Free Villains by Rhiannon Paille

laughed, following her inside. “If you pay his way, I will show you how to release him.”
    Aria turned, wanting desperately to keep Kallow on land, and away from the Valtanyana and their wars. She tossed a spark into the fire pit and it snaked through it, lighting the cairn in shades of orange. “I apologize if this seems barbaric…” she levitated the remaining armor from the corner and guided it to the fire pit. It sizzled as it melted, and before Kallow could speak she plunged her hands into the fire and broke off two pieces of gold, forming them into the coins Skeld held.
    Aria commanded the pieces of gold out, letting them cool on the stone bench. They’d be mushy unless she could find something like Cassareece’s frozen hands to cool them.
    “You cannot create them that easily you know.”
    Aria didn’t know what to say. Kallow stood by the table, looking over the parchment papers Tor always wrote on. He had one in his hand, and Aria could see something etched into the bark. “I don’t know another way to make coins.”
    Kallow smirked. “It’s not the making them, it’s the enchanting them that’s the difficult part. Do you know a shaman?”
    Aria laughed. From what Tor had said about her and her kind, she didn’t need a shaman to instill an item with magic. “Please tell me what you need the coin to do and I will have it done.”
    Kallow looked at her, a challenge in his eyes like he didn’t believe she could do it. He crossed his arms. “It needs to pass between worlds, so it’s physical in mine, and non-physical in yours.”
    Aria wanted to smirk but she remembered Skeld and the way Tor had made the coin from his hand turn to smoke, and appear in Skeld’s hand. She nodded, taking the two coins in her hand and tried to replicate what Tor had done. It wasn’t as easy as she originally imagined. For one, she didn’t exist in the same world as the coins, so touching them was impossible. She focused harder, trying to make them turn to smoke and reform but the logistics were beyond her. She lost her focus and they fell through her hands, landing on the floor. Kallow saw everything and his eyes widened.
    “Forgive me…” Aria gulped, knowing she wouldn’t be able to pay him, knowing he would return to his master empty handed, and she didn’t want to think about what his master would sentence him to because of her treachery. Kali Elle: the girl who brings death. The name pounded in the back of her mind and she felt faint until something pinched her brow and she glanced at the table. The obsidian crystal on the scythe was glowing, creating a momentary dark spot on the canvas. She pushed past Kallow, who was still holding the parchment and whipped back part of the canvas. She ran her hand over the scythe and a low note escaped the crystal before it exploded into the cairn, black dust swirling into the air, until a silhouette encompassed the cairn.
    “Impossible,” Kallow exclaimed as he backed towards the stone bench and fell on it, his hands trailing over the crown.
    Aria didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want Kallow to know what she was anymore than she wanted the Obsidian Flame to awaken in the middle of her meeting with the Ferryman. Her heart triturated wildly, and she fought to keep the urge to explode from overcoming her.
    “Aria,” the Obsidian Flame said.
    Aria couldn’t believe it, he could speak. She looked at the coins and without needing to say a thing the Obsidian Flame took them and as quickly as they had become tiny round pieces of gold they became smoke, then solid again, landing in the Ferryman’s lap.
    “You will call me Klavotesi and you will send me to work with the Ferrymen when this is over.”
    Aria couldn’t speak. She nodded, half afraid, half amazed. Klavotesi lost his form, crumbling into dust before the crystal on the scythe sucked him inside its prison. Aria couldn’t look at Kallow, the storms in her stomach were too great for her to face him. He would