by J D Morganne
Sand clung to his clothes and hair. His mind ached as much as his body at the reality of going through the caves to get back to where he was. He scanned the gray beach, up a hill that led to at least three open tunnels.
He swiped his hand over his forehead and pulled himself together. As much as he wanted to sleep and ease the stinging in his calves, he couldn’t stay there. He hauled himself onto his arms and knees, then his legs.
He hadn’t hated anyone more than his father until Beck.
Blue light bled through the farthest tunnel on the left. He took it and followed the nauseating scent of freshwater and chlorine. Water dripped from cracks in the rigid walls into a puddle under his shoes.
Instead of taking another tunnel, he spent another hour squeezing through a fissure. When he came out on the other side, he was exhausted, but still in one piece.
In every direction, another opening, another frightening path, like the one he had come from, except for light fixtures and locked doors. Puzzling to Jaxon, the upper levels had electricity and stairs. Rooms. Monitors.
He came to a fork and decided to follow the lighter path where he heard the water rippling. It was worth it. When he got to the top, he found an antechamber and beheld divinity.
A massive tree tenanted most of the antechamber’s space. It was Jaxon’s first time seeing a tree as magnificent. It expelled an enticing aroma—of Aria’s shampoo and Beck’s hand-washing soap, and the salve Aria had healed his burn with, of morning, of night— intoxicating vanilla, honey and strawberry. All bundled into a pear-sized fruit. Was this one of the giant trees Aria had promised to take him to? It was the most beautiful thing he’d seen; they were right about that. But he had the urge to sleep and a voice in his head screamed for him to retreat.
Icy azure water trickled from the surrounding wall into a glittering river, the same river that flowed through the tunnels. The same one that housed sharks. It encircled the patch of land. A steel gate guarded it from anyone who dared to try to jump over. In front of it, a golden plaque said Fructus Babylonica Giganteum- The Koloberry, but every other detail was in indecipherable Terramulken.
Vibrant teal leaves waved on thick and thin limbs like they had their own wind. Red bristles poked through balls of orange fruit, breaking through the leaves like an oil painting, growing into the ceiling and the walls, merging with… celecomb. Was Jaxon seeing this right? Celecomb, like the liquidized crystals that powered their tech in Obedience? Celecomb? In Knowledge?
The tree broke through an opening in the roof, too high for Jaxon to see where it stopped. A glass wall with spikes enclosed a platform surrounding it. Spherical orbs protruded from the highest points of the cave. Something hard had smashed the ones on the lower walls. The debris sat as dried, blue dust and clear, slimy tendril-like wires.
Beck’s land sat on a ton of tech. No, a ton of celtech. Jaxon tried to wrap his mind around that. Why would she have similar technology here and if she did, why didn’t his rings work?
He didn’t have time to deliberate. The koloberry’s tempting scent lingered in his nostrils. He could taste its acidy juices already. The few that had fallen looked as vibrant as the hundreds still hanging. He threw his arm over his nose, but it didn’t help. So he kept moving, the urge to indulge overpowering, like Dasher’s illegal toffee.
He walked, hiked, skyrailed until sweat drenched his clothes and he was standing outside the house. Velvety light lit the veranda furniture. Laughter wafted from the open windows— pretentious laughter that made Jaxon taste the vomit at the back of his throat. He swallowed hard. His first plan was to bury himself under mounds of blankets and pillows in his room, but he ended up in the front room with everyone else.
He still ached like the river’s pressure was crushing him, but now his muscles tensed from the new silence. Gone was their laughter. Granted, he didn’t think it should’ve been there in the first place.
Jaxon walked in there to see one person only. He wanted to feast his eyes upon the magnificent Emiir Beck, who had found it within her power to play with his life.
Nano stood with his arm around Aria at the mantlepiece. Eshauna stood in the hallway, her sight darting from Nano to Beck. Was she coming or going? Either way, she was still now, like everyone else.
Jaxon wanted to knock Beck’s boots off the table, where they’d prepared their perfect dinner. He wanted to hurt her.
She quirked her mouth from where she sat, as quiet as the rest. Then, she brought her feet down. Did she have the same level of anxiety as Jaxon? The anger that simmered in him begged to come out of his fingertips. Torrid heat surged the air next to his arms. He could light it on fire. With no remorse.
“Damn, Robot,” she said. “Only five hours? Tougher than I thought.”
Before Jaxon knew it, he was beside her.
Beck cocked her head and stared up at him, smug and smiling. She had one hand up at Eshauna who had stepped toward them. She issued a warning for Nano with her other hand. He had moved Aria aside and took two steps toward Jaxon.
Jaxon didn’t care that any of them were there. The only person he wanted to see was Beck. Only small, breakable, beautiful Beck, who was adept at making people feel like garbage. No, shoving Jaxon off that cliff had made him feel like less than that. But worse, she had all that celtechnology and wouldn’t help him? Evil. He was invaluable to Farah, to Dasher, to his father. And now, to Beck.
“Aria owes me five rusies,” she said.
He didn’t think it was funny, but the sound that came out of him was somewhere between a laugh and grunt. He was going to lose control. He was. He was alone there. No one liked him, everything was new, everything scared him half to death… and he was alone. Why did she have to complicate things? Why did she have to make him lose control?
“I told you I couldn’t swim,” he said, mustering up as much calmness as he could manage.
She nodded and crossed her hands on her stomach. “Then how are you here?”
Had his point flown over her head? “What’s your angle? All that celtech, are you working with Farah? Sharing a throne?”
Beck rolled up her eyelids and turned up her lip. “If I decided, out of the blue to share, it wouldn’t be a throne.”
Her arrogance could suffocate everyone in that room. Jaxon wasn’t going to let her validation needs tamper with his life. Pure resentment electrified in his veins. The cavernous tunnels, the hike up and back down had taken most of his energy. He used the energy he had left to kick over the dinner table and everything on it. Plates and silverware crashed onto the hardwood. Beck’s favorite glass-blown vase shattered and ripped Aria’s floral print tablecloth. Food merged with juices and water, mushing their meal like pig slop.
No one moved.
Jaxon stepped in front of Beck where the table had been. When he bent down and leaned in, the tip of his nose brushed hers. No doubt he’d hear an earful from Aria about the food he’d wasted. Nano would insist on knocking his two front teeth in for getting in Beck’s face. He was ready for it all. Because whether he said a word or stared at Beck for the rest of the night, she was going to hear him. “You could’ve killed me.”
Beck stiffened her finger at Nano when he took another step toward Jaxon. “Do not move,” she said to him, not turning away from Jaxon. She meant it for Eshauna, too, but Eshauna had already crossed the room to stand next to Aria. “You wanted in the Den, didn’t you?”
“Did you hear me? I could’ve died!”
“Then, you would’ve failed,” she said, without an ounce of care.
Jaxon’s heart hammered. He trembled with an intense aching to torch something that meant the world to her. He would burn the whole house down if he wasn’t in it. “Hear me, if you ever find within your tiny, frail limbs the nerve to try to kill me again, I’ll turn every bone in your body to firewood.”
Beck twisted up the corner of her mouth and shrugged. “You’re gonna need your whole army for that, Soldier.” She poked his chest and forced him back.
“You passed.”
He stepped away. Her pretentious indifference to human life made his stomach queasy. She sat back, turned and put her feet on the table leg. And she smiled, quiet as the burnt-out stars.
The heat settled at Jaxon’s fingertips. Warm air rushed through his flaring nostrils. The cool air wafting through the windows made him aware of everything.
Nano had gone back to holding Aria, his eyebrows straightened, glower locked on Jaxon.
Eshauna’s distaste was replaced with a new fascination.
“Hey, there,” Beck said, as if he had gone somewhere. “You remember how to follow orders, Lion?”
“I’m… not myself. Forgive me, Emiir. I’m tired.” He was trembling and desperate to get out of there. He would hurry if he could steady himself. The world—or he—was off balance.
“Of course you are. Nano, he starts training immediately.”
“Think I’ll go to bed now,” Jaxon said.
Beck nodded toward the doorway, the silent permission he needed to dodge out of there.
He took the stairs by threes, jumped into his room and closed and locked his door. He collapsed on his bed. If he stayed as quiet as possible everyone would forget he was there. Like they always did.
Was his head clogged with too much bad voodoo from inhaling those koloberries? If he’d charged up to Farah like he had Beck, he’d be hanging in Kami Square by morning. And flipping the table? What was that about?
“I’m a ten-year-old,” he laughed finding nothing funny. “I’m losing my mind here,” he said to the darkness. He was losing more than his mind. He was deflating like his mom’s fake purin.
Expanding and deflating, over and over.
20
“Merciful Kamiaka.” The sun was bright. Jaxon’s hands itched from its prickling burn. “Forgive me.” He’d danced with negativity long enough. He’d let it disrupt his self-discipline. His peace. The hot earth on his forehead reminded him of rice under his knees, reminded him that he needed to keep it together. But, Dear Kamiaka, he missed Naruchi’s predictability.
A chilly rush of strawberry air wafted past him. He opened his eyes and sat up to find Aria kneeling before him. She’d roped her locs in an elaborate hive, bedazzled in wooden beads, pink like her sundress.
“Up early?” She smacked the pink spot on his forehead. “I’m surprised. After you embarrassed yourself like that.”
Did she have to bring that up? Jaxon had worked hard all night getting those abnormal feelings out of his system. He didn’t know what had come over him. Except blinding anger and the need to hurt her in whatever way he could. No control. “What’s that?” He nodded at a textbook the size of his head on Aria’s lap, eager to talk about something else.
She tapped it with her fingernails but ignored his question. “Who do you pray to?”
“Kamiaka. The goddess who brought peace to Obedience.” He shook his head, knowing she couldn’t be interested. He knew the religious story and he knew the scientific one. Science said that Dr. Journey Wright, after solidifying the possibility of teleportation through celtechnology, had created the Doors, separating the nationalities to maintain global peace and prevent mass extinction. How exactly that had been done was beyond Jaxon’s knowledge. And in Obedience, Farah hadn’t allowed any scientific studies that preached the opposite of Kamiaka.
“And?”
“It’s a boring story.”
“Ain’t that for me to decide?” She sat on her knees with him.
Unsure, Jaxon twisted up his mouth, but decided to tell her.
In the Old-World, there was chaos. Violence. Murder. Countless wars. World leaders abandoned the people. Natural disasters riddled the planet virtually unsustainable. Famine, diseases pouring from a sick earth, wiped out half the population. Then, Kamiaka rose from beneath the ground, out of the earth. Whatever she touched turned red and sprouted wild leaves that looked like fire over the land. “Then, she manipulated all the elements and created the Doors.”
Jaxon peeked at Aria to see if she was still listening. She waved her hand for him to continue.
He explained that the first was Love. Kamiaka gave them her ability to manipulate the air, to give breath and relief to the Doors. The second was Wealth. Kamiaka gave them water, to flow and share. The third was Obedience. They had fire for peace and order. “And Knowledge, I guess… but you were never in our scriptures.”
“That’s okay.” She stood up. “What’do you pray for?” She asked without looking at him, as if she had already decided the answer.
Jaxon stood. “Peace. Kamiaka gave her dying breath for us to live together in peace.”
Aria said nothing more but pushed the textbook closer and pointed to the title: The Art of Enkindling. “It’s a complete guide to Fire Manipulation, starting at the basics. Found’it in Beck’s trunk.”
Another resource Beck had kept from him. She wouldn’t want anyone taking things from her trunk. This made Jaxon want it more, anything to get under her skin. “Thanks. Can I ask you something?”
“Mm.”
“Those tunnels. Well, that tree…”
Aria swallowed hard and glanced at Beck, who had her feet kicked up on a metal side table. Aria met Jaxon’s gaze again. “I told you she was a beauty, didn’t I?”
Beautiful, yes, but Jaxon couldn’t think about it without the intoxicating, yet nauseous feeling coming back. “It’s—yes. That celtech. It doesn’t work?”
“Not long as I’ve known.”
“I could—could I look at it?”
“There ain’t nothing you can do. That tech is ancient. Read.”
He rubbed his fingers over the hard cover and flipped through the pages. Tiny letters. Thin pages. For the first time, he had no urge to read. All he wanted was to know why all that tech was in those tunnels.
“He doesn’t need a useless book.” Beck’s voice came out of nowhere.
Jaxon grimaced, not daring to look over his shoulder, lest he caught her hateful glare.
“Drink your lemonade,” Aria called to her. “Mind ya bees.”
Beck snorted and didn’t say another word.
Jaxon swallowed hard, hoping by some miracle she got called away. “Where’s Nano?”
“Somewhere doin’ nefarious things. Who cares?” Aria lingered for half a minute more. “Show me then. I wanna see anyway.”
See what? He wondered. He dropped the book at his feet and kicked it aside.
“Go on, manipulate fire.”
“I can’t do much.”
“Bullshit,” Nano called from the side door.
Now, Jaxon had to look behind him. Beck was gone, thank Kamiaka, but she’d left her lemonade and heart-shaped sunglasses sitting on her chair.
“I saw you do it before.” Nano suggested frustration—no, rage—in the way he gripped his rod.
“I didn’t say I couldn’t do it.” Nano’s anger was warranted, but he was a fool if he thought Jaxon’s wasn’t. His sister was insane. “I said I couldn’t do much.”
“Ey. Bait. You might wanna watch that mouth with me.”
“What do you want him to do, pull a rabbit out of his ass?” Beck emerged from the house again, holding a fresh glass of lemonade, which she nodded toward Jaxon. She set it down when he didn’t take it, took her seat and nodded for them to continue. As if they had been waiting for her.
Jaxon could do a few tricks with his manipulation, but not as much as Nano. Not as much as Beck. He hadn’t seen Aria manipulate, but he had no doubt she held something powerful, too.
“You’re here to learn,” Beck said, insouciantly. “Or waste our time.” She muttered the last part, but he’d heard her.
He clenched his jaw, reminded himself that she was Emiir and he was her Lion. Months ago, his bruises and broken bones kept him from traveling. Now, he was on two feet and that was thanks to Aria, Nano, and Beck. He was free to leave whenever he wanted, but… he didn’t know what he wanted. To go home? Back to the place that had “killed�
� him, that had taught him the opposite of everything he was learning here?
He knew one thing for certain—if he was there, he would learn all he could.
“How does it work?” Aria said.
Showing her was easier than trying to explain a feeling, it pulsing through his veins, lighting matches right beneath his skin? He used his fingers to control the movement. His manipulation of energy controlled his flame intensity, but that part Jaxon always winged.
With nothing to stall him, he snapped his fingers. Heat rushed up through his spine and circulated through him, hot in his blood, until it reached his fingertips. Flames flickered to life in the air beside his arm, fizzled into a ball and whooshed forward.
“Ah.” He snatched his hand away. The flames were close enough to burn the hairs on his arm. He watched them dissipate, hitting nothing.
Nano snorted, unimpressed. “That it?”
Jaxon went to snap again, but Nano’s boot slammed into his spine, knocking the breath out of him. He stumbled forward, hot air rushing into his lungs. He coughed.
“You’re slow.” Nano paced around him. “Move,” he told Aria.
She stalled for a moment. Then, went to join Beck on the veranda. “Go easy,” she said.
He turned a squinted eye at her and raised his lip. “What?”
Jaxon regained himself, but when he lifted to snap, Nano smacked down his arm with his rod. He spun and struck Jaxon’s side. The impact rocked his ribs. His burn sizzled like someone had taken a slab of him and fried it before stitching it back together. He fell, grabbing at the pain, knowing this wouldn’t ease it. Still, it was a small comfort.
“All right, Tough Guy.” Beck said to Nano, sitting back in her chair. “He already has bruises.”
“He’s slow.”
Jaxon’s blood boiled. They hadn’t brought him out there to train him. He was a spectacle to mock, a punching bag for Nano’s anger. His knees quivered with the urge to buckle, but he managed to stand.
Relax, his soldier brain told him. Be smart. And pay attention. It told him Nano, Beck, and even Aria wanted to hurt him.
