Escaping Exodus

by Nicky Drayden

  I huff and walk out to the balcony overlooking the sprawl of our city. I never get tired of this view—the bone brick facades of thousands of homes and storefronts stretching down and around and above in a grand circle, strands of ley lights running through the center of the beast’s belly, carefully placed to mimic the constellations named by our ancestors. No matter where you stand, you can look up and see them—from the classiest Contour neighborhoods to the tallest beastworker tenement blocks.

  “If we have minds sharp enough to build all of this, we should be able to figure out a way of life where we’re not being so destructive, so wasteful,” I say. “Maybe Matris’s illness happened for a reason. Maybe it happened so I can convince people that this is not the way, that we need to return to our original plan of finding a habitable planet!”

  “Seske!” Wheytt says. “Your words are getting awfully close to being mutinous.”

  “What about the planet the beast showed us? It’s perfect!”

  “It was a dream. A hallucination.”

  “Maybe. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was a map? What if this planet is our future?

  “Our way is unsustainable. We’ve got a hundred years left of this way of life, if we’re lucky. And now we’ve been given a way to escape it. All I have to do is convince the fifty thousand people on this ship to give up everything they know and follow me there.”

  Wheytt nods, but he still doesn’t look sure about it. He stares at me. I stare back, projecting as much confidence as I can muster.

  “Fifty thousand minus one,” Wheytt finally says. “I’ll go with you. I don’t have a doubt in my mind that you want the best for your people and won’t stop until we’ve achieved that.”

  There’s a knock at the door.

  “Should we let them back in?” I ask.

  A bigger knock comes, a knock that rumbles the entire city and sends us both to our knees. Wheytt helps me up, and together we look over the balcony to see smoke coming from the central market, a pile of bone rubble where there used to be several storefronts. I look at Wheytt.

  “Another beastquake?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head. “I would have sensed it coming.”

  If not a beastquake, then what could have caused this type of destruction? Something so precise? Something so deliberate?

  Seconds later, the door to the throne room swings off its hinges, and my tactician runs in. “Matriling Kaleigh!” she screams. “We need to get you to safety. There’s been an attack by the Sisters of Lost Lines.”

  I grit my teeth, anger coursing through me and not fear. I push the tactician aside. “I won’t hide from such blatant disrespect for the throne,” I say and venture out into the devastation, covering my face with the silks of my dress so I won't inhale bone dust, stepping carefully around slivers of glass. Wheytt sticks next to me, eyes scanning the debris, kicking bits of rubble with his boots. Medics search the collapsed buildings for victims. Even if no lives have been lost, the goods belonging to several of the wealthiest, long-lined merchants lie in waste. The economic impact will be felt for months, if not years. “Wheytt, you have to figure out who did this. If there’s material evidence, I know you’ll be able to find it.”

  “Yes, Matriling Kaleigh,” he says, but now other guards have gathered around, sifting through the piles of debris with their honed senses on high alert. They all outrank him, and I get the feeling they want him to stay out of their way.

  “Wheytt should take the lead on this investigation,” I command, trying to resolve the matter, but it appears I have irked the guards further. Soon, however, they are all working together, looking for evidence of what doesn’t belong.

  Wheytt turns over a brick of bone and stiffens.

  “Did you find something?” I ask.

  “No, nothing here,” he says, and that look he gets when he’s lying . . . it’s back.

  Tensions rise. The people want answers, but I have none to give them. Chief Abacca is breathing down my neck at every turn, and Wheytt has been avoiding me for two whole days. Finally, I corner him, and when I ask for a status update, his face is perfectly blank, as if he’d been stripped of all emotion.

  “What is it, Wheytt?” I ask.

  “I’ve found them. The Sisters of Lost Lines. I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

  He hands me the list. I look the names over, and when I come to Adalla’s, somehow I manage not to flinch. I don’t react at all, my face as still as stone. “You’re sure?” I ask.

  “One hundred percent. You know I’d do anything to spare—”

  “Enough. I’ll have them all brought before trial. You’re dismissed.”

  There are twenty-three of them on the list. They’re a diverse bunch, workers from all over the beast, which makes me shudder. They could end us so easily.

  If we don’t end ourselves first.

  Tomorrow is my wedding day.

  Today is the day I send my best friend to her death.

  I stand with the list clenched in my hand, and I’m sweating so hard, I’m worried I’ll wash the names away. Matris is beside herself. Such an act of dissent hasn’t been experienced in seven reigns, and for Matris to experience it . . . well, it’s making her sicker than she already is.

  “We should make an example of them,” I say. “Public lashing.”

  My mother shakes her head. “They’re the ones who’ve made a mockery out of the Matriarchy. Those demands—” She falls into another one of her coughing fits. Part of me wants it to go on forever, because I know the words that are coming next. Finally, she takes a sip of her tea, then clears her throat. “If they find it so hard to live under the rules within this beast, let’s see how they like the rules outside of it. Give me the list.”

  I clench it harder, now wishing my sweaty palms would wash away the ink. “Please, Matris. Maybe not everyone on this list is truly guilty. Maybe some have been swayed by rhetoric.”

  “Give it to me!”

  I step to her bedside, place the paper in her hand. She opens it, her glassy eyes reading over each name. She looks at me. “Adalla? Is this your Adalla?”

  My heart cinches. All this time I’ve wanted Matris to think of Adalla as my Adalla . . . but it’s come at the exact wrong time. All I can do is nod. Adalla couldn’t possibly have found her way into such trouble. She’d been brainwashed, maybe. Or maybe she’s being blackmailed.

  “I warned you about her,” she mutters.

  “A public lashing—”

  “Execution via expulsion from the beast. I will demand the sentence before the Senate myself if you don’t think you have it in you.”

  I don’t. I really don’t. I stand there staring, looking pitiful, hoping Matris will change her mind. But now she’s getting out of bed, and for the first time, I get a good look at what this sickness has stolen from her. Through her sleeping gown, her gauntness is overwhelming. Her aide scurries over and wedges a shoulder underneath Matris’s armpit.

  “I will demand it myself, then. And you will watch by my side.”

  I seize up as she hands the note off to her tactician.

  “Quickly. Round these indigents up.”

  Watching my mother move, I see she doesn’t have much energy to give, but she’s so determined to save face. Her aide helps her into flashy, lightweight gowns, not the usual layers she dons, a carpet of weighty fabrics. Her groomers fasten down the edges of her styled wig, same braided knots we’ve always worn. I pretend not to notice, but sometime during her sickness, her hair began to go brittle and fall out, all but severing her from our matriline. If anyone beyond these walls ever realizes it . . .

  A light layer of patina goes on, bringing a copper-brown sheen back to her pallid face. She straightens as we walk out into public, and through the pure force of will, she’s no longer carrying herself like it is a burden. Her gait is slow but steady. An occasion such as this, no one would expect anything else from her, especially now when the Senators are biting at the chance to unse
at Matris for any show of weakness.

  The offenders are marched into the room under the watchful eyes of the full Senate and several hundred onlookers. I breathe a sigh of relief when Adalla is not with them. A few workers from pulmonary, some dressed for musclework, and the rest boneworkers, their bare breasts on display without regard for humility. Maybe Adalla got away. Maybe she’s safe, hiding somewhere.

  “Who speaks for you all?” Matris demands.

  One of the boneworkers steps up in front of the others. The leader. Bone in her hair, scars all over. Her eyes flick to meet mine, however briefly, but my entire life passes before me in that glance. I nearly collapse.

  “I do, Matris.” It is Adalla. Adalla is the leader of this sect. And I had missed her. Dismissed her. “We stand behind our demands. Do you wish to admit your guilt and complicity in the lives that have been taken so mercilessly?”

  Matris flushes. Never has anyone spoken to her like this. “Insolence!” she yells. “Who will speak in your favor?”

  I almost yell out. Almost. I could plead for her innocence, but that wouldn’t do anything but show weakness in our line, a vulnerable split. The room is silent. No one will tarnish their name in such a way. But then all those nights studying with Doka come back to me, him fussing over the details of Senate proceedings. I realize that I can speak against the traitors, as it is my right. I can admonish them, support Matris’s wishes. And if I can talk long enough, not all will be lost.

  “I’d like to speak against them, Matris. May I take the floor?”

  Matris smiles at me, like maybe I am a worthy daughter after all. “I concede to Seske Kaleigh, true daughter of mothers.”

  I step up in Matris’s spot, then stare down at Adalla. “I am moved to terrible sadness to see these traitors before me. Some faces that I know, that I trusted, who have destroyed valuable property and have made a move to deconstruct the Matriarchy with dangerous ideas. We cannot allow such a disregard for our ways. No, our history is not spotless, and some of it is outright disturbing. Those ways need to be challenged. We need to change. But not like this. Violence is not the way. It is never the way.”

  Matris steps up to me, a slight falter in her step. She’s getting weaker by the minute. She won’t be able to last much longer, and I’m counting on it. “Thank you, Seske. You are—”

  “I’m not done,” I say to Matris. “I’m just starting, in fact. I’ve been thinking a lot on this, actually. All the things we should open for discussion. Seeds of ideas that we should implant into others’ minds, so that we can contemplate the ways we can do better as a people . . .”

  I continue, a full ten minutes, speaking of the atrocities we’ve committed in the name of the ancestors, of the beasts we’ve destroyed, of our goals . . . our original goals of finding a new planet to call home, where we could spread out and thrive and put this harsh reality behind us. Finally, Matris staggers, and her aide comes to prop her up. Matris fights her off, not wanting to lose respect in front of the Senators, but clearly knowing it’s too late.

  “Are you quite done now, Seske? I’m drifting off from boredom.”

  “I’d like to still hold the floor, if that’s fine with you, Matris. If you’re feeling tired, I can hand the sentence down once I’m finished.”

  There. I’ve said it. Directly challenged her. She can leave now, with her grace and dignity intact, or she can wait me out and risk fainting, falling, or breaking down into another coughing fit with bloodied kerchiefs.

  “My sweet daughter, if you think you are capable of handing down the appropriate punishment, I will leave it to you. It is truly time that we test your fitness as future matriarch. Your decisions here will mark your line for generations to come.” She glares at me, but it doesn’t scare me like it used to. “I have more important things to tend to.”

  And with a flourish and a slower and more deliberate gait, she leaves us. I talk five more minutes, my mind racing over her words. I can’t let them off easy, especially with the way the Senators are watching me. Plus, with a light sentence, there would be disorder to follow, probably more groups springing up. But I can’t sentence them to death either. “And with that said, I must pass judgment. Five lashes each—”

  The crowd rumbles; the Senators’ eyes flash, seeing their chance to claim the throne incompetent so they can seat their own choice. But I have not yet finished.

  “—from the Ancestor’s lace. Bring the leader before me.”

  The audience gasps. The Ancestor’s lace hasn’t been used in many, many years. It was cruel. It was unusual. It made a statement. Then I notice the boneworker next to Adalla is holding her hand, their fingers entwined. They exchange a meaningful glance, falling into each other’s eyes, a knowing I can feel from here.

  Adalla steps forward, her fingertips touching with the other woman’s until the last possible second. Then finally, she is mine. I will show her both my strength and my compassion in this moment.

  She kneels before me, head so low, her forehead nearly kisses the ground. I will strengthen my line with the ones I slash across her back. The first strip of lace is placed into my hand. I dip it into a solution made from the acids harvested from the beast’s belly, mist rising off its jet-black surface. I fish the strip out with tongs, then place it upon her back, right between her shoulder blades.

  Adalla screams.

  Screams so loud, I’m sure all her ancestors to the beginning of time have heard her. The acid burrows into her flesh: eats away the skin, then keeps going, searing deep tissue and muscle. She will always feel this pain. I make the mistake of looking up at that other woman. Decades older, decades meaner. Her eyes cut at me, promising revenge should she and I ever be caught alone in a room together. I cut my eyes right back at her, unflinching. If it weren’t for me, they’d all be breathing the cold dark of space right now. I turn my attention back to Adalla, and when her body has stopped convulsing, I lay the next piece of lace.

  “You know what they’re calling you now?” Doka says during our first dance as woman and husband. “Kaleigh the Cruel.” He smirks. It is an awful smirk, as if watching the girl who fuels my heart being maimed and falling into another’s arms holds any sort of frivolity. Maybe I am cruel. Maybe the name is fitting.

  Matris sits far up on her stilted throne, waving down at the festivities. She’s so far up, probably no one but me has noticed she’s a stand-in. My stunt yesterday had taken more out of her than I’d guessed. Either that, or she’s so mad that she’d willingly miss the wedding of her only daughter.

  “Anyway, I suppose I should give you my present,” Doka says, gently pressing a finger against the side of his head to soothe the tug of the fresh braids that now give tribute to my family line. Our family line, I realize with a start. “Your concerns about Sisterkin—you don’t need to worry about those anymore.”

  “What? You mustn’t call her that. She has a name now.”

  “No,” he says, smiling. “She doesn’t. I’ve had her adoption into the Abacca line annulled. I brought my concerns to my mothers. They agreed that recognizing her would delegitimize the importance of names.”

  I glance over at Sisterkin, dancing fitfully with a wide smile on her face. “They haven’t told her yet?” I ask.

  “They’ll leave that to you. That’s part of the gift, I guess.” His lips move toward mine. My mind seizes up. I can’t. Can’t kiss him. Not right now.

  “I’m feeling a little queasy,” I say, dropping my forehead against the bridge of his nose. “Later?”

  “Of course, love. We have the entire night to ourselves, if you’ll have my honor.”

  The silence between us, it’s like all the distance between all the stars. I watch his smile drop. Was there something on my face? “What, you don’t find me pleasing?” he asks.

  “No, no. Of course I do! I . . . I told you, I’m just not feeling well. I couldn’t sleep last night, couldn’t eat.”

  “Nerves,” he says. “I’ve got them too. But this is a g
reat match, Seske. A strong match. We’re good together. The love will come.”

  I nod. “It will come.” If I nod hard enough, maybe that’ll force it to come true. Finally, the song comes to an end. Our lines are drawn; our sculptures are presented. Drinks are served in celebration. It all flows so easily, so flawlessly. Flows by too, too fast. When the first guest departs, I start to panic. Soon, I’ll be alone . . . with Doka. There will be expectations. There will be hurt feelings. He talks with his mothers—talks too much—and they’ll know our marriage hasn’t been consummated and the ties between our family lines have not been knotted.

  My eyes catch Wheytt, in civilian clothes, apart from his goggles, over by the hors d’oeuvres. He looks about as uncomfortable as I feel. I go over to him and put small morsels on a plate, though my stomach bucks at the idea of food.

  “So, are you here as a friend of the bride or the groom?” I ask him.

  “Both,” he says. “It was a lovely ceremony. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Sorry to hear about what happened with Adalla. I feel responsible.”

  “No. It needed to happen,” I say. “You did the right thing. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

  “Likewise. Don’t beat yourself up. What you did, you saved twenty-three lives. Really, you saved us all. There’s no room for rebellion when resources are already so tight.”

  “Even if their cause had merit?”

  He looks surprised. “You finally read the demands?”

  I nod. I’d found the list buried under the not important/not urgent pile, and now I’m seriously rethinking that whole sorting system. “All of it. All of their ideas made sense. I could have worked with them. We could have avoided this whole awful situation.”