by Jade Alters
“Rock,” Father calls to me, the only student left in the room. But I don’t have time for his scolding and disappointment. Not now. There’s still one thing I want to do, before the chance slips away. As oddly out-of-place as it seems now, I have to do it, or regret will take its place in my heart. If there’s one thing I can’t live with, it’s regret.
“Be right back, Father,” I tell him, and rush for the glass doors to the chamber. I hear his arm shoot out behind me, but he lets me go. “Emery,” I call out to her.
Her posse stops together, but she puts a hand on Helena and Fey Deller’s backs to assure them she’ll catch up. One body at a time, all the attendees of our meeting vanish to their scattered destinations. Only Emery and I are left in the carpeted hallway of the Administrative Wing. Emery looks me square in the eye. She looks upset, tired. For but a moment, I consider an apology. But offering “sorries” to her plight of reconnecting with her family will do nothing. Nor will she respect it. There’s no real need for remorse between us, not for disagreeing. The smile that bends her lips when I open my arms to her is weak, but she leans into me.
“Let’s go on a date,” I suggest.
“What, now?” Emery chuckles into my pectoral muscles. The sound rattles my ribcage with her joy and my own butterflies.
“How long has it been?” I ask. Then I realize that’s the last thing I want to draw her attention to. “What better time will there be?” I try instead. I feel Emery’s thin shoulders bounce with snickers inside my arms again.
“What, before we’re all dead?” Emery asks.
“No, it’s… I know things are only going to get more intense from here. No matter which way this meeting or the Forbidden Shelves or the Fiends or the person who attacked you… no matter how it all goes, things are only going to dial up. We should-
“Sure, Rock,” Emery smiles up at me. She rises on her tiptoes to graze her lips across my cheek and whisper, “When you put it that way, a date sounds like a good idea.” I feel her lips imprint a warm shape on my neck, and close my eyes. The snap is so quiet, and the tingles of her touch linger so long, I don’t realize she’s gone.
It’s another few seconds before I let my arms down, breathe deep, and head back to the Councilchamber. It’s just Father and I now, just like before the meeting. He waits for me with those same granite eyes he’s given to me.
“Stonebreak,” he calls me. Instinct makes me stand at attention. It’s been years since he called me that last. Since he used my full, given name. Father crosses the room with heavy steps. He grabs each of my shoulders in one of his giant hands. With the strength of a different form, one he could assume any second, he could crush me. Instead, he uses those arms to pull me in. “I’m so damn proud of you.”
“You are?” I blurt out first. Then I catch myself, and hug him back. “Thank you, Father.”
“Of course I am,” Father laughs. He lets me go to say, “I’m not thrilled about working with the Kyrie. I know we need help, but I haven’t been convinced of a single one of their members’ integrity. But… I am thrilled to have a son, a future leader for the Ahwahneechee people, who isn’t afraid to disagree with those he loves. Who would stand opposed to his woman and his father to do what he thought was right. You follow that courage and lend an ear to those around you, and you could well be the best Chief we’ve had in years. I wish I had your courage when my father was still Chief. Maybe… misforms would have had an easier time, if I’d just done what I thought was right, instead of standing in his shadow.”
“You… in a shadow?” I echo, “I don’t believe it for a second.” It’s all I can do to keep the tears back from welling over my cheeks. But, at the mention of misforms… I can’t help but think of last year’s Thanksgiving Dinner incident. Of River Murtagh.
If only I’d done what I thought was right.
A World of Rock
Emery,
The Broken Academy, Room B-22
I wish I could say I don’t know why I agreed to the date. But I do. I feel Rock slipping away as much as he does me. It has nothing to do with our differing views on the Kyrie meeting, either. I’m going to have to face the family who scooted me across a game board like a pawn because of the Council and ASTF’s decision, but so too might we find the answer to the Fiend conundrum. We can both look past that. No, it’s something else pulling me away from Rock.
In the time since I’ve cut ties with the other Dalshaks minus Serge, I’ve searched my soul. I’ve broken the links in chains that kept me from feeling, some of them at least. And, now that I know what I feel, I know what I don’t feel. At least, a little bit. When Rock’s hands slide over my body, it’s my body that calls to his. I’m not entirely certain the essence inside is so closely tethered to his. Hence the date. He deserves to know the truth, especially when our Task Force involvement puts us so close, so often. We both deserve to know. What better way to sort it out than a date?
So I let Helena do my hair and makeup. She spins my hair in this coiled bun like a jet black cobra, curled up and elegant, but hardly harmless. She draws light silver stardust lines over my eyelids, To go with the location, she says. I try not to let her see me roll my eyes. After all, it is a romantic notion, even if I’m not the one between us who really appreciates it. A picnic out under the stars. It does put a little smirk on my lips, just before Helena glazes them with a light coat of scarlet lipstick.
“Be back before curfew, understand!” Helena warns me mockingly, before shoving me out the door. I flatten out the fabric of my flowing silver dress. The waist hugs my own, the low top shows a peek of tan cleavage, and the bottom rim of it sways as I swagger my way down the hall. I head for the Tether Teleporter, where I’m supposed to meet my date.
I turn the corner and there he is. Standing right in front of me. The man I wanted to see, even if I didn't know it until I saw him. His eyes climb up and down every inch of my body, but I can’t read them. There’s something different about him that I just can’t grasp, even if I know exactly why it’s changed.
“Look at you,” says Darius. His eyes glass over, but his lips remain flat. They make no twitch, no curve for happiness or sorrow. He just stares at me, through those watery lenses. Even if it’s just sarcasm, I’m used to seeing some sort of passion on him. An emotion. But, looking at him now, all I see is emptiness. It makes me do something I never thought I would - long for the old Darius. I miss him, when he’s right in front of me.
“Look at me,” I echo his words with an uncomfortable little smile. I reach up to tuck a rogue curl back into the bun Helena made, but Darius stops me. His hand bypasses mine, and goes straight for the curl. He pulls it down, twirls it around his finger, and lets it bounce back into place. “You know… I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or not,” I try to joke with him. Maybe a healthy dose of his own, familiar medicine will stir the man deep in the shell. But Darius only tilts his head at me and says,
“Can’t you?”
My mouth hangs open, hoping for input from my brain, that the right words will just happen to tumble out. But Darius beats me to it. He stops me from going for my single, curly strand again. “Leave it. It’s nice.” Those two words change just about everything I know about him. He’s never given me a compliment before. It’s nice. I bite my tongue to keep from saying something stupid. So are you, comes to mind. For a second, I think I see a spark of something familiar in his eye. Then Darius murmurs, “Serge gave me two minutes,” and the spark is gone, along with him.
The wind of his wake tosses my rogue curl around my forehead. It does eventually come to a rest off to one side, and this time, I decide to take Darius’ odd advice. I leave it right where it is, and focus on the door closing at the end of the hallway. Rock.
He turns the key in his door behind him, no idea Darius has even been there. The way he smiles, instantly, when he notices me standing in the middle of the hall, forces me to give the look right back to him. He does look dapper, dressed in a dull teal collared sh
irt and khakis. The bulging seams of the clothes remind me just why Rock so often takes his custom-made tribal wear over conventional clothes. I chuckle a little as he waddles over to me, his shoulders squeezed a little tight by the excessive amount of buttons. I reach up to undo the top two, unleashing his constricted muscles and allowing them to peek out, not unlike my own chest. I catch Rock’s eyes wandering there more than once while he offers me the crook of his arm. I turn my hot face away from him to hide how much it excites me. Alright. Time to figure this out.
“Ready?” Rock smirks.
“Lead the way,” I invite him. Rock guides me gently by the arm down the long hallway and through the courtyard to the Adjustment Lounge. Two sets of french doors and a flash of light later, we’ve arrived at the stage Rock must have come by earlier to set.
Emery,
Yosemite Village Tether, Clifftops
I’ve never been down in this part of California - an enchanting world of rock, towering high over the treetops. I have to give it to my date, he knows how to put a scene together. Our picnic is laid out like a five-star restaurant dinner, relocated to the mountains of Yosemite. So long as we don’t venture outside the Academy Training Zone, we technically haven’t violated the new campus containment policy. Rock has managed to find the most untamed-yet-elegant spot within those parameters.
From the little hut that houses the Tether Teleporter, he walks me along the fringe of a rocky path, up the side of an adjacent cliff. The path winds up in one direction, then back several times until we cross behind a precipice that blocks out the hut. From there, a set of vaguely defined stony stairs leads us up to a piece of relatively flat land. There, laid out across the dry grass, is a large blanket. On that blanket is a foldable table and two chairs. A small crate with a handle sits beside it. The flaming wick of a candle dances in the gentle mountain breeze, rolling down from higher peaks. Sheer walls of stone slice up all around the picnic area, each one I notice higher than the last. Between them, a canopy of piney treetops packed in so tight I can’t see the earth beneath. We don’t need the candle just yet when Rock and I sit on opposite sides of the table, beneath the blood orange light of the fading sun.
“This is impressive,” I admit. My teeth spread in a shining white arc when Rock bends over to pull up dinner from the crate.
“I’ve lived to hear those words,” Rock chuckles. He opens the crate and immediately starts rifling around. He shoves things out of the way in search of something. “What in… I don’t believe this.”
“What?” I ask. My smile turns devious while he’s down there, unable to see it.
“The food… it’s…” Then Rock realizes that I’m not the slightest bit shaken. “Did you…” I snap, and it pops back into existence, right where he left it in the basket. He shakes his head at my antics. “Now you’re a jokester, huh? What, you just want to see me sweat my makeup off?”
“Should have worn waterproof. Amateur mistake,” I prod, despite the fact that I couldn’t have done half as good a job as Helena did on me.
“Anyway…” Rock laughs as he sets a serving plate out in front of me. Somehow, the pre-prepared dish is still steaming. The scent that wafts up my nose from it is familiar, too. Red curried tofu.
“Rock, did you… make this?” I can’t stop myself from asking. It’s more from disbelief than anything else. With the Academy closed off and the Norman world outside Training Zones, there’s nowhere he could have bought it.
“I paid a visit to your brother,” Rock tells me. “I wanted to cook something you liked. He shared this little family recipe out of spite to the ones who taught you and him to make it. Said that both of you were actually incapable of hating it, no matter how hard you tried.”
“I mean, once you try a bite, you’ll see,” I chuckle. Then I remember myself, and lower a devious brow. “If you nailed it, that is.” Rock returns the look of daring challenge as he ladles some of the stuff into a wide, shallow bowl for me. The smell of it is certainly right. I can’t suck in enough of the intoxicating mist that rises from my bowl.
Hunks of white, fleshy soy poke through the thick red-orange sauce. It’s accompanied by little islands of potato, onion, and carrot chunks so moist only one who’s eaten the recipe before would be able to identify them. A few celery arcs drift along the top gloss of fat from the butter Rock has perfectly incorporated into the recipe. He’s even waited to dash the saffron across the top until now, just like father taught us. Rock snaps a few slices of crisp, toasted naan for us to share and sets out the silverware. I lean back in my seat, water welling up in my eyes from the glory of the smell and the act. Then the oddest thing happens.
In the reflection of that water, in my mind’s eye, I see someone else across from me.
“Look at you.” Darius. I hear him in my mind. Those three words encompassed so much more than they said just then. Look at me. On a date with Rock, fawning over a family recipe, while I think about someone else. Look at me. Juggling three men when I can’t even place what a single one of them sees in me. But they see something. Look at me.
“Hey,” Rock calls me back to the reality of the clifftops. A spoon has appeared under my fingers. A lump of steaming white basmati has appeared in the center. It’s all too perfect not to smile. But the rise in my cheeks only threatens to squeeze the water out of my eyes. “You alright?”
“What? This stuff doesn’t make your eyes water?” I try to cover up as I swipe my dress sleeves across my face. But, when I can see him again, Rock hardly looks convinced. He tilts his head at me, bearing down with sheer concern until I crack. “I… I don’t deserve this.”
“Wrong answer,” Rock says, crossing his arms. He shakes his head like a disappointed professor. “Try again.” I snort at his candid refusal.
“You know… I’ve been with Hoster. Recently. You must. You two have been so at each other’s throats… I...” I try again. Rarely have we spoken about things like this openly, as heavily as they’re implied. I half expect him to get up and walk away. But that’s not Rock. A well-groomed future Ahwahneechee Chief, he would never get up and walk out on someone he cares about. “I don’t want to string you along. I don’t deserve this nice-”
“Wrong again. Man, you’re not getting it tonight, Emery Dalshak. Forgot to study for a test?” Rock smirks. “Yes I know all that. You’re not stringing me along. I’m helping you decide.” Never before has a single word sunk so heavily in my gut. Decide. I feel like it’s already done in the speaking of the word. With this, Rock and I pick our spoons up together.
“Thank you,” I smile at him. He gives me a single, deep nod. We take the first bite of melty, silken tofu together. Sweet, smoky flavor explodes down my throat. “Perfect,” I tell him. My praise hardly does it justice. To capture the savory, earthy, and sweet flavors of so complex a dish on his first try? I never knew Rock was so deft an artist.
“Good,” Rock nods as his spoon glides under a swollen carrot chunk, “It took me four tries, and every pot in my kitchen, before it turned out like Serge made it.” I cough when my current mouthful of onion and celery reroutes down the wrong pipe. When the fit finally calms, Rock offers me a napkin while we both laugh it off.
“Your perseverance was rewarded,” I assure him. I excavate a sticky slab of rice from the side of the mound in the center and dip it into the aromatic sauce. A silence hangs in the air between us for a moment while we both take a mouthful.
My eyes survey the gorgeous venue around us for a topic. They scale cliffs and cross ravines in the brilliant light of the day’s dying breath. I find my answer in a long pillar of shadow that stabs up towards the twinkling blanket of emerging stars. From here, it looks slender, but it is several clifftops away. I can tell it’s a bit more textured than I can hope to decipher from our picnic spot, too. Its silhouette is not solid in darkness, but ridged by a hundred little dimples and curves. Little as I’m able to tell about it, I realize that this might be one of the only spots I might have seen it from.
Any lower than we are now, and the pillar would be obscured by the treetops and other cliffs.
“Rock,” I call his eyes to follow the line of my sight. “What is that over there?” Rock’s eyes glide over to the narrow, black spear on the horizon. It’s so quick and precise, he must have known it was there. I ponder his cunning - perhaps this was a talking point he planned the location around all along.
“That’s the Totem Tower,” Rock tells me while he fishes around the bottom of his bowl for the last chunks of tofu. I wait for more, but he only goes on scooping veggies into his mouth. He’s teasing me.
“Oh, is that so?” I answer just as vaguely. I wait for him to pick up on the unspoken signal, but Rock only nods. I sigh, before resigning to ask at last, “What’s the Totem Tower?” He smirks.
“It was built by the ancient elders of the tribe. It’s a tribute to the gift of shape we possess, and the different forms we can take on,” Rock explains. “It’s an old belief that we’re instilled with the spirits of the things we can become.”
“I’ve heard stranger things,” I admit when I hear the skepticism in his voice. “You don’t think it’s true?” Rock shrugs. In his stone-slate eyes I see the narrow rapier of a tower atop the cliffs. It’s both painted with the orange of the sun’s last light and wrapped in the starry blanket of falling night.
“I’ve been exposed to many beliefs in my time training to take over as Chief of the Ahwahneechee Tribe. Things people hold precious, and so pass down to the young to carry on… if you heard all of them, you’d be a little wary too,” Rock tells me.
“You’re forgetting some of the beliefs I was fed by those who came before me,” I remind him.
“Fair enough,” Rock nods. We watch night bleed away, to be replaced with the twilight of nightfall. Rock and I clean the bottoms of our bowls with swipes of our salty naan. When napkins have wiped our hands dry again, they cross the table halfway to hold on to one another.
