Neverfall

by Brodi Ashton

Page 6

  He stared straight ahead. I’d been so focused on his giant head that I hadn’t realized that the irises of his eyes were all black. I wondered if this Scholar had ever seen actual daylight.

  He was waiting for an answer. I raised my hand as if I were in a classroom and the Brain was a schoolmarm. “I have the question,” I said.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  I glanced nervously at Max. “Can my friend come?”

  Max’s eyes went wide, and he jutted out his chin, exasperated. There was no way he wanted to follow me.

  “Yes,” the Scholar said.

  I managed a smile, despite the literal and emotional darkness of the place. We followed the Brain through several sets of doors until we came to a place where we faced a long corridor.

  The Hall of Knowledge. The place where blood oaths were made and lives were sacrificed.

  For the first time, I wondered if I’d made a mistake.

  SEVEN

  NOW

  The Hall of Knowledge.

  The Brain left us alone in the Hall of Knowledge. Max grasped my arm, clutching it like a vise. “We shouldn’t be here. ”

  “It’s too late,” I said, shaking him off. “We’re here. Just calm down. ”

  The dark hall stretched before us, with stone walls on each side that reached up at least twenty feet. A waist-high trough ran along the wall on the right, parallel to a thin, horizontal opening that provided the only breach in the wall.

  The gutter was about as wide as a human hand, which made sense considering its purpose.

  The Delphinians believed that everything that could be said about a person was written on the palms of their hands. By placing my hand in the trough, the Fates would be able to read me, all the way down to the imprinted wisdom on my soul. The stuff even I didn’t know.

  On the left side of the hallway, a four-inch-tall window ran along the length of that wall, about six feet above the ground. Only darkness was visible beyond.

  The House of the Scholars lay behind that wall, the head-high window representing the flow of knowledge. The House of Fates would be behind the wall on the right, the trough of palms representing knowledge that couldn’t be found in books. The kind of knowledge that glimpsed the past and the future, and the things inside the Everliving mind.

  A white wall blocked off the end of the hallway. It was the only thing I’d seen that wasn’t the color of charcoal.

  “What do we do now?” Max said.

  I shrugged and stepped through the threshold and into the hall, and as I did, a screen on the white wall flickered on.

  Images lit up the barrier, flashes of my life up until that point. A boy with blond hair running through a juniper field bordering the fjords in Norway. A lyre, one of the first I’d ever played. A woman’s face. Gynna. She’d turned me into an Everliving and then broken my heart. The emotional heart, not the literal guitar-pick one. More faces of so many of the people I’d stolen energy from. Hannah Bordal, my first Forfeit. Young and vibrant when she’d entered the Feed. Old and bent when she’d left.

  The flashes lasted for a few minutes, a strange reflection of my life, and then the screen glowed white and showed my own reflection in the present.

  “Coleson Stockflet. ” A chorus of voices filled the hallway, speaking in unison. “You seek information. ”

  I stepped forward, even though I had no idea where the voices were coming from. The image on the wall in front of me mirrored my movement.

  “Yes,” I answered. To anyone else, it would’ve looked as if I were talking to myself in a mirror. “About Eurydice, and others like her. About anyone who has survived the Feed. I want to know how they survived. What do they all have in common?”

  “We gather information. We do not impart it. ”

  “You do sometimes. And you knew I was coming. You knew I would be here, and you expedited it. I don’t think you’d go through all of that just to deny my request. I’m willing to pay. ”

  The hall was quiet. I wondered if there was a group of Brains suddenly huddled together on the other side of the wall.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  I saw my mirror-self flinch slightly. I wasn’t expecting the question, but more importantly, I wasn’t sure I knew the exact answer. Yes, if I knew how Nikki survived the Feed, I would have a better chance of finding a Forfeit next time who would survive it as well.

  But that didn’t explain why I felt the urgency to find out. I didn’t have to find another Forfeit for ninety-nine years. Why was I here now?

  “We wait,” the chorus of voices said.

  “Someone close to me survived the Feed. I need to know how. ”

  “So you can find another. ” It was a statement, not a question.

  I nodded. “Yes. ”

  There was a long pause. I wasn’t even sure which side of the hallway was speaking to me: the Scholars or the Fates. I was about to speak again when the voices sounded.

  “We require a payment. ”

  I straightened my back. “Okay,” I said. “What is it?”

  “Something you value. ”

  I waited for them to go on, but instead the image of myself on the screen in front of me dissolved and random flashes of objects appeared. My mother. My father. The master at my first apprenticeship. My dog. The image-generator was sifting through my head for everything I had ever valued. Music sheets. Song titles. Screaming fans. The Deer Valley ski mountain.

  They flashed with the speed of a boy flipping the pages of a thick book, but suddenly the images began to slow. Oliver. Gavin. Max.

  Nikki.

  The screen froze on her face.

  “You must mark a human,” the chorus said.

  My face paled. I could see it in my reflection, as if it exaggerated the emotions inside of me. I glanced back at Max, whose expression was one of terror. He backed up against the door, but it was locked.

  “You must mark a human, and marking that human must be a sacrifice to you. ”

  Marking a human. It was something nobody ever talked about. It broke every rule of the High Court of the Everneath, again because it imposed on that human’s free will. I almost smiled at the thought of what Nikki would say about that distinction—she would say it was meaningless—and yet the High Court considered itself the ethical arbiters of our world. But Dephinians operated outside the High Court’s reach. They didn’t care about ethics.

  Marking a human. Making it so that every Everliving on the Surface could feed on that human. Whenever they wanted. Wherever they were. An Everliving in Nepal could simply picture the marked human, take a deep breath in, and Feed.

  The Delphinians obviously wanted some fresh food.

  Were they crazy?

  What was I thinking; they were inbred for generations. Of course they were crazy. “I’d never mark Nikki. ”

  “We would never mark the one who survived the Feed. ”

  My chest tightened at the revelation that they knew about Nikki. But I reminded myself that the Delphinians hated the queen and were cut off from the High Court. They would have no reason to say anything.

  I watched the screen. Nikki’s face dissolved, turning into a face that had some of her features. Her brown eyes. Her dark hair. But this new face still had some baby fat on it.

  Tommy.

  I frowned and tried to erase the memory of those Boy Scouts ganging up on little Tommy. I’d come to his rescue to impress Nikki, not for any sympathy I had for Tommy.

  I was an Everliving. We didn’t have sympathy.

  Marking Tommy wasn’t a sacrifice.

  But the Delphinians thought it was. I couldn’t understand it. I had no love for the boy. My only concern was that if Nikki ever found out, she would hate me. But she hated me already, didn’t she? And why should she ever find out? To her, it would only seem as if Tommy was slowly going mad. It would take years.

  The screen shot of Tommy dissolved and once again reflected my o
wn face, showing my mouth hanging open.

  “That is the payment. Bring us a memento of the boy so we may mark him. And you will have your answer. ”

  I looked myself in the eye and shut my mouth. I could do this. What did I care if the boy was marked? Hell, skimming the worst emotions off him would probably be a good thing.

  For a while.

  Who was I kidding? It would screw him up for life, and I knew it. Nobody could mentally survive the constant imbalance of emotions being marked would cause.

  I turned behind me to where Max was, looking for input.

  “His life is short compared to yours,” Max said. “Nikki and Tommy are blips on your timeline. Two seconds on the clock of your life. ”

  He was right. The things I did today wouldn’t matter in a hundred years.

  It looked as if that first scout was right. Our initial stay in London would be short.

  I turned back to my reflection, set my shoulders, and straightened my back. “Deal. ”

  LAST YEAR

  While splashing shirts at GraphX, Nik glimpses my tongue post.

  Nikki couldn’t stop staring at the silk screen of the Dead Elvis I’d drawn. The way her gaze washed over the image in awe made me silently wish that one day I would be the object of such wonder.

  “Wow,” she whispered reverently. “This is amazing. Where did you find the original?”

  I averted my gaze. “I drew it,” I answered, laying some T-shirts on the counter.

  “Cole, you’re messing with me! It’s too … “She shook her head. “No words. ”

  I gave her a smile that was the appropriate amount of appreciation and humility, all the while thanking the heavens that I’d had centuries to learn how to draw. Inching forward, closer than I’d ever dared before, I said, “I think that’s the nicest review I’ve ever received. ”

  I tried not to inhale too noticeably, but this close to her I didn’t have to. She couldn’t look me in the eye, but instead she stared at my mouth. Then inside my mouth. At the steel post on my tongue.

  Nikki Beckett, mesmerized by my tongue. It was a feeling I would never forget. I smiled, snapping her out of her reverie. Her cheeks turned a delicious shade of pink, and she turned away.

  For the first time since I’d met her, I thought I had a chance.

  So much for epic love.

  NOW

  Back in Park City. Nikki’s bedroom.

  From outside the window, Nikki’s room seemed darker than usual. Perhaps it was because the moon had disappeared behind the mountains and the stars didn’t seem to be shining as brightly.

  I had promised myself I wouldn’t see her again until I’d figured out a way to exist without her, but the Delphinians had forced this visit. I pushed the window open and climbed in.

  As I watched her sleep, I remembered the way she’d been captivated by my tongue post that spring afternoon so many months ago. Who would’ve thought that now I would mark her baby brother for worldwide Everliving consumption?

  “What happened to us, Nik?” I whispered so softly it sounded like a breeze even to my own ears.

  Nikki didn’t stir.

  I held my hand over her forehead, wanting desperately to touch her. But I resisted.

  She turned over restlessly and shifted so she was once again on the far side of her bed. As if she were making room for someone.

  I pretended for a moment—and only for a moment—that I was the person she was making room for. That the hand she held up reached for me. That the heart thumping in her chest beat for me and me alone. I allowed myself that split second of weakness.

  And then I turned my back on her, walked over to the shelf above her desk, and grabbed a picture I’d seen a million times.

  I climbed back out the window without looking back.

  Nikki never even woke up.

  EIGHT

  NOW

  Back in London, Tommy’s memento in hand.

  Max had stayed in London while I’d gone back to Park City to get Tommy’s memento. Now that I was ready to cut a deal with the Delphinians, Max wanted no part of it. It was getting too dangerous. So I found myself in the Hall of Knowledge alone, the picture of Tommy crumpled in my hand.

  The chorus of voices had been waiting for me. “Do you have the memento of the boy to be marked?”

  I nodded. “Yes. ”

  A small platform rose out of the floor. I placed the picture on top of it. I loved that photo. Nikki and Tommy, sister and brother, looking at each other and laughing, oblivious to the fact that someone was taking their picture.

  Even though I couldn’t empathize—I had long since lost that ability—I could appreciate the innocence of it. The feeling that it didn’t matter if the world was spinning or not … all that mattered was the face you were staring into.

  I felt that. Once. Long ago.

  “Place your hand in the trough,” the chorus said, bringing me out of my thoughts.

  I placed my right hand in the gutter that ran along the wall. The Fates would get a read on my life—everything I’d learned in my seven hundred years, every piece of wisdom I’d gathered—while the Scholars absorbed information. No opportunity would pass without them getting something out of it. I was sure there was nothing new inside my head that they didn’t already know.