Destroyed

by Madeline Dyer

  “Conversion isn’t saving,” Taras says.

  Raleigh looks to me.

  I shake my head. “I’m not joining you. I’m not giving you my people.”

  He cracks his knuckles. “Very well. It appears we will have to do this the hard way.” He looks at the Enhanced men standing just behind him. “Grab them.”

  They all lunge forward, into the hut, with Raleigh.

  Jana screams.

  Then so many screams fill the air, screams all around me. My dog barks.

  Power bursts forth from within me, a wave going out. Some of the Enhanced fall back—but Raleigh doesn’t. He laughs, stepping forward, power brimming from his core.

  Elf throws white light at him, but Raleigh’s quick. Has his own light ready, and the two beams meet—a bright flash, but not one that radiates back out, that hits either of the Seers. The power cancels each other out, and Raleigh laughs as he stands in the center of the shack.

  Esther shrieks.

  “Get out,” Corin shouts. He points the gun squarely at Raleigh. “Get out now.”

  Raleigh doesn’t move. “I don’t think you’re in any position to order me around.”

  I shoot more white light at him, at all of them—because more are coming in, following Raleigh. Our powers make them scream, but Raleigh deflects my hits at him.

  I trip over a limp body, and then there are so many more people, everywhere, pressing against me.

  A bitter taste fills my mouth, and I twist around, see Corin. Augmenters flash somewhere to my right, steal my gaze, and I see the vials are close to Elf.

  I yell at him, and he turns, ducks just in time and—

  Corin pulls the trigger. Somehow, I see it. See it in slow motion.

  Raleigh lifts his hand. A blaze of red light, and the bullet changes direction, heading for—

  “No!”

  I scream, lunge forward, throw myself at Taras. Land on him as he hits the floor. And—and there’s blood.

  Blood on me and him.

  So much….

  Taras grunts, his face deathly pale.

  My chest tightens, my eyes widen and—

  No.

  I see it in his chest, the bullet, the wound.

  I touch Taras’s chest, splay my fingers wide. My head pounds, everything pounds, but I know what to do as the power floods out of me, into him. Feel his pain seep away, into me. His pain, rage, and—

  The bullet pops out. My fingers move, and I catch it, stare at it. Feel like everything’s stopped as I burn its images onto my retinas. I’m not aware of the fight going on around me, even though I know it is.

  I watch as the flesh around the ragged hole in Taras’s chest heals. Heals until it’s completely smooth. Then the power’s radiating across him, consumes his injured arm in a frenzy of energy, until all injuries are gone and his arm is perfectly fine.

  Taras splutters.

  I turn on Raleigh, fire in my blood. Taras could’ve been dead now.

  He’s going to pay, Raleigh’s going to pay, and—

  Raleigh has Corin pinned against the wall. Hands around his neck, squeezing.

  My throat tightens.

  Corin splutters, tries to pull Raleigh’s hands away, but he can’t.

  Rage fills me, and I send out power, kill four Enhanced—the ones going for Esther, before I even realize I’m doing it. The dog rushes to the side, his coat drenched in the Enhanced Ones’ blood. Then I reach Corin and Raleigh, fire at my fingertips, in my blood, everywhere, consuming me.

  Raleigh turns his head, looks at me, a lazy smile on his face. “You hurt me, and I’ll kill him. My power’s ready, and no matter how quick you think you are, I can be quicker.”

  He’ll kill Corin?

  No. My face tightens. “Let him go.”

  Raleigh’s gaze is too calm. He’s relishing this, I can tell.

  “Then surrender.” He says it so simply, so sweetly, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. “If you try and hurt me, it will only hurt him.”

  I blink and imagine Corin lying on the ground, just like Taras was.

  Only this time, the death is real.

  Raleigh smiles, squeezes Corin’s neck tighter.

  Corin’s face turns redder. He splutters, eyes bulging. The fire in my hands dies.

  “Stay right where you are!” Raleigh shouts, pointing to the right, and I turn, see Esther with a block of wood in her hands. “All of you, stay right where you are. Shania, give me your word.”

  Corin gasps, his complexion ruddy, turning purple.

  “Your word, Shania, or he dies.”

  I stare at Corin, my mouth dry. My head pounds. I—I can’t… I can’t surrender….

  Corin makes more gasping noises, and the strength drops out of his hands. They sway by his sides.

  “Shania,” Raleigh warns. “He has not got long left.”

  “Do something!” Esther whimpers.

  “Any tricks, and he dies,” Raleigh yells. “I mean it.”

  He shakes Corin, and his eyes roll upward and—

  No.

  No.

  No.

  I scream a scream that breaks me. Feel everything rip inside.

  Power erupts from me, from my soul, my mind, my body. A darkness so big, I did not know it was there. But it bursts out and—

  Screams fill the air.

  A twisting sensation.

  I lunge forward, grab Corin’s hand as more energy leaves me, as it hits Esther and Jana, forces them together. Elf and Taras are next, and Taras somehow grabs hold of Corin, tries to keep him upright, and we’re all connected and—

  Raleigh kicks me in the ribs.

  I shriek as I fall to the side, but I’ve still got Corin’s hand, and I pull him with me and—

  —and I am in woodland.

  Woodland, lit by moonlight.

  I am in a woodland.

  Just me. Corin, Esther, the others—not here.

  What the hell? What is this? Not the Dream Land. That’s gone. And this is—the sky is clear. No bison. Because he’s gone, it’s all gone.

  Trees emit a silvery sheen, and birds swoop in and out of branches, warbling as they go. I turn, a twig cracking under my feet, and look to my right, see a lake. A beautiful lake. Moonlight glistens from its surface, a charade of thousands of sparkling reflections: people. Their faces are happy.

  They step out of the lake. Water glistens from their bodies, makes them look like silver fish. They’re laughing, smiling. Children are playing.

  They’re happy.

  Oh Gods. What the—

  I look around again. See huts, made from wooden planks and hides, with woven-leaf roofs. A backdrop of rock behind, a mountainside. A home carved out of it?

  There is no danger. No Enhanced—and I just know, in this world, there are none. Only Untamed.

  A safe place.

  But Corin? Esther? The others? Where are they? What’s happening? Are they still with Raleigh? I touch my Seer pendant, but it doesn’t tell me anything.

  Panic tries to take over, but then I feel my body getting lighter, and it’s beautiful, the way serenity fills me. So beautiful. And it shouldn’t be, because my friends, they’re not here.

  A small child runs up to me, her laughter like a peal of bells.

  “Come and play with me!”

  I’m running with her, and we’re around the other side of the huts where more people are. Eyes Untamed, as they should be.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” a man whispers.

  I nod, breathless and—

  A twisting sensation.

  My eyes spring open.

  Colors—blues and whites and reds—rush, swirl past me. High-pitched shrieks and hissing sounds fill my ears. I turn my head, try to see—

  My hand’s empty. Corin isn’t there. Again. Still.

  My body jolts. It’s just me, just me. Alone.

  You’ve lost them, a voice says.

  My stomach twists, and I don’t understa
nd, and—

  I feel it. A hand in mine. My left hand. The voice was a lie. I squeeze the hand. Esther squeezes back. Not Corin. Esther? I don’t know how I know, but I do. I can’t see her. Why can’t I see her?

  Stay calm.

  I take a deep breath, feel more hands in mine.

  I have too many hands.

  What the….

  More colors fly past me, through me, into me. Something sprays over the side of my face, and I shut my eyes just in time and—

  My knees hit hard land, pain whacking through me.

  And—

  This is real. I can feel it.

  Dust flies up, and I reach out, catch myself just before my face hits rock. Fine soil blows into my eyes, and I rub them as I sit up, breathing hard, but get more dirt in them, make them water more.

  “Corin? Corin?” I turn. My breaths are ragged bursts. I see him, a few feet away, lying on bare ground. More rock. There’s some low-lying dark green vegetation behind him. I’m by his side in an instant. “Corin?”

  Then I’m shaking him, and I feel different. Can’t explain it.

  “What the hell just happened?” a voice says. Elf. “My hands—and that light and—that’s a Seer power, but….”

  “He’s okay, Corin’s okay,” Jana says—and she’s here, scrabbling toward Corin and me. “He’ll wake up in a minute. See? He’s breathing?”

  What? Really? But my heart’s pounding too hard, and I can’t say the words. And then Jana’s turned away, is at Esther’s side—so quickly—checking she’s okay, because she’s here too.

  And Taras.

  We’re all here, all…

  Ahead, huge expansions of rock rise up. Mostly a gray color, but other parts have a more orange hue. Some areas are covered in greenery, but there’s not much of it. No—there is. My gaze reaches more plants—but they’re uprooted, as if they’ve been pulled up. Huge clumps of them. Earth has been scattered nearly everywhere.

  “I can’t be a Seer,” Elf says. “I can’t.” He shakes his head. “I’m not.”

  “Child, you are.” Taras’s voice is firm, but when I look at him, I find him staring at me, and I see how his body trembles. “Seer-travel?”

  “What?” I look around, feel like my eyes are moving too quickly for my head to process.

  Corin lets out a low groan, moves a little. His hands reach for his throat. The skin there is blue and purple and black. My breath catches. How is it that bruised already? I lean closer, see blisters. Thousands of blisters on his neck.

  Raleigh did that? I go even colder. What kind of powers has he got now? What has this world of decay and destruction given him?

  Corin splutters.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I whisper, my fingers gentle as I touch his face. He flinches, but I’m drawing on my powers, transferring energy, healing him.

  “You brought us all here,” Taras says, and I see his shadow on the ground behind Corin as he raises his arms, gestures around. “Of course… Body-sharing and Seer-traveling are both forms of astral travel. One who is in touch with those energies is likely to wield multiple powers from that group.”

  I wish he’d shut up. I need to concentrate.

  My breathing gets faster as I heal Corin more and more—only I can’t do it quickly, or right, or completely. Not like I did with Taras. My eyelids feel too heavy, like they’re made of metal, dragging me down.

  Corin looks into my eyes, but looking into his eyes is like drowning, and I jolt back.

  “Here, let me,” Jana whispers, and she and Esther are either side of Corin, helping him sit up.

  I sit back on my feet, feel strange. I look around. It’s just us here. No others in sight. Just the rising rock, like cliffs. And the uprooted plants. There’s a clump of knee-high grass a little way away that still seems to be attached to the earth. I shiver. It’s cold. Very cold, but the air is still. No breeze. I can hear water, far away.

  Elf’s huddled up, the only one who hasn’t moved over to Corin. I can’t hear his words, but he’s muttering and muttering, staring at his hands, only inches from his face.

  Corin retches, clutches his throat. His breaths make squeaky noises.

  “Corin? Corin, it’s all right,” Esther whispers, and I look at her, think it should be me saying that.

  But it’s not.

  “What the hell?” Corin gasps. The bruises have lessened, but the blistering on his neck is still there, looks just as angry.

  “It’s all right. Raleigh’s not here,” Esther whispers.

  Raleigh. Yes. We got away. But he found me at Nbutai. What was it he said? That he didn’t want to discuss tracking methods? My mouth dries.

  No. There’s no tracker on you now, a Sarr says.

  My breath feels heavy, even though I know it’s good. But I was warned before that Raleigh would always be able to find me. Does that still apply? Or was it just a coincidence at Nbutai—and he didn’t want to admit it—because that would be one of the first places he’d look.

  I focus back on Corin, stare at his neck. “Let me heal you again.”

  Corin winces, turns his head a little.

  As gently as I can, I touch him again. Feel the energy inside me—still strong.

  I pull on the power, channel it into my fingers, to Corin’s skin and…nothing happens.

  But I can feel the power. It’s there. It’s not like I’m too burnt out, like what happened when Raleigh first unlocked my Seer powers and I needed to rest to regenerate them. It’s not like that.

  It’s… They’re just not working. Yet I can feel the power.

  I try again.

  Panic rises in me, and I turn, look toward the others. “Why isn’t it working? Taras? My powers! They’re not working! They’re there, and they’re strong, but I can’t heal him.”

  He heads over to me slowly, eyes narrowed as he passes Elf who’s now slowly unfolding himself until he’s standing. When Taras reaches me, he touches my head lightly, his fingers on my temples, and closes his eyes.

  “A defense mechanism,” he says after a long moment, then removes his hands.

  “What?”

  “To stop you stretching your mind.” His gaze drops to his chest where the bullet was. “You’ve used great power, and you now have more power than you can safely contain. Your mind has built a barrier, a temporary restriction for you from accessing the power. If you push through the barrier, your mind will stretch, and you will become unstable.”

  I stare at him. “But I’m the important Seer, and I can’t use my powers?”

  “This is to protect you from your powers. Child, no Seer is supposed to have the amount you do. Gods and Goddesses only give the amount a person can safely use—and even then, some find it too much and become unstable. You have so much more than what Waskabe gave you.”

  “But I was always going to have this amount of power. It’s in the augury! The gateway was always inside me. And that power, then—I hardly used any. Not compared to when I broke into the Dream Land!”

  “The Sarr legacy was not active inside you then,” Taras says. “That was all your own powers. But now you have a much greater amount, and it has melded to you. You will need to wield great power to win the war, and it will likely stretch you and break you. But do you see? We can’t have that happening before then, before we need you. So your mind is protecting you, keeping your powers healthy, telling you that you must not stretch yourself now.”

  Protect me?

  “But what about Corin? I was just healing him—”

  “You have reached the maximum. Seven, you must not push through the barrier, else every time you use your powers hereafter you would risk spiraling into insanity.”

  I stare at him. At the way his mustache looks wirier. “So I will be able to use them again?”

  “Of course. But you need to rest them.”

  Behind him, Jana stands tall, looking around.

  Tension spreads across my forehead. “But no one else has to rest their powe
rs! Raleigh never rests his!”

  “It is the price to pay for having powers inside of you that were not directly given to you by the Divine Ones, especially in this changing world. Child, I am afraid I feel it. Instability is close. But know that when your powers are needed, they will be there. Right now, they are not needed. You must look after yourself.”

  My vision wobbles.

  “Where are we?” Elf’s hands are clenched in tight fists.

  I stand up slowly. Pain flitters down the right side of my back. The whole of that side feels tender as I stretch to my full height. I brush dirt from my clothes.

  “The Stone Canyon,” Jana says. Her eyes widen as I look at her. “My aunt and I traveled across here many years ago. I’m sure it’s the same place—though so many of the plants have…” She shakes her head, horror in her eyes.

  “The destruction of the Dream Land has affected the whole world,” Taras says.

  Jana shields her eyes from the weak sun with one hand, points with the other. “We were visiting the Stone Clan—the other Seers of the Stone.”

  “What?” Esther says. “Your family? I thought you said they…that you didn’t like them?”

  “My aunt was fine,” Jana says. “She’s…” She looks away. “It’s the…others I have a problem with because they made our Seers live separately from the rest of our group—a seven-day journey away. Our leader’s mother—when she was the leader—had banished them, said we couldn’t beat the Enhanced Ones’ technology with magic. But my aunt was given the gift, only she pretended she didn’t have it, so she could stay with her children. But she and other women regularly visited the Stone Seers, in secret. Until the others found out.” Then she stares at me. “That’s why you’ve brought us here. The Stone Seers, they’re still here. Have to be. Their caves are at the mouth of the canyon. It’s a fair way. That way.” She frowns. “We’re uniting. You’re uniting us…” She heads off.

  “Child, stop. Is there water in the ravine?” Taras asks. “We won’t make it far without water. We need to clean our wounds.”

  Wounds? There are other wounds I haven’t healed? Not just Corin’s? I turn and look, see the deep cuts and scratches on everyone. My own arms start to burn, a fierce intensity, and I stare at the gashes as if they can’t be real.