Destroyed

by Madeline Dyer

  The pounding in my head gets stronger.

  “Is that why the world’s like this now?” Bea asks, and her voice jolts me back into the conversation. “So many of the plants are dying.”

  “The Dream Land was destroyed,” Esther says.

  “Is that your baby?” Bea steps forward, stares at Toivo. A small smile dances across her lips.

  “What do we do with Taras?” Elf asks me. “He’s Enhanced now.” He’s in front of me. His shirt is soaked and ripped.

  I stare at it, then realize my clothes are soaked too. And Corin’s and Taras’s. I feel the weight of my sodden garments, like they’re trying to pull me down. I’m cold. So cold.

  “Seven, Taras is Enhanced,” Elf says, and his words are like an echo.

  “No, he’s not.” I shake my head, but it hurts and it’s hard to think. So hard. “He’s had what? One augmenter? He’s a Seer. He’s strong. He’ll run lean soon and be fine.”

  “He won’t be fine,” Elf says—and it’s what I thought earlier, isn’t it? So why am I saying something different now, and why am I feeling annoyance at Elf’s argument? “Rahn’s survival lesson says it all. Never let yourself be Enhanced. Once it’s done, there’s no going back. And he’s going to be a liability.”

  A liability. The word coils on my tongue like a snake. Soon it will spring up, pounce.

  That was said about me before. I was called a liability.

  “We’re not killing him.” I glare at Elf, then turn to Esther and Corin, my gaze begging them to back me up. This is Taras. A Seer. The Keeper of Marta’s Lore. “We need him.”

  “He’ll turn against us, they always do.” Yani rolls his sleeves up, exposing arms more muscular than I remember.

  “I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” I say. My eyes flick to where the girls are—Siora and Quinn. They haven’t moved, still stock-still, clinging to each other. My gaze travels to Taras—the direction and movement so smooth it’s like someone else is controlling me and my head’s on a rod. “He’s one of us.”

  “He’s not you, though, Sev. Only you have overcome conversion.”

  Only me? But no, my mother resisted—at times, she said. But the two of us…Sarr blood. And Three—he was resisting too. Our mother was helping him… Help. The Enhanced need help to resist… My mother said that to Esther, didn’t she? Wasn’t that what Esther said after she escaped New Kitembu? Because the web of addiction, it can be undone, eradicated, prevented from forming, with the right powers.

  Quinn steps forward, lifting her hand up. “How did we get here? I don’t understand.”

  “You and me both,” Yani mutters.

  “Let’s talk calmly, one at a time,” Corin says. He nods at me. “Seven will explain everything.”

  “Fine, but he needs to be tied up,” Elf says, pointing at Taras. “We can’t take any chances.”

  Bea produces a length of rope from her bag—she’s got a rucksack—and Corin says he’ll do it. When Taras sees the rope, tears run down his face, but he doesn’t try and stop them. It’s when he smiles as he cries that acid seems to burn my feet, and I look down, expect to see something. But there’s nothing.

  “See, child, I’m crying,” Taras says. “A negative emotion. I’m fine, I can fight this.”

  “No one can fight it.” Corin’s voice is low. “And Taras, you’ve got mirror eyes.”

  No one can fight it? My heart pounds too hard. But Corin just said I did. That I overcame conversion.

  Overcame conversion.

  I mouth the words, feel them burrow deep inside me. I look at Taras’s eyes, see a distorted world reflected back.

  “The mirrors will fade. I’ll run lean.”

  Elf shakes his head. “It’s when they run lean, we have the problem.”

  A laugh bursts out of me. It surprises us all. “Taras… Taras isn’t like that.”

  “Taras isn’t like you though.” Esther sniffs, holds Toivo tighter. A lone tear runs down, below her left eye where an old scar is. “Seven, you’re the only one who’s been able to resist it, gone back to normal.”

  I stare at her. “You had augmenters at New Kitembu.”

  Only the moment I’ve said the words, I know it’s not the same. My mother took the addiction from the augmenters that were given to the Untamed in that city. She made it so we couldn’t get affected.

  My eyes widen. “I’ll take his addiction.”

  “There’s no addiction to take,” Taras says, still smiling, still crying. “I’m not addicted. It was one taste.”

  “Wait until you run lean,” Elf says. “You’ll feel the addiction then, and we’ll be dealing with a crazed Enhanced who’s desperate to get more augmenters.”

  I hold my hands up. “I can do this. Didn’t you hear? Don’t worry. He’ll have no addiction, won’t want any more augmenters. We won’t have anything to deal with. I can do this. My Seer powers can do this.” The more I say it, the surer I am.

  “Sev, no,” Corin says. “You know what that did to Katya.”

  “It didn’t—”

  “She told us what it did to her.”

  I shake my head, and I feel stronger now. My head’s clearing, the fog dissipating. “I’ll be taking one lot of addiction… That’s nothing compared to what my mother took. I can do it—I overcame mine.”

  “If Seven can do it, she should,” Bea says, and I stare at her. My chest feels light, fluttery. She can’t know about my powers. She knows none of this, yet she sounds so sure.

  But she’s right.

  I look at Corin. “If I can do this for Taras, I could do it for all of them, all the Enhanced. My powers can save us that way.”

  But you’re a Seer of Death.

  But that doesn’t mean I have to kill.

  I don’t want to kill. Not like I did with the Stone Seers. All that darkness in me. The way it felt so good, the power of destruction.

  I inhale sharply.

  Raleigh doesn’t need to die.

  Corin doesn’t need to die.

  It’s okay. It’ll be all right. I can do this.

  Corin shakes his head. “If you’re going to do it, then you do it one step at a time.”

  I stare at him. He agrees? I look at Corin. I can save him?

  “Sev, if it hurts you in any way, or you think you’re going to get addicted, then we stop—no arguments. I’m not having you compromised.”

  I nod, and then everyone starts talking again. Voices speed up. Esther explains to Bea, Yani, and the two girls about the augury and her baby, Corin about how the war will end, and I quickly finish off with explaining my powers and how we’re uniting. Introductions are made for everyone.

  “Empyrean twins,” Taras says, looking at Siora and Quinn.

  “What?” My gaze locks onto him. Empyrean twins? Those two girls? Twins, just like Keelie and Elf?

  Two lives that cannot be unconnected. One of fire, one of ash….

  The death of one empyrean twin is the death of the other. But the second death always causes the most destruction.

  Corin takes a step back, then glances between the girls and Elf.

  “We’re uniting?” Yani asks. “But we were already with a larger group of Untamed. Why’d you separate us?”

  “A larger group?” My heart lifts, then thuds back down. Larger groups of Untamed have never been good. Except for Taras’s group. I look over to him. He’s still crying, but silently. The rope is like a snake, squeezing him tighter, tighter, as if the mirrors will pop out of him if it’s tight enough.

  “Melissa’s group,” Bea says. “But the Seers there died when the world went like this.”

  Because I didn’t send them out of the Dream Land before it exploded.

  I try to pretend she didn’t say that.

  “I need to work on Taras,” I say, my voice thick. I look at Corin. “Can you organize everyone? See if there’s shelter around here?”

  “We’re staying here?” Quinn asks. Her voice is strange, like she’s out of breath,
but she’s not breathing hard. Yet her words are spoken with force, like they’ve burst out of her.

  I nod. “I can’t transport us all again yet. I need to save Taras first.”

  It’s going to take a considerable amount of power to reverse an augmenter, and the sooner it’s done, the better.

  “If you can find food, that’s great,” I finish up. “Obviously, keep a lookout for the Enhanced while I save him.”

  I look at Taras, and I know I can do it.

  I can save him.

  I can save all the Enhanced. I won’t have to kill again. The Stone Seers, they’ll be the only deaths by the Sarr powers.

  Delving into Taras’s mind and soul is like peeling back the layers of an onion. The skin is thick, tough, each layer of varying thickness.

  My hands are on his temples, a portal to his inner-self, and his Seer powers are open, because it’s all the same, now, and I’m invited.

  “Do what you can,” he said before we started.

  Before we dived in. Me and the Sarr Seers inside me.

  But my mother doesn’t guide me. It’s not her, and I don’t know if one of them is her. If she’s here. Or if someone else is guiding me. Maybe I’m the first to do it this way, and we’re using our collective power together, chiseling it into something new and sharp.

  Slight pain edges its way into my eyeballs, and I wince. Taras’s skin feels leathery beneath my fingertips, and I focus on that because my mind wants to drift off, inside his, to slide between the layers, find something new, interesting about him.

  Because his whole mind is around me. I’m running through his life, his thoughts, the inner workings of his being.

  Keep looking.

  Yes. That’s what I have to do.

  Keep looking.

  The addiction. I have to find it.

  But what does addiction look like?

  I search through more layers, and it should be getting smaller, the sphere, as I get closer to the center, his soul’s core, only it’s not. It stretches and contorts, grows new layers that twist and pull out, that try to change the direction I’m going.

  Go this way, they say, sending me off into images of reindeer and children running around them, shrieking. Red berries, pulped into a mash under a pestle. The snort of a beast, sending a burst of warm air into the cold. Heavy snow and gentle eyes. A woman saying it will be okay as she flicks her hood down, scattering soft snow over my feet.

  My smile, my sense of belonging as I stare at her….

  I shake my head, separate myself from Taras. This is not like body-sharing. Taras isn’t here—I couldn’t communicate with him if I wanted to. I’m a spectator viewing his memories, the workings of his mind, everything.

  My mother took the addiction from the augmenters before it planted the seeds, but I don’t know what the seeds look like, what I’m looking for. Will there even be seeds? How quickly does it grow, and into what form?

  Just because I had the seeds in me, growing at one time, doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing.

  And yet I peel more layers back—I’m there again, back in his mind before I realize it. The soft euphony of voices lulling me, whispering to me, telling me it’s okay, be happy.

  Happy. Yes.

  That word is louder, and it has a pathway. A pathway I slip down, a pathway I run through. Faster and faster.

  Happiness is good.

  Find the happiness.

  You need to be happy and—

  There is decay, bacteria, fungi. Small rot marks, marks that grow as I watch.

  No! They can’t get any bigger, I won’t let them. They can’t take his memories, twist them so he thinks they’re the impurity, the badness, the parasite.

  My mind’s hand reaches out, and I pull back the speckled flesh, see the heart of the corrosion underneath. It is bubbling, tainting thought and feeling.

  A pulling sensation fills my gut, and I scoop it out, the perishing, festering darkness, let it fill my mind’s hand—but it has no form, and ethereal fingers cannot contain it. It needs thoughts, it needs a life to anchor itself into, and it’s in front of me, waiting.

  I’m waiting for it.

  My mind swallows it, and I feel Taras’s mind and soul grow lighter, truer.

  Yes. Good.

  My soul feels a little heavier, but I can combat it. I know I can. I’m strong. Now, I need to find more, need to save Taras truly. One little bit left behind will breed and breed and breed.

  The urgency to drag the badness out of him is a claw reaching up inside me, from my heart, scratching my esophagus, climbing out of my mouth. My teeth catch on it, graze the fingers, draw blood from the hand of need. Blood that is strong, bitter, rancid, like the juices of a bad onion. Blood that burns.

  I scream—and far away, I hear Esther saying something, feel something on my shoulder, maybe her hand—but I’m not there, and the blood doesn’t let me go back.

  It burns. It is acid dissolving me, destroying me. The evil fighting back. A chasm inside and out, ripping away, and the fingers are still reaching—reaching into the deepest of layers of Taras’s mind, because the rotting happiness is spreading, oozing yellow liquid. And that is the cure, the thing that can stop the burning in me, make it all better. So much better.

  I need it all. All the happy yellow to destroy the burning blood.

  But it is gushing.

  It won’t stop gushing.

  It is gone, a voice says.

  Gone.

  Gone.

  Gone.

  “Seven, stop—his eyes are….”

  But he has no eyes. No one does. Souls don’t need specific organs to see.

  Souls see everything, and that is what we are. Twisting masses of gold and silver threads, layers and layers of skin that isn’t skin, marked and marred with life, scarred by others’ sharp threads.

  It is all we are, dancing above the moonlit land with the sweeping hills and the flowing rivers. It is everything.

  “Seven? Seven… Wake up.”

  For a long time, there is nothing, but then there is the voice. The voice saying my name, begging me to wake. It crept into the nothingness, slowly at first, then more urgently, and now it tells me it’s always been there. That I just didn’t notice it before.

  It is a lie.

  But there is corrosion here—the Enhanced Ones’ leeches growing, growing on me—and it’s hard to breathe with their claws, because the leeches have claws, and they’re around my throat.

  “Sev, come on. Wake up.” This voice is more desperate, lower in tone.

  Hands are on me, shaking me.

  I want them to go away. They need to go away, else the rot will jump souls.

  It wants everything, but it can’t take everything.

  I don’t know where I am. Because I’m not here. I have no body, no mind. I am a soul, floating. Everything is the same, and everything is nothing.

  Then there’s a click. A loud click.

  More voices.

  “Child, wake up.” Taras’s voice. I know it immediately because some part of me recognizes him, and then the rot is still trying to grow.

  It must not grow.

  I push it back.

  But who is Taras? I can’t think.

  There’s a pounding in my skull—I have a skull, I feel it—and images are reaching for me. The sky above, unsettled, fires floating in it. Untamed eyes, wide with worry. So many of them.

  And Corin.

  Corin.

  I recognize him, reach for him.

  I jolt as our hands touch, and—

  It’s too hot. Overpoweringly so. The whole area. I squint and see the sun, but its gaze looks weak. Yet I’m too hot. My skin’s sticky, sweat practically boiling on me, streaming off, pooling beneath me.

  “Sev? It’s okay.” Corin helps me sit up, his arms strong behind my back.

  I lean into him, shaking. Turn my head, see the others not far away. It’s only Taras and Corin next to me.

  “I need somethi
ng to change him with,” Esther calls, looking up. Her voice sounds panicky, and Bea heads over to her.

  It takes me a moment to realize Esther’s talking about Toivo.

  I try to stand, but my legs are heavy, and I fall against Corin. I try to turn away from him, because I’m sweating so much and aware that the sweat has a bad, rotten smell, and I don’t want Corin to smell me like this.

  “Taras, should she be like this?” Corin asks. He pulls me closer, braces me against his body.

  Elf’s a little way behind him, frowning. I can’t see Yani.

  “It is the effects of great Seer power expenditure. Saving me stretched her mind—what I was afraid of,” Taras says. “The Sarr legacy is too much for her mind to cope with.” He takes my hand in his. I try to avoid getting my sweat on him, but I can’t. “Seven, I am greatly sorry for the damage, and you should have stopped when it began stretching your mind, but I am immensely grateful you chose to save me.”

  “Damage?” Corin’s voice is low. “Seer instability? Is that what you’re saying? Is it permanent?”

  I turn away as my stomach roils, and I miss Taras’s answer as I throw up.

  “You’ll feel better soon,” Taras says, handing me a flask of water. I take it, confused, where did it come from? “Just rest, child. Do not use your powers. A prolonged interval from their use may heal your mind a little, push back the instability so it does not occur with every subsequent use.”

  Or it may not.

  The words float over me.

  I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know I’m waking to the most splitting headache. The kind that makes me think of tiny cracks spreading along my eye sockets, patterning them like dried, cracked earth.

  “Here.” Siora hands me a slice of meat. It’s been cooked rare, and a little blood oozes out, turns my stomach. “Taras says protein might help heal your mind sooner.”

  It’s getting dark, and I raise one hand to my eyes, rub them as I chew the meat. I can’t tell what it is. My stomach roils at the thought it’s bison, but I’m sure Taras wouldn’t let that happen.

  Esther’s sitting just to my right with Toivo on her lap, murmuring to him, and Yani’s building a second fire a little way off. Instinctively, I look for Corin, but he’s not here.