by Ann Denton
“It’s alright, it’s alright. Bests eternal. It’s alright. I love you.” Her words didn’t seem to comfort Neid, who only sobbed harder.
Is it leaving home? Knowing it will never be the same? Mala watched them sadly, knowing that feeling all too well.
Suddenly, a second person appeared through the trap door. Someone short and gangly, with spiky hair, grinning ear-to-ear.
“Ges!” Mala rushed over to him. She tossed her arms around him. And inhaled a cloud of alcohol. “Whoa! What’s going on? Why are you drunk?” Mala stepped out of the range of his breath.
“Self-medicating,” Ges replied with a wink.
“What’s going on?” Mala asked him.
His eyes widened. “No one told you?”
Mala shook her head.
The crackle of static rippled through the air. Immediately, the four teens fell silent. A speaker came to life somewhere above them. Tier’s voice rang out. “Neid. Mala. It is time for your final trial.”
Fell took over the microphone. “This trial takes the measure of your devotion to your vows. To the Kreis. To the Senebal nation.”
Tier’s voice scratched through the failing P.A. system. Mala struggled to make out the words. “A Senebal always promises to the death.”
Yes. And you’re sending us right to ours, aren’t you? Mala’s internal snipe fell short. She recognized the cold fear sprouting in her heart. It was the same kind of panic—that sucking, sinking sludge that the Erlenders had always engendered in her. It was unfurling slowly, patiently, bit by bit, making her choke as she waited for the fear to completely take over. She felt sick. I really hate that man.
Fell’s calm voice did little to reassure Mala. But Ges grabbed her hand. She smiled at him.
“Please repeat after me,” Fell intoned. “I swear allegiance to the Senebal nation. I swear to complete this mission, all missions …”
Mala repeated the lines. Neid followed dully but only after a sharp jab in the ribs and a series of whispers from the girl with the brown braid.
“I swear to follow my orders … all orders. And I swear that the innocent life I take today will not be in vain.”
Wait. What? Mala didn’t finish saying the last line. Neither did Neid. “We have to kill someone? What is this?” It’s a joke. A practical joke. She turned to Neid.
Neid didn’t acknowledge Mala. But her hollow stare and tears spoke for themselves.
Mala turned to Ges. “What is this? Do we have to fight an Erlender to the death or something?” He didn’t respond.
Tier’s voice hissed through the speaker. “Repeat the line.”
Ges and the girl with the braid both nodded encouragement to their charges. No wonder they send our best friends. How else do you make it through the knowledge that you have to kill someone in order to become Kreis? Not just someone. An innocent life. An Erlender kid? A… Her gut twisted. A stone dropped in Mala’s stomach. The hair on her arms stood up. Bile rose in her throat.
“No,” she whispered. She turned to Ges. “No.” Her brain ran through a litany of memories. Alba’s warning to stay away, not to make friends; it wasn’t just snobbery. Ein’s jabs at Lowe. The funeral. The tension that day from the Typicals. All the Kreis up on the platform. Neid has always refused to pass the test. The only Typical ever to become Kreis has never passed the final test because, because …
“They want me to kill you,” Mala breathed. She felt like she’d been struck by lightning.
Ges gave her a tiny half smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t think of it like …” he couldn’t finish.
“I won’t.”
Ges tried again. He swallowed and stepped forward. “Mala, you are Kreis. You’ve sworn to put your allegiance above—”
“This is sick. This is insane. What good is killing them going to do?” Mala yelled at the window. Her voice reverberated throughout the empty room.
Tier’s voice floated calmly down. “The weight of their sacrifice will carry you forward in your mission. It will be with you, pushing you forward. Ensuring you succeed.”
“You mean our guilt won’t let us quit,” Neid’s voice rang out, strong and angry. “Because if we fail, they aren’t martyrs anymore. We aren’t Kreis anymore. We’re just murderers.”
Tier’s voice rose in anger. “If you select not to pass the final test, you will remain here. Lowe and Ein will attempt the mission alone.”
Mala felt her heart stop. Freeze. Lowe. A death sentence. Tier would do that? He would.
Neid gasped. Mala turned her head to see the blonde’s skin bubbling. The thought of losing her brother had triggered a meltdown. Neid transformed into a little girl, no more than six. She swayed somewhat on her feet. Mala wasn’t sure if Neid was going to pass out from shock.
Neid’s friend steadied her, then slid the pack off her own back. “You can’t leave Ein alone out there,” she told Neid. She opened the pack and emptied it. Weapons scattered across the floor.
Neid started shaking, bowed forward as if a massive wind were bowling her over. The girl with the braid placed a gun in Neid’s hand and trained it on herself.
“It’s okay,” the girl whispered calmly. “I volunteered. I know you. I know you’ll go out there and make everything worth it.”
Mala could only watch. She felt … light. As if she were floating. As if she weren’t really here. This has to be a dream. Wake up. Wake up.
Tier’s voice came through the loudspeaker once more. “Repeat after me: I swear that the innocent life I take today will not be in vain. I will honor this sacrifice. I will succeed.”
Neid haltingly repeated the words. Her voice was little more than a scratch after all her tears.
Ges tapped Mala on the shoulder. “Not to rush you or anything, but it would be awesome if I didn’t have to watch that before …”
“They want me to kill you,” Mala was still stuck in shock. She didn’t know if she had control over her limbs.
“Sacrifice,” Ges corrected. “We are giving up our lives. It’s different.”
Mala stared at him. And something within her shifted. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Neid’s six-year-old self cock the gun.
“No!” Mala swung her arm and knocked the gun just as it went off. The bullet lodged in the wall.
“What are you doing?” Tier shouted.
Mala took the gun from Neid’s quivering hand. She stared defiantly up at the window.
“The vow is to take their life. That doesn’t mean we have to kill them.”
Mala turned to Ges and the other girl. “I banish you from the Center. You have to leave. You can never return.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mala and Neid stood on the deck of a speedboat, haloed by the sunset. Lowe steered through the choppy grey waves while Ein checked the map. As they approached a bend in the river, all eyes turned toward the Center, watching the reed huts shrink to pinpricks on the water. Mala pretended her eyes could see even beyond that, to where Ges and Neid’s friend stood alone onshore. She bit her lip.
It’s still really cold. Does he know how to hunt? Make a fire?
She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned. Neid smiled at her and softly asked, “How did you think of it?”
Mala shrugged. “I’ve had to leave a lot of places. And never go back.”
Neid grabbed her hand. “Thank you.”
Mala gave a curt nod. Don’t thank me until we know if I just sentenced them to a long, brutal death, instead of a quick one. Damnit, Mala! Did you even think? I should have tried to slip him my necklace. One of my hooks. Something. “Do … you happen to know if either of them hunts?”
“Nope,” Neid responded. “They didn’t get shore leave often.”
Horror swirled through Mala’s stomach like a hurricane.
“But I made Verrukter vow he’d hunt for them until I get back.” Neid patted Mala’s shoulder and winked. “Don’t worry. There are plenty of other Typicals who go to shore for oddball chores. Wood
-chopping, herb-gathering. Little things. They’ll be taken care of.”
Mala took a deep breath and let Neid’s reassurances wash away her fear. One worry settled, she turned to the next. She glanced at Lowe. He avoided eye contact. He’d been doing that ever since the impromptu hearing regarding her trial.
The Ancients had been summoned to the room. Black capes swirling, angry faces lit from below by lights from the trapdoors, it had been an unnerving sight. I thought they’d kill me, Mala reminisced. But they voted.
Mala’s stomach had been in knots as first Fell and then her supporters, had one by one raised their hands to support Mala’s choice of banishment. Their votes had straightened her spine, and she’d looked Tier in the eye even as he voted for her death. He’d been one vote shy of a bullet.
A grim smile tilted Mala’s lips as she remembered how purple Tier had turned when he realized he’d lost. Again. The same shade was now creeping over the sky. Somehow, the shadows made her brave.
Mala walked to the boat’s cockpit. Lowe didn’t acknowledge her. She took a deep breath. “Can I talk to you?”
Ein’s head swiveled between the two of them, then he jumped up to take over steering. “Here, I can get that for a minute.”
“I don’t think—” Lowe started to protest.
“You can have this discussion in front of me, if you want,” Ein countered. “But based on Mala’s face, I don’t think you’ll want to …”
Lowe reluctantly gave up his post and followed her to an unoccupied portion of the deck. He still avoided looking directly into her eyes.
“What did I do?”
Lowe closed his eyes in frustration. “It’s not—you don’t even realize? What you did. Did you even think … what does that make the rest of us?”
“What are you talking about? The rest of you?”
“Yes. Us. The Kreis.”
“The rest of you. As in, I’m not one? You think what I did means I’m not one?”
“You. It’s all about you. You have no clue what you’ve done, do you?”
“If I recall, I started this conversation with, ‘What did I do?’ As in, what did I do wrong? Because, no, I don’t know what the mudding hell I did that’s so bad.”
“You’ve turned us into murderers. Cold-blooded killers.”
“You’re a soldier, a spy,” Mala seethed. “You’ve killed forty-three mucking Erlenders. How is that my fault?”
Lowe pulled his hair. “No, Mala —the ritual. The one where I had to shoot the dockhand I’d played poker with for two years. Point blank. Leaving his kid to grow up without a dad. Those of us who actually went through with the final trial. You’ve turned us into monsters. So … there’s the rest of us. And then there’s you.”
“So you wish I’d killed Ges? That I’d murdered an innocent person for no reason?”
“Damnit, Mala! There is a reason. Did your stupid assistant teach you nothing? His great-grandfather was one of our flooding founders …”
“No one EVER told me anything about killing someone for the final test,” Mala growled. “Not even you.”
“Alba never told you to stay away from the Typicals? Not to get close to them? Not to make friends?”
“She never said I shouldn’t do it because I’d have to kill one of them.”
“Ges never told you about his great-grandfather’s oath?”
Mala shook her head.
Lowe slammed his hand onto the side rail. “Well here’s your damn history lesson then. Fifty-eight years ago, the first two Kreis found one another. Times were bad. Erlenders still had their jets. We almost lost the capital, DasWort. And the first two Kreis, Eigen and Urtu, vowed to do everything in their power to take out the jets. They snuck onto an airfield. Disabled a jet. But they ran into trouble. Urtu got out. Eigen had to fight off three Erlenders alone before he got away. Obviously, that led to trust issues. Until Urtu’s wife told them she had a plan. She brought them to the edge of the airfield. She pointed at the jet she wanted them to take out. And then she slit her wrists. She made them vow on her death that neither man would rest until the airfield was stripped to nothing. Until a plane couldn’t take flight. She bound them, by her blood, to their mission.”
Mala swallowed. “How was I supposed to know if no one told me?”
“Innocent or not, you’ve now converted a tradition of voluntary sacrifice into a bloodthirsty ritual.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Get over that. What you mean to do and what you do are totally different things. Mean to is NOTHING. Intent doesn’t matter.”
“How could I just accept what they wanted me to do at face value?”
“They’re called orders, Mala. You follow them. You trust in them. You trust the fact that you’re part of something bigger than yourself. That someone besides you knows what the hell is going on.”
Mala’s heart constricted. She felt like she was three years old again. She wrapped her arms around herself. Did I do something bad? She didn’t have an answer. Timidly, she looked at Lowe, “What can I do?”
“There’s nothing to do. You’ve just caused a huge rift. See them?” Lowe gestured back at Ein in the cockpit, Neid beside him. Both were stoically pretending they heard nothing. “She already looked at us like we were brutes. Other Typicals whispered it, too. Now … every Kreis who comes back from a mission … you’ve made their lives hell. Every new Kreis that comes in and doesn’t see the ritual the way you did … They’ll be hated … we’re all idiotic murderers. Can’t see past our own bloodlust.”
The tears started. Mala couldn’t stop them. But she didn’t make a sound. A waterfall raged inside her, but she remained silent as Lowe finally lowered his eyes to hers. They were dark, closed. “Now there’s you. And us.”
His boots made the deck shake as he stomped away.
Mala’s heart shattered.
“Hey,” a soft voice whispered.
Mala didn’t respond.
Neid touched her arm. “He’ll get over it. I promise.”
Mala felt hollow, empty. Thoughts breezed through her head. He’s gone. He was all I had left. I’m alone. She didn’t acknowledge Neid. She hardly heard her. The emptiness inside felt so vast, so expansive. She just wanted to let it swallow her whole.
Neid squeezed her hand. “He’ll come around. He will. Verrukter got over it when I couldn’t take the test. And we fought about it a lot. I told him I wasn’t okay with ritual sacrifice. I’m not an Erlender. I don’t believe that killing someone will make the wind change or the crops grow or even that it will make me any more dedicated than I already am. I think it’s shit. And I almost went through with it. You saved me from it. And I’m grateful. He’s only mad because he wishes he’d never done it.”
Mala didn’t look at her, didn’t move. She wasn’t even sure she still existed.
“I’m pretty sure Keptiker doesn’t cry in public,” Ein leaned against the railing where Mala had stood, frozen in painful shock, for hours. He stared up at the moon, which was nearing its apex.
Mala turned away from him. The numbness had passed. Sorrow had since swallowed her up. She swiped at her eyes, anger flaring at him for interrupting her private mourning. “Shut it. I’m not melting into him until we capture him. So I get to be me for a minute.”
“Uck. Are you sure you want to be you?” Ein wrinkled his nose.
Mala laughed hollowly. “No. I’m not.”
He trailed a finger up her shoulder. “Well, we could turn you into a hot little blonde and have some fun,” Ein winked.
Mala gawked. “Are you actually trying to cheer me up?” She turned to face him.
In the moonlight, Ein’s profile was as chiseled as a statue. Until he waggled his eyebrows. “You? No. I’m just looking to get some action. You know, since we’ve been sent off to our deaths and all. I was hoping we could wreck a bed, dance on the mattress, tangle toes, jazz, snizzle, rootle, doodle—”
Mala couldn’t help it. “Snizzle? Doodle?” Her
raw throat gave a bark that turned into a deep, lasting laugh.
“Thank goodness,” Ein muttered. “I was running out of decent metaphors.”
“You know more?”
“Please, I know everything.”
Mala shook her head. “I know you’re trying to be comforting but you are still so annoying.”
“Annoying you is my greatest joy.”
“So I’ve noticed. Why is that?” Mala leaned against the railing next to Ein.
“Let’s call it a unique experience,” he responded.
Mala turned to look at him, and a slow smile colored his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“Ever heard the saying, people in glass houses don’t throw stones? Well there are other things people in glass houses don’t do … particularly when those houses are underwater and rumors abound.”
“Thanks for answering my question. I really appreciate it.” Mala rolled her eyes. Despite herself, Ein was restoring a degree of normalcy. She both hated and was grateful for it.
“I’m answering your question.”
“How about this one then? Why can I only melt with you?”
“You can melt with anyone,” Ein replied.
She almost growled. “You know what I mean.”
“I do know what you mean. And if your intellect weren’t so microscopic, you’d realize I’ve already given you the answer to your question. But you don’t know what I mean, do you?”
Mala smacked him.
He laughed.
They sat together for a moment in the dark, Mala mulling over his words. Neid steered the boat around a bend and the hills lapped up the moon, putting them into the shadows.
“Is it … the unique experience?” Mala asked.
Ein turned his face to her, but didn’t answer. Mala punched him.
“Hey, ow! I winked. Did you not see me winking?”
“No. Mudding jerk. Wait. Does a wink mean yes?”
Silence.
“Are you winking again?” Mala peered up at Ein, trying to tell. His shoulders shook. “Stop laughing.”
