The natural cave set back into the depths of rock behind the waterfall has been our secret place ever since he rescued me from the cave collapse.
At first, it was just the act of going somewhere where no one else could find us that held allure. Brice showed me his sketchbook, and I showed him how to use my sling. We talked about everything and nothing, stealing long hours where Brice didn’t need to be the perfect, obedient scout, and I didn’t have to be the Bisecter.
It was more than two years until we became something different to each other…something so much more.
Brice bends down to light the torch while I pull off my cloak, enjoying the feel of air passing through my loose-fitting cotton shirt and pants. As Brice pulls his own cloak over his head, the outline of taut muscles shows through his thin shirt.
Brice frowns. “I don’t like you putting yourself at risk just to see me.”
“Choosing me might be the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done,” I retort.
His frown fades, replaced with a thoughtful look. He takes a lock of my hair and twirls it around his finger. “Someday I’ll be Captain of this Subterrane,” he murmurs, “and then we’ll get to make the rules.”
My insides warm. Brice and I have talked about it before—the time when my father will choose his successor. It has to be Brice. There is no one better suited to the role of keeping our Subterrane safe.
Brice has been protecting the Subterrane for years as a scout, but when he’s the one making the laws, I’ll be able to help. We won’t just defend the Subterrane from the Halves, we’ll hunt them.
It’s when we talk about this future that I feel closest to Brice. Of all the Dwellers, he understands my hatred for the Halves better than anyone.
I lock my hands behind Brice’s neck to pull his face down to mine. His lips are soft, warm, inviting. Brice wraps his arms around me, drawing me closer. I breathe in his scent as his heart beats against my chest.
He’s so alive.
When I step back, Brice’s green eyes are alight. They say more to me than any spoken promise. I am his, and he is mine.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Brice murmurs as he moves to pull the makeshift stone door into place.
Even though the cave is empty save for a couple of blankets and two candles fixed to the wall, it’s more home to me than the Subterrane. This cave is the only place I’m free, where I can breathe.
Brice lets out a grunt as he tries to pull the stone door across the cave’s entrance. A pang of guilt seizes me. I could lift the door in place with barely a thought, but even with all the other secrets we’ve shared over the years, Brice doesn’t know about my strength. He hasn’t been back to the Subterrane since his shift started, and so he doesn’t know what I did for Sirrel’s father. With any luck, my father will silence the miners before anyone else finds out.
Gossip spreads through the Subterrane faster than a brush fire, but I’ve learned never to underestimate my father’s authority as Captain of Subterrane Harkibel.
When I was ten years old, my father saw me lift five stone blocks out of the jewel pit at once. Together, the blocks were taller than me. I had thought my father would be pleased to see what I could accomplish. I was wrong. My father had dragged me back to his caves.
“The Duskers will take you, Hemera,” he said, his face as pale as if he were one of them. “They’ll throw you in the Malarusk dungeons. They’ll torture you. And then they’ll kill you.”
Until then, I hadn’t known how different I was.
After my mother died, it became more important than ever to hide what I could do.
I stopped testing my strength. I walked everywhere, taking care never to run. I kept my eyes down whenever I passed another Dweller. I thought if I could blend in, the part of me that was less than human might cease to exist.
Guilt eats at me every time I see Brice struggle with the heavy stone door. I know I should tell him everything about me—there have been several times when I almost have. When we’re together, though, I can almost forget about what I am.
Brice finally manages to wrestle the door in place. He feels his way to me in the darkness and folds me into his arms.
“Hemera Harkibel.” He whispers my name as he traces the outline of my face with his finger.
There is a warm tingling behind my rib cage. His perfect green eyes glimmer even in the dark as I nestle into the crook of his arm. The rise and fall of his chest is so steady, so comforting. He wraps a protective arm around my waist.
“I love you.”
Warm in his embrace, I fall into the kind of deep sleep I never reach underground.
✽✽✽
A noise outside the cave jolts us awake. We disentangle ourselves and Brice pushes back the stone door. There is a muffled groan, the rustle of leaves, and then silence.
After another few minutes pass without a sound, Brice whispers, “I’m going to go take a look. You stay here.”
Ignoring him, I pull on my cloak. Brice looks like he wants to argue, but instead, unsheathes his dagger and says, “Stay behind me.”
Brice leads the way as we track through the brush and around the curved path behind the waterfall. We inch forward into the sunlight, waiting for someone to leap out of the thick shrubs.
We work our way deeper into the brush. I’m beginning to think we imagined the sound, when I see someone lying just off the path.
“It’s Taniel,” I say in disbelief as I rush over to him.
Taniel was one of the Captain’s guards. He was clever, daring, and ruthless. He also disappeared from the Subterrane more than a year ago without even the slightest hint of what had happened.
“Is he alive?” I ask as Brice kneels over him.
Brice turns the man’s head so I can see the deep, symmetrical gashes on either side of his neck.
I inhale sharply. “Do you think an animal got him?”
Brice shakes his head. “They’re too even for it to have been an animal.”
“What are you doing—” I begin, as Brice pulls up the sleeve of the man’s cloak.
I gasp.
Bloody gashes cover the inside of Taniel’s left forearm.
Brice holds the limp arm for us both to see. “It’s a message.”
“How did you know—”
But as I squint at the shredded flesh, I realize Brice is right. What had looked like a random pattern carved into Taniel’s skin are letters.
“Who could have done this to him?” I ask.
“He did it to himself.” Brice nods at Taniel’s right hand, which is still gripping a jagged stone.
We squint at the arm together.
“TNGR. Help,” Brice reads.
The dead man’s bloated flesh is already beginning to blister from exposure to the sunlight, making the letters almost illegible.
“What do you think it means?” I ask.
Brice looks from me to the words carved into Taniel’s skin. He seems to be debating something internally. Finally, he says, “TNGR must be short for Tanguro.”
“Tanguro?” I ask in surprise.
Tanguro is an abandoned fortress in the Wild Lands far to the North.
According to the stories, Tanguro was built long before the Duskers came to power. It was a great walled territory with a network of caves bigger than any of the Subterranes. When the Duskers resettled everyone into the Subterranes, Tanguro was abandoned. Traders from distant territories who sometimes stopped at Subterrane Harkibel would tell stories about strange and terrible creatures that prowled the lands on the Tanguro side of the mountains. There have also been stories…whispered rumors…that the Halves are capturing humans and keeping them in Tanguro as prisoners. Until today, I didn’t believe them.
Taniel wasn’t a trader or a scout. What would he have been doing there?
As if echoing my thoughts, Brice says, “The Halves must have brought him there. I’ve heard they made themselves a lair in the ruins of the old settlement.”
“And you
think he escaped and came back to warn us?”
Brice nods.
“How far is that?” I ask, when Brice continues to stare at the dead man’s arm.
“Taniel must have walked for weeks to get back here.” His voice is flat, almost monotone, like seeing a dead man with a warning carved into his skin is ordinary. For all I know, it could be. Brice never talks about scouting with me, just like I never talk about mining.
“Hemera!” Brice’s voice is sharp. He’s looking at my shadow.
As we puzzled over Taniel’s message, the sun crept back up. High day is coming.
If we don’t hurry back, we’ll be stuck on the Outside during high day. Not even our cloaks would save us then.
“Let’s go.” Brice stands up.
“It’s nearly curfew,” I say, beginning to panic. “The Captain will notice if we get back at the same time.”
“I won’t leave you alone,” Brice argues. “There could be Halves.”
“You take the river trail,” I say, ignoring him. “I’ll go back through the woods.”
“Hemera,” Brice protests.
But I’m already running.
CHAPTER 5
With every step, I imagine the blisters that will soon form on my skin as the Burn cooks my flesh from the outside in. I run faster.
I once saw a Dweller after he got stuck on the Outside during high day. The guards brought his body back to the Subterrane, and when they took off his cloak, there were holes burned straight through his body.
I’m nearly through the open stretch between the woods and the Subterrane when my foot catches on something in my path. My feet give way and I hit the ground face-first. I gasp as my cheek scrapes against bare rock. Before I can even think about moving, a heavy netting closes in around me and sweeps me off the ground.
The net rises until I’m at least ten paces above the earth.
The trap holding me is secured to the branch of a dead tree by a single rope. It creaks as I swing back and forth high above the ground. My body is folded up so tightly in the cramped netting I can barely breathe, let alone move. My cloak does little to stop the rope from chafing as it cuts into me. My screaming and flailing make it worse.
I must be in one of the hunters’ traps.
Knowing this snare was set by my own people does nothing to ease my panic. No one will come looking for me before low day. By that time, there will be nothing left except for whatever scraps the Burn vultures leave behind.
As the net squeezes tighter around me, a pinch near my ankle reminds me about the small knife Brice gave me months ago and insisted I keep in my boot. With a tremendous amount of squirming, during which the branch bows and groans, I manage to loosen the knife and begin sawing through the woven ropes. Each strand is wider than the blade of my knife.
Sweat drips off my forehead and stings my eyes. I don’t pause to wipe my face. Every passing minute brings me closer to the Burn and to death. Panic and the sun’s heat press against me until I can hardly breathe.
With a satisfying snap, a rope breaks and I fall through the netting.
I hit the ground hard. Gasping, I clutch my stomach as I fight for breath. Dark spots flash at the corner of my vision.
I manage to sit up. Someone is running through the near-blinding sunlight toward me.
“Captain?”
“Hemera! What are you doing out here?” When he reaches my side, he’s breathing hard. “Do you care so little for both our lives?”
Without waiting for a reply, he yanks me to my feet.
Even though the brim of his hood is drawn forward, blisters bubble up on my father’s cheeks and neck as we stagger back toward the Subterrane. My nostrils sting with the stench of burning flesh.
The guards help us down the tunnels of the Subterrane to the healing cave, where the healers flock around my father.
“My daughter!” he rasps. “Help her first.”
The healers ignore his orders. It takes three of them to hold him down. The sound of his sizzling flesh mixes with the smell of burning.
I’m too guilt-ridden to do anything besides huddle in a corner as the healers slather Burn salve on my father’s blisters. Guards flood the healing cave at the sound of his screams. I should be wailing and clawing at my skin, but I’m not.
Why don’t I feel any pain?
When I run my hands over my face and neck, there are no blisters. How could I have escaped the Burn? My father and I were on the Outside for the same amount of time, and he’s writhing on the narrow cot as he tries to claw off his own skin.
Oh no.
A low groan escapes me. The Halves don’t get the Burn.
I rub my hands up and down my arms. My skin looks and feels human, but some of whatever protects them from the sun must be in me, too.
No, no, no. I didn’t ask for any of this. I just want to be like the other Dwellers.
I want to scream and tear my hair out along with my father. Instead, I hug my arms tight to my body and try to disappear into the shadows.
From the youngest age, all Dwellers are taught to fear the high day. Wearing my cloak any time I leave the Subterrane is as natural to me as breathing, and so it never occurred to me that I might not need it.
Does this mean I would have been safe from the Burn even without my cloak?
My father’s eyes roll back in his head and his body goes slack.
“He’s dead!” a guard yells, and they all surge forward.
No! Please, not him, I beg the Dark God as I rush to his side. The Captain is the only family I have left.
“Just knocked out,” a healer corrects briskly.
Relief floods my limbs. I try to get closer to my father, but the guards make a barrier around him and push me away.
“Haven’t you caused enough trouble?” one of them hisses.
The healers bandage my father and then transfer him to a bed in an adjoining cave. Then, they turn to me.
“You were out in the sun? During high day?” A healer with a round stomach and fleshy chin wipes the dirt from my face with a rough cloth.
She purses her lips. “And not even a blister on you.”
Another healer clears her throat and raises her eyebrows. The other says, “Oh. It must be because….”
“I’m a Bisecter.” I keep my chin high even as my heart sinks.
The healer applies a thin sheen of the Burn salve, even though there are no blisters on my skin.
“You aren’t worth wasting the salve on,” she says as she cleans her hands in a stone basin, “but the Captain would have my head if I didn’t do something.”
She avoids meeting my eyes.
“Where is she?”
I hear Destinel’s panicked voice from the adjoining cave. My friend races into the cave, her arms full of clean cloths and jars of Burn salve. She drops everything at the sight of me.
“Hemera!”
I get a brief glimpse of one of the other healers chasing the unraveling bandages and spilled jars left in Destinel’s wake.
“Are you okay? The guards said you were on the Outside after curfew, and then they said you were brought here, and I—”
Before I can even speak, two guards step into the healing cave and grasp each of my elbows.
“What in the sun?” Destinel demands, trying to wrap me in a protective hug.
The guards separate us.
“Hemera Harkibel, you are under arrest for violating curfew.”
“But my father,” I croak. “I can’t leave him.”
“Come with us, please.”
My eyes begin to water. I force back the tears, not wanting to give the guards, or the healers exchanging victorious glances, the satisfaction of seeing me fall apart.
“This is insane!” Destinel explodes.
The healers have to practically wrestle her to keep her from chasing after us. I don’t hear what else she’s shouting as I’m led out of the cave.
I’m trembling so much my legs don’t remember how
to work. If it wasn’t for the guards gripping me, I would have fallen all over myself.
Still gasping and trying to regain my composure, I let the guards escort me down the tunnel that snakes around the underground lake. The Dark God statue’s knowing glare seems to follow me down the path. The guards drag me on, deep into the bowels of the Subterrane.
I have been to the prison caves on the seventh level with my father before, but never as a prisoner. If the walls caved in down here, there would be nowhere for me to run, nowhere to escape. The guards don’t seem to notice my ragged breathing as they yank me forward.
They push me through a narrow, iron-barred door. The small cell is bare except for a single candle. The door creaks shut. The key turns in the lock, and then the boots tramp back up the tunnel.
Stupid. I pace around the small cell. How could I have been so stupid?
My teeth are chattering even though it’s hot as an oven down here. All I can think about is my father covered in blisters, screaming as the healers held him down. He could have died.
Aside from Brice and Destinel, my father is the only person who cares what happens to me.
✽✽✽
How long have I been in this cell? Hours at least, maybe even days. The candle has long since burned out. The darkness smothers me.
If you are brave enough to hold your head up high, Mer, my mother used to tell me, it will always be enough to carry you through.
Still, it’s all I can do to keep from whimpering as heavy footsteps stomp down the tunnel. I move to the door and cling to the bars as the light from the guard’s lantern bounces around my tiny cell.
“Is my father alright?” I call out.
“The Captain’s fine,” the guard replies.
My relief is short-lived.
“You are found guilty of breaking curfew.” The lanky guard’s voice is flat. “You are hereby sentenced to twenty lashes. Your punishment will commence immediately.”
Gulping, I squeeze my fists until I feel my nails cut into my palms. Be brave, I command myself.
The guard unlocks my door. I allow myself to be steered up the maze of tunnels. Twenty lashes.
Another guard falls into step behind me. We pass the dining cave, where a group of Dwellers waiting for their dinner rations point at me. Without looking back, I know they will follow behind the last guard. They won’t miss the chance to see the punishment of Captain Harkibel’s daughter, the Bisecter.
Bisecter Page 4
