Burn the Skies

by K. A. Wiggins

  So I do.

  Chapter 18: Terror

  The pain is a living thing; it ferrets out every corner and stabs deep with red-hot pokers.

  I can’t escape. Frozen in mindless agony, nearly beyond thought, melting into—

  Fluffy rumbles.

  I gasp. Saltwater floods in. I choke and flail, bubbles of precious air escaping until they run out—and, lungs burning, tongue coated with brine, I remember I don’t need to breathe.

  But I do have a mouth. A face. A whole body, even, as solid and warm and living as the dreamscape’s altered reality can make it. Fluffy nudges my cheek, threading worried tendrils into my hair. Cool water surrounds me, pushing away the overwhelming memory of that fiery pain.

  “You brought me here?”

  It snuggles into the curve of my shoulder, all but purring.

  “So I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume the Mara aren’t getting out just yet, either.” I try for flippant and barely muster ‘shakily jaunty,’ but since there’s no one to hear but Fluffy and the forest that inexplicably surrounds me, despite the fathoms-deep saltwater, I guess it doesn't really matter.

  The tree creature steps out of the nearest trunk and holds out a forelimb to Fluffy. Fluffy rumbles a warning and nestles in closer. The creature emits a rumbling of its own. Fluffy squirms—rather ticklish, given its current position—and reluctantly extends a tendril toward its . . . parent? Main body?

  The creature vanishes Fluffy into the depths of its rustling coverings and subsides into a tree. I throw myself after it, flailing through the water.

  “Where are you going? Give it back!”

  I dig my nails into bark seconds too slow to snatch the trailing edge of the tree-creature’s garb and bring down my fist in frustration. But before I can make contact, the tree is gone, along with the whole forest. I’m floating in cool water, nothing but indistinct specks eddying in the dimness as far as I can see.

  There’s a long slow moment where nothing happens. Nothing at all. Time just . . . goes. And then I blink and lift my head, and the water rushes away to be replaced by a rolling meadow ringed by snow-capped peaks that screen the haunted horizon from view. And at their feet, the sleeping forest.

  When I step into the shadow of the trees, there is awareness, but it is not awake. Not at first. Then it shakes off its drowsiness and gathers itself to meet me. My heartbeat is loud in my ears, the blood rushing, heat rising to the surface. Not fear, not exactly, nor shame, but a sort of breathless blend of anxiety and regret and growing frustration. Moments later, the familiar treelike creature emerges from the nearest trunk and pauses, catching my gaze and reaching back to pat the bark reprovingly.

  Though I feel suddenly lighter than I have since before Ash’s ship went down, I am not in the mood to apologize. “You try getting jerked around by everyone and everything at their convenience. See if you feel like being gentle and patient.”

  It backs against the tree, disappearing into it inch by inch.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll stop battering the trees if you stop forcing me into stuff.”

  It pauses, half submerged in the trunk.

  I sigh. “I know. You pulled me out when I got stuck in the barrier, didn’t you? Thanks. And sorry. I’m just . . . tired of screwing everything up.”

  The creature slips serenely out of its tree and holds Fluffy out to me.

  “I can take it?” I reach—

  The creature draws back. Fluffy squirms.

  “. . . Or not? Why did you give it to me in the first place? And is it, like, offspring, or . . . ?”

  Fluffy and the creature—the whole forest, for that matter—give off a sigh. I flush again, embarrassment narrowly outweighing frustration this time. Then Fluffy is in my arms, and the forest is at my back, and a wall of ghosts is all that stands between me and the void.

  Cass’s shade stares at me, his mouth working wordlessly, the dark hollows of his eyes lighting with flame one moment, almost human the next. The child-form of Suzannah Bell writhes at his side, flickering to the broken, aged corpse I first knew her as and back again. Behind her—no. I don’t want to see the others. I can’t.

  The forest insisted I rest. It saved me, though I still have no idea why it bothered—or how it was able to pluck me from the treeless wasteland of my city. But I have work still to do there. So I close my arms around Fluffy. Then I shoulder my way through the ranks of ghosts to the waking world.

  The sky is still splintered, milky and churning. It hasn’t fallen yet. And it will have to fall for the monsters to break free. After what that barrier just did to me, damaged as it is, I’m pretty sure the Mara can’t escape yet either.

  So I fight back the only way I know how: through the living. First Haynfyv, and then Liwan, and then a half-dozen others. I race from one dreamscape to the next and back, pushing myself and each one of my potential soldiers as hard as I can to make it in time. , Despite Refuge’s mission to train the impulse out of us, everyone dreams. The moment they fall asleep, I’m there.

  So many have unformed inner landscapes, their focus flitting from one half-developed scene to the next, unable to carry on a conversation long enough to be of much use. The bright ones are easiest to connect with, easiest to persuade. In the waking world, at least to my perception, they stand out just slightly. But their inner worlds are crisp and deep, their awareness and interest in my intrusion keen. The boy I know as Liwan is one of the brightest.

  Kelvin Lee dreams in the past tense. The ghosts of his family inhabit that same smog-choked corner of a crumbling tower I remember from the first time I walked in his waking nightmares. 12-Lee-01 was a trainee who would never make it to worker much less floor supervisor or superior. One of Refuge’s many victims stolen from the streets and destined for a life of mindless servitude—or, more likely, an early death by Mara. He hadn’t taken very well to brainwashing.

  “You’re the one who saved us,” he says, as the memory of his mother sweeps up a black-haired infant. His father ushers her and the smaller boy out of the dim but well-kept room. “Well, not them.”

  “I won’t hurt them.” I can’t, even if I wanted to. They’re only memories.

  He shrugs. “Habit. I find it comforting for them to stay in character. It’s less creepy than having them freeze or fade out or whatever when I stop paying attention.”

  He knows they’re not real, then. “How much do you understand?”

  “Not enough.” His jaw is set, his eyes bright. He comes closer. “You came back.”

  It’s not a question. I shake my head. “I just needed to see something. I’ll go now.”

  He steps in fast, wrapping his hand around my forearm. He’s at least a few years younger, a good head shorter, and probably still suffering from the aftermath of the brutal injuries inflicted by the Mara before Ash tore him from their clutches. All the same, the fierceness of his stare and the sharpness of his grip freeze me in place.

  “What do you need?” he says. “What can I do? Tell me.”

  I swallow. If he were even just a few years older . . . but he’s not. He is a child, still, for all that he suffered. For all his will to fight. “Stay low. The deeper, the better. Keep an eye out for Refuge Force—they’re hunting further every day.”

  He eases back, eyes narrowing under dark brows. “There’s more, isn’t there? You wouldn’t have come back just to tell us to hide.”

  Each day a troublemaker like him continues to draw breath is a miracle, not that he wants to hear it. I’m still a little in awe of his mutinous resistance to Refuge’s mind-numbing training regime, though it had drawn the very nearly deadly attention of the Mara. Though Ash had snatched him from their jaws, this boy’s defiance must have drawn the authorities’ attention because I remember him there with the other prisoners when Ravel and I had broken them free. “Why didn’t you leave when you had the chance?”

  “I stayed to fight,” he says without inflection, but behind him, the echo of his mother peers around a half-
closed door, his younger brother tucked close to her side. She shakes her head sadly.

  Liwan follows my gaze. He swats the door shut. “Made it as far as the tunnel’s end with the others. That guy with the crazy glowy eyes was taking people across, right? But I didn’t want to leave. Not yet. Not if . . .” He rubs his hands on his thighs, fingers clenching. Looks up. “The other two might still be here, you know? What if they’re—” he gestures at the ceiling.

  My heart stutters. I’d skimmed past those eerily silent halls at the top of the tower in my search for soldiers. I’d tried to forget those still, small bodies in their rows of cots, the machines wiping away their pasts while moving their skin and bones forward, bringing them to readiness for the trainers. We weren’t supposed to remember the lost families. The stolen siblings. But it seems Liwan has never forgotten his.

  “You can’t save them,” I say. “They might not even be there. You should have left when you had the chance.”

  Cracks splinter underfoot, climbing the walls and spiderwebbing across the ceiling. Fine dust sifts down in a gritty rainfall. But all Liwan says, through gritted teeth, is, “You didn’t.”

  He’s so obviously desperate for a mission, for any way to fight back. Scrabbling to survive for another week instead of striking back at Refuge and the Mara isn’t enough. I don’t blame him. He’s too young to be a soldier in this war—though, give him a few years and he could have been an excellent one—but now he knows I’m here, knows there’s a bigger battle raging, I don’t think I’ll be able to hold him back. Better to try to channel his efforts than have him running around on his own making things more complicated.

  Besides, I can’t afford to waste days and nights searching for the perfect allies. There’s too much at stake. We have to act now if we want to save Ange.

  When I track down Haynfyv to set it up, he insists we need to focus on the bigger picture. Saving one human shouldn’t be a priority when there is so much more at stake. But her connection to his brother, to his—and her—niece, is enough to convince him to help with the plan.

  He brings the expertise needed to orchestrate a jailbreak. Liwan supplies the muscle, promising to marshal a willing squad for the adventure. I dart back and forth, clarifying plans and carrying messages and repeating, repeating, repeating instructions in the hopes that at least some of all this effort outlasts the waking of my forces. Though I brave the sting of the gold-lined cell to enter Ange’s dreams and bring her up to speed, I can’t get her fever-ridden mind to focus.

  Finally, I’ve done all I can.

  Ange shivers, lids fluttering over glassy eyes. I tell her to hold on. She doesn’t respond.

  Higher in the tower, Haynfyv stretches, putters around his room, and wanders off with no discernable sign of purpose or urgency. It’s not ideal but, by this point, it is expected. He already played his part, helping refine the plan and hammer out the workings of Refuge Force and their high-security prison area. If we’re really lucky, maybe the faint echoes of his dreams will nudge him in a useful direction during today’s meandering. Either way, it’s up to the Underfolk now.

  Liwan bounces out of bed and enlists more helpers than he can manage in “his” scheme to break into Refuge and free the prisoners. It doesn’t take him long at all—he seems to have Ravel’s effortless ability to draw people to him. It’s amazing to watch. And also terrifying.

  I really hope I’m not about to get a bunch of kids captured—not to mention killed.

  Chapter 19: Jailbreak

  The first sign that something is wrong is more felt than seen.

  It’s as if a background hum cuts out, just for an instant. I never would have noticed it but for the shock of its absence. Now I’m aware, it's the work of a moment to trace the sensation back to its source: the damaged barrier is churning with incredible agitation.

  Am I out of time? Is this it? Maryam wins?

  But when I race to check the patch Cadence had been chipping away at most recently, there is no new damage and no one to be seen. I hate to leave Liwan unattended—not that I can do anything but bear silent witness to his mission—but I need to know where Cadence is. What she’s done.

  I let the anchor of her body reel me back, but she’s up to nothing more troublesome than yawning through an unremarkable meeting in the mayor’s audience chamber, far from the barrier’s surface.

  The arcane shiver comes a second time.

  Neither Cadence nor Maryam reacts. They don’t seem to even be aware of the disruption to the barrier’s energy, never mind have caused it.

  Is this some kind of delayed reaction to their work? Or is someone or something else manipulating the undead dome?

  Fluffy nudges me. It’s right—there’s nothing I can do right now either way . . .

  And then it registers: this boring meeting, like every other boring meeting. Maryam’s daily chore of receiving reports and petitions and issuing new orders. Cadence’s insolently pointed lack of interest. Totally unremarkable—except that this report is about a sick prisoner. Some inspector is reportedly agitating for her to receive treatment. An inspector who has no business visiting the prisoner and indeed has been flagged for ignoring a summons to report to the mayor’s chambers. Would Her Worship like him brought up immediately or simply detained until further notice?

  It’s Haynfyv. He must have remembered just enough of what we discussed in the dreamscape to send him poking around Ange’s cell again. Now the eyes of Refuge are going to be on her—just in time for Liwan to trot into the middle of a trap.

  I drop through the floor faster than thought. Maybe I can catch them before they leave. Maybe—maybe there’s still someone asleep in that hidden corner of Under, someone I can try to pass a message through. Send a warning, even if it’s just a vague sense of unease by the time the messenger wakes. Something, anything to stop them—

  But Liwan is already out the door with a half dozen of his young friends, sneaking through the underground maze toward the stairwell. They seem to have worked out a complex system of hand signals since I last checked in. Although, based on all the whispering and elbowing, it’s not clear if anyone actually remembers what all the signals are for. Liwan pauses to give a muted scolding on the importance of stealth. One of the older boys challenges him, setting off a brief scuffle and a new round of hushed negotiations.

  What was I thinking? These kids aren’t trained for this. If they were a trainee squad from Nine Peaks, maybe they could pull this operation off. I can definitely envision Steph orchestrating a successful rescue mission. Ash could have, too, of course. Or whoever it was in charge of Spectre squad. But this rag-tag little crew can’t even hold it together long enough to make it into enemy territory, much less infiltrate a top-security zone and pull off a jailbreak.

  Thank goodness Liwan isn’t stupid. Any minute now, he’s going to call it off.

  Only, through some combination of dumb luck and Liwan’s whispered threats, that doesn’t happen. His pack wanders wide-eyed through the wreckage of what were once Freedom’s halls, giggling about rumours of what was supposed to have gone on behind the heavy wall hangings. A couple of the older ones exchange glances and blush, evidently well aware.

  They edge up to the door at the base of the stairs, pale and jittery under their dark hoods. Liwan motions them back, reaching out to tap the handle as if it might burn him. When it doesn’t, he swallows a sigh of relief, eases the door open and waves the others through.

  They climb, single file, pressed against the wall as if hoping to blend into the shadows should a door unexpectedly open. But no one does, and they advance one floor, two, nearing three—

  And the barrier shivers.

  I gasp. Liwan freezes. He whips around, raising a finger to his lips.

  “What?” one of the youngest whispers. “We were being quiet.”

  Liwan hisses and brandishes the finger. The kid glowers, his neighbours twisting to give him reproving looks. A girl who looks about the same age nudges him c
rossly.

  Liwan shakes his head and turns to continue his climb as if there’s any way this gang of amateurs should be allowed to keep going.

  But his reaction—that was just a coincidence, right?

  “Did you feel it?” I murmur.

  “Who said that?” Liwan stalks back down, glaring. “What about ‘shut it or we’ll get busted’ isn’t getting through to you?”

  Blank stares. Shuffling. Craned necks, as each one eyes his or her neighbour suspiciously for the source of their leader’s anger.

  “We’re not going another step until I get an answer.” Liwan eyes each of his underage soldiers in turn. “I mean it. Talk. No, don’t talk. Just put up your hand. Or I’ll call this whole thing off.”

  “Perfect.” I squeeze Fluffy in delight. “Do that.”

  Liwan glances behind him. There is nothing but the opposite wall of the stairwell. “. . . Cole?”

  Wait, can he—? “You can hear me right now?”

  He scrunches his face, straining. “Well, yeah. Barely. But yeah. Thought you said you could only talk to me when I was asleep?”

  This opens up a whole world of new possibilities—ones that I can explore just as soon as I save these young idiots. “Apparently not. Listen carefully. I need you to turn around and go back down these stairs. Fast. But quiet. Stop at the bottom. I’ll make sure the coast is clear.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s not safe right now.”

  He scowls, twisting to stare up at the dim glow of the nearest landing. “But if you can look ahead and tell us when it’s clear to move, why can’t we—”

  “Just get these kids back to safety.”

  “But what if—”

  “No. They’re not ready for this. Take them back. Now.”

  Liwan’s expression turns mutinous. “We made it this far. I don’t see any reason to turn back.” He gestures to his worried-looking wannabe army and starts back up the stairwell. They don’t move to follow.