Chapter 1 - The High Cliffs (POV: Edward)

I choked back tears as my little brother tried in vain to wriggle free from the bindings that ensnared his limbs. The heavy iron chains gnawed into his skin, leaving his bloody flesh exposed to the cold winds of the winter monsoon.

“Help me!” My cousin Kate wailed. “Someone please help me!”

I turned my head away from my brother, only to glimpse the final moments of her short life. My uncle Ned glared down at her mud drenched body and scowled. Carefully placing his boot on her rump, with a single shove, he sent her tumbling into the choppy waters below. She screamed for what seemed like an eternity, letting out one final whimper as her body clapped against the waves.

“That’s six,” uncle Ned stoically declaimed, “four more to go.”

“I get to pick lots next,” I could hear my older brother Emrick excitedly volunteer himself for the task. In that moment, I was happy that I could not see the twisted look on his face. All I could see were my friends, relatives, and neighbors lined up and down the high cliffs, covered in filth and bound in iron. I numbered among them.

“Driftwood, driftwood! I pulled driftwood!” My brother exclaimed loudly.

My heart sank.

“The Gods have spoken!” My uncle’s voice echoed loudly as the crowd clapped and cheered behind him. “Go forth and provide a member of your blood to appease their hunger.”

Emrick wasted no time digging his foot into my backside, rubbing his heel into the tail of my spine. I clenched down hard on the shoulder of my tunic to stop myself from screaming. I had to bear my fate, no matter how painful it was. My death would be the only way to save Roddy.

“I change my mind,” my older brother released the pressure from my spine, “I choose Roddy.”

“No!” I shouted in horror, “pick me! Pick me!” I pleaded.

I turned my head to see Emrick pushing his weight into my younger brother’s back. He squealed in pain as he dug his heel in deeper and deeper, convulsing and seizing as his spine was crushed. A horrific pop resounded through the air as he went limp from the waist down.

“No, stop it!” I screamed.

“I love you,” Roddy weakly mumbled to me as Emrick picked him up and dangled his body over the cliff. "I love you too, Em", he smiled at our older brother, his assailant.

“See you later, brother,” Emrick chuckled as he heaved him over the edge.

In that instant, my vision went black. Then it happened. A cold fury erupted from within me. “Screw you and screw this island!” I roared to my feet, temporarily overcoming my bindings. "I will not let Roddy die alone!"

“What are you doing?” My uncle ran to catch my leg as I inched towards the edge of the cliff. But he was too late. I would be with my brother, and there was nothing he could do to stop me. I plowed headfirst after Roddy, who stared at me, mouth agape as he limply hit the water.

My body felt unusually light and airy as I moved to join him in death. Memories of my life flashed before my eyes as I inched ever closer to impact – visions of my mother, my father, and our home gave me peace as I went to comfort the little boy that I had raised from infancy. Roddy deserved better – as did all the children of Mossy Rock. Perhaps in death, we would finally be set free.

Then I came face to face with it, the gray liquid that had incarcerated our people for generations, its victims numbering in the tens of thousands. How many families had it broken? How many lives had it rended apart? Would it hurt? Does death hurt? This was my last thought as my neck cracked against the waves.

Then there was darkness.

*******************

“Edward! Edward! Wake up, brother.” Familiar hands desperately pounded against my chest, resuscitating me to life. In that one fleeting moment, I could have mistaken my brother for an angel – or our mother. How had I never noticed how much he had grown to look like her? His soft blue eyes and curly blonde hair were something that I thought I would never see again. Yet, there they were, staring me in the face.

“Roddy!” I flung forward and immediately clutched him in my arms. “You’re alive! You’re actually alive!” His tears flowed like a river down my shoulder, as mine did down his.

“I told you he’d survive,” an unfamiliar voice cackled from behind us, “it was ordained.”

I released my brother, still holding his hand tightly in mine, and spun around. We were with company.

A woman, well advanced in age, grinned a toothless smile at us from across the room. Strange trophies made of beasts and precious metals lined the walls between us. I had never seen anything like them. Nor had I ever seen anyone like her. She wore plated armor, cloaked in linen and dressed in sapphire adornment. She was like something out of a story book, too old to be anything short of a crone, yet too chivalrous to be anything less than a knight. A walking, talking, contradiction.

“Who are you?” I questioned her.

“The woman who saved your life,” her joints creaked and cracked as she used her staff to stand upright, “and maybe the world,” she added with another cackle. “I’ve been waiting for this day to come for far too long,” she slowly hobbled towards us, “and now it finally has.”

“I don’t understand,” I shook my head, “how are we alive? Who are you? What is this place?”

“You’d make a good lawyer with all those questions,” she came to sit on a stump in front of us. “Maybe you’ll have that opportunity one day, if you can escape from this hellish reality, that is.”

“I’m confused, h – “, she carefully pressed her finger against my lip, stopping me mid-question.

“All will be revealed in time,” she said, “but for now you need time to rest and recuperate, as do I. It took most of my mana reserves to bring you two back from the brink of death. You both were effectively paralyzed.” She stood up once more and limped towards the leeward exit. “Dinner will be ready in an hour,” she waved, as the door closed behind her, “don’t be late, I’m not making seconds.”

*******************

Supper that evening consisted of casings of meat slurry called “hot dogs”, served with a nauseatingly sweet beverage called “root beer”. Nana claimed they were delicacies from her homeland, but I found it hard to believe that anyone would consider that combination to be a delicacy. Even worse, the mealtime conversation had not satiated my hunger for answers. I knew nothing, save that Nana had saved our lives and taken us to her private island to heal. Everything else about her and our recovery remained shrouded in secrecy.

“Care if I join you?” Roddy emerged from Nana’s hovel and sat beside me on the bench where I had been pondering our situation after supper.

“I’d be honored,” I patted the spot next to me, urging him to move closer. I still couldn’t believe that he was alive. I wanted to hug him again and never let go, but I didn’t want to embarrass him, even if the only other person within an eyeshot was likely going blind. Roddy was entering adolescence, a self-conscious time in every young person’s life. I was only just outgrowing my teenage years myself, so I understood his situation well.

“You can see the stars so clearly here,” he pointed up at the sky, “look, there’s the constellation of the dragon!” He carefully drew an outline of a dragon with his finger. “There’s the storm,” he pointed to its left.

“Who taught you about the stars?” I questioned him, surprised by his knowledge of a spectacle that rarely could be observed in the overcast skies of our home.

“You did,” he nudged me with his fist, “don’t tell me you forgot.”

I thought about it for a moment. It was true that I had taught my brother most of the things that he knew about the world. I had raised him since the day he was born after all. Somehow though, I had no recollection of telling him about the stars and the great void beyond.

“Edward,” Roddy scolded me, “don’t tell me that you already forgot about what happened on the day I turned ten?”

What happened on the day that Roddy turned ten? I had thrown him a massive party that year. Did I? I did.

"The time we snuck into the observatory on top of the high cliffs!” I blurted out loud, “that was the first time I ever drank adult spirits. I can’t believe that I was that irresponsible.” I laughed.

“It was fun,” Roddy beamed, “but Emrick was not very happy that he had to clean up after you the next morning, you hurled up a whole keg on the bedroom rug.”

Emrick. Both of us suddenly grew quiet. He sacrificed Roddy without care, as though he were some insignificant pebble. My relationship with him had long been strained, but Roddy had never done wrong by him. Had he punished Roddy just to get back at me?

“Your brother is not a bad man,” Nana emerged from indoors and lit a smoke, taking a puff, “this world twists people to do cruel things and behave inhumanely. We should pity him; he is even more a prisoner of it then us.”

Roddy and I both stared at her in disbelief. Just who was she, and how much did she know about us and our family?

“For some eight hundred years I have watched from afar as my grandchildren, and their grandchildren, and their grandchildren’s grandchildren sacrificed our young to sea gods that do not exist,” she took a long drag on her cigarette. “In that time, I have brought many bodies back here and buried them, one by one, until I ran out of space. Then I simply burned them, giving the corpses at least some modicum of respect beyond what they were originally afforded. I became hardened to it and began to believe that the mission I received was a lie. It wasn’t. You and your brother are proof of that.” She turned back to the cabin, squashing her cigarette underfoot, “Get some rest, your training begins tomorrow.”