Dissident

by Lisa Beeson

  Opening her eyes to search for more sources of power, she realized that she was hovering above the ground, limbs crackling with electric energy. A circle of shriveled lifeless bodies laid scattered on the ground all l around her. The bloodcurdling screams of the living outside of the circumference of death, awoke her to the stark horror of what she had done. Adults and children alike were nothing more than grey husks on the ground – their faces frozen in rictuses of pain.

  She had killed them all.

  Something broke inside her. Her mind would not accept what she had done. It could not. She had to escape. She had to run. She had to get away from all the death. Only the self-preserving numbness kept her from tearing the whole world apart in her grief and self-loathing.

  Barely conscious of the five other Nahullo soldiers firing their railguns at her, she began focusing all the power she had syphoned. Drawing on that power, she called upon the Great Song to guide her, as her world ignited in a white-hot implosion.

  Chapter 19

  Ari awoke, gulping air and covered in sweat.

  Her nerves were thrumming with power, but her body felt feverish and wasted. The dichotomy of weakness and strength was hard to reconcile.

  Lifting her tremoring hands to hold her throbbing head, she sat up slowly, reflexively curling into herself.

  It had been her.

  She was the one who put up the walls in her mind. To protect herself from the horror of witnessing her mother’s death and the atrocities she committed because of it.

  She had syphoned the life force from all those beings. Killing them without a thought to what she was truly doing. All she knew was that she had wanted them to suffer as she was suffering.

  It had to be the reason why she had taken what she had done to Kael so hard. A part of her had known what she had done to those beings, and it was only then that she was able to acknowledge and process the horror of her actions.

  Ari could feel herself whirling out of control in a spiral of guilt, shame, and despair. A keening wail escaped her throat, as her body trembled and tears flooded her eyes. I’m a monster…

  Gentle hands disentangled Ari’s clawing fingers from her hair, and then cupped her face. Turning her head, Mother Am’s soft soothing voice said, “Look at me, child. Look at me and breathe.”

  Ari opened her eyes, to see Mother Am’s friendly wrinkled face. Her eyes were welcoming silver pools of compassion and understanding, and held none of the condemnation or repulsion that Ari deserved.

  I am not the warrior Rysura had wanted me to be. I’m a murderer.

  “Stop that,” Mother Am chided. “Stop that right now.”

  Ari was jarred from her dark thoughts by the firm reprimand.

  “What use is all that?” the ancient woman asked. “What use is there in destroying yourself?”

  “But I– ”

  Mother Am hushed her with a dismissive shake of her head. “I watched it all. I saw every memory. What you did was the instinctual actions of a broken, traumatized child with powers beyond her control.”

  “But that doesn’t excuse wha–”

  “No one is excusing it or diminishing the significance of what you did. What happened was awful by all accounts.” Mother Am admitted. “And I know that it feels fresh and raw to you right now, but a lot has happened since then. You have learned, you have grown, and you have changed. Wallowing in sorrow and self-loathing now, when you are needed most, does not respect the lives that were taken by you or anyone else. You must make their sacrifice mean something.”

  “How?”

  “You must forgive yourself.” She held up her hand to prevent Ari from objecting. “Forgiveness does not mean condoning. It means accepting the reality of what happened, and accepting that it cannot be changed. It means acknowledging and accounting for your actions, and then making amends and moving forward.”

  “But how do I possibly make amends for what I did?”

  “You must trust in the rhythms of the Aethos and tip the scales to a more perfect balance. Absolem knew that this was the time for you to live, because this was when your power was needed most – not only on Earth, but in Anu as well.”

  “But I’m too much of a liability. If I lose control again…”

  “You must think of your growing power as if it was water. It has the potential to foster life and abundance, but too little or too much can bring destruction. The Aethos craves balance; it will always find a way to restore the natural equilibrium with whatever tools available. Stay in tune with the Aethos, and it will help you find the equilibrium in yourself.

  “You’ve already made the choice to do good, child. You stopped yourself from syphoning from Kael. You extinguished a malignant entity that should not have existed in the first place. And you stopped yourself from syphoning what was left of Adam’s weakened xjaasa, when you could have easily done so.”

  The memory of Phet wearing Adam’s decaying body flashed into Ari’s memory, making her wince.

  “You have recovered the missing parts of your memory. You know who you are and where you came from. Now it is time for you to decide who you will become and what you will do from this moment on. We are the choices we make.”

  Ari could feel the truth of Mother Am’s words. She had learned and she had grown. But before she could formulate a response, an opening in the wall appeared, and a pale chick clothed in black leather, strode in like a gale before a storm.

  “That was a rough one, wasn’t it?” she said with a slight Irish lilt, as the opening closed behind her. “I felt that all the way across the Garden.” A gamine grin spread across her face at Ari’s confusion. She raised her brows and motioned at the ruined state of the room around them.

  Ari took in the chaotic piles of furniture and medicinal miscellany pushed against the walls as if by a great force.

  “You had another episode just before you awoke,” Mother Am explained. “They seem to be getting stronger much quicker than we had anticipated.”

  Ari panicked at the disarray, imagining what the force had done to the old woman. “Did I hurt you?”

  Mother Am assured her that she had not, and Ari sighed in relief.

  “I’m a lot sturdier than I look,” the old woman said with a wink.

  The fact that she’d had an episode at least explained the extra energy thrumming through her nerves, but why did her body feel so awful? Her skin felt hot, and there was a deep ache in her bones. She felt like she was coming apart at the seams, one fraying stitch at a time. Her whole body was weak and achy. All she wanted to do was lie back down and rest.

  “What’s happening to me? Am I sick? Is this what being sick feels like?”

  “The surges of Fluxxai energy seem to be overwhelming your mortal form,” Mother Am explained. “Your body is not transitioning fast enough to accommodate the increasing power.”

  “So I’m… I’m dying?”

  “I sure hope not,” the goth-looking chick said as she righted an overturned chair and then collapsed into it. “You left a right mess on Earth that needs a bit of tidying up before you run off to your Daizan Xjaamin.”

  “What?” Ari asked, baffled by the goth-chick’s presence and assumed familiarity. But then she remembered that Absolem had to do something to one of the runes on her head before she reached Maturity.

  Mother Am gave the goth-chick a stern look before raising her walking stick and swiping it through the air. A line of glowing runic markings appeared on the wall in front of her. “We were only able to decipher some of the runes Absolem marked on your scalp.”

  Ari stared in surprise as she absently placed her hand on the back of her head. That’s what’s tattooed on me...?

  “He merged the Ayan runes with sacred geometry and ancient symbols known only to the Daizan Xjaamin on Emuria. Our archives are limited to the affairs of Earth. But looking back to the time of the Anu colonists, we were able to decipher the modified Sartuum rune right there.” She pointed to a symbol with the end of her walking st
ick.

  Ari gasped. That symbol had been in the roots of the tree Alvaro had drawn of his visions. The symbol she had mindlessly doodled the last couple of years she was at St Anthonys.

  “That’s how he was able to cloak your xjaasa, but now it seems to be fighting with your increasing power,” Mother Am continued.

  “Like a cap trying to contain the carbonation in a shaken up bottle of soda pop,” The goth-chick chimed in helpfully.

  “It was part of the groundwork he laid down to make sure you survived until Maturity. But if he doesn’t finish what he started before you completely transition…” Mother Am trailed off, letting Ari connect the dots on her own.

  That must have been why she kept on drawing the symbol. Her subconscious was trying to warn her that her time was running out.

  Ari closed her eyes and took a slow deep breath. “So what you’re saying is that I have to fix the mess on Earth and somehow get myself back to Absolem all before I finish my transition or …or I won’t survive?”

  Ari omitted the part about bringing Kael back to Anu, refusing to think about it. Even though Absolem had wanted her to save him, the callous jackhole had abandoned her and moved on without a care. So forget that guy. She was not going to waste her finite time on someone who chose to leave her.

  “…And maybe not just yourself,” the goth-chick murmured under her breath. When she saw Ari’s frightened eyes on her she made an explosion noise while mimicking a bomb going off with her hands.

  “Time is of the essence,” Mother Am said with a sympathetic smile.

  The goth-chick clucked her tongue like the sound of a ticking clock.

  “Do what you came to do, Bav,” Mother Am said to the goth-chick before facing Ari. “I’ll be right back with something that will help you feel better.” She gave Ari’s hand a gentle pat, before opening the doorway in the wall and leaving.

  Bav...? The name sounded familiar, and then it clicked. Not Bav, but Badb. As in the raven goddess, that was part of the Morrighan from Celtic lore...? Badb was the goddess of war who determined whether someone would walk off the field of battle. If a warrior saw her washing his armor in the stream, it meant he was to die that day.

  “You do something nice for a man about to die one time and that’s what sticks. Not all the sovereigns I’ve protected, not all my acts of bravery and triumphs during battle…no. And it’s a crow, by the way, not a raven. Damn humans can’t get anything right, and that’s if they remember anything about you at all. But our myths are never the full truth of it, are they?” she gave Ari a conspiratorial wink.

  Ari was confused. Badb looked more like a biker chick than a Xjaamin. What business did she have with Ari?

  Badb gave a nonchalant shrug, reading Ari’s unguarded thoughts. “I thought you’d be more comfortable if I looked like a modern human, but whatever. Is this better?” she asked. With the snap of her fingers, a bright light washed over her, changing her from a goth biker chick into a battle scarred Celtic warrior with black feathers braided into intricately plaited hair. “Or this?” With another snap, her eyes, hair, and swirly Celtic tattoos became the Xjaamin iridescent silver.

  Ari blinked in shock at the quick transformations.

  “Or maybe this?” Another snap and a flash of light, and the woman became a large crow perched on the back of the chair.

  “Okay, now you’re just showing off,” Ari said with a huff. “I thought we were short on time?”

  The crow let out a caw that sounded like an obnoxious laugh, before changing back into a woman. She settled on a mix between the Xjaamin and Celtic warrior appearance.

  “I’ll just get down to it then, shall I,” she said with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. “While my sisters were sent to watch over the Rileys, I was tasked with mentoring and educating our newest Transcendents. As expected, both men took to the role of Guardian naturally, with the help of my excellent tutelage. And so I felt him ready when, per your request, Jean-Baptiste traveled past the veil to help Val and nudge things towards the most advantageous outcome.”

  Remembering Val’s heartrending plea, Ari’s scalp tingled with a spike of fear.

  “She’s safe, by the way,” Badb assured her. “J.B. wanted you to know that he got her back to Paradise Glades safe and sound.”

  “Good, okay,” Ari said with a sigh of relief. “Wait, what about Soren?”

  “Still at The Facility,” Badb admitted with a grimace. “But the Rileys and your Progeny posse from Scion’s Keep are safe at Paradise Glades, so …not all bad news.”

  Ari’s lips curled at idea of having a Progeny posse, but then the rest of Badb’s words sunk in. “Hold up, the Rileys are at Paradise Glades? And the people from Scion’s Keep...”

  “And the St. Claire sisters,” Badb said with a grin, relishing the bizarreness of the gathering. “Crazy right? And that’s not even the half of what you’ve missed while you were playing sleeping beauty.”

  Ari was having a hard time getting over the incongruous factions of her life all converging in one place.

  Poor Jamie… Ari imagined the reclusive woman having to deal with all those people at her home. Then it hit her. The Rileys must know that I’m alive now... they know that Ruby faked my death...

  “And they’re anxiously awaiting your arrival,” Badb said, reading her frantic thoughts.

  Ari’s hand absently traced the scar running diagonally across her face, as she glanced down at her robotic foot. They’re expecting Kira…not Ari. How could she face them? She was far from the innocent, human, twelve-year-old daughter they had lost.

  “When you’re ready, Adam will take you back.”

  Adam...

  Another image of Phet staring hatefully at her with Adam’s eyes flashed in her mind. “No. I’m not ready.”

  Adam was not human anymore. The life he had was over. She had taken everything from him, all because she had not trusted him enough to protect them and had left him behind. Even though her intentions were well meant, it did not negate the repercussions of her actions. She was just as big of a jackhole as Kael was. Like Grandfather like granddaughter…

  “He doesn’t blame you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Badb said, inspecting her flawless nails. “If Adam’s not training with me, then he’s watching over you like a mother hen.”

  Ari tried to control her rising panic at the thought of facing him and the Rileys. She had wronged them and caused them so much pain and torment. Every self-preserving instinct she possessed was screaming at her to run away and never look back.

  “You’re better than that,” Badb said with a disappointed frown.

  “Maybe,” Ari said doubtfully. “But I’m still not ready to face them yet.”

  “Whatever,” Badb said with a shrug. Her eyes flicked down to the blue stone hanging from a silver chain around Ari’s neck, and her brow arched in derision. “Why do you insist on wearing that thing? You know it’s like wearing a dead Duracell around your neck, right?”

  Ari glanced down at the cold, cracked stone. She knew that it was useless now, but the pull of nostalgia would not allow her to let it go. Too much had been taken from her. “Yeah, well, it’s my dead Duracell and I wanna keep it,” she said with a petulant scowl.

  Badb stood up and mumbled under her breath, “A bit redundant if you ask me.”

  “What was that?” Ari asked right before the door opened in the wall and Mother Am walked in.

  “You’ll figure it out,” Badb said with a wink as she swooped towards the doorway. “And uh, I’m gonna go get Adam. Ready or not, here he comes.” The door closed behind her before Ari had a chance to protest.

  Her mouth went dry as her heart began to pound. I can’t do this… I can’t do any of this… I’m not–

  “Here. This should help you feel better,” Mother Am said, holding out a small white cube, affectively distracting her and preventing the onset of a panic-attack.

  Ari recognized the fragrant spongy cube as a dehydrated piec
e of manna fruit. “You have a Hallow Tree here?” she asked while eagerly taking the cube from the old woman’s open hand.

  Popping it into her mouth, Ari sighed as the deliciously sweet morsel melted on her tongue, and immediately the effervescent rejuvenation began infusing her cells – the full-blown flu feeling downgrading to only the mild haze of a low-grade fever.

  “The ancient Fluxxai made sure every Xjaamin Order had one. They used to be plentiful, but they take a century to start bearing fruit. And greed and impatience are not traits exclusive only to humans.”

  From one of the deep pockets in her shawl, Mother Am brought out an intricately beaded, leather pouch and handed it over to Ari. “This should help give you strength until the transition is over. But only if you use them frugally.”

  Ari took the colorful pouch and looked inside. It was full of the dehydrated cubes of manna fruit. “Thank you,” she said, pulling drawstring tight, and vowing an oath of self-control. I hope that this will be enough…, Ari thought.

  “And just so you know,” Mother Am added. “The more you utilize your increasing power, the quicker the degeneration of your body becomes. You must be judicious and wise, or this will all be for naught.”

  Ari nodded, then stiffened when she felt his presence through the wall. It was altered and much stronger, but it was him.

  Adam was right outside.

  Ari’s heart fluttered in panic as her sins crashed down around her. “I can’t do this. I can’t face him.” She stared at the wall with growing apprehension, waiting for the doorway to open, but it remained a solid wall. He was there, but he was staying outside.

  “Time is not your friend, child. It will not wait for you to be ready. What is your choice?”

  Ari wanted to protest, but slumped in desolate resignation. There wasn’t time for her to indulge in cowardly selfishness. People were counting on her. She had to suck it up and adapt. She had to bear the consequences of her actions with grace and dignity as her mother and uncles had. But why does it have to be so dang hard…?