and purr at him. No hammer falls, no knife through his neck. His pack does not appear, their minds and spirits healed, their bodies restored. Nothing is undone. Nothing is fixed. It's just quiet, and he is still alone.
The snake's head just lies there, the eyes cold, the tongue motionless, as surely it has been since he tore it apart. Killed it. Ate it.
Behind Lukas, there is the creak of a gate opening.
Standing there framed by darkness is the Sphinx, still in her robe, looking at him. Behind her he can see the mist, the 'guests', and he can see Red Vengeance shapeshifted into a small black wolf nuzzling Silver Warning as he lolls his tongue and wags. They peer at Lukas from around the Sphinx's robes. The Sphinx herself looks at him, then at the -- understandably few -- remnants of the serpent. Back to Lukas.
"Well," she says, mildly. She seems unperturbed. Her golden eyes pin on his. "Now the question is: would you like to know how you may help end the war in your lifetime, or would you like me to remove the silver from your friend?" There's a pause, as she throws this question at him as though it will not alter his life, as though it will not alter the world. Her lightly clawed hand waves gently in midair. "I will bid you and the female farewell either way. But the choice is yours."
Black WindThe creak of the gate makes him startle. He is stripped down to the core, naked in every sense. He reacts as an animal might, wheeling, crouched, his balance low and ready.
The world awaits him outside. He's not sure how long he's been in here. Surely not long at all, and yet: long enough that even that imaginary realm looks more real than anything he's ever seen before. His pupils constrict to pinpoints, seared by sudden light. He can hardly stand to be seen like this by his pack, by his brother and his sister and the sleeping spirit of his mate. By the one that did this to him.
She's not finished. She gives him a choice, and he nearly screams at her again, nearly flies into a frenzy again and throws himself at her, tries to tear her face off, tries to eat her flesh whole. That's not fair, he thinks, that's not fair, not fair, not fair, those weren't the rules.
The rage doesn't come, though. And he makes a small, muffled sound, a moan that is despair and distress, as low and bare as he's ever been. His shoulders tremble as his weight goes to his hands. He hangs his head for a moment, and then his sides heave, and he
pushes
himself up.
"I want you to free my brother," he says. Every muscle in his body is quivering finely, but his voice is steady, and level, and very quiet. "You know that's what I want."
The SphinxAt that moan, both of the lean black wolves push forward to try and get to him, keening softly in answer. The Sphinx bars their way and they paw at the gate, at her robes, while Lukas shakes. She is impassive.
Her eyes follow his as he stands. He gives the answer he was always going to give, though his heart was broken in there, though he was broken open in there. In truth, the answer he gives now is just like the answer he gave at the beginning. It is the same as his first answers to Red Vengeance when she took his mate's body. It is the truth of who he is, and what he knows, and why he came.
It is who he is.
After that, there is no why. Only this, steadily but quietly spoken.
The Sphinx tips her head slightly at that. "I know nothing," she says, in that lovely accent of hers. "That is why I am here."
Her hand lifts, palm toward Lukas. Her fingers form a strange shape, briefly seen before she draws an arcane symbol in the air. The silver drops from his brother's neck and limbs. He barks happily, gives a light bound in place, but does not shift, does not run. The gate vanishes. The snake vanishes. All as one, everything is gone but the three -- four -- of them.
They are in mist again, as they were when he and Red Vengeance first appeared past the lion's gate, only now there's no lion. Just a man covered in blood and bile and scales, a black wolf with his beloved's eyes, and
Silver Warning, jumping and running delighted circles around them. He licks at Red Vengeance, bumps against Lukas. And Red Vengeance looks at him, unwilling or unable to shift.
There is one more thing they have to do.
Black WindIt was the answer Lukas was always going to give,
only it's not. Two years ago he might not have given this answer. Four years ago, when he was Edward's Beta and his head was full of how great they were going to be, what heroes, what self-sacrificing noble epitomes of Garouhood, he might not have given that answer. He might have demanded the key to the War. He might have made his piles, the Worth It and the Not Worth It, and firmly cast Silver Warning into the latter.
But then; four years ago he was also the sort of Garou who drew harsh lines everywhere he looked. Good and bad. Worth it and not. Truth and lie. Crime and punishment. He was the sort of Garou who did monstrous things sometimes because he refused to bend. Refused to bow. Refused to see that truth was a mutable thing; that causation and consequence were, in the end, only masks for elemental emotion and instinctual drive.
Lukas bows now. He's never bowed so low; never hollowed himself out so utterly. He's raw as a bare nerve, skinless, flayed, defenseless. And yet for all that, without reason, without need for reason: absolutely certain. There is the war, the abstract, the lofty, the cold.
And then there is pack. The deep, undying bonds that bind him to everything that matters.
He gives his answer. There is no further discussion. The chains vanish. The Sphinx vanishes. The Sphinx's court vanishes, and the questions he's left with -- his own whys -- remain unanswered. Of course they do. She's the Sphinx. Lukas thinks perhaps Red Vengeance is wrong; perhaps she's no ascended willworker but a spirit after all. A notion. The essence of enigma: her very existence is a riddle with no solution.
And then it's just them, the four of them in three bodies. One of them is so happy. One of them is looking to him to do the impossible. And his wrath licks up again; it isn't fair. He can't do it. He can't do it, he goes to his knees and he puts his arms around his brother, feels his squirming warm body and the thickness of his fur, smells the familiar scent that he remembers from lifetimes ago. He can't do it,
but he will.
And he does.
He has nothing left after that. His brother's blood is in his mouth. He holds the body fast in his arms and as the strength drains out of it, as gravity pulls it to the ground, he goes with it. Bends over it, curls around it, feels a low keening well up in the pit of his stomach. He lets it out, but it's too raw, and it sticks in his throat; he can't make a sound; he can't breathe. He buries his face against the thick ruff and he doesn't move. He thinks maybe he was wrong. Maybe he should have accepted to Sphinx's offer after all. An undying eternity together, mindless, simple, mammalian: maybe that was mercy.
Maybe he was wrong.
The SphinxThe noise is horrible.
It's quick, it's sharp and over in a moment but... it's still horrible. Silver Warning doesn't understand. He isn't weak, and the part of Lukas that was once Black Wind knows he never was, but he is not expecting this. His brother embraces him. His brother -- suddenly, his arms tightening and jaws tearing -- kills him. Silver Warning yelps, almost a whine, but it never quite gets there. His spine goes limp, his head lolled.
Red is beside herself. She lunged forward, though it's uncertain if she was going to stop it or going to help him, and that motion is truncated. She shakes, and she begins to howl, wracked and impossible, like she is sobbing. She can't help herself. After everything, after all this, all she can do is howl. Even if it is tinged with relief, she is howling for centuries of sorrow. Her lean body lies down against Lukas's, in contact with both of her brothers, until the howling turns to keening, until even the keening subsides. All she does is breathe.
Smooth, slender arms slide around Lukas's shoulders. God knows how long it's been quiet, how long he has had his face buried against his brother, how long Red's silence and Silver Warning's death and Danicka's slumber have left him alone with his grief, alone with the aftermath of his frenzy, alone with... all of this.
But she's there, then. Despite his form and despite the body he clings to. Her hair falls in a loose, cool curtain across his face as her own turns into the fur along his neck. He can smell her again, feel her holding him from behind one massive shoulder.
"Oh, laska," she is whispering, and then trembles. "Moje laska."
And then, quite without warning but not without sympathy,
someone is trying to unwind his arms and lift Silver Warning's body from him.
Black WindHe should
do something.
He should do something for his sister. And her grief. He should help her somehow. Isn't that his job, his role, his duty? He is her Alpha. He should do something.
But he can't. There's nothing left of his strength. He's done unimaginable things; things he could not have comprehended or forgiven in anyone else. He's fallen in a frenzy so catastrophic he took on an aspect of the Devourer Wyrm; became the very thing he abhors most. He's dragged himself trembling out of that ragged red sea of rage to prostrate himself on the shore and admit to a pitiless god: he doesn't know, he doesn't know, in the end all his thoughts, all his principles, all his virtues, all his determination cannot be yoked to any rational reason. He has no logical center after all. He is a product of his attachments, his emotions, the things he needs.
And he needs his brother back, his pack together, more than he needs to win the war. He always thought it would be the other way around; that if what he loved most and what he was born to do hung by the same fraying thread, he would choose duty over love.
That wasn't true either. He's chosen his brother over the war, the War against the Wyrm, the very reason their race exists. It's cowardly. It's selfish. It is unforgivable.
And then: he kills his brother.
There's no Sphinx now to hold the mirror to his soul. There's no terrible, soft voice asking him again and again, leeching the reasons out of him: why, why, why. He has only himself to answer:
because he had to.
because it was right.
because he is who he is.
because there is no reason,
simply himself, staring back from the beginning.
There's a touch on his shoulder, a soft cool hand reaching fingers into his thick fur. He startles. Then, as his mate slides her arms around him - how is it possible, how does she have the strength? - he shudders.
The tension in his grip loosens. Someone is taking Silver Warning from him, and he doesn't snarl, he doesn't lash out. He allows it. The enormity of his shoulders shears away. The fur recedes. He grasps at the hands around his shoulders, grips them with drowning strength. His breath escapes him in a gasp, and then he remembers how to inhale again.
