by Rowan Rook
"How can I believe you anymore?" Shakaya growled. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't." She'd tried to suppress the heat, but it was starting to seep out, turning her hands into fists. "I trusted you once... I thought you wanted me to have a friend. I trusted you, and you gave me a Lyrum! You gave me an Anwell!"
Rickard placed a hand on her shoulder, firm but gentle. "Dear, if you wanted a friend, you should have simply said so. I didn't know. I would have been happy to find one for you. I would have bought anyone in the Academy if that would've made my girl happy."
A shiver shuddered through her. "It was cruel."
It was cruel to play with my heart like that. She swallowed the rest of her words, burying them in a place where they'd never escape. They were words she'd never say aloud.
Rickard closed her eyes. "Perhaps it was. I will apologize for it, however many times it takes, until you finally believe that I'm sorry."
Shakaya's blue eyes smoldered. "You tell me that you still intend betrayal, but I don't understand how that's possible. The Editor—a Lyrum—is the one who will have the Author's power, and the one who will have the chance to change the world. A Lyrum would never erase its own kind from Auratessa. It lied to me, too. It would never create the world you say you want."
And even if someone were to kill the Editor for its Inkwells, there was no way of knowing who would become the next Editor. The Inkwells—and all the blood and dreams behind them—were useless to anyone else.
Rickard hesitated, slowly returning her hand to her side. "There is one more lie I must confess to—my answer when you inquired about the Editor's fate. Let me explain what will happen after the Draft. Let me tell you about my Medium."
Rickard gestured for Shakaya to come nearer. After a moment of reluctance, she did. She wanted to know.
Rickard leaned in close, whispering in her ear.
Shakaya's eyes widened, and a smile lit Rickard's face when she pulled back.
An uncomfortable silence passed between them.
Rickard reached into her pocket and emerged with a shimmering piece of silver. Shakaya stifled a gasp when she realized what it was—her Butterfly pin.
"I left the Academy only days after you did, citing research reasons, and have been watching over the situation with my fellow Butterflies," Rickard explained, careful, as if each word might set off a fire. "However, I do not want to interfere with the Editor directly. I do not want it to develop any suspicions of what I've just told you."
Shakaya said nothing.
"I still need you. I need someone I can trust—someone who knows my intentions—to monitor the Editor and keep me apprised of the situation. You need not interact with it or the other Butterflies," Rickard added quickly. "Not unless force becomes necessary. All I want is for you to ascertain that nothing goes wrong."
Shakaya said nothing.
"Now, with lies replaced by truths, I ask you, will you finish what you've started?" Rickard held the pin out for her. "Will you help me, this last time?"
Shakaya hesitated—her heart pounding a sad, familiar beat—before she reluctantly reached out and took the pin.
Rickard's face lit up with a grin as bright as the sun. "That's my girl."
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Editor, part I
Anson awoke to the caw of herons, water splashing from their wings as they departed for the blue sky above. He lay inside a small boat, his back pressed against the damp, swaying hull and his face flushed with sunlight. Clouds drifted lazily, cradled by soft summer winds. It was lovely.
But when he raised an arm to shield his gaze from the sun, the smallness of his own hand surprised him. Startled out of his reverie, he jolted up and looked down at his body. It was a child's. Staring at his reflection over the side of the boat, the shape he'd inhabited around his ninth year peered back at him, his own young face gaping with amazement.
Riksharre's lake surrounded him, tranquil and undisturbed by anything but the warm breeze. Behind him, partially obscured by willow leaves, was the Anwell house. It stood tall and whole, its curtains drawn on its windows.
For a blissful moment, he wondered if everything had been a dream.
His home had never burned down. His studies had never been discovered by the colony. He was safe—he could be with his family. He could live life carefully, he could save Lyn, and his work would never be uncovered. He had another chance.
He'd simply fallen asleep in the family raft and found himself stuck in a long, terrible nightmare.
But that wasn't true.
The boy touched his right ear, where a hot, distant pain throbbed, despite how whole it felt beneath his fingers.
This was the dream. Even in slumber, the place where his now-missing ear had been still burned.
A bitter surge of disappointment sapped away the summer pleasure. He reached out and submerged a hand in the waters of the lake. It was cold and clear, shielding his hot fingers from the sun beating down on him.
It felt so real.
And for just a moment, it was once again his.
When he'd returned to Riksharre with Shakaya, he'd entered as an outsider. The beauty of the colony had no longer belonged to him. But this was different. This was home.
If only this dream could continue forever. If only he could live another lifetime here. If only his mortal deadline would come early and carry him away, never again waking him to his troubles, while he peacefully slipped away in the world of his memories.
As frogs chirped along the shoreline and the whir of crickets gave life to the air around him, he suddenly wondered if that was what was happening. Maybe this was death. Or at least, the process of dying.
Strangely serene, the boy suddenly noticed the notebook tucked by his feet and picked it up. He recognized it instantly. Pulling it from the leather bag meant to keep it dry, he flipped through the pages.
The front sheets were purposely unassuming. They contained sketches—messy, childish scribbles of Lyn and Delly, flowers from the garden, and the birds and animals that visited the lake. They were awful. Of the many things he was, an artist wasn't one of them. He smiled, flipping deeper into the book.
The middle pages were covered with memos and formulas, crowded together with a fervent, frantic passion. They were notes from the texts he'd once studied, and his original design for the treatments he'd given Lyn.
His smile faltered just slightly as he ran his hand along the messy scrawl. The words were young and innocent, full of eagerness and hope.
He'd participated in many undeniable ills, but in this regard—in his desire to save his sister from a fate she could have escaped—he still believed he'd done the right thing. He'd never wanted or expected the torrent of wickedness and loss that had sprung from these simple pages, from his intentions of love and life.
...How had everything gone so wrong?
"Help!"
The voice yanked his gaze away from the notebook. He set it back down and glanced around. Was someone else here, after all?
"Help me!" the voice begged. The brush around the lake rustled, as if someone were fleeing into the forests.
Piqued with alarm, the boy rowed rowed to the shore and climbed out of the raft, over the reeds and lilies.
"Help!"
He ran in the direction of the voice, his body moving before his mind had the chance to stop him. A glimpse of a small figure, curly brunette hair flying behind it, peeked from between disturbed leaves. A young girl, he guessed. She ran blindly from whatever it was she feared, but he was quickly gaining ground.
"Wait!" he found his childish voice for the first time. "What's wrong?"
"Help!" the girl screamed without turning around, louder and more frantic than before.
"Wait—maybe I can help you!" he insisted, keeping pace.
The two children raced through the outer limits of the colony. No matter what Anson said or did, the girl refused to stop, even as her breath heaved and her legs shook. The closer he came, the harder she seemed to push hersel
f to run.
...What on Auratessa was she fleeing from?
She looked back to face him for the first time, still flying forward with all the speed she could muster. "Please don't hurt me!"
And then realization came—she was fleeing from him.
Anson stopped while the girl kept running.
No matter how far or how fast she fled, she wasn't going to escape.
The echo of a gunshot. The stink of smoke. The scarlet shattering of a skull.
The girl was Kaida Torus.
"Help!" she pleaded to absent strangers, her legs leading her deeper and deeper into the woods.
Suddenly driven to move, Anson resumed his chase. "Wait!" What he would do, what he would say if he reached her, he had no idea.
The two of them continued running, the frightened girl fleeing from her killer with frantic prayers.
Then he saw it. Just ahead of them was an achingly familiar carriage, abandoned just beyond the boundaries of Riksharre. Emblazoned on its side, peeking out through overgrown ivy and weeds, was the Elavadin Academy emblem. The place where everything had begun.
Kaida hurried toward it, as if it meant just as much to her as it did to him. "Stop! Go away!" She spun to face him a last time, before jumping up and vanishing into the back of the old carriage.
Anson followed in a single leap, but what awaited him inside wasn't what he'd expected. The space stretched out far beyond what the carriage could possibly hold. No longer was it a musty carriage filled with aged books and strange, tantalizing devices. It was a long, cold hallway. Cells lined the walls, filled with people, their faces tight and thin. Specimen tags hung from their wrists.
Anson froze, dread fastening his feet to the floor. The caged Lyrum glared at him—each one. Some eyes smoldered with intense, hungry hatred, some a lifeless, bitter resentment, others still an impossible, bottomless sorrow. But all of them were afraid. They shivered and stared with helpless fear, slinking to the back of their Hellish homes when he finally forced his legs to carry him past them. He was a child, but they gawked at him like they would a monster, a devil come to snatch them away in their sleep.
The boy stared straight ahead, fighting to avoid eye contact with any of the captives. Their terror rose the hair on his own arms.
He'd tried to convince himself that this was simply the way things had to be, at least for a while. That the ends would justify the means. But these people were as cold and aghast as the boy who'd watched his home burn. Nothing good could ever have come from this. Shame pressed down on his shoulders with each step.
Ahead of him, at the end of the hallway, stood Kaida Torus. And someone else now, too. A young Morak Mayver was there, holding the girl while she wept into his shoulder. He glared defiantly, but tears still glistened on his cheeks when he looked at the boy who'd stolen his life.
Anson sucked in air and finally braved a glance around the carriage, meeting eyes with those staring back at him in sorrow, horror, hate.
These were the people he'd hurt. These were the people whose lives he'd ruined.
There were so many of them.
His own eyes watered, a whimper escaping his pressed lips.
"Don't you dare cry! You don't deserve to cry!" Morak shouted, his voice simmering with rage.
Anson wiped at the drops carving trails on his cheeks. "You were old, like me! Most of you were old! You would've died soon anyway! You—"
"That doesn't mean I wanted my life to end with a bullet in my head, alone in that old mine with monsters like you! I had a family, too. I wanted to see them again. I wanted to say goodbye. I didn't struggle through all those years to be murdered."
Anson stepped back, shrinking away from the fury surrounding him. He spread out sweaty arms and gestured to include the whole room. "I'll bring you all back!" The wish shook on his tongue. What was it he was looking for? Was it forgiveness, or was he simply afraid? "I'll rewrite all of you into happiness! I promise! I'll...! I'll..."
"How can you, when you don't even know their names?" Tayla asked.
Anson spun, and saw the girl standing by two cells, a man and a woman who looked much like she did inside them. Her eyes sparkled with loss. Of course...he'd hurt her, too.
He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could find the words, Kaida let go of Morak and stepped toward him. Tears dripped from her chin."I don't want a new life... I want my old one."
The cells around him rattled in unison, shaking and clanging as the prisoners fought against the bars. He whirled to find that the fear in their eyes was gone, dissolved into whole, utter malice. They glowered and jeered, their fingers reaching through the bars like hungry ghosts. They spat out curses, so loud and violent that their pain melded into a single roar of disgust.
Anson choked on a gasp, his lungs seizing up inside him. Their rage would shatter steel. They would escape. They would destroy him. Slaughter him, consume him, break him. They would ravage him until there was nothing left but bones and dust.
Kaida braved yet another step forward, her voice hollow with contempt. "I hope someone puts a hole through your head someday."
Anson spun to flee.
He didn't make it far.
Four more faces waited behind him. His family stood near the carriage's exit. Delly held hands with their mother and father, their eyes impossibly sad as they studied their ruined son. Lyn lingered a few feet ahead, eyeing him uncertainly.
Anson lost the battle with his tears and raced toward them on shaking legs.
Lyn took a step away as he approached, anxiously fiddling with her dress and watching him with empty blue eyes.
Hurt, Anson reached out with a gentle hand. "Lyn..."
The moment his fingers brushed against hers, her body dissolved away to ash.
His mother and father vanished just as suddenly, their ashes blowing like dust on the summer breeze.
All that remained was the red ribbon Lyn had worn nearly every day of her life, still knotted where it had been tied around her hair.
He was face to face with Delly, the only one left. The fingers that had been wrapped around her parents' palms grasped nothing. A silence passed between them, before the grief in his sister's eyes erupted into rage.
She shoved him away. He collapsed, stumbling into a gaping hole that hadn't been there before.
Anson screamed as he free fell. Below him was only blackness—he couldn't even see the bottom. His fingers scraped desperately for any kind of hold along the abyssal walls.
Then he found it—a root.
His descent paused, he strangled the hold with all the strength his small hands had left. This time, it was his turn to plead. "Help me!"
He looked up to see those who most despised him watching him fall. The captives were no longer in cells. They gathered around the edge of the hungry abyss, staring down with Delly, Tayla, Torus, and Mayver.
His weak, sweaty fingers started slipping. "Help!"
He dared a horrible glance downward. All that awaited him below was darkness.
And if he fell, he knew he'd never reach the bottom.
"Help me! Please, help!" he begged, barely able to make out the faces above as salt stung his eyes.
This time, there was no fear and no anger in the gazes of the people he'd hurt most. It was almost as if they didn't hear him, at all. They simply observed, faces filled with only cold indifference as they watched him struggle and beg for his life.
The root creaked, threatening to tear free of the soil, and he fought to hold on so frantically that his fingernails bent back and bled.
It was to no avail. No matter what he did, he sank lower and lower. His only hold to the light and life above him was about to give away. "Please help me... Somebody help!" he wept, his slick fingers still clinging desperately to the splintering root. "Please!"
A new face peered over the precipice. A familiar young girl with sandy hair and a white dress. She leaned in close, staring down at the struggling boy below her through stoic blue eyes
. Blood splattered half of her face and painted pink stains on her skirt.
Anson's heart leaped into his chest. "Shakaya!" He reached out for her with one quivering hand. "Shakaya, help me! Please help me!"
The firm line set across Shakaya's lips didn't falter. She dug into her pocket and pulled out a knife, then sliced through what remained of the root.
Anson let out a final scream as he fell, the faces above him fading away as the endless void reached up for him.
Darkness swallowed him whole, consuming every last bit of light he had left.
Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ
Anson stared at the maroon carpet from his seat on one of the cathedral's many pews. Light was only just starting to shine through and excite the colors of the stained glass windows. At this early hour, the vast, gaping chamber was nearly empty.
He and the Butterflies had arrived in Velvire that morning, while the sky had still been black. After Rita's attack, their carriage had been ruined and their driver had fled; they'd been forced to stop and procure another at a nearby village. The struggle had cost them an extra day. Finally, they were there.
Velvire was beautiful. It wasn't nearly as advanced as Elavadin—there weren't many motor vehicles or buildings buzzing with electronic noise—but its architecture was ornate and regal, with steeples reaching for the sky like hands raised in prayer. It had originally been one of the earliest Human settlements, and it showed in its style—a testament to how quickly the species's culture had evolved. It rested in the middle of a valley, and waterfalls decorated the border walls while a river ran side-by-side with main street. It was snowing, fresh powder dusting Velvire with a delicate sheet of white, as if gently hushing all of the first city's memories and secrets.
He, Aydel, Jeriko, and Tayla planned to meet for breakfast at a nearby café. The others had been eager to stretch their legs after the long ride, but Anson couldn't quite muster the enthusiasm for sightseeing.
A hand tapped his shoulder.
