Do you know what the deadliest creature on the peninsula is? Lions, bears, sharks, and humans. I’ve heard all these answers before and none of them are correct. The greatest killer is a beast that most people overlook because of its size, and there isn’t a person alive that hasn’t been bit by one. The mosquito waits in the dark, attracted by your breath and thirsty for a drop of blood. Yet, it isn’t their thirst that should scare you, but the diseases they carry. Remember, the true god of war wasn’t killed by steel, fire, or brimstone, but a cough.
Icarus’s hand wouldn’t stop shaking. He held his palm up to his nose, trying to steady the rhythm. His sister’s death upset him, but this was different. The rush of adrenaline during the battle had masked his fever, but now, after having won, his hearts still beat like a drum.
“What’s going on?” he asked, a sharp pain stabbing his chest.
Icarus dropped to his knees, doubling over as blood spilled from his mouth. That’s when he noticed the empty cell in his retina and the molting bricks of a recently forged kiln.
“Velbrava!” Icarus screamed, collapsing onto the sands, grasping his chest. “You actually have a spine!”
He couldn’t help but laugh.
— ✦ —
Velbrava waited in the depths of Icarus’ eye and watched as his elder brother’s creation decimated Persephone’s forces, setting the desert ablaze. He pressed his nose to the clear lens of his prison and could feel the heat on his cheek. His sister was losing, and the only hope she had left was to kill Icarus before the last of her brood collapsed.
She was brave, rushing in as she did. Perhaps she could get the upper hand, but Velbrava would not wait to find out.
He jumped down from the lens to the vats of red clay deposited in the retina. Icarus shared his knowledge with tiny drops, and Velbrava had stored the substance ever since his ensnarement. In the shadows, he built a kiln shaping bricks from the salt in a backed-up tear duct and drops of milk from his ear. Velbrava had to be careful packing the mortar, which he spread like butter across the macula. Lay the bricks too close to the lens, scratch the cornea, and Icarus would know. Doubtless, the older engineer would have his head, but with the war nearing its end, his usefulness was in question.
“Become my weather sense, and I will give you a taste of the Pallid Throne before you die.” Icarus’s words came rushing back and left a bitter taste in his mouth.
How sour would the nectar be if he accepted such a paltry sum? No true engineer would ever consider that offer. It was all or nothing. His brother taught him that. So, by day, he shaped the tidbits of clay into claws and spikes under his brother’s gaze, but, at night, he tried something new. Icarus never gave Velbrava enough substance to design anything larger than his finger. That’s when he had an idea, something outside of the box.
Why did his brood need to be any larger than his finger?
Velbrava’s brothers and sisters were so focused on sheer volume and strength. Indeed, what good would sharp spikes do against a mountain’s hide? But what if you didn’t need to pierce the exterior at all? What if he made something so small it entered through the tear ducts and sweat glands? He had seen Icarus’s bake; the shell cooked until stiff and dry, but the interior was soft and pink.
Velbrava could win from the inside out. So, he began shaping clay, flattening the dough, and pinching the corners. He made the eldriatus in his image. Velbrava Started with the back legs, rolling the soft batter into tubes, thick at one end and thin at the other. Then, coiling the muscle fibers into springs, he filled the hollow legs before elongating the toes and teasing out smooth sensory hairs.
The wings came next. Velbrava pulled the dough so thin he could see through the other side. He had to be careful when pinching so as not to create hills and valleys too deep. Then, he double knit a sleeve over the top, giving the wings a glossy sheen before adding several joints at the stalk. These wings were small and fragile, but so fast they were a blur before his eyes. Adding a groove and a sheath to his larva’s back allowed the wings to fold under a hard chitinous exterior.
Velbrava worked the abdomen next, opting for a segmented body for a greater range of motion. First, he kneaded the dough into a thick, bulbous tube and poked tiny holes along each flank. Then, stretching tiny filaments between his teeth, he filled the holes with webbed fingers, toes, and whip-like cilia. Finally, he packed the abdomen with misfolded proteins, wrapping them in sacks to not influence the bake.
The head was the hard part. Velbrava still couldn’t shape a snout without grooves or pits, and the hair came out crooked in patches. He broke his fingernails and tossed the misshapen clay into a heap until finally doing away with the nose. Instead, he flattened the face and shaped the jaw facing downwards with clicking mandibles. Then, he filled two oval sacks with marbles, tossing out pupils in favor of hexagonal disks, and embedded them on either side of the skull. Last, he packed the chest cavity with liver, kidneys, pancreas, and a hollow pulsing sleeve that could only be a stomach.
Done, at last, Velbrava wrapped his larvae in cocoons and hung them in batches of a thousand from the bricks of his kiln. His eyes were sore from squinting, and the tips of his fingers felt as if they would fall off. Even so, watching the heart of his creation beat beneath silk sheets made the sacrifice worth it.
Click.
Velbrava’s shoulder fell out of place, and he snapped it back, the pain little more than a nagging itch and one that had to be scratched. But there was no time for such pleasures. The heat of battle had reached its peak, sweat beading across his brow.
Patience was his greatest virtue. He waited as Icarus unleashed his wyrms upon Persephone. The first crashed down the base of the mountain, causing the sands to ripple. Velbrava could smell the inky black smoke from scorched fat and hear the roar of a terrible furnace. Still, the heat served only to hasten the development of his creations.
The first of Velbrava’s locusts hatched, zipping through the air and landing on his back. They gathered near the nape of his neck, bound to the luminescent threads of his coalesced spirit. The whip felt slippery between Velbrava’s fingers, but cut deep into his palm, causing him to bleed. Such was the depth of his locusts’ hunger.
Velbrava waited, holding his breath close to the retina. He waited for a sign—that moment when Icarus’s spirit would stretch itself thin. His sister was a convenient distraction.
“No, it’s not over. I can stop you here.” Persephone’s voice echoed throughout Velbrava’s kiln.
“Let’s finish this the old way,” Icarus said, the walls shaking around Velbrava as the last of his brood burst forth like a cloud of black dust.
Clang!
Suddenly, Velbrava felt something give under his fingers—a loosening of the tight junctions and softening of the optic nerve.
Now was the time.
Velbrava used the base of his claw to cut through the epithelial layer around the nerve and into the arterial network. Gone was the snapping luminescent net that flung him back when he was a child. Yes, there was a limit to his brother’s spirit, after all. Emboldened, Velbrava cut open a retinal blood vessel, red ichor spilling out onto the floor.
Icarus’s heart was beating fast, and the current of his blood was like white water rapids through an open window. Velbrava took a deep breath, his locusts grasping at his back in a woven sweater. Tight, coarse, and itchy. He dove in headfirst; the blood crashing against his skull and sending him flying down the arterial network. In a rush, his head bounced against the endothelial layer, getting a mouth full of plasma. Velbrava choked, digging his claws into the soft tissue, and slowing his advance.
Clang!
Adrenalin was mixed in with the blood like yellow bile, the taste so bitter it made his tongue curl. But, though the ichor was fierce, his locusts held fast, with only a few lost in the waves. Velbrava poked his head above the raging current to gulp air before letting go of the endothelial layer and crashing down further into Icarus’s vibriatus.
Then they came.
A white mass of tissue floating like rafts atop the river of blood broke through the current. There was a squealing noise as a thousand mouths, tongues, and teeth opened wide in response to a foreign taste. Velbrava launched himself off the arterial walls as the pale clot grew, tendrils poking at his heel. Then, another bundle of cells pushed itself through the endothelial layer ahead of him, trying to cut off his advance. Velbrava Shielded his head as he crashed into the mass which enveloped him, pinching off the entry wound and ceiling him in a bubble. He kicked the sides, but the walls felt like rubber, giving but never breaking. Suddenly, his eyes burned as smaller vesicles fused with the larger, delivering a sour payload that burned holes in his tongue. Then, looking down at his hands, he saw the tissue of his palm peel away like a fruit’s skin.
“Not here, not now!” Velbrava screamed, taking hold of his whip and cracking the reins.
Several locusts flung off his back and into the acidic pool. In seconds, their abdomens were ripped open, vesicles filled with a gray haze, the misfolded proteins. That mass of crooked collagen seeped into every nook and cranny, embedding in the nucleus and plasma membrane. Suddenly, the white clot squealed as its matrix broke down and holes appeared beneath lipid rafts. Then, the cell locked into a sickle shape as its cilia turned to sand. The prions, Velbrava’s misfolded payload, dug into the vesicle walls, weakening the structure, which burst like a balloon.
Free at last, Velbrava dropped back into the raging rivers of blood, a few prions clinging to his fingers and turning them to dust. Then the whip nearly slipped from his grasp, digging into his palm like shards of glass. That insatiable hunger bit deep as the depths of Velbrava’s gluttony grew.
Click.
Velbrava loved the pain.
Soon, he crashed against a disk-shaped wall that opened and closed to a rapid beat.
Thump!
The valve opened, launching him into a massive atrium and towards another opening flap. Velbrava sunk his claws into the chamber walls and clung like driftwood in a storm. The currents were strong here, so strong it threatened to rip his arms off, which sunk deeper with each beat. Velbrava bit his tongue, swinging the whip once more and unleashing a horde of locusts into the endocardium of Icarus’s heart. Then, he let go.
As his body flung through the Aorta, Velbrava broke off a few hundred luminescent threads from his whip, sending the locusts left behind into a frenzy. The depths of their hunger caused the heart’s atrium to quiver as the walls shuddered, turning to sand.
One down, one to go.
Caught in the current once more, Velbrava was flung deeper into Icarus’s tissue. Stuffed into a capillary bed, he cut through the thin vessels to find stronger blood flow but became stranded in a mass of reddish-brown tissue, the liver.
Clang!
A shaft of white steel zipped past his chin, burying a hole in the organ so deep he could feel the wind of the desert against his cheek. Grabbing hold of tattered sheets of flesh, he held fast as the world spun wildly, a violent maelstrom threatening to rip him out of the newly formed hole. That’s when he glimpsed a spitting blood vessel. Yanking his arms free, Velbrava fell until the tips of his fingers caught the open end of that bleeding tube. Tearing the ligaments in his right arm, he flung himself into the vessel, diving until he reached the currents below.
The walls started closing around Velbrava, spongy disks sliding in place to redirect the blood currents away from the damaged hull. He slid under one, nearly cutting him in two, before being flung into the inferior vena cava. The blood down there tasted so bitter it made him vomit a cloud of green bile, drawing a fresh wave of white clots. They came through the tight junctions in force, screaming as they enveloped the waste and then rounding on him. Velbrava Kicked off the endothelial walls, diving into the rapids, through the pancreas, and across the omentum. Once more, he was surrounded by a mass of pale cells nipping at his heel.
Crack!
Velbrava swung the whip, now digging into his wrist, and drove a few more locusts into the building mass. The probing cilia enveloped the tiny insects before imploding, bits of sand brushing up against his cheek. Finally, he crashed against another valve, which swung open in a rush, pushing him into a vast chamber.
The second heart was much larger than the first, and the tissue was folded into tight grooves with flagellum, pushing the blood harder with each beat. Velbrava latched himself to the myocardial layer. His claws, curved and jagged, cut crooked arcs into the tissue, anchoring his arm. From here, he could feel the warmth of every organ, lung, liver, kidney, and pancreas. This was the central hub of Icarus’s vibriatus. Velbrava shook his brood free, the rest of his locusts filling the atrium and spreading through every vein, artery, and capillary. Velbrava then did the one thing no engineer, save him, would do willingly.
He dropped the whip.
Luminescent threads snapped away from his fingers, cracking like thunder as the swarm was ejected from each valve and into adjacent tissues. Soon, the walls trembled as the locusts sunk their teeth deep and spread infectious prions throughout every pore and lymph node.
“Velbrava!” Icarus screamed as his heart faltered, smooth muscle shriveling like a raisin.
Velbrava drew a small dagger of white steel from his chest, bent like a gnarled branch.
“Don’t be angry with me, brother,” he said, driving the blade into Icarus’s heart. “This is, after all, what you wanted me to do.”