Bisecter

by Stephanie Fazio

  I smile back at him, and just like that, I’m reminded of how easy it always was to be with him. No matter how clumsy I was, Brice made me feel graceful. He always seemed to know what I needed.

  The tension between us melts.

  Brice takes my hand. “Come on.”

  I unlatch the stone fitting the way Ekil had earlier and step into the sunlight.

  Brice shields his eyes against the brightness. “How did you know about this?”

  Knowing he won’t want to hear the true answer, I just say, “I found it when I was looking for you.”

  Brice carries the blades across the bridge in two trips. He moves as effortlessly across the rickety planks as though he were traveling over flat ground. When I cross, Brice stays one pace behind me, keeping his hands on my waist to steady me. Vlaz flies just above us.

  The cub’s long ears are alert. He snaps his jaws at the giant insects that swarm around us, keeping them at bay.

  “Careful,” Brice warns, as I push aside the stone door on the other end. The smell of unwashed bodies hits me as soon as I step into the darkness.

  My eyes have barely adjusted to the candlelight when the Halve’s enormous shadow rounds the corner. I have just enough time to register it isn’t Ekil before the Halve swings its stone club at me.

  “Duck!”

  I throw myself against the wall of the cave to avoid the blow. The club crashes into the wall just over my head. Vlaz snarls and lunges at the Halve.

  The Halve shrieks as Vlaz sinks his teeth into its leg but doesn’t retreat. The Halve raises its club again. This time, its weapon is aimed at Vlaz’s head.

  I leap forward, using one of the blades to block the club. I see the flash of Brice’s blade as the Halve stumbles backward.

  “Watch its blood!” Brice calls as he pushes his blade deeper into the Halve’s gut.

  Another Halve appears before I can correct Brice. It lunges toward me, but Vlaz meets it in the air and takes hold of the loose skin around its neck. The Halve roars as Brice moves in for the kill.

  It’s not long before both Halves are stretched out on the ground in pools of their own blood.

  “Stay behind me.” Brice grips a blade in each hand as he inches along the path. “There might be more of them.”

  The first row of cells seems to be empty of guards. We wait for a few moments to make sure no Halves are waiting for us.

  Brice cups his hands around his mouth and calls, “All clear?”

  Almost immediately, voices travel back to us.

  “Brice, is that you?” A deep voice cuts through the rest. “We thought you were taken to the catacombs.”

  “Everything’s fine. We’re getting out of here.”

  A chorus of excited voices erupts as we reach the first cell. I drop my armful of blades to wrench open the first stone door.

  Vlaz squeezes through the opening first. Brice and I follow. The single candle that burns on the cell wall illuminates a tall, muscular man with jet black hair and a pointed chin. His ankles are bound in thick ropes.

  “What the hell is going on around here?” the man demands as he scrambles as far away from Vlaz as the ropes will allow.

  “He won’t hurt you,” I tell him.

  “Brice? How did you get in here? How did you escape? What’s going on?”

  “Calm yourself, Thutmose. This is Hemera and her pet hyenair.”

  Brice kneels down and begins to hack at the ropes. “Thutmose has been here the longest,” he explains by way of introduction.

  “I’ll get the rest of the doors open for you,” I say, already ducking out of the cell.

  It’s only a matter of time before more Halves come.

  Cries follow me from cell to cell as the prisoners, still bound in their ropes, beg to be freed. Vlaz stays by my side. He gives my hand, raw from the unforgiving stone, encouraging nuzzles.

  “Please, I’m next for the catacombs.” A weak voice calls out to me. I pull open the stone door and step inside the cell.

  A girl who looks about my age stretches her filthy hands toward me. She’s shorter than I am, and too thin. Her knobby shoulders make points in the fabric of her cloak. Her nose is curved in the middle and swollen, like it was recently broken.

  “No one is taking you to the catacombs,” I assure her.

  I take my blade and begin to saw through the ropes that bind her.

  “You’re the one he’s been waiting for, aren’t you?” The girl keeps her eyes focused on the fraying ropes around her ankles.

  My shoulders tense, but I keep cutting. “The Master? What makes you think he’s been waiting for me?”

  “He needs you for his experiments. And I recognize your face.”

  I stop cutting and stare at her. Dread curdles my stomach.

  I know the answer, but I have to ask. “How do you recognize me?”

  “I was there when he showed the picture to the Halves meant to track you,” she says. “He thought I might be good for his experiments because I look like you.” She screws up her face, making it clear how she feels about being compared to the likes of me.

  I take my pack off my shoulder and fumble to open it. My hands are shaking so badly the contents of my pack spill onto the floor of the cell. I reach for Brice’s drawing. Smoothing out the piece of script tree bark, I hold it up to the candle.

  “Is this what you saw?”

  “Yes,” she whispers.

  CHAPTER 41

  I finish cutting through the ropes and hurry to the next cell without looking back at the girl. A sinking dread has begun to close in around me.

  My palms, bloody from an especially stubborn door, have already healed. I brush away the dried blood as I grasp the iron handle of the next cell.

  “Don’t worry, I’m here to free you,” I call to the prisoner.

  “Hemera, is that you?” a voice calls through the narrow opening.

  I pause with my hand on the iron ring of the door.

  “Wade?”

  “You’re alright!”

  I open the cell door and run to him. I throw my arms around his neck as he pulls me to him. When Vlaz tries to squeeze between us, he gets tangled in the ropes and we all fall to the ground in a heap of laughter and Vlaz’s slobbers.

  “We lost track of you at the gates,” Wade is saying, “and then we all got split up. But I knew if anyone could find a way to get us out of here it’d be you.”

  “What about Dayne and the rest of the company?” I ask as I disentangle myself from Wade and begin to saw through his ropes.

  Wade’s smile fades. I stop cutting.

  “What happened?” My voice cracks.

  “Those filthy guards took him,” Wade says. “We couldn’t find you, and then there was all that madness at the gates.” He swallows. “I thought they might have taken you, too.”

  “We need to find him.” Panic tightens my chest.

  Wade nods. “Ry’s a few cells down. The others are here, too.”

  I finish cutting through the ropes. When he’s freed, I turn to the cell opening, but Wade grabs my hand. He pulls me back with so much force I slam into him.

  Wade doesn’t give me a chance to catch my breath. In a fluid motion, he cups my neck with one hand and twists his body to dip me back against his arm. He leans over me and presses his lips to mine.

  “Get your hands off her.” Brice’s voice at the door startles us both. I right myself, pushing Wade away.

  “Brice, this is Wade,” I stammer. “He’s a—friend who helped me get here.”

  “Pleasure,” Wade says. The light of the candles flickers in his golden eyes. He looks like he’s enjoying himself as Brice glares at him.

  “We need to free the rest of the prisoners and find Dayne. Now.” I look from one to the other.

  A tense moment passes before Wade says, “Come on. I’ll show you Ry’s cell.”

  When I open her cell door, Ry is tied down with so many ropes she can’t take a single step.

  “
She almost escaped,” Wade announces.

  It takes all three of us to cut away her ropes. When we manage to free her, Ry wraps me in a bone-crushing hug.

  “We thought they took you, too!” Her curls bounce as she jumps up and down. “So, what’s the plan for rescuing Dayne?”

  “Do you know where the catacombs are?” I ask Brice.

  “They run beneath this building,” he replies. “There’s only one entrance, and it’s guarded by Halves.”

  “Take us there. Now.” I resist the urge to wrap my arms around myself at the sudden ache I feel for Dayne. “We’re not too late.” We can’t be.

  “What should we do about the rest of the prisoners in here?” Ry asks. Their cries for rescue echo down the rows of cells.

  “Thutmose and the others can take care of it.” Brice glances at me. “They won’t be as fast as you, but they’ll manage.”

  I nod. “Let’s take a few of these blades and leave the rest for the prisoners. That way they can defend themselves when the guards come back.”

  “We’ll only need enough for you three.” Ry reaches beneath her shirt to untuck a scalloped dagger. “They didn’t search me well enough to find this,” she says with a devilish grin.

  We squeeze through the groups of freed prisoners. As an afterthought, I walk back to Thutmose who labors beside three other men to open a single door.

  “Once we’re out, barricade all the entrances.” I look around the path crowded with freed prisoners. “If we’re not back before lowest day, get everyone out and head for the mountains.”

  I rush after the others as they stride down the path between the cells.

  Brice stops to wait for me. “Want to explain what happened back there?” His eyes flash even in the darkness.

  “It’s not what you think.” I can hear the defensiveness in my voice. “Wade thought I’d been taken to the catacombs and was just relieved to see me alive.”

  Brice scoffs. “I was captured with some other guys who were on scouting missions, and we got pretty close.” He pauses. “But I never started kissing them.”

  Fury consumes my guilt. I fly around to face him. “I came here for you! And you stand here, questioning my loyalty—”

  “I’m sorry,” Brice interrupts me. He steps back, eyeing my clenched fists. “You’re right. Who am I to talk about loyalty, anyway?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just….” He seems to be waging some kind of internal battle. “I did something awful, and I’m afraid you’re going to hate me.”

  “You both coming or what?” Ry, hands on hips, waves us forward.

  I wait for Brice to say something else, but he’s looking at Ry, who is tapping her foot in impatience. His shoulders sag. “I’m just sorry, okay?”

  “Okay.” I give his hand a quick squeeze.

  “By the way, you never told me who this Dayne person is,” Brice says as we hurry after the others.

  Dayne.

  Fresh waves of panic roll through me. I pick up my pace. “He was my guide and saved my life more than once. He’s my friend.” My voice breaks on the last word.

  Brice slips an arm around my shoulders. “We’ll find him.”

  I swallow around the lump in my throat.

  When we reach the end of the path, everyone else pulls their cloaks on while I push open the enormous stone doors. Sunlight floods the path.

  “Is it high day?” Wade calls from where the others are hidden outside of the path of direct sunlight.

  I step out into the heat to measure my shadow. The sunlight comes in streams of pink and red. It’s so hot I can hardly breathe. “We still have about an hour,” I call back.

  The others follow me outside. Burdened by their cloaks, they seem on the verge of fainting.

  “What are we looking for?” I ask Brice.

  “Start near the doors and work your way out,” he instructs. Even the shadow from his hood can’t disguise how red his face is. The beginning of a Burn blister is smoking on his chin.

  He wouldn’t be putting himself at risk right now if it wasn’t for me. And I just…. I glance at Wade, and then look away before he catches my eye.

  “The entrance will be disguised,” Brice continues as he scans the ground, “but also recognizable to the Halves.”

  The land outside the door is nothing more than notty nellies, a few specere trees here and there, and rocks scattered about. I give the flowers a wide berth as I lift the dangling leaves of the specere trees to see if there are any secret tunnels hidden beneath.

  “Over here.”

  I run back to where Brice is kneeling. I swerve to the side just in time to avoid the syrup of a notty nelly that spits up at a small white bird flying just overhead. In seconds, the bird collapses on the ground in a sizzling, blackened heap.

  Brice points to what looks like nothing more than a tuft of grass.

  “Can you smell it?” he looks at me.

  He takes a great whiff as the rest of us exchange puzzled glances.

  “Cammamoss.” Brice motions for me to bend down and smell it. It has a deep earthy scent, not altogether unpleasant.

  “Cammamoss?” I peer at the grass.

  Brice plucks a handful from the ground, which transforms to the sandy color of his cloak. Its rich scent fills the air.

  “Did that stuff just change color, or is the sun making me blinder than I thought?” Ry scratches her head through her hood.

  Brice holds the moss next to a notty nelly, careful to avoid touching the flowers, and the moss turns yellow.

  “It camouflages to look like whatever it’s near so predators can’t see it to eat it. Scouts use it all the time to cover their tracks,” Brice says. He scrapes away more of the moss to reveal the flat stone hidden beneath. “See?”

  Vlaz squeezes between Brice and me to sniff the stone. He paws at the ground and begins to whine.

  I dig my hands under the stone and give it a yank.

  Beneath the stone is a black hole. As I blink into the depths, the hazy pink sunlight leaves my eyes. What I thought was darkness is a tunnel lit by candles. Steep stairs are carved into the earth and stone.

  Vlaz cries louder as he paces back and forth in front of the hole, wings fluttering.

  “Let me go first,” Brice says, putting a protective hand on my back.

  Before he can argue, I grasp the rungs of the wooden ladder and lower myself down into the tunnel. He’s already put himself at too much risk for my sake. Brice, Ry, and Wade grip their blades and follow me. Vlaz howls after us but doesn’t follow.

  The stench of decay fills the air at the bottom of the ladder. The others choke and gag, muffling the sound of footsteps ahead. I hold out my blade.

  “Ekil?” I ask.

  The Halve steps around the corner, but it’s too stooped to be Ekil. The Halve strides toward me with incredible swiftness and grabs my throat with one of its rough hands.

  “Wait,” I gasp. “I need your help.”

  The Halve loosens its grip on my neck and opens its mouth like it’s about to speak, but it doesn’t make a sound. It just stands there with its mouth hanging open. I look down.

  The point of a blade protrudes from the Halve’s stomach. Its thick blood has already begun to puddle on the ground.

  “Did it hurt you?” Brice puts his foot on the Halve’s back to dig out his blade.

  I let out a groan. That Halve was about to say something. It might have known where Dayne is being kept. To say as much to Brice, though, would be useless. I swallow the anger that surges through me.

  Another Halve appears around the corner.

  “Wait—” I begin, but Ry has already thrown her knife into the folds of its neck.

  It lets out a roar as it thuds to the ground.

  “No!”

  I run to the Halve and kneel by its side. It’s still alive—barely.

  “What’s going on down here? Where are the prisoners?” I support the Halve’s neck with one hand to
keep the blood from pooling there and choking it.

  The Halve looks at me with something between surprise and fear in its black eyes. It tries to say something, but its words are too filled with blood for me to understand.

  The Halve’s head drops heavy and lifeless against me.

  “Were you trying to talk to it?” Wade asks.

  “Hemera, is that its blood on you?” Brice wipes the blood off my face with the sleeve of his cloak. “You’ll die!”

  “I told you before. Their blood can’t hurt me.” I push away his hand, trying to ignore the look on his face. We stare at each other until Ry clears her throat.

  “Shall we?” She raises her eyebrow and makes an exaggerated gesture for us to continue.

  When we round the next corner of the tunnel, a horrific stench strikes me like a blow to the face. Choking, I try to shield my nose with my silk cloak.

  “Ugh, what is that?” Ry asks in disgust, her voice muffled from the sleeve of her cloak as she presses it over her face.

  “Rotting corpses,” Brice answers.

  “Dayne?” I run down the dark passage, not caring who might hear me.

  The tunnel ends abruptly. Its farthest corner is flanked by four cells identical to those in the prison building. I wrench open each door, leaving the others to go inside and start sawing through the prisoners’ ropes.

  I open the last door and let myself inside. The smell is sour, a combination of blood and urine. The only light in the cell comes from the candles in the tunnel. A body covered in rags is huddled in the corner of the cell.

  Please don’t let this be Dayne.

  When I take a step into the cell, the prisoner begins to scream.

  “It’s alright, I’m not going to hurt you!”

  At the sound of my voice, the screaming stops. The prisoner is silent for a moment. “Hemera?”

  CHAPTER 42

  Dayne!” I cross the cell in two steps.

  “No, not you, not you!” His voice is hoarse.

  Even in the darkness of the cell, I can tell his hair is matted with dirt and dried blood. His forehead shines with sweat.

  “Come on, we’ve got to get you out of here.” I keep the silk over my mouth and nose, fighting the urge to wretch.