by T. C. Edge
“I give you my word, Cornelia,” says Cromwell calmly. “I have more use for Romelia than I do Mr Shaw. While he deserves to be punished for what he did, I concede that Romelia deserves the opposite. She does not deserve to be there among your band of rebels.”
“Oh, I beg to differ, Artemis,” seethes Lady Orlando. “Agent Woolf deserves everything she’s going through. She has a twisted soul, a darkness inside her. We’ve discovered awful things in the depths of her mind.”
“Well, our paths have most certainly diverged, Cornelia. Of that there is no doubt. But consider this in a reasonable manner. You wish to see Mr Shaw safe, and I wish to regain my Agent. Whatever our views upon them, those are the bare facts. Now, will you agree to this exchange or not?”
I listen, barely able to breathe, as the two do battle. My frown descends lower and lower, a starkness filling my face. And the longer Lady Orlando takes to answer, the more my hope wanes.
And with her next word, my heart deflates.
“No,” she says. “Adryan knew the potential costs of his actions. He knew just where they might lead, and was willing to accept them. I’m afraid I have no trust in you, Artemis. I cannot agree to this deal.”
My voice can’t be contained. It storms up my throat and into the room, drawing Cromwell’s eye.
“No!” I call. “Please, Lady Orlando, you have to save him! You can’t let him die!”
Cromwell’s eyes flicker briefly at the sudden explosion of sound. Then his cool complexion returns, and he holds the communicator a little closer to me.
The room goes quiet once more. I hear tight breathing on the other end of the line. Adryan’s fate, hanging in the balance, sits upon Lady Orlando’s shoulders.
But she remains immovable.
“I’m sorry, Brie,” she says as softly as she can manage. I feel my lips curling immediately. “But nothing Artemis does can be trusted, and Adryan was well aware of the risks he faced. He has been a wonderful servant to this cause, but his part has now expired. I’m sorry…”
“And mine!” I growl, an anger coursing through me. “We’re both just expendable to you, aren’t we?! You don’t care about losing either of us. Don’t try to pretend that you do…”
“Brie, I…I do care…”
“NO YOU DON’T! You sent me here to die. And now you’re letting Adryan die too, after everything he’s done for you. Maybe that’s what you deserve…maybe…”
I bite my tongue and scrunch up my eyes. The tears of anger and pain try to assemble, but I don’t let them. I hold them back and let my heavy breathing fill the room.
And down the line, I hear another whisper: “I’m sorry.”
I hold my eyes closed for several long moments. And right before I open them, Cromwell’s impassive voice crackles back into the room.
“If that’s your final say, Cornelia, then so be it. Mr Shaw will suffer the full punishment in accordance with his crimes. But mark my words, he will not be the only one to share that fate. Soon, my men will get to your people…”
And before he can finish, the signal cuts off.
And opening my eyes, I see much memory flash across Cromwell’s face.
And with it comes an unmistakable anger.
117
My failure is now complete.
First the mission, and now my chance of saving Adryan. A final, desperate plea to get something out of this debacle has concluded with the same result.
And for that, I hate her.
Lady Orlando. Cornelia. Whoever the hell she really is. I hate her for what she’s done.
I’m left alone once more with nothing left to hope for.
My use, and Adryan’s, has been depleted and spent. Now, there’s nothing left to be done but punish us for our crimes.
But before that happens, I’ll spend my time in anger, and not grief. I’ll stew on Lady Orlando’s betrayal, and the callous manner in which she stuck that final nail in Adryan’s coffin.
She said she cared. She tried to make it sound like it wasn’t easy, that Adryan had signed up for all of this. And yeah, maybe he did. But so damned what! She has a chance to extricate him from this nightmare, and she won’t take it.
And, frankly, it’s grown obvious where this detachment stems from: she is a Savant.
I suppose it makes sense to me in some way. Even when I first met her, there was this coldness to her, something I perhaps mistook for the calm authority that a leader of such a cause needs to employ.
But clearly, there was more to it than that. Her natural inclination is to think logically, to make reasoned choices without falling into the trap of emotion. And so, to her, the logical choice was to leave Adryan here, to keep hold of Woolf, and to make sure that no trap could be sprung during the exchange.
Maybe, if I had the time, I could see that logic in a different light. Maybe I could consider her position - leading these rebels, battling this injustice - and imagine that her choice was the right one under such circumstances.
But I’m not thinking like that. Such thoughts are blurred and buried in my mind, covered and dominated by my own stark emotions. Emotions that call for this man I care for so deeply to be saved, for everything he’s done to be rewarded.
But no.
Instead, he’s to be punished for his bravery and endeavour, for living his life under the constant threat of discovery and death, for putting himself on the line for the sole purpose of saving others.
He should be honoured, and raised aloft, his name shouted among the people as a hero. That will never happen now. He will suffer the opposite: his name lost and forgotten, along with all those he tried to save.
I sit, locked in that chair, my mind tormented. Counting down the minutes and hours before the inevitable. Wondering just when it will come.
And wondering, too, just how Lady Orlando found herself at the head of the Nameless. Wondering what the hell happened in her life to lead her from here to there, from the High Tower and Inner Haven, to that ancient church in the outerlands.
I wonder about so many things, and begin to doubt it all.
Doubt her own ambitions and motivations, the agenda that she’s spread through the many who comprise her cause. Doubt her scheming and plotting, and what her real motives are.
Does she really want to save the people? How can she profess to such a thing if she won’t even save Adryan, the man who helped all of this happen?
Or is it just power that she desires? To see herself supplant Cromwell at the summit of this building, to rule on high and send down her own doctrines for the people to bow down to and follow.
Truly, I doubt it all. In my misery and sorrow and grief, I don’t know what to believe.
And in many ways, I just want it to be over.
I just want to die.
The day passes, the marching hours shown only by the movement of the sun. I turn from that too, turn from the window looking out on the city, and merely shut my eyes and close myself off from the world.
And sitting there in silence and darkness, I begin to mumble to myself.
“Just do it. Just do it already…”
My words grow louder, and before I know it I’m shouting them out at the top of my lungs.
“DO IT. DO IT ALREADY. JUST KILL ME!”
I shout so loud, still hidden behind my eyelids, that I don’t hear the door opening and shutting. I only know that someone’s entered when I feel a hand cover my mouth, blocking off my voice.
My eyes click open like a ventriloquist dummy and I see a calm face before me.
“Quiet now, Brie. You don’t want to strain your voice.”
The middle-aged face of Commander Burns greets me, his blue eyes steady and composed. My muffled screams end abruptly as he withdraws his palm, saying: “Now promise you’ll stop screaming,” as he does so.
I grind my lips together, my promise kept. But I can’t help from speaking my mind.
“What do you want,” I growl through heavy breaths. “You heard what I
was saying. Just be done with this. End it…”
My eyes, bereft of tears, are still bloodshot and stark. My cheeks are equally blushed, my relentless screams giving my entire complexion a glowing red tint.
Burns looks at me with a margin of pity.
“You’re not to die yet,” he whispers quietly.
“Then when?” I breathe. “I can’t stand this torture…”
“And you won’t have to for long, Brie,” he assures me. “But you won’t die either.”
My eyes widen and a silence pervades the room. I stare into his blue irises and wish I could dip into his thoughts.
“Then what?” I ask, afraid to hear the answer.
“The Director has other plans for you,” he says quietly. “Powers such as yours are too rare to go to waste…”
My insides clench, and a fresh fear assaults me.
“He’s going to recondition me,” I say. “He’s going to make me a slave…”
Commander Burns doesn’t counter the claim. He just looks at me and begins to nod, ever so slightly, to confirm what I was too afraid to believe, too afraid to give voice to.
If I’m reconditioned, all memories of my past will be removed. I will cease to be me, but will merely become a vessel, a weapon, nothing but another servant to join the Director’s ranks.
A Stalker. A hybrid hunter, sent out with the rest of them to hunt my brethren.
I might find myself in front of Drum, or Sophie, with no inclination to spare them. I might even come face-to-face with my own twin brother, my mission to do nothing but kill him. To strike him down as he hesitates, unable to do the same to his sister.
He’ll look at me as I am now, as his twin. But I’ll look upon him as nothing but my enemy, my memories of him erased, my love for him banished.
I can see it all now, see how Cromwell’s mind is working.
Maybe that is his exact plan. To recondition me and then set me free, turn the tables on the Nameless and use me as a spy. Send me onto the inside to murder my brother, murder Lady Orlando, destroy them all as they sleep.
I can’t bear the thought of it.
“No…” I whisper. “I can’t…”
I begin to mumble incoherently, my eyes blinking wildly, my head shaking from side to side. My breathing becomes so fast I think I might hyperventilate, a panic attack settling itself loose on my lungs.
I don’t try to breathe through it, or stop it. I hope, I pray, that it somehow grows so furious that I have a heart attack, or go into shock, or fall into a coma that I’ll never awake from.
I’d rather die than be subjected to what Cromwell has in store. I’d sooner die a hundred terrible deaths than end up his slave.
And in my panic, I feel Commander Burns moving towards me. I see through my blurring eyes his fingers work to release my wrists from their shackles, to allow my hands to be set free.
Immediately, they clatter towards my mouth, covering my face, as his digits come down on my shoulders.
“Breathe, Brie, just breathe,” he says smoothly. “One breath at a time, nice and deep. Come on, breathe along with me.”
He begins taking deep breaths, and despite my desire to die, my natural survival instincts take over, and I start to follow his motion. Breath by breath, I feel my body beginning to calm, the shaking in my limbs starting to lessen.
And then, from behind my hands and through my fingers, I open my eyes and see Burns right before me, still calmly coaxing me back to health.
“Good, that’s it,” he says, raising his best version of a comforting smile. “It’s OK, Brie, you’ll be fine…”
Gradually, the ferocity of my breathing subsides, leaving a residue of pain and desperation behind. And as my eyes begin to water, and the tears I promised myself I wouldn’t shed start to collect, I throw my arms forward and around Burns’ body.
Needing some comfort, some contact, someone to make things OK. And despite it all, he’s all I have here, the only person with a shred of emotion, a shred of humanity.
And holding him tight, I feel his form turn suddenly rigid. And then, slowly, it relaxes just a little, and his arms come forward and start to tap my back.
“You can’t,” I pant through my broken breaths. “You can’t let this happen. You…you have to help me,” I cry.
His hands withdraw from my back, his fingers sliding away. And mine do the same as he leans away from me, cutting off that contact I so crave.
My body hangs low, my chin descending to my neck. Then a single finger touches it, pressing slowly to lift my eyes. And there, ahead of me, I see his, blue and yet warm, more welcoming than I’ve ever seen them.
And with the lightest of whispers, his lips part and two words fall out. Words I don’t understand.
“I will,” he says.
118
Burns’ words halt my breathing. The air is lost from my lungs for what seems like an age. And then, they begin to fill again, my body suddenly calm.
The Commander of the City Guard remains ahead of me, bent down onto one knee, his eyes turning to nowhere but mine. I watch them, and then see the movement of his lips once more.
“We have to talk very quietly, Brie,” he whispers. “The Stalker on duty is part Bat. He will hear any raised voices. Do you understand?”
I nod silently, still trying to catch up.
And then, I begin to mumble my confusion.
“I…don’t understand. What’s…what’s going on?”
His index finger darts straight for my lips, hushing me.
“Keep your voice down,” he whispers. “You have to be sensible now, you have to stay strong. You’ve come a long way, Brie, and your journey isn’t quite over yet.”
His finger retracts. I continue to stare at him, open-eyed.
A new silence falls as he tests me, making sure I won’t turn back to my hysterics. I won’t. I’m done. Now I can think of nothing but who he really is…
And in my head, as I question that very thing, I see him looking upon me and reading my thoughts. A small, narrow smile occupies his face, and without moving his lips, I hear him answer, his words projected into my mind.
I’m a friend, Brie, he says. And I’m going to help you escape…
Despite having had people in my head, and entering others myself, hearing his voice inside me makes me recoil.
I recoil because of the suddenness of it all. I recoil because of the words he uses, the promise he makes. And I recoil because, somewhere in the depths, I recognise that voice in my head. I’ve heard it before.
“It was you,” I whisper. “It was you guiding me. It was your voice in my head…”
He nods, arching his eyes quickly to the door. Then they come back to me.
“I didn’t know if you’d heard me,” he says. “I tried many times. The connection was weak.”
“Connection,” I say. “But how…how do we have a connection? I only have one with my brother.”
“Because I’ve been in your head before, Brie, back after the attack at Culture Corner. I know more than others do. I formed a link to you then. It was weak, but I hoped that you’d hear something, get some aid along your path.”
“Rebecca,” I whisper. “You told me about her. To use her to find Cromwell’s schedule…”
He nods.
“And you…you’re with the…with the…”
The Nameless, comes his voice in my head again, echoing loudly from the darkness.
And then his words come again for real, barely a whisper, so quiet now that no one, not even the most powerful of Bats, could hear.
“I am,” he says. “It was always me, Brie, who was to take Artemis’ place in the Director’s chair. I was intended to be his replacement.”
The revelation dawns, and my lips move, but no words come. A hundred questions lie on the top of my tongue, all fighting to be delivered. They battle so hard that all I can do is shake my head and mumble once more, trying to work back through it all in my mind.
It wa
s always him.
Cromwell needed to be killed for him to take his place. A member of the Nameless, someone sympathetic to the plight of the people. Someone, perhaps, who can understand emotion like Cromwell can’t.
And he can. All Mind-Manipulators can. Some, like Woolf, will see it as weakness. But most see the good in people, the need for joy and love and happiness. See that we all have our part to play in this world, and that it’s not the sole dominion of the higher race of Savants.
And as I stare into his eyes, I begin to understand that the plot against Cromwell involved more than just his death. That the assassination of Commander Fenby was as necessary as Zander made out.
The Director can only be chosen from within the Consortium’s ranks. Burns needed to become a member before Cromwell’s death…
As my thoughts rush along, the new Commander of the City Guard watches me closely, inspecting me as the truth dawns.
I look into his eyes again and see that he knows everything I’m thinking. And then he whispers once more.
“Yes, that’s right, Brie,” he says. “But now, things have changed. And we need to get you out…”
“But…why you? Why would you become the new Director?”
My voice is a little too loud, enough to have him turning to the door once more. The slight glare to his eyes has me sinking a little deeper into my chair.
He answers inside my mind.
I’ve been working on this for years, Brie, comes his voice, louder and clearer in the safety of my head. My powers have allowed me to gently influence the Consortium over the years, to put the pieces in place for when Commander Fenby, and then Director Cromwell, were killed. Were it not for Agent Woolf’s interference, I’d be confirmed as Director in a matter of days.
My chin drops and eyes close at his final mental remark. My failure has cost us dear. My inability to see what Woolf was up to has doomed us all.
Again, my chin is lifted by his finger.
“Don’t blame yourself,” he says softly. “You did everything you could. No one saw this coming.”
His words help soothe me a little. But my mind continues to work at a furious pace, drawing a new question to my lips.
