Burn Bright

by Marianne de Pierres

  Away from the pungent musky scent of the church, the dark smelt dangerous and charged with energy, as if lightning had just struck the spot where she stood.

  But there were no storms on Ixion, just the constant, prickling heat.

  Naif heard scrabbling again, a few feet ahead. And to the left. Then behind. Something circled her, or more than one thing. Dread twisted in her stomach. Modai had warned her. Test had warned her. Don’t stray from the path.

  She wanted to run but didn’t know which direction to go.

  A snuffle and then a soft squealing; a long tail lashed out from the bushes. It tore through the delicate material of her dress and little barbs hooked into her ankle.

  She collapsed and the tail began to drag her, the barbs sawing into her ankle bone. She couldn’t fight it, couldn’t think above the depth and height of her pain.

  She moaned and writhed in its grasp but the pain only intensified. Spines scraped her face, wrapping around her arms as it dragged her deeper into bushes.

  Then, as suddenly as it had attacked, the creature let go of her ankle. The release from pain brought an ecstasy of relief, but the elation vanished as it threw its entire weight upon her legs and began sucking at her bleeding ankle.

  She tried to move but it shifted in counterbalance, sniffing and nibbling, working its way up her body until it sat on her chest. It touched her hair, playing with the strands and tugging them.

  See you. Follow you. Want you.

  Naif forced her eyes open to confront it; a smooth-skinned creature from what she could see, with a small, almost human-shaped torso. But ungainly, clawed limbs sprouted from its lower body, and tentacles curled out of its shoulders. Or were they unformed wings?

  And its face … so appalling. So utterly bestial.

  Pity eroded some of her fear. Instinctively she reached out and touched its face.

  The creature grew still, startled by her action.

  She traced the contour of its ridged forehead with a trembling finger. It felt slick, coated in a layer of mucous, and the flesh underneath sprang back like bed foam.

  The creature tilted its head forward, making it easier for her to reach.

  Naif scratched gently along the ridge and it made little grunts of pleasure.

  They stayed together, in that position, until her arm began to ache and the weight on her chest became impossible to bear. ‘I must … sit up,’ she whispered.

  The creature cocked its head as if thinking. Then it shifted its body, easing the pressure on her lungs.

  She lay, gasping in air, for a few moments. But as she tried to sit up, its body became rigid. In one quick movement it leapt to its claws, gripping her flesh for balance. The sudden weight crushed the breath from her lungs again and her head began to spin.

  She tried to roll and catch her breath, but it was too agile, and merely adjusted its stance. She grappled for its ankles to push it away but her hands slipped on her own blood.

  ‘Naif!’

  She heard her name like a roar in her head; a piercing cry of anguish. And then the beast was gone, knocked from her by an attack from another powerful being.

  ‘No!’ Naif struggled to sit up as the two forces battled close to her. ‘Lenoir! Stop!’

  The creature screeched – at first in anger, and then in pain. Their bodies thumped and tumbled and Naif ’s mind filled with the terrible crack of breaking bones.

  The path began to glow again. She could see it just a body length away. She’d been close to it all along, only a few steps.

  Gritting her teeth she crawled towards it, ignoring the prickle of spine bushes and sharp twigs, until she felt the smooth packed gravel underneath her body. Her fingers clutched the hard pebbles and tears of relief spilled down her face. She crawled along it towards the edge of a rock face. Around the edifice would be Agios. If she called out, if she –

  But as she reached the rock, Lenoir appeared before her, his silken hair hanging in strings, wet with blood, and his cloak torn away.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ He loomed over her.

  She tried to sit up. ‘I didn’t think … it would … harm me. It wanted to be … petted.’ Her tongue had trouble forming the words, too dry to moisten them properly.

  Lenoir dropped to his knees and pulled her into his arms. ‘It would have killed you, Naif.’

  Naif swallowed and tried licking her lips. ‘Wh-why do you say that?’

  He stared out into the darkness. ‘Leyste has been following you since the moment you left the Register.’

  ‘Leyste? You’ve said that name before. Who is Leyste?’

  ‘Leyste is a Night Creature who likes to linger around the new ones. This is the first time, though, he has stalked one.’

  Stalked. ‘Yes. He spoke to me outside the Register. And other times. But I was the only one who could hear him.’

  ‘The Night Creatures have our ability to place sound. It is not usual that they use words, though.’

  Naif thought about how Lenoir’s voice seemed so close to her when he was speaking to a crowd. ‘H-how m-many c-creatures are out th-there?’

  Lenoir lifted her as if her weight counted for nothing and began to carry her back along the path. ‘There are many and their form varies.’

  He didn’t look at her or speak again after that.

  As they climbed closer to Agios, Naif’s adrenaline faded and pain replaced it. Her ankle began to throb and the cuts and scrapes on her skin stung. She clamped her lips together so as not to moan.

  The music grew louder – not Markes playing, but a fast, discordant sound – and Lenoir’s arms involuntarily tightened around her. ‘What were you doing out here, Naif?’

  She tried to think before she answered. Despite her anger at Joel, she would never betray her brother to anyone. But Lenoir was clever and she was not practised at lies.

  ‘I came outside to talk to Markes – the musician. We … argued and I walked away. I lost sight of Agios when I passed the rocks. Then the path faded.’

  ‘Leyste,’ he said the name grimly, almost as though he was angry with himself. ‘He found a way to tamper with the light relays. I had not thought him clever enough. Nor any of them. Not unless …’

  Naif lifted her head from his chest. They’d reached the side door that she and Markes had used, but Lenoir walked straight past it, along the high stone wall, towards the rear of the church.

  ‘Neither of us can go inside Agios looking like this. I’ll take you to Vank. Charlonge will clean your wounds.’

  ‘You think that Graselle has probably seen enough of me?’ Naif gave a soft, humourless laugh.

  ‘It is not safe in the Dominion while the vote –’ He cut off his sentence as they turned around the corner of the church.

  A dull, metallic, octagonal compartment half the size of a cable kar and lit by its own spotlights sat alone on a flat piece of ground. Test leaned against it, frowning. When she saw Lenoir she straightened and opened a door in the side of the compartment.

  She stood back then, arms folded, legs astride, her whole stance disapproving.

  Lenoir didn’t acknowledge Test at all. Instead he lifted Naif inside onto a softly upholstered seat and climbed in after her.

  A rush of memories hit her: the brass trimmings of the interior, the deep scent of the leather seats. It could have been one of the Grave Elders’ horse-drawn carriages. She’d travelled in them with Father to probation hearings, his anger like a priest’s grille between them, her shirt damp still from her mother’s tears.

  A sudden jerking movement forced her to grasp hold of the seat.

  ‘The carriage is merely unfolding its legs. In a moment you’ll feel nothing,’ said Lenoir.

  Naif held on until the rocking sensation stopped.

  After a couple of reassuring glances out of the window, she settled against the seat and let her eyes close. She drifted to a place where neither thought nor action dwelt; an in-between place of nothing – away from the pain.

  ‘N
aif!’ Lenoir roused her from petite nuit with a rough hand. ‘Take this now or the pain will harm you.’ He pressed a pod into her hand.

  Remembering what Graselle had said to her about healing, she didn’t argue. She chewed it carefully and waited for the effects.

  It wasn’t long before heaviness crept into her limbs, dulling everything including her reticence. Her head felt woozy but in a more pleasant way.

  She glanced over at Lenoir. He stared moodily out of the window, his lips pursed. His beautiful hair matted by dark blood.

  She wanted to ask him about Leyste but other words came out of her mouth. ‘Why was the party for me? You said that before when we were in the gallery,’ she asked.

  Lenoir didn’t look at her. ‘If the vote goes against me things will change. I will not be able to do the things I choose. I wanted you to see how beautiful parties can be, how elegant.’

  Naif gave a spontaneous smile. ‘That got messed up, didn’t it?’

  He shrugged dismissively. ‘We are here.’

  Naif sat up straighter, wondering if the pod had distorted her senses. ‘We’ve only been moving for a few minutes.’

  He turned to her now, his face almost unsightly, streaked with blood and wearing an oddly vulnerable expression. It frightened her to see him that way.

  He reached a hand to her face and the fingers that had burned her skin in Agios felt warm and soothing. He kneaded her cheek between his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘I thought that Leyste had already killed you, baby bat.’

  ‘I s-still don’t think he’d have hurt –’

  He pinched her skin and let go. ‘Yes. He would.’

  There was something so convincing in his tone that she let the argument go.

  He leaned towards her until his mouth found the graze above her lips. Then he licked it gently, as he had done once before, like a catling with its baby.

  Naif’s body dissolved, all sensations nullified, other than the pressure of his tongue and the tingling wetness of it. Obeying a welling of instinct, she shifted under his touch until her lips aligned with his. She pressed up hard against him. Her lips opened artlessly and her tongue found its way to his. He tasted salty with the tang of her blood, but that flavour ebbed and another took its place. She craved the moisture, thirsty for more of his special taste.

  His fingers clamped around her upper arms, lifting her from the seat onto his lap. With every gentle pull she made on his tongue, he clung tighter to her, as if he would compress her into a tiny portion of herself.

  Sensation, numbed by the pod, returned to her body with such crashing intensity that it left every nerve raw. She wanted to scream with elation and with pain.

  Lenoir’s teeth closed on her tongue and raked the sides of it, causing her to arch in his grasp.

  A growl ripped from his chest. He pushed her away and she glimpsed his face, so contorted that she barely recognised him. His cheeks seemed to have grown fuller, concealing his bone structure, and his brow heavier. His lips curled back, revealing the glistening of his gums.

  ‘Lenoir,’ she gasped.

  He flung her back onto her seat and fled from the carriage.

  She didn’t try to follow him. It seemed as much as she could do to lie across the seat and gather her fragmented mind. What had she just seen? Had his face really distorted? Had the creature Leyste been as dangerous as Lenoir insisted? Why wouldn’t Joel listen to her? Her thoughts chased each other in circles.

  ‘Retra?’ Charlonge peered anxiously through the door. ‘What are you doing in Lenoir’s carriage? What’s happened? He came storming into the church and told me to come and tend to you. I’ve never seen him … upset.’

  Naif struggled to concentrate on the rush of questions – she had so many of her own, and her ankle throbbed in time to the beat of blood at her temples.

  ‘It’s Naif,’ she whispered. ‘And I think my leg is hurt.’

  ‘Naif? Isn’t that the name I picked out for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Charlonge nodded approvingly then stared down at her torn clothes. Her eyes widened. ‘You mean legs, arms, stomach … Let’s get you inside. You can tell me what happened later. Has Lenoir given you anything for the pain?’

  ‘Pod,’ croaked Naif.

  ‘A whole one?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, that explains why you’re so dreamy.’

  No, thought Naif. Not just that.

  Charlonge helped her into Vank. The carriage had stopped adjacent to the lower platform, making it only a few steps to the door and away from the clutching dark.

  Naif thought she saw the carriage jerk upward on long spidery legs and disappear. But she couldn’t be sure, because everything had become strangely blurred.

  Even Charlonge …

  When petite nuit dropped away and her mind cleared again, she found herself in Charlonge’s bed again, covered in red silk sheets. Charlonge sat at her black escritoire reading a large book. Naif knew it to be old from the crackle of the stiff pages and the musty smell that rose from it every time a page turned.

  ‘Where do the books come from?’ She asked it softly so as not to startle the older girl.

  Charlonge put the book down. She seemed relieved to hear Naif speaking normally. ‘Each church has a library.’

  ‘What are you reading?’ Naif felt a sudden yearning to touch it. The library in Seal South had been her place of solace, and frustration. But she’d only been allowed to read about religiosity and etiquette and comportment.

  ‘Ixion history,’ said Charlonge in an offhand way. ‘Newbies always want to know things and sometimes I can’t answer them.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Mainly about Ixion itself and how the Ripers came here. But sometimes they ask about the Tri-suns and cosmology.’

  ‘Cosmology?’ Naif had never heard the word before.

  Charlonge sighed. ‘I suppose you’ve never even heard of the Tri-suns?’

  Naif shook her head.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Naif. These things have been kept from you on Grave. But you should know, at least, that we live on a world that spins around a cooling star.’

  ‘Abraxas. Yes. Joel told me.’

  ‘Did you know it also has two companions?’

  ‘There are three stars?’

  ‘Imagine three friends arguing and sending one into exile. That’s our suns.’ Charlonge closed the book. ‘And before you ask me any more questions let me see your wounds.’

  Naif sat up against the pillows and pulled the silk shift up to her thighs to inspect her legs. Other than the circle of heavy bruising around her ankle, all of the scratches had almost healed. Her arms were the same. She slid the shift down quickly, not knowing what to say.

  ‘I’ve heard that Lenoir is a healer,’ said Charlonge. ‘But how is that possible? On your face as well.’

  Shame and a little excitement burned inside her. As before, Lenoir’s tongue had healed her. ‘I’m not sure … but one of the Night Creatures attacked me when I wandered from the path near Agios. Lenoir found me and fought it. Killed it.’ She forced herself to say the words – to make it real. ‘Then he brought me here. That’s all I really remember.’

  ‘That’s all!’ Charlonge picked up a cup and walked the length of the narrow room. ‘Take this.’

  Gratefully, Naif sipped the proffered grape juice.

  Charlonge waited until she had finished. ‘What were you doing out there?’

  ‘I-I went with Markes, so we could speak privately.’

  ‘The musician?’

  Naif nodded and drew her legs up to her chin. ‘We talked for a while and then he went inside. I would have followed but Joel called out to me.’

  ‘Joel?’ Charlonge’s fingers fluttered. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘I tried to get him to understand that Lenoir wants to protect us. Joel doesn’t believe me – we argued and he left, and I lost my way a little. Leyste was waiting for me. Lenoir sai
d he had been stalking me since I came through the Register.’

  ‘Leyste?’

  ‘A Night Creature.’ Naif hugged her legs to her chest to hide a shudder. ‘He was hideous, Char, but sad in a way.’ She sighed. ‘Lenoir said he would have killed me.’

  Charlonge took several careful steps away from the bed as if to avoid breaking something underfoot. ‘Lenoir is showing you great concern, Naif. It’s not usual for a Guardian to do that. Are you sure he’s not trying to reach Joel – through you?’

  Naif shrugged. ‘I don’t think he knows.’

  Charlonge stared at her. ‘Don’t be sure of anything with Lenoir. The Guardians aren’t like us. You can’t predict what they’ll do. You can’t know them, Naif.’

  Charlonge’s words triggered a thought. Naif slid off the bed and had to steady herself against a wave of dizziness. ‘The vote!’

  ‘What’re you talking about? You need to rest. I don’t want Lenoir punishing me for –’

  Naif seized Charlonge’s hands. ‘The Guardians are voting on what to do about Ruzalia. If Lenoir loses the vote then Brand will be their new leader. She’ll use Markes as bait for Ruzalia. And you as well. She’ll hunt down the League and the gangs. Do you know Brand, Char?’

  Charlonge swallowed nervously and nodded. ‘Of course. The scarred one?’

  ‘I have to go to the meeting and hear the result.’ Naif let go of Charlonge’s hands and straightened. A powerful wave of determination flooded through her. ‘If Brand wins then I must warn everyone.’

  Charlonge stood still. Naif saw warring desires in her changing expression. And fear.

  ‘Have you decided what you will do, Char?’ she said softly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, finally. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  The Youth Circle meeting chamber stood empty apart from the girl with the long hair and the mask painted across her eyes, who drifted, distracted, around the table, tugging at the heavy chairs, fingering the polished stone.

  ‘Jaime!’ called Naif, stepping onto the narrow strip of carpet. Charlonge stayed behind her.

  The girl jumped and stared. ‘You!’

  ‘I’m Naif. Where are they holding the Guardians’ vote?’