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The sun shines through the crack in the curtains into her eyes and Kikimora knows it’s going to be a bad day. Groggily, she rolls out of bed, lying for a long moment on the nice cold floor. She groans and rises. As she stumbles down the stairs toward her dinky kitchen, beneath her foot is a cracking noise. Her foot disappears through the step and she skinks up to her calf before she catches herself with the opposite leg.
“Urgh,” she says, pulling herself loose. As she does, a thought strikes her. Speaking of holes, her brain goes, there’s a hole of Golden Guards you should maybe tell someone about. “Urgh,” she says again, and goes to find a Golden Guard.
There’s been many of them over the years, she knows, so it stands to figure there would be at least one retired one kicking about in her town.
Many hours later, after countless goose chases that start across the dark underbelly of the Toe before sending her all the way up island, and some very nice old demon ladies at the grocery store at the Elbow, Kikimora admits defeat. Apparently, the only Golden Guard anyone has ever heard of is that young upstart. The annoying one. If nepotism was a person it would be him.
She thinks for a moment about the hole of his brethren, and reconsiders. Maybe not a nepotism hire, then. Or alternatively, the ultimate nepotism hire. Either way, he’s annoying as hell and on particularly bad days she likes to remember the time she sicced her dragon on him.
The point is, she can't find any other Golden Guards, so it looks like she’s going to have to find the annoying boy and tell him about the Guard Hole, as she’s come to refer to it. “Ugh,” she says, and tries to remember where the Owl House is. Someone there will know where to find him. Him and his disgusting little friends, she thinks bitterly. She does not think about the twinge of jealousy pulling at her tendons.
Kikimora finds Hunter, luckily enough, at the Owl House.
“Hunter,” she says cooly.
He nods from his perch deep in a flowerbed, a large weed biting at his glove, and says “Kikimora.”
“I think you should know there’s a hole of dead Golden Guards at the Head.” She tries a smile on, and finds it does not fit.
He frowns. “There’s a what?” he says, louder than Kikimora thinks is warranted. The accursed beast pokes his head around the corner. Hooty, she thinks it’s called.
“Hoot hoot! Is there a problem?”
Hunter glares at her. “Is there gonna be a problem?” he asks.
She takes one carefully calculated step back. Enough for space, but not weakness. “No,” she says shortly.
The beast vanishes whence from where he came.
“So he kept the bodies,” Hunter muses. “Where?”
Kikimora explains hastily, gritting out a smile at the end. “So! Now you know!” Her good deed done for the day, she hastily excuses herself to work her way back to the Toe and her apartment. She needs some tea to settle down after her long morning.
The second Kikimora vanishes into the woods, Hunter heaves out a sigh. He was having a perfectly nice morning. No one had caught on fire, Eda’s chores were nearly done, and he was going to WIllow’s for dinner. It was just past noon and the sun was shining, Hooty was behaving himself, and it looked like everything was going to be okay. Until Kikimora had shown up and told him some terrible news while staring at his neck like she wanted to pry it apart with her teeth, before vanishing back to what he hoped was a horrible little cave.
He goes back to pulling the weeds, bearing their tiny bites on his gloves, while he thinks the situation over. There is a mass grave of his fallen fellows. Brothers? he thinks briefly, and then dismisses the idea. Nope. Not going there.
He needs to find someone to go with him. He could go alone, of course, but these days he’s learning more and more that horrible things are best done with friends at your side. When the weeding is done Hunter rises to his feet and shakes the dirt from his gloves. Something bites his ankle and he kicks it away without thinking, stepping from the flower bed onto the lawn, which is thankfully quite tame. Inside, he finds Eda in the front room, collapsed on the couch with a scroll in her hand.
“‘Sup, kid,” she says, not looking up. Hunter considers her briefly before dismissing the idea. He likes Eda. He really does. Down one hand and most of her magic and she’s still the most badass witch in the entire Boiling Isles. The thing is, he wants someone with a better grasp on the details of things like emotions, and sensitivity. He’s seen Eda express feelings in the past, of course, but never when the world wasn’t ending.
“Weeding’s done.”
“Did they get ya?”
“I’m tougher than some weeds, Eda. Honestly. Is Luz around?”
“She’s with her mom this weekend. Learning to drive, she said. They get old so fast.” Eda stretches out and sighs.
“Bummer,” says Hunter. “See you later, I’m going out.” He nods at Hooty as he closes the door.
Sitting on the grass under the shadow of a towering tree, he produces his scroll and swipes through his contacts. He needs someone who’s good at these things. Someone he can trust. His thumb hovers over Darius’ icon. Hunter hesitates, then clicks. It rings twice.
“Hello?”
“Darius, Kikimora just talked to me.”
“That sucks,” Darius says so seriously Hunter almost chuckles.
“She told me about a Golden Guard… hole was the word she used.”
“Excuse me?”
“There’s a hole of dead Golden Guards up at the Head.”
“The bastard kept the bodies?”
“Apparently. It could just be Kiki fucking with me.”
“Shall I meet you there?”
“Pick me up from the Owl House, please.”
“I’ll see you soon, Hunter.”
The hole is easier to find than Hunter expected. He thought it would be hidden, buried away. But half the route he knows, had walked every day of his life. They pass through familiar dark hallways, the musty smell of a building left to rot filling the air. Small skittering things scatter from the spell light Darus floats ahead of them. They come to a door he walked past a million times, a million years ago. It isn’t even locked. Down and down the uneven stone steps they descend. At the bottom the stairwell opens into a cavern, and there it is. The hole.
“Kikimora did lie,” says Hunter in a carefully measured voice. “That’s more of a pit than a hole.”
Darius places a tentative hand on his shoulder. Hunter flinches sharply, and the hand half withdraws before coming back to settle. He heaves a deep breath, shoulder rising and falling, and leans into the touch.
“This is awful,” Darius says softly.
Hunter chokes once on his emotions. “We should do something. A funeral.”
“One step at a time. We should see if there’s anyone we can identify.”
He shakes his head. “Who would miss a Golden Guard?”
Darius considers. “I knew your predecessor. He was a good man.”
“I’m sorry,” Hunter whispers. “What was his name?”
He looks away. “He never told me. I never even saw his face. He trained me, though his magic was different from my own. He guided me through the coven. And he told me to rebel. Laid the steps for me to become a coven head, and then one day he disappeared. I never knew what happened to him.”
There’s a moment of silence. Hunter casts about for something to say. “Do you think he’s down there?”
“Yes. The last time I saw him he told me things were going to change soon. I suspect he acted against the emperor and paid for it. I met you a month later.”
Hunter hums, a short note, and switches topics. “How many do you think are down there?”
Darius studies the pit with a grim sort of practicality. “There has to be nearly a hundred.”
“He was in our world for about 250 years, Luz figures.”
Some of the skeletons are very small, or weirdly formed.They lay in piles across the uneven ground, the glow of the light casting long odd shadows that bury themselves in the deeper shadows of the corners. Darius sends the light floating down into the pit, and Hunter can see some are much older than others. The bones are for the most part intact. Masks are scattered around like golden coins spilled carelessly. He has the passing thought that he might look too closely and see his own mask, his own shattered body lying there. Dead and entombed.
“Should we go down there and I don’t know…look for your mentor?” asks Hunter.
Darius’ lips tighten. “Let’s see if we can get them in some sort of order.”
They end up organizing the skulls in a long line, curling around the edge of the pit, each mask balanced atop the pile of the rest of the bones. Darius is right, there’s nearly a hundred. Eighty-nine. That would make Hunter the ninetieth, he realizes. The ninetieth Golden Guard. The ninetieth to betray Belos. Philip. Whatever.
The youngest skull is years old, and remains of blonde hair flop over its forehead. A patch of skin clings just below it, yellowed with age. Hunter squats down next to it and reaches out, almost touching. The cowlick looks just like his. Just as he does, Darius drops to his knees and picks up the mask, lying face down beside the grinning skull. There’s a chip at bottom, slightly off center. “It’s him.” Darius says.
Hunter bites his lip and bows his head. “We should go.” It’s getting late, and they’ve been there hours, working in silence to order the bones into that long, neat line. Organization sprouting from chaos.
Darius tightens his hands into fists. “I don’t want to leave him.”
“Darius, he’s dead.”
Hunter regrets the words as soon as they’re past his lips. Darius’ mouth tightens. He stands. “ Let’s go.”
It’s early dawn, cool night air simmering into the warmth of the day. The world is flat and gray. On the top of a hill, just outside Bonesburrough, a new monument stands; a glossy dark pillar standing about ten feet tall and three feet around. Hunter looks up at the pillar, and his hand snakes out to find Willow’s. It’s just them. He reads the little plaque aloud, breaking the silence. “‘Here lie the Golden Guards, names unknown. May they reach the justice they searched for.”
“I like it,” says Willow.
“I dunno, it’s a little…” Hunter looks down. “I don’t know.”
She squeezes his hand and gives it a little shake. “You did an amazing job organizing this, Hunter. I’m proud of you.”
“Sometimes I feel guilty that I'm the only one who lived. I didn’t do anything special. I wasn’t the strongest or the best or anything. ” His breathing picks up, and he hates the quiver in his voice.
Willow nudges his shoulder with hers, nestling into his side. “You shouldn’t. It wasn’t your fault they died.”
“And it wasn’t my fault I lived either. What did I do different?”
“The universe is like that, I guess. But you carry their legacy. They would be so proud of you. They all fought back, and you won.”
“Do you really think so?” he asks, wiping at his eyes.
“I know so.”
“I hope Belos suffered.”
“Ask King. He’ll tell you. He loves telling that story.”
“I haven’t been able to. Yet not. I want this to be about them. About us. Not about him. Everything always had to be about him.”
She looks up. “If they’re anything like you, they were good people. They wouldn’t want you to wallow in guilt.”
“I suppose I just…” It takes him a long moment to find the words. “ I miss the brothers I never had.”
“I’m sorry they died. But I’m glad you lived.”
Hunter tucks his free hand around her arm. “Yeah. Me too.”
The sun breaks over the horizon and Hunter lets the tears drip down his face. Willow breathes, deep and even and deliberate, and he tries to match her. Her hands are so small inside his, and he focuses on the ruddy bruise decorating her knuckle. She glances at him and there’s wetness in her eyes. “We’re gonna be okay,” she says, and it’s a prayer and a promise.