Burn the Skies

by K. A. Wiggins

  Deciding what I want, and on short notice no less, isn’t a skill I’ve had the chance to develop. But I know I don’t want to risk her. I can’t.

  I choose to believe she’ll do the right thing. After this, how could she not? It’s impossible for her to go on working with Maryam, now that she’s seen into the ageless depths of her depravity firsthand. I doubt Cadence will be able to bring herself to so much as touch that barrier after this. And even if she could . . . No.

  I can’t let her go.

  So I take that key—that right to take back control—and fold the open hands of her soul tightly back around it.

  Not mine, but hers. Not taken, but given.

  She sighs. Rocks back on her heels, subsiding into the body that is now no one’s but hers. And reaches for the barrier.

  I gasp. “Don’t—”

  She withdraws quickly, strands oozing from her fingertips, and closes her fist before they can snap back into place. Then she yanks, crying out with the effort.

  The strands fray. And snap, the barrier where they were raised suddenly hard and brittle. Cracks splinter across a hands-breadth of the diseased surface, now gone dull and still.

  Cadence yelps. She shakes the slimy, torn mass in her hand to the floor. It patters to the ground, desiccating in midair, followed moments later by her knees. Her eyelids flutter. Her skin turns grey and damp with cold sweat.

  “Shh, shh. It’s a wonderful start, dear. You’ve done well. So, so well.” Maryam croons, cradling Cadence’s head as she slumps into unconsciousness. “And you too, darling. You tell my boy it won’t be long now. Not long at all.”

  She looks up, mad golden eyes swirling like the barrier, burning straight into my soul as if she can see beyond the fabric of reality itself.

  I could stay, even without Cadence’s consciousness linking me to the waking world. I should. I need to know more, need to make sure this foolish child is safe, need to stop her before she can do more damage.

  Instead, I flee to the clean sunlight of my safe, unsullied world of dreams and leave the waking nightmare, at least for now, behind me.

  I DIVE DEEP, DESPERATE to feel clean again. But the sinuous plants dancing beneath the dreaming waves are too like those wriggling strands, revoltingly lifelike in that wretched, brutal moment before they turned to ash. I scale the cliffs to the forest and keep right on climbing, revelling in the rough solidity of cinnamon and ginger-scented branches until I reach too high in one towering oak and the frail slenderness of a handful of twigs turns my stomach.

  So small. Alive, and yet not. Joined, and then . . . not.

  I let my weight drag me to the ground as if gravity is a rule and not one option out of countless opportunities. The thud of impact pushes air into my lungs. I crawl from the cool shadows under the trees to the lush grass of a clearing, curl up in the sunlight and shudder until Ash finds me and makes me get up again.

  He conjures food and drink and does his best to get me to take it. He flips through landscapes, making the world around us larger, then smaller, more brilliant, and then peaceful and muted, increasingly frantic about my silence.

  It’s not until I realize he thinks I’ve killed Cadence that I find my words again. Even so, it’s nearly impossible to hold onto any semblance of coherence.

  He slumps in relief when I start to explain—starting with “I didn’t do it”—and gets increasingly rigid as I haltingly choke and stutter my way through the rest of it.

  “I didn’t think—how could she?” I finish on a sob, arms clamped tight around myself to keep from shattering. I should have stopped her. I never even imagined she could bring herself to do something like that . . .

  Ash paces, face drawn, muttering under his breath. Every few circuits, he stops, scrubs his hands through his hair, and shakes his head before starting up again.

  It’s odd, but the more he freaks out, the better I can think.

  “So?” I ask, finally.

  “Hmm?”

  “Did you find that ship yet?”

  He stops. “Did I what?”

  I clear my throat. “The ship. To the island. To get my army. Did you find it yet? How close are you?”

  He stares, still frozen. “You really have no idea, do you? It’s not like I can just pop over there in an afternoon.”

  “We’re running out of time. How much longer do you need?”

  “. . . We might reach it tomorrow. But only because we’re doubling up on bikes and taking it in shifts. And there’s no guarantee we’ll find anything once we get there.”

  “‘We?’”

  “The whole squad wanted to come. Not just Spectre—Steph’s Nightwitches, too. Your Ravel even tried to sneak out after us. Nearly blew the whole thing up. I made Rei take him back.”

  “He is not my Ravel.” But I’m not unhappy to hear he’s safely tucked behind Nine Peaks’ walls. He’ll look out for the refugees there, if only because it gives him an established power base. Plus, Maryam seems bothered by his absence, judging by her repeated references to ‘my boy.’ “So who’s actually with you? Besides Banshee.”

  I didn’t mean to add that slant to her name, honest.

  He snorts. “You too? She’s good in a fight, that’s all. Hatif’s riding with me, Aleya with Banshee. Mogwai, as squad captain, couldn’t get away without the elders catching on, but she and Dybbuk distracted Steph and Grace long enough for Banshee to sneak out so that’s something. Qareen would have ridden solo, but she had to run interference with Nightwitch squad or we would have had the whole flock tailing us.”

  “. . . You know I have no idea who, like, half of those people are, right? Doesn’t matter—it only takes one messenger to rally an army, and it sounds like you’re on your way. By tomorrow, right?”

  “Maybe. Look, don’t expect too much, okay? There is no guarantee there’s anyone actually out there to help, even if we could reach them in time. Have you put any more thought into—”

  I stomp, rippling the pleasant meadow surrounding us into mirror-smooth glass, and summoning an abomination from its still surface. “This. Just like this. She just reached out and broke it in a heartbeat.”

  He steps closer to the slight curve of the ugly mass jutting up from the ground with its still, cracked patch at shoulder height. He reaches out to trace his fingers over the dead section.

  I flinch, but of course, nothing happens. It’s not the real barrier, just a reconstruction. I plant both hands beside his; spreading my fingers to show how much damage she could do with a double handful, how easy it would be to tear the barrier apart.

  “But you said she passed out afterward, right?” He raps the dead patch. “A single handful laid her out cold. The barrier is huge. Does she have to reach every part of it to destroy it or just punch one small hole through? How much damage can it take before coming down entirely? Did she collapse from shock, or did it take something, do something to her, retaliate, or drain her energy, or—And will she get stronger, or weaker as she continues?”

  He’s pacing again. And making me more anxious with every horrifying possibility that comes out of his mouth.

  I snap the model of the barrier wall into nothingness and beckon back the reassuring flowers, nodding the sunlight’s warmth around us to ward off the chill of that remembered death. “Don’t know. Maryam seemed pleased, but whatever Cadence did to that wall didn’t exactly blow a hole through it. Assuming that’s even what she was going for in the first place. Hurry. I need that army yesterday, Ash.”

  He raises a softly chiming cloud of citrus-scented petals on the breeze—probably to hide his face as he says, “You know I’ll do whatever I can to help. But you need to prepare yourself to act alone if it comes to that. If you’re right about the barrier, you’ll have to be the one to stop Cadence before she frees the Mara.”

  “You mean ‘to kill her.’” I swat the dancing petals back to earth.

  “To take away her ability to do damage,” he says reprovingly, as if he’s not the one
who raised the idea of murdering his childhood friend. “Again: there is no guarantee she would actually die if you switched places. Just some risk.”

  I don’t bring up that desperate moment when she offered it all to me, practically begged me to save her. She hadn’t wanted to touch the barrier, hadn’t meant to destroy it. I know she hadn’t.

  So why did she?

  “Cole?”

  I look up from my hands. “I just—”

  He sighs. “Look, I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ll try, C. We’ll all do whatever we can. This shouldn’t all be on your shoulders, but—”

  “You’re right,” I interrupt, all but backpedalling from the soft sympathy in his voice. “Get some sleep. And get me that army, Ash. I’m counting on you.”

  I snap the bridge shut, sending him back to whatever stretch of wilderness his squad is racing through at the moment and move the land beneath me until I’m back on the edge of the cliffs. It’s easiest to breathe here, even if it is an illusion.

  I blow the sun to the horizon and drink in the nascent sunset, breathing the air brine-sharp instead of floral and fluttering gulls into existence so their piercing cries almost drown out the howling ghosts beyond the edge of the skies.

  Their numbers swell with each passing day, and that is not just my nightmare. The Mara grow ever more hungry. And I can’t kill Cadence, even to stop her unleashing them to devour the world.

  Which means I have to find another way of stopping her. Today.

  Chapter 6: Unchanged

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but that sounds disgusting.” Cadence flicks through her wardrobe, considering each impractical garment with undue attentiveness.

  “It was disgusting, which you know full well. You were there. Goopy strands of sacrificed people-puree? Sentient walls slurping up puke? Severed soul-threads turning into dust? The barrier freeze-drying? Or dying? Or shrivelling, or whatever.”

  “Gross.” She wrinkles her nose. “But nope. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  I’m supposed to be the one pestering her, not the other way around. But more than that, I’m caught off-balance by her stone-cold refusal to acknowledge reality.

  Could Maryam have wiped her memory? Or was she shocked into amnesia? Or is she so embarrassed she’s just going to pretend it never happened?

  “Who’s embarrassed? I’m finally doing what I want.” Cadence assembles an eye-bleeding combination of gold, green, and pink with black accents, twisting her hair and pinning it back with glittery clips.

  The ornaments don’t burn on contact, though they do make her thoughts a little fuzzy-sounding. “Funny, you didn’t seem so in control yesterday when you were begging me to swap places with you.”

  “Creative.” Cadence says dryly. “Finally ran out of ugly noises and moved on to storytelling, did you? Thing is, it’s not so easy to pull one over on a girl when she already knows all about the real world.”

  Huh? “Just because you don't want to admit breaking down yesterday doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

  “Can’t you go haunt someone else for a while?” She considers the result of her efforts in a tall mirror and stalks into the corridor.

  “Ash asked after you,” I lie.

  She falters, huffs, and resumes walking. “Tell him he’s welcome back anytime. Just him. I could use a friend around here.”

  I bite back an equally snarky retort. As much as sparring with Cadence comes naturally, it is not helping my case. Instead, I say, “Fine, you want to play dumb? Go for it. Get it out of your system. Say whatever you like. But I know deep down you’re horrified by what happened yesterday. You dread the thought of touching that barrier again, of coating your fingers in its filth. So don’t. Stall. Tell Maryam you can’t do it after all. Run away—this city is big enough to find somewhere to hide for at least a few days, right?”

  She flips her hair, but her hand trembles.

  “I’ll—I’ll get Ash to send Ravel back for you. If anyone could sneak you out of the city, he could. And I promise I won’t say a word about any of this. You can tell everyone you changed your mind. Say you had a plan to save the city, but it didn’t work out, or even that everyone was already dead by the time you got here, or—”

  “I’m exactly where I want to be.” She flounces onto her throne with a nod to Maryam.

  “Problems, dear?” Maryam coos, draping herself more artfully over her own ornate perch.

  “Nothing I can’t handle.” Cadence kicks a knee over one arm of her only slightly less ostentatious chair and tries to look comfortable. “So, what’s on the agenda?”

  Maryam clicks her tongue. “You’re going for awe and adoration, dear. You want them trembling with frustrated desire, not barely suppressed amusement. Try again.”

  Cadence scowls and waggles her dangling foot, though the angle has to be cutting off her circulation. “I’m good.”

  Maryam lifts one flawless shoulder in the most delicate of shrugs. “As you will. Just try not to fidget in front of the help.”

  And Cadence doesn’t, feigning indifference as one supplicant after another grovels their way through the receiving chamber. Her lips get whiter and thinner, her face more flushed, her fists tighter, but that leg stays rebelliously cocked as gravity and her own weight gouge divots into her ribs and calf.

  Lucky me. I don’t even need to harass her. She’s miserable enough, if far too stubborn to admit it.

  Given the circumstances—and the dreary repetitiveness of the reports—I even risk wandering away for a bit. There’s not much to see in the upper reaches of Refuge. Dual-band supervisors, division heads, and superiors divert themselves in private quarters or stalk around harassing the single-band drones, who are otherwise hard at work or obediently resting on their respective floors. Though, as it turns out, there is quite a bit less obedience behind closed doors than I had been led to believe. But the ranks of workers are thin, more rooms empty than not, except on the lower levels where people are crammed into the shared dorms of re-education centres.

  Whether they’re there due to reprimands—some failure of duty or diligence—or just being held in a convenient pen for the Mara’s snacking needs, it’s hard to tell. Some faces are familiar. Ange’s people, most likely. Or maybe I had seen them dancing in Freedom. But something back up in the little throne room plucks at the strained edges of my attention and drags me back to Cadence’s side.

  At first glance, I’m not sure what it could have been. Another overdressed figure cowers at Maryam’s feet, babbling of the difficulties his division is in, if only the mayor could see her way to—of course, he doesn’t mean to say that she doesn’t provide for them, but—no, no, he is more than capable of continuing, if she would perhaps—

  Boring. Utterly unremarkable. There have been hours of these meetings, and they all go the same way. Division heads or supervisors bring a complaint couched in flattery, a petition for more supplies, a cringing and blame-shifting apology for not meeting targets. Maryam smiles wordlessly until their sputtering peters off. Then she makes her demands.

  In this case, it’s more patrols—though the head of the enforcers protests that he has too few to draw on, that it is impossible, between the heightened frequency and so many prisoners to guard, not to mention the outside sweeps—really, there is hardly anyone left, surely those at least could be—

  And that’s what must’ve caught my attention: sweeps. They’re rounding up all the survivors, the ones whose ancestors never fled to Refuge, generations of hardscrabble outsiders from the crumbling streets of our drowned city. The ones who never learned to live under Maryam’s iron regulations. And yet, even counting the packed prison dorms, Refuge’s population still seems far too thin.

  Either the rest of the survivors are holed up somewhere Maryam’s enforcers can’t reach, or the Mara’s hunger has grown beyond even my fears. For every soul the dream-eating monsters devour, their need grows. Unchecked, that growth will be exponential. And there is no one here w
ho can stop them except Cadence.

  “I’m busy,” she yawns. “Besides, I have more important things to destroy.”

  Chapter 7: Broken

  Maryam waits until all her supplicants have cleared to walk Cadence back to the barrier. Come to think of it, it’s odd she doesn’t just cancel her meetings since running Refuge can hardly matter anymore.

  Cadence snickers. “Stupid. Of course it matters. People still have to eat and stuff. You’re so short-sighted. We see the bigger picture. Getting rid of the Mara is just one part of that.”

  “You do know she literally sacrifices people to them, right?”

  “I’ll take over, dear.” Maryam flutters her fingers. “Welcome back, my child. If only you hadn’t avoided this little chat in the first place. We could have saved so many lives together.”

  “Stop talking to her like I’m not here.” Cadence glowers.

  “I understand you have a connection to my boy,” Maryam continues talking over her, unconcerned. “So you will have some familiarity with what it takes to lead.”

  “Um, gross?” Cadence interrupts. “You should probably know that neither of us is Ravel’s biggest fan . . .” But she backs down under Maryam’s slow blink.

  “You’re young. You especially, dear. Your other self perhaps understands a little better. But you, you oversimplify, clinging to the myth of a simple world. Heroes and monsters who never change sides, never blur the boundaries. We all do silly things when we’re young . . .”

  The mayor trails off, her satisfied smile wobbling. “Well. I hardly remember anymore, you know. We become different people over time, and the girl I used to be—oh, she was a silly thing. She thought she was saving the world too. Sacrificed everything she had and ever loved to save it. But when you sacrifice yourself, who’s left to finish the job you started?”

  “Is she done yet?” I yawn noisily to cover the prick of her barbs.

  Cadence smirks.

  “Yes, you can’t help that arrogance any more than I could, can you, child? Is the other one complaining? Competing for your attention? Consider why she feels the need to stop me from explaining. And you, darling, you should listen. The woman you are becoming will surely have greater need of what I have to say than the child you were.”