Destroyed

by Madeline Dyer

  “You need to take a break.”

  “Okay.” I nod. “Ten minutes?” I say to Siora.

  She nods.

  “No.” Taras presses his hands together. “A break for the night. Child, it’s late. You’re going to burnout if you keep going. We still have to be careful with your mind. We will resume this in the morning.”

  The morning? I stare at him. How can he even contemplate leaving it that long?

  Raleigh’s going to try and bind Siora and Quinn to him—I know he is. And he has my powers to help him, however they might. What if he manages to do it from afar tonight? No, the more time I give him before I remove his power, the more likely it is he’ll do it. I don’t know for sure whether removing his power after he’s done it will remove the damage he’s done.

  I shake my head. “Taras, I can’t leave it that long.”

  “You have to, child. You can’t keep going like this. It is the sensible thing to do.”

  Yes. It is. Try again in the morning.

  My mother’s voice.

  “Okay.” My voice is soft, quiet, and I leave.

  The buildings are all quiet. I only see two of the reindeer herders as I walk up to mine and Corin’s room.

  He’s already inside.

  “You look exhausted,” Corin says, by way of a greeting. He wraps me in a close hug, and I lean my head against his shoulder, breathe in deeply.

  Calm. I feel calm in this moment. I want it to last.

  But he pulls away.

  “How did it go, your Seer meeting? Quinn said you’d come up with some plan.”

  Quinn said?

  I stare at him. But no—he’s not saying anything else. He’s unlacing his shoes. He can’t know what the plan is, that I’m planning to connect with Raleigh again, or who Siora and Quinn are. He’ll think it’s to do with ending the war. Because if he knew, he’d be saying something more than that, I’m sure.

  “It went okay,” I say. “Made progress.”

  He smiles.

  “How’s your day been?”

  “Went out hunting with Yani and the others again. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of game in this settlement. We’ve seen three muntjacs—we killed one—but Ru’s worried about how many are left. We need a breeding population. They can’t seem to get outside the spirit-walls either.”

  “So no more hunting the deer?” I look up at him as I sit on the bed.

  Corin shakes his head. “And still no sightings of wild boar, though we’ve seen tracks, and the small-animal traps we’ve set haven’t caught anything. Bea reckons the plants can feed us if we’re careful. Bananas and papayas are available year-round. We’ve also got a couple of coconut trees too, and there’s lots of asystasia in the groundcover to the south. Bea says we need to organize a growing area. If we’re just eating those, we’re going to need to eat a lot.” He frowns. “We should probably farm the muntjacs if we can. But it’s going to be a while before that’s completely sustainable.”

  “Oh.”

  I don’t know what else to say.

  We’re finally in a safe place—at least, safe for now—and there aren’t enough animals here? We’re going to get malnourished, even starve to death?

  But no, that can’t happen.

  The spirits wouldn’t let us starve, would they?

  I frown.

  I have Elf’s spirit-controlling power now. I could command the spirits to break the walls, to let us out.

  But then we’d have no safety.

  Corin shrugs. “We’ll figure something out.”

  It feels odd getting ready for bed, stripping off my outer-clothes, with him here.

  I pull a baggy T-shirt over my head, to sleep in, don’t feel comfortable with just my underwear. Then heat flushes through me as I’m faced with this situation, again. Night time. With Corin. The bed.

  Us.

  Us, being parents—and everything that’s required of us for that to happen.

  Earlier, when I was concentrating on the work, I’d pushed all this from my mind, the implications of Siora and Quinn’s reveal, and the effect it has on me and Corin. But now I can’t ignore it.

  He doesn’t even know. I wanted it that way, so it wouldn’t change anything.

  But it has changed things.

  It’s changed me.

  I get into bed, tell Corin I’m tired, that I need to sleep. Say it as a pre-emptive measure.

  He climbs in, and I feel the mattress sag under our combined weight.

  “Okay.” He kisses the back of my neck, once, that’s it.

  I wait for his questions, wait for him to ask what’s really the matter. Wait for him to say something, because I’m sure he suspects something.

  But he doesn’t.

  His breathing deepens as he falls asleep, and I stare at the dark walls. My body aches, and I want to be wrapped in his arms. I want to tell him everything, make him understand why I’m nervous now.

  It’s so stupid, I know that. Because I love him, and what Siora and Quinn said shouldn’t have changed anything. Not when Corin and I have limited time together, whether I manage to save him or not.

  But it has.

  Everything’s different now, no matter how much I wish it wasn’t.

  When I sleep, I dream of other Untamed. I see them all, feel them all, out there. Revealing themselves to me, now my powers are strong enough, now they’ve absorbed energies from Taras, Elf, Siora, and Quinn, energies that they’ve changed, converted for me to use. Or maybe it’s all me. Now I’m strong enough.

  It’s not just the Seers, like in the Dream Land battle.

  This time, it’s everyone.

  A girl with dark hair in two long braids, eyes green and clear, mouth slightly open as she stares, for she sees me just as I see her.

  An elderly man, hunched over a stick. Eyes begging me, digging deep into my soul.

  A younger man, shovel in hand, straightening up, his hand against his lower back, bracing himself. The burning sun is behind him.

  I blink and blink and blink, and more are there, my connections to them building and building, growing stronger, unseen sinew linking my core to theirs. All of them. A tree with many branches, four hundred faces that shine into my soul and show me the touch of their minds.

  All the Untamed. All the Untamed who are out there.

  I’m sleeping, dreaming, but I’m awake.

  Bring them in. A male voice. A Sarr inside me and—

  A flash of red, and they’re here and—

  Faces. Heads. Impaled on tree branches.

  No.

  I jolt awake, gasping, sweating. I run a hand through my hair, look over at Corin. It’s dark, but I can just about see him. The rise and fall of his chest.

  My breathing is too fast, and I try to still it, concentrate on it. It was just a dream—but the connections. I frown. They’re still there.

  I can feel them.

  I get out of bed, pad quietly across the floor and out of the room. The darkness is like a friend around me, comforting me. In the hallway, I breathe deeply, then tune my mind into my powers, feel the Sarr power rising inside me, stronger, boosted by its new energy, until it’s flowing.

  They are there. All the Untamed. Links to them. Connections—but not like the body-sharing connections.

  I’ve got all of them. All the Untamed and—

  I turn and run. Taras, I need to find Taras.

  It doesn’t take me long. He’s in a room near the infirmary. Huge shadows hang under his eyes, as if he got no sleep at all. He sits and folds his hands together, paper-thin skin crackling, as I tell him about the dream, and how it’s real.

  “Then pull them here at once,” he says.

  “I will,” I say, and my powers rise up and—

  A flash of red, and they’re here and—

  Faces. Heads. Impaled on tree branches.

  My blood runs cold as I remember the images.

  No. My lips burr. Is that—is that what’s going to happen? When we�
��re together? They all die? The Dark Void gets them all? I freeze. It can’t. No. That was just a nightmare—that meant nothing—didn’t it?

  “Child? What is it?”

  But what if it does mean something? A warning? But, no, it wasn’t the actual Dark Void itself. Just my fears.

  “I can’t,” I whisper, and the whisper grows from me. “Not yet.” I don’t know where exactly the words come from. I don’t understand why I say them, or why I say them with such certainty or why I think I can pull them here—but that pulling them here would cause destruction. I think of Esther’s earlier words—how we’d be stupid to bring us all together into one place as it would make it easier for the Enhanced to find us.

  But we’re safe here, aren’t we? Unless there’s another time-jump and the spirits leave….

  The light in Taras’s eyes changes, becomes deeper, like he can see right inside me. “Is it not the right time?”

  “The right time?”

  “For the final union of our people. Marta’s stories always show that gut feelings are important.”

  I nod slowly, feel my neck creak. That’s what my gut is saying, isn’t it? I saw their severed heads, just like Juanita’s.

  I can’t bring them to their deaths—if that is what it means. But we’re supposed to unite, aren’t we? That’s what Taras has been saying the whole time. Only now he’s saying different? My head pounds.

  “Instinct is everything. Don’t do something just because you think you should. Trust yourself.” He squeezes my hand. “Now, I suggest you go back to bed. We have more practicing to do in the morning.”

  The next morning, Quinn stumbles into the practice area where Taras, Elf, Siora, and I have been waiting for ten minutes. The whites of her eyes have a grayish tinge, and the smell of vomit clings to her.

  I take a step back, nearly trip on a rising root. The taste of muntjac meat is still in my mouth—I had a strip of it for breakfast—but now the taste twists into something sharper, heavier as I stare at Quinn. “Are you okay?”

  Siora rushes to her, puts an arm around her, supports her as she staggers the rest of the way to the center of the area, where the rest of us stand. Her breathing is ragged, rasping, and she looks at me, opens her mouth as if to say something, then clamps her lips together. They have a bluish tinge.

  “Quinn, I do not think you should be here.” Taras’s voice is grave.

  She shakes her head. Her eyes are narrowed—but not like she’s doing it intentionally. She wraps her over-sized jumper around her more tightly. She’s shivering, and she looks at Siora.

  “She’s fine,” Siora says to us, but her tone is wrong.

  “No. She’s not.” My stomach hardens. My daughter. I’ve done this to her. Me. Her mother. Mothers shouldn’t do that….

  But I don’t feel like her mother….

  But that doesn’t make it right.

  I shouldn’t do this to anyone.

  “I’m fine,” Quinn hisses, and she pushes Siora away a little, lifts her head higher. “It’ll pass. An hour or so. I need to do this. It’s a distraction.”

  “Distraction?” I stare at her. “From what?”

  But she shakes her head. “I just didn’t get much sleep.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Raleigh might have put trackers on us and know where we are.” She shifts her weight from foot to foot. “You said it yourself, Seven. He may have already put it in place.”

  Taras smiles a kind smile. “Child, I told you that you are safe. There is no need to worry like this. Worrying achieves nothing.”

  “But Raleigh—”

  “I would know if he’d done that, child.”

  I glance at him. Would he? He didn’t with Corin. But he’s just trying to comfort Quinn, isn’t he? And isn’t that what I should be doing?

  “And we are in a time-pocket,” Elf says. “We are safe.”

  “But he’s going to be looking.” Sweat shines from her forehead, and she wipes at it with her hand. Her fingers shake. “This worrying, you don’t know what it’s like! It just makes it worse. Makes me feel everything so much stronger.”

  Siora takes hold of Quinn’s hands. “But it will pass, you know it will. It always does.” She looks at us. “She gets times when she’s really worried, where it’s all she can concentrate on. Everything gets blown out of proportion in her mind.”

  “I am here, you know.” Quinn shoots a look at Siora.

  “Seer instability,” Taras says, a knowing look in his eye. “Of course—it’s genetic! It must be—and your powers too, because there are no Divine Ones left to gift you. Quinn, you should definitely sit out this session.”

  “No!” Her eyes flash. She shivers again, and her teeth seem to rattle. “I’m fine.”

  She stares at me—and it’s the look, the look I’ve seen on Corin’s face so many times, when he was daring someone to defy him, or when he was angry at someone’s decision and thought we should do something else.

  “Please, Seven.” Her voice tugs at something inside me, and I see how important it is to her. And, anyway, a distraction is what she needs, right?

  I take a step back, feel a stone through the thin sole of my left shoe. “Okay.” But I catch Taras’s eye and nod.

  We begin—following the same routine as yesterday, except I barely use Quinn to practice on. She knows I’m holding back, I’m sure, but doesn’t say anything. Elf tells me I can take as many from him as I need, and I wonder whether he’s saying that because of Quinn, or if he’s changed his mind anyway.

  I practice on the other Seers, and it both feels like time is passing and it isn’t. If it weren’t for Taras stopping us for breaks and insisting I eat, I wouldn’t know how much time has passed.

  But the time does, and all I can concentrate on is getting this skill right. I have to perfect it.

  And I will. And I ignore the voice that tells me I’m too late—because I’d know, wouldn’t I? If Raleigh had managed to compromise my daughters, he’d want me to know of it. I’m sure.

  And then…then I’m ready. Three times in a row, on Taras, Siora, and Elf—and even Quinn at one point—taking their powers, without them realizing. I stopped alternating between Elf, Taras, and Siora, began choosing them at random, while they were distracted by playing games, drawing marks in the dusty ground with sticks. My power is as imperceptible as a raindrop boosting the level of an ocean.

  I grin as I look around, at all of them. “It’s time. Time to connect with Raleigh.” And I can’t believe I feel so happy about doing it—about connecting with the man I hate. The man who pretended to be Corin, who could’ve so easily ruined my relationship with Corin if I hadn’t been able to overcome it—or if Corin had found out.

  No. He’d have understood, wouldn’t he?

  I push that question away, it’s not relevant, and focus on the immediate. I feel in control. I feel powerful. I can do this.

  Taras and Elf look especially worn out. Siora, slightly better. But, of course, she would be. She’s my daughter. She’s powerful. Quinn is too.

  I haven’t left any of them with nothing. They’ve all still got at least their defense powers. It would be stupid and selfish to take those away.

  “You’re sure?” Elf asks.

  I nod.

  I’m going to do this. I’m going to save them.

  “Raleigh is stronger than any of us.” Taras tilts his head down a little, but looks up, his eyes boring into me. The intensity of his gaze is the sharpest I’ve ever seen it. “That is something you must remember. He may detect you when we could not. He may hurt you. We do not know what he will do for sure.”

  I touch my fingertips together. “It’s okay. I have a good feeling about it.”

  “Remember to keep an eye on the power-transference channel,” Taras says.

  I nod and take a deep breath.

  This is it.

  It’s easy to find Raleigh’s door, to step in, to find him.

  He’s angry.

>   Very angry.

  “Why?” he demands, pointing at an Enhanced woman. “Why have you brought more Untamed here? I told you before. Did I not make myself clear? We kill them all immediately unless it’s Shania or Corin—”

  “I know what you said, but conversion has always—”

  “If you know what I said, why do you think we are going to waste resources converting them?” His lip curls.

  She lifts her gaze. “Because they are children, and we should not kill. We should not kill anyone. Violence is bad.”

  Children?

  Untamed….

  But… the Untamed… I access my other powers, manage to do it simultaneously with the body-share and—

  Several have gone. The Untamed I’d connected to when my body was sleeping, when my mind was wandering, looking, they’re not there. The girl with the green eyes. She’s….

  Gone?

  No, she can’t have. They can’t have. Not so many….

  “It’s the parasites that we kill,” Raleigh snarls. “The human part is collateral damage. And it cannot be saved—”

  “We always save them—that is what we stand for.” The woman shakes her head vigorously.

  I tell myself to focus, to access his powers now, do the transplant. I don’t even need Raleigh to draw on his powers. I’m strong now, and subtle. I just need to get the power—and others, if I can, if it goes smoothly—and leave.

  But I don’t.

  Not when they’re talking about children—killing Untamed children.

  “It’s the end of the war,” Raleigh snaps. “Things are changing. We need to keep all our resources. We cannot waste our time on mind-converting new recruits. Do you not realize how expensive that is? And the sheer number of staff that are required at conversion centers? We need soldiers. We are not wasting time on those ungrateful wild creatures. We are not giving them chances anymore. They could’ve quite easily given themselves up. They haven’t, they’ve shown their true colors. All this time, we’ve been far too lenient.”

  I want to disconnect from him—just being in him makes me feel unclean—but I can’t. And Raleigh’s going against everything? Killing us, when conversion has always been their goal? No longer saving any, not like Siora and Quinn said he was before?