Halve Human

by Stephanie Fazio

  HALVE HUMAN

  Copyright 2019 Stephanie Fazio

  Published 2019 by Stephanie Fazio

  This book is available in print at most online retailers.

  Cover design: Teodora Chinde

  Halve Human is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, places, incidents, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Edition License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  Visit https://stephaniefazio.com/

  ISBN 978-1-7335929-3-2 (print)

  ISBN 978-1-7335929-4-9 (e-book)

  Epub Edition copyright June 2019 eISBN 9781733592949

  First edition

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  To Mom and Dad, for your endless love and support.

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  e-Newsletter

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Books by Stephanie Fazio

  PROLOGUE

  SOME DAYS EARLIER

  Aunt Jadem and I stand back-to-back at the battle’s center. My sling whips through the air as I release one stone after another. The tiny missiles cut across the sky, too fast to see, before embedding themselves in my enemy’s throats. I turn, kicking a path through the Duskers. My aunt lets out a sharp breath as she cleaves a man in two with her sword.

  I don’t look down at the growing pile of bodies at my feet. All of my attention is on the few dots of blue in the sea of gray. Too few. Our army—my soldiers—are outnumbered at least ten to one.

  “Go in darkness,” Aunt Jadem grunts as she gives a Dusker’s lifeless body a vicious kick.

  We exchange a brief nod. Tanguro is ours. We defeated the Duskers here once. We’ll do it again.

  “Archers!”

  I duck as a volley of arrows shoots out from the only lookout still standing. Shouts ring out across the courtyard. More soldiers fall, adding to the bodies scattered from the day’s fighting.

  In the moment it takes the Duskers to recover their positions, I spring forward, knocking two down with a flick of my wrist. I jump out of the way of their flailing limbs and sidestep a blade making a too-slow jab for my thigh.

  Crunch. Bones shatter beneath my boot as the Dusker’s scream cuts through the other battle sounds.

  “Well done—”

  Whatever else Aunt Jadem was about to say is drowned out by the harsh horn blasting across the courtyard.

  More Duskers are cresting the hill overlooking what remains of our fortress. Fresh soldiers to replace the ones that have been fighting all day.

  This can’t be happening, my mind screams. Do something, Hemera.

  But there’s nothing I can do, nothing any of us can do. My soldiers have no replacements.

  “We have to retreat,” Jadem gasps as she duels two Duskers at once.

  I look up to see another soldier in blue fall to his knees, a Dusker’s sword poised for the killing blow.

  There’s nothing I can do.

  The Dusker pulls his bloodied sword from flesh and bone. It takes all my will and strength to keep from collapsing myself. My aunt is right.

  I shout the order to retreat, ignoring the way my voice cracks and every part of me rebels against the idea of giving up. My soldiers hesitate, stare at each other, and then begin to flee. They head toward the mountains, to the caves we stocked months ago in case we ever needed to make a fast escape from Tanguro. But I never thought that time would come so soon. We’ve had only six months to make this place home—

  “Hemera!”

  Before I can react, a fiery pain slashes across the back of my head. My vision blurs. I try to turn, but my legs are rooted in place.

  I’ve failed. We’re all going to die.

  It’s my last thought before I slip into darkness.

  CHAPTER 1

  SOME DAYS LATER

  The ringing in my ears blocks out every other sound and thought. I try to clap my hands over my ears to drown out the noise, but my arms won’t obey the simple command.

  I open one eye, expecting the harsh sunlight to blind me, but it’s dark. The smell of damp earth raises the old feeling of suffocation, but I force down my panic.

  My head feels like it was bashed against a stone.

  My eyes fly open as my memory of the battle rushes back.

  “Where am I? What happened? Where’s Aunt Jadem?”

  “So many questions,” a cold, unfamiliar voice answers. “If I were you, I’d be more worried about my broken skull than about your dead comrades.”

  Shooting pain rips across the back of my head as I turn. I clench my jaw to keep from screaming. Metal chains clank together as I try to get my body into an upright position.

  Chains…around my wrists and ankles.

  The realization itself is little cause for worry. I could break the iron without much difficulty, but there’s no point until I know what I’m dealing with. The pain in my head is making my vision too blurry to see anything.

  “Where am I?” I say again as I give up trying to stand. I gasp as the back of my head falls back against the ground. It’s like hot iron being driven through my skull.

  “You’re in the tunnels of your own fortress,” the same voice informs me.

  I’m in Tanguro. The place we have been fortifying to become the new Solguard fortress since the Duskers discovered Solis, the fortress Aunt Jadem built. The place the rest of the Solguards would be coming to, expecting safety and—

  “So you are the infamous Zeidan Harkibel’s daughter. I wonder…is there any truth to the rumors about you?”

  “She just looks like another dying rebel,” another voice replies with a chuckle.

  The mention of my father’s name makes a cold fury pulse through my veins. My vision sharpens.

  Shadowy figures lining the sides of the tunnel come into focus.

  Even below ground and without their signature gray, hooded cloaks, I know they are Duskers from their too-white skin that is almost its own light source down here. There are at least ten of them, standing with their backs pressed against both sides of the narrow tunnel. They each hold a loaded crossbow.

  Swallowing a w
ave of nausea, I tilt my head back to look at the man standing over me. He wears the black armband of the captains around his thick bicep. The white skin of his face is almost translucent in the lantern light.

  “Is this all that’s left of your army?” I meant the question to sound challenging, but it comes out as a squeak, my unused voice betraying me.

  “Our army has returned to Malarusk to report your defeat.” Another Dusker, this one a woman with a raspy voice, curls her lip in what could be a grin or a snarl. Her status as a Banished who betrayed her people for a life with the Duskers is written across her scarred face. The Dusker practice of breaking the faces of potential recruits to test their loyalty is visible in the misfitting lines of her jaw and jagged scar across her nose. She looks to her Captain for approval the way a dog would solicit its master.

  Even though I’m stronger than five of them put together, the old habits bred into me since childhood, to fear and obey the Duskers without question, make me want to cower as the Dusker Captain leans over me. He grabs the shackles binding my wrists and hauls me to my feet.

  “The Dusker Supreme has some questions for you.” He gives me a shake, making the chains around my wrists and ankles rattle. “How long have you been in league with the Solguard leader?”

  At the mention of my aunt, muttered curses ring through the tunnel. Aunt Jadem was once a high-ranking Dusker. She and Dayne, the older half-brother I discovered only a year ago, tried to infiltrate the Dusker citadel Malarusk. Their charade was discovered, and they were both thrown into the dungeons. They were the first—and only—ones to ever escape.

  From the sound of it, these Duskers have not forgotten.

  “I’m waiting.” The Dusker rests a hand on the hilt of his sword.

  I force a smile onto my face. Dried blood cracks around the corners of my mouth. “We have been in league,” I sneer, “ever since I met her.”

  I hold up my right hand, displaying the Solguard sun emblazoned on my flesh.

  Snarls echo down the tunnel, but the Captain’s face remains impassive.

  “You have lost the battle of Tanguro. The moment the Dusker Supreme gives the order, that pathetic Solguard fortress and all its rebels will be wiped off the map.” He erases the lives of hundreds with a sweep of his hand. “The Solguards will soon be nothing but a memory.”

  His words should fill me with fear, but instead, relief washes through me. Solis had been a secret known only to those who lived there, that is, until Gorgoran betrayed us and gave up the fortress’ location. Jadem knew the fortress wouldn’t survive an attack from the Duskers, so the Solguards living there were going to come to Tanguro.

  For weeks, we’ve had no word from Wade and the rest of the Solguards. They should have been here by now, and every day that passed without word made us think….

  “They’re alive,” I breathe.

  “Only until the Dusker Supreme decides to punish them for their leader’s lies. The Supreme does not take kindly to oath-breakers.”

  Lies? Oath-breakers?

  “Look!” Another Dusker gestures with his crossbow. “That cut on her head…it’s gone.” He meets my black eyes for just a moment before a shudder visibly goes through his body.

  “Ah, yes. Our spy told us about you.”

  Gorgoran.

  My anger makes me forget about the dull ache in my head.

  “Do you realize I could kill you all?”

  There are a few nervous snickers, but the Captain doesn’t blink.

  “I wouldn’t try anything if I were you,” his lip quirks in a twisted grin, “since your friends would be the ones to pay for your foolishness.”

  My blood goes cold.

  “Gorgoran told us which ones you care about most.” The man taps his white cheek. “There was a scrawny barbarian child, an archer with a mess of red hair, and the traitor.”

  All the air leaves my body. Wokee, Ry, and Aunt Jadem.

  “Where are they?” I gasp. “What have you done with them?”

  “They’re alive…for now.” The Captain’s threat hangs between us. “Some of my soldiers are accompanying them back to Malarusk as we speak.”

  “If there’s so much as a scratch on them….” I hate the way my voice trembles.

  The man studies me for a moment. “What happens to them all depends on you.”

  “What do you want to know?” I’ll tell you anything. Just don’t hurt them.

  “For starters,” he taps the blade of his sword against his hand, “what are you, exactly?”

  “A Bisecter,” I say.

  “How did you come to be?”

  “Halve blood touched my mother while she was pregnant.” I talk quickly. The sooner this interrogation ends, the sooner the Duskers will release my friends. “I absorbed the poison.”

  There is an angry murmur from the other Duskers.

  “There have been reports you are stronger than even the Halves. Some say you can go on the Outside without a cloak, even during the high day.” He eyes me. “Clearly, the rumors about your healing are true.”

  “I don’t hear a question,” I retort.

  The Dusker Captain flexes his arms. “Is it all true?”

  “Yes.” I stare at him, even though he can’t hold my black eyes with his pale gray ones.

  “Are there any more of you?”

  I think about the Zeroes, the creatures my father spawned in his experiments to recreate me.

  “No.”

  “She’s an abomination!” one of the Duskers calls.

  “I’ve answered your questions,” I say. “When will you release the others?”

  “That will be up to the Dusker Supreme.” The Captain’s face takes on a dreamy expression that seems entirely at odds with the rest of him. When he blinks, his cold mask is back in place. “But if you cooperate, I don’t see any reason why your friends can’t become loyal servants of the Dark God.”

  Another wave of nausea surges through me.

  “When the rest of my army returns, they’ll find us.” My throat feels like it’s coated with sand and the words ring hollow.

  Raucous laughter fills the tunnel.

  “There is no rest of your army,” the Dusker smirks. “Our archers destroyed every last one of those cowards as they fled to the mountains.”

  “You’re lying.” My head turns back and forth, like my army might be just out of sight. They can’t all be….

  “I expect the Burn vultures are feeding on their rotting corpses as we speak,” the Dusker says with a casual wave of his hand.

  “Liar!”

  I wrench my bound wrists apart. The iron links snap as if they were made of dried grass. I twist my legs to break the bindings around them. Free of chains, I’m on my feet before the Duskers can even raise their crossbows.

  I wrap one arm around the Captain’s throat and squeeze.

  He gasps and writhes against my grip. I turn, using his body to shield mine in case any of the others decide to shoot. “The other prisoners…where are you keeping them?” I demand.

  “There are…no others,” the Captain gasps. His legs scrabble against the ground. “Only the three captives. The rest are dead.”

  My anger leaves me as quickly as it came. I hardly notice the arrows pointing at me from all sides. I release the Dusker, my shoulders collapsing in defeat.

  All of them…dead?

  “Stupid Halve bitch,” the Dusker chokes out, holding his neck with one hand.

  My army. My friends…who stood and fought beside me even as the Duskers closed in around us….

  The Duskers are talking, but their voices are nothing more than a dull buzz in the corner of my mind.

  Dead.

  Jadem, Ry, and Wokee are still alive, but who knows for how long. As soon as the Duskers have gotten what they want from me….

  The Duskers don’t show mercy, especially not to people with the Solguard tattoo.

  Everything we were working for…everything we dreamed of…none of it matters
if the ones who built it are gone.

  “You’re all doomed,” the Dusker woman says into the silence. “The Darkness is coming sooner than you can imagine.”

  The Duskers have prophesied about the darkness for years, but something about the way she says the words makes fear shiver down my spine.

  “Quiet, soldier!” the Captain commands, his face purpling.

  The woman hunches her shoulders and melts back against the wall.

  I don’t have time to wonder at the exchange. There is movement out of the corner of my eye, a blinding pain through my skull, and then my vision goes black.

  CHAPTER 2

  I’m dragged to my feet by rough hands. My feet, clumsy enough on their own, almost give out beneath me without the ability to use my arms for balance.

  When I remember the Duskers are holding Wokee, Aunt Jadem, and Ry captive and that the rest of my army is dead, I double over and vomit.

  The Dusker Captain scowls as he steps over the mess. “You can put your famed strength to the test today. It’s a long way to the citadel.”

  “You’re taking me to Malarusk?” Dread coils itself in the pit of my stomach. It’s only a small comfort that at least I’ll be heading to where Aunt Jadem, Ry, and Wokee were taken.

  I’m not hopeful or foolish enough to think I could manage to free them once we’re all in Malarusk. There are hundreds of guards in the citadel, and once they—or I—am in the dungeons, we’ll never see the light of day again.

  “You don’t deserve to set foot in the Dusker territory. You are an abomination that could threaten the peace the Supreme has woven.”

  “Peace?” I scoff. “You just want to make sure I won’t be able to end your tyranny.”

  “Careful,” the Dusker breathes. “Or your three friends will pay the price for your traitorous words.”

  I stand very still as the Duskers make ready to leave. One of them tosses a nearly-empty waterskin at me. I swallow the few mouthfuls, unable to resist with the fiery ache in my throat. My stomach clenches with hunger.

  The Duskers pull on their cloaks, hiding their ghostly skin beneath the hoods and thick gray fabric. Gloves are pulled over bone-white hands.