Outlier

by L. J. Hachmeister

  She brought her hands to his muzzle, and placed her forehead against his. “You don’t need to know what someone is to know if they’re good.”

  Akoto growled, then licked her face.

  “She can’t stay; it’s dangerous to keep someone as high-profile as her, even if she is an Outlier,” Nya said.

  Her stomach dropped to her knees. They do know!

  How would they accept her now?

  “What do you say to this, child?” Osan asked.

  Turning to Osan, Sen kept one hand on her furry friend. “I-It’s true. My father is Kajar Hikari, chancellor of the Lightning Guild and rightful ascendant to the world throne, and my mother is Lyn Mor, daughter of Virid sage Hiran Mor. I’m worthless to them an Outlier… Not any better for you. I’m not fast, or good with weapons, and I run away from fights.”

  “So maybe we should keep your friend, and send you back to the Realm?” Osan said.

  Sen heard a waver in his voice, detecting not a threat, but a challenge. Old angers stirred in her chest as she thought of all the times her father tried to trick her, to stress her into making a snap decision in the midst of a crisis. “I’m not good at anything,” she said, hands turning to fists. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t stop you from taking him away.”

  Osan smiled. Out of the side of her eye, she saw Natsugra nod her head.

  “So there is fight in you after all,” Osan said.

  Nya’s scoffed. “Fight? Her monster just rescued her pathetic—”

  “Enough!” Osan said, silencing the entire clan with a wave of his hands. He turned to Sen, firelight casting dancing shadows in the hard ridges of his forehead. “What do you wish, child?”

  Exhausted and despondent, she couldn’t hold back the need that slipped past her lips: “To belong.”

  She anticipated laughter, chiding, but not the still silence that followed.

  “I will make my decision by the morrow,” Osan announced, touching his hands together underneath his chin.

  “No!” Nya shouted, “we don’t have time for this. Our missing warriors—”

  “Vision, Nya,” Osan said, spreading his arms. “We are two dozen left. What do you expect to do?”

  “Not leave our people behind,” she shouted, jabbing her hand in the direction of the great wall.

  “You don’t know that Sho and the others are alive, nor have you confirmed what the Shifter said is true.”

  “Chief, I—”

  “I have made my decision,” he said, glaring at her.

  Sen watched the dynamic shift as Nya begrudgingly stepped down.

  As the clan dispersed, Osan and Nya heading in opposite directions, the boy she recognized came up to her.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” the boy said, grinning ear to ear. Though he stood several feet away, he looked up to Akoto with awe. “You’re something special, big guy.”

  Sen relaxed a little. “His name is Akoto.”

  “Nice. I’m Sahib,” the boy said, offering his forearm. Sen didn’t know their customs, and jumped a little when he clasped his hand midway around her arm. “We sorta know each other from Gatherings.”

  Not those… she thought with a shudder. She hated the annual competition between the denoms. Her father always made a big deal out of watching the tournaments and attending the boring after-parties for the politicians and statesmen. Talking was no allowed, only sitting still and behaving while he made his rounds to forge alliances and secure his ascension to the world throne.

  Cheeks turning rosy, she withdrew her arm. “Sorry—I hated the Gatherings. I just tried to make it through without embarrassing my parents too much.”

  Sahib shrugged his shoulders. “I know the feeling. And I hated dressing up, all the drama and pressure.”

  “Me too,” Sen said, twisting her fingers around the shredded ends of her shirt. “I was always happier away from all of that.”

  “You’ll forget your parents here.” The young warrior looked up at the stars. “In the clan, you’ll have freedom and family. Real family—not the kind that will throw you out just because you can’t bend a plant, make mold, take a zap or whisper to bugs.”

  A shy smile touched her lips. As Sahib continued to talk, she looked over his face and lean body, amazed at the contrast of tribal ink and scars against the glimmer in his eyes and sweetness in his voice.

  “I’m not sure I really belong here,” she said, staring at the series of inked lines on the back of his arm. “Nya’s right about me. If it weren’t for Akoto—”

  Sahib made an exasperated sound with pursed lips. “Nya. Don’t worry about her.”

  “What do you mean?” she said as Akoto nudged her forward to make room for himself to stretch out on the sand. As he yawned, his giant tongue curled beside her head, wetting her cheek.

  “Nya’s tough, don’t get me wrong,” Sahib said, looking to the left and right as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “But she’s hard on everyone. It’s just her way.”

  “She tried to kill me!”

  Sahib didn’t offer her the comfort she wanted. “Trust me—we wouldn’t be talking right now if she really wanted you dead.”

  Unable to wrap her mind around his words, or any of the recent events, Sen fumbled with her hands, mad at herself for the hot tears sliding down her cheeks.

  “Sen, a word.”

  Sahib acknowledged the medicine woman with a salute and returned to the tents, leaving Sen alone with Natsugra.

  As much as she tried to hide her tears, the bearded woman caught her using her sleeves to dab at the corner of her eyes and pushed her hands down.

  “So, you’re Kajar’s child,” Natsugra said, still holding on to her wrists. “Not the desired son, and even worse yet, shadowless. If ever there was an Outlier, it would be you.”

  Wiggling her wrists free, Sen looked for a way to escape the conversation, but could find no reprieve within the foreign clan, or the dark landscape. Even Akoto, falling back asleep once again, didn’t provide her any protection as Natsugra pried open her secrets.

  “Do you know why we tested you today?”

  “No,” she said, surprised at the anger in her voice. “Like you said—I’m an Outlier.”

  “And we had to make sure of that,” Natsugra said, rolling up her right sleeve to reveal clumps of zig-zagging scar tissue across her forearm.

  Those are scorpion bee bites! Sen thought, automatically hugging her arms against her chest. One of the older bullies at her school could control the nasty fist-sized bugs, and sent a few after her once for a laugh. The sting felt worse than getting electrocuted, and it took some of her mother’s strongest medicine to neutralize the poison and control the swelling. But even with the best treatment she still got scars—but nothing as bad as Natsugra’s. She could have been killed…

  “Years ago we let in a young boy who said he ran away before his Determining, claiming like you, to be an Outlier. After he learned our secrets, he killed three of our warriors with his bugs, returned back to the Realm, and sent drones after us to clear us out of our homes in the lavafields.”

  “He was like a spy from the Swarm?”

  “Yes,” Natsugra said, covering her arm back up. “So now you understand why we have our own ‘Determining.’”

  It all made sense to her now. The jars, Nya’s vicious attack. “If I had talent, I would have used the contents of the jars to protect myself.”

  “Or Shift, if you had the lesser ability.”

  So, it’s true… I’m nothing.

  Fresh tears started up, but she bit down on her lower lip and refused to let them fall.

  “You have something special Sen; something I haven’t seen in a long time.”

  Her mother’s words competed with the ugly truth circulating in her head until she realized that her hands had turned into shaking fists.

  “We’ve all experienced this anger,” Natsugra said, her eyes searching Sen’s reddening face. “It will pass once you realize what
you are capable of.”

  What I’m capable of…

  Sen thought about Nya, the way the teenage warrior cut down swaths of attackers with expert precision, and could so easily dismiss her without a hint of regret. I’m not like that.

  Nor was she like Sahib. She couldn’t fathom allowing her skin to be inked with tattoos, or scarred to denote battles and rites of passage. Or so easily forgetting her parents. I’m not like any of them.

  “Come,” Natsugra said, taking her hand and leading her back toward the tents. Digging in her heels, she refused to part with Akoto for more than a few feet. “Child, please; he’s more than capable of taking care of both of you—even in his sleep.”

  Sen couldn’t help herself; a burgeoning smile turned into a suppressed giggle.

  “Go now,” Natsugra said, pulling back the flap of the tent and gesturing for her to get inside.

  Sen didn’t understand, nor did she recognize the shadowed figure curled up on a bearskin.

  “Chenzin requested your company.”

  Chenzin? Sen thought, ducking her head into the tent. As the woman rolled over, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The sick woman! But—

  “She lived,” Natsugra said. “So perhaps you have some use after all.”

  Sen didn’t mind the tears that came now as Chenzin reached up with a trembling arm.

  “So… beautiful…” the woman rasped.

  Scooting next to the Chenzin, Sen clasped her hand in both of hers, a terrified joy filling her heart with all of the possibilities she would not let herself consider.

  Chapter 8

  As expected, Kaden interrupted her impromptu knife and sword practice atop one of the rock spires.

  “Go away,” Nya said, jabbing her knife and slashing her sword against invisible attackers.

  Kaden grunted as he hauled himself up to the flat top, heaving for breath. On some level she registered his feat. Climbing a seventy-foot spire with only the moonlight and the stars to guide his ascent, if only to chase her down for a hearty nag, impressed her even in her worst moods.

  As he sat at the edge, not saying or doing anything, she sensed a shift in his demeanor, even without looking directly at his face.

  Finally, after felling another invisible attacker, she sheathed her weapons and turned to him.

  “What then?”

  After clearing his throat and averting his gaze, Kaden responded. “Leyla didn’t make it.”

  Nya suppressed her initial reaction, relying on her learned response. “Without a shadow, I seek only the comfort of darkness, and the freedom of its emptiness.”

  Freedom from attachment, distancing oneself from comfort and compassion. The Chakoa way, the Outlier way.

  Her only way.

  Squatting down in front of him, she pointed to the hunting knife hanging off of his weapons belt. “Did you perform the severance?”

  Kaden nodded, steeling himself to her gaze. Even in the pale light of the moon she saw the burst capillaries reddening the whites of his eyes, the veins that popped out on his forehead.

  He’s been crying.

  She thought less of him until she noticed the frayed ends of the jet-black hair where he had cut off the braids, and the beaded necklace his wife had given him missing from around his neck. Through a complete purge and cleansing, he let his wife go, as their most sacred customs dictated.

  Or at least he should have.

  He’s still holding on to something, she sensed as she watched his eyes mist over.

  Regardless, she turned to the stars and emptied her lungs with a scream that filled the night, letting the Godless land hear the ferocity in her that would not die, even if every last one of them fell.

  “Don’t,” Kaden said as she withdrew her own knife. “Save your strength.”

  “What?” Nya exclaimed.

  “We’ll need everything we have to find Sho and the others.”

  Nya couldn’t believe any of his words—that he would tell her to defy custom, or dare speak of going against Osan’s command. Then again, as much pain as she had endured in her nineteen years, she had never allowed herself to foolishly love like Kaden had, and know such loss.

  Her own credo surfaced: Without attachments, I am invincible.

  “Who would you bring? Only you, me and Sahib are healthy enough to travel.”

  “The girl and her beast,”

  “Sen?” Nya scoffed. “Her beast, maybe, but she’d just get in the way.”

  Kaden shook his head. “You see the weakness in others. That makes you a great warrior. But you dismiss potential.”

  “Potential?”

  “Sahib could barely string a bow when he got initiated. I couldn’t throw an axe more than fifteen feet. Even you—you can’t tell me you were born with blades in your hands.”

  “What if I did?” she said, a smile hinting at the corner of her lips.

  “Be serious, Nya. And give her a chance. Everyone deserves a chance, especially our kind.”

  Nya bristled at the thought. Sen is not ‘our kind.’

  Then she stopped herself. As much as she wanted to get rid of the wimpy girl, Kaden’s words cut beneath her skin. “Everyone deserves a chance.”

  Squeezing her eyes shut and gripping the hilt of her knife, she tried to keep unwelcome memories from surfacing. ‘Deserving a chance’ got her rejected more than once—by her parents, her adopted parents—by the entire recognized world. Emotion tore through her carefully constructed logic. Anger bade her to lash out, to reject any notion of accepting Sen, while something else—a feeling she refused to acknowledge—made her hesitate.

  Nya looked out to the west, to the glowing blue walls of the Realm, layering her rage over all the good memories trying to surface: The feel of her mother’s surprise kiss on her cheek, her father’s firm grip as he held her tight until she submitted to the hug. A bed to sleep in, a roof always over her head, warm food in her belly. Echoes of a different time, an entirely different life; of a promise broken on her fourteenth birthday when her parents tried to shelter her, keep her from undergoing the Determining, only to be arrested and taken away.

  They knew, everyone knew, what she wasn’t. As all her schoolmates predicted, the orphan child of Outlier parents left at the gates of the great wall turned out to be just as forsaken as her biological parents.

  I didn’t deserve anything, she thought, spitting out the bitter contents of her mouth. And neither does Sen.

  “She is not ‘our kind,’ Kaden,” she said, dousing her words in fury. “At the very least, she has to prove herself, just like the rest of us have.”

  “That beast could be the difference between a rescue and a suicide mission,” Kaden countered.

  Nya sighed and unsheathed her swords again, resuming her fight against imagined foes. “You’re assuming Osan will accept her.”

  “Osan didn’t turn away Rigen. He won’t turn away Sen.”

  Rigen. Her blood boiled at the mere mention of his name. Although she only met him briefly, right before he betrayed the Chakoa and ran back to the Realm, she remembered the look in his eyes. The cold calculation, the anger. Things she could relate to, but not the greed that crafted his disingenuous smile. Something about him never sat right with her, but then again, as attractive and well-spoken as he was, she couldn’t help but hate herself for falling for the same trap the rest of them had.

  Carving up the wind with her blades, Nya balanced on one leg, then somersaulted forward, bringing down both her swords in a sweeping arc that made even Kaden, who had watched her practice for years, shift back.

  “Rest up,” she said after she finished her kata. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

  Kaden acknowledged her with a nod, then climbed back down over the lip of the rock, disappearing into the night.

  Without missing a step, Nya launched right into the next kata, fighting through the memories of the past, of Leyla’s death, of the pressure building beneath her breastbone. She embraced the chill o
f the night air, the surrounding darkness, the persistent hunger gnawing at her belly as she swung her blades, and committed herself to the only truth, the only purpose, she knew.

  ***

  When Nya returned to camp in the morning, Osan’s acceptance of Sen into the clan didn’t surprise her, but the sudden storm did. From the ground-shattering booms of thunder, and the frequency of the lightning strikes, she had a good idea why she didn’t see it coming.

  Looks like the Lightning Guild got into a fight, she thought, standing out in the rain with one hand shielding her eyes. The icy sheets cut through her animal skins, right down to her bones, but she didn’t waver. Not when her gut pulled at her to understand something she couldn’t yet see.

  “Nya, get inside already!” Osan shouted from inside the protection of his tent.

  The rescue mission would have to wait.

  Grumbling, Nya took one last look at the black, congested clouds in the sky and trudged back over to her tent. When she pulled the flap back and saw the hazel eyes peeking out from underneath her deerskin blankets, she threw up her hands. “What are you doing here?”

  “Natsugra said—”

  Nya didn’t care to hear the rest of her pitiful explanation. Even if the medicine woman needed to stay with Chenzin to continue her treatment, or if there wasn’t enough in any other tent, why did she have to pick hers?

  “Where’s your beast?”

  Sen pointed outside. Ducking her head back out of the tent, Nya spotted the black mass in a flash of lightning. The gigantic monster curled in on himself into a tight ball underneath one of the rock segments of a fallen spire.

  “Why aren’t you out there with him?”

  Shooting out from underneath the blankets, Sen scurried over to the tent flap. “I thought he was okay—his fur—he seemed okay—oh no—should we bring him inside?”

  With a sigh, Nya pushed the girl back to the blankets. “He’s fine. Forget it already.”