I tug on Dayne’s tattered cloak. The stickiness of fresh blood coats my hand. “Time to go,” I repeat as panic and nausea roil in my stomach.
When Dayne doesn’t move, I pick him up as gently as I can. I carry him through the cell door before his ranting trails off and his body goes limp.
Ry and Wade also carry a prisoner between them who is either dead or unconscious. I would guess from the matted hair dragging on the ground the prisoner is a woman, but she’s too covered with blood to tell for sure.
“The others are dead,” Brice says helplessly.
We carry Dayne and the other prisoner past the bodies of the two Halves. Together, we manage to pull the limp bodies out of the tunnel and into the blinding sunlight. I draw Dayne’s filthy cloak more closely around his body.
“This one doesn’t have a cloak,” Ry’s voice comes from inside the tunnel. “She’ll fry.”
“There’s a specere tree a few paces away,” Brice calls down. “Keep her under your own cloak as much as you can until we reach the tree. She’ll be safe under there until we can find another cloak.”
As we carry the prisoners from the tunnel to the specere trees, Brice stops to cut a red branch from a leafy bush.
I push Dayne’s body through the white leaves first and then turn back to help Ry and Wade with the other prisoner. We would be closed entirely in darkness under the canopy of the specere leaves if it were not for the branch Brice carries, which bathes us all in a scarlet light.
Vlaz noses his way under the tree. He sniffs at Dayne, still whimpering. The woman opens her eyes and begins to scream. Ry tries to calm her, but it’s no use. She shrieks as she struggles against Ry’s grip.
“You lost your cloak,” Ry tells the woman as she pulls her back from running through the specere leaves. “You’ll die.”
“She’ll bring every Halve in the fortress here,” Wade says.
Ry reaches underneath her cloak to rip off a piece of her shirt. “I’m sorry,” she mutters as she stuffs the cloth into the woman’s mouth.
The woman’s eyes roll back into her head as she faints. Brice catches her and lowers her to the ground. Dayne is moaning, “Not her. Leave my family alone.”
“Dayne, it’s Hemera. It’s me.” I stand in front of him, but his eyes are unfocused and he seems not to see me.
“What do we do now?” Wade asks.
I use one hand to keep Dayne from falling to the ground. “First, someone needs to get a cloak for her. It won’t be long before an army of Halves comes, and we—”
“Oh no,” Ry moans.
She bends over the woman’s body and looks up. A tear slides down Ry’s cheek, which looks like blood in the light of the red branch. “She’s dead.”
“It’s the Halve blood,” Dayne whispers. “Inside us.”
I inhale. It never occurred to me that the blood covering Dayne’s face might not be his own. I look closer at the slash marks across his neck and shoulder. The wounds are the same as the ones Taniel had when Brice and I found his body in the woods.
With shaking hands, I press my fingertips to the cuts.
I feel the searing pain as the poison is drawn from Dayne and burns into my own skin. There’s a hiss as a small amount of smoke escapes from the place where my hands are pressed to Dayne’s wounds.
“Hemera, what the—?” Brice starts toward me, but Wade holds him back.
Dayne shivers as the poison leaves his body and flows into mine. My legs give out beneath me and I collapse onto the ground. Every part of me feels like it’s on fire. Sweat pours down my face. My lungs scream for air, but I can’t take a breath.
The pain is more savage than anything I’ve ever felt. Healing Jarosh was nothing compared to this. I claw at my own skin as I try to rid it of the burning poison. It’s like Dayne’s body held more Halve blood than his own.
Just when I think I can’t take it anymore, the rawness of the pain begins to recede. Gasping, I hold up my hands to examine the place where I absorbed the poison. The bloody rawness is magnified by the branch’s red light. New skin materializes even as I inspect the wound.
“Hemera!” Dayne’s eyes snap back into focus. He grabs my arm with surprising strength. “I must speak with you. Now.”
I pull myself up to a sitting position with an effort. “We’re going to a safe place,” I reply wearily.
“Nowhere is safe!” he looks around, as though he expects one of us to transform into a Halve. “Now, here, alone.”
“We’ll keep watch,” Ry beckons to the others, “and bury this body.”
“But it’s nearly high day,” I protest.
“There’s still a few minutes, at least.”
“Hemera.” Brice shifts on his feet.
“Go!” Dayne commands.
Brice gives me an uncertain look.
“Please,” I tell him.
With a sigh, Brice ducks out from under the tree’s canopy. Ry and Wade lift the woman’s body. They check their cloaks, and then duck under the leaves.
Dayne sits up and rests his back against the trunk of the tree.
“Thank you,” he says when the others have gone. “But you should never have come here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s you he wants; it’s your blood he’s trying to replicate. That’s what he’s doing, mixing Halve and human blood, to try to make others like you.”
“He’s trying to make others like…me?” I feel sick.
“Oh Mer, how can you forgive me?” Dayne cries. “I’ve kept so many secrets.”
I give him a sharp look. “You’ve never called me that before.”
Dayne sighs. “We have little time, so I’ll speak plainly.” He blinks, as though fighting to stay conscious. “I wanted to be there to help you and watch you grow up. When I left Subterrane Harkibel—”
“What were you doing in my Subterrane?” A nervous tingle spreads through me. I look at Dayne, and it strikes me like a blow. I stagger backward.
How did I not see it before? His eyes…that blue…that familiar crease at the edges when he smiles. He’s my—
Dayne sees the recognition on my face and nods. “Brother.” He pauses to take a deep, shuddering breath. “Well, half-brother. We share the same mother.”
CHAPTER 43
I swallow hard. “Why…why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because I was ashamed. If I hadn’t become a Solguard, our mother might still be alive.” He stares at the ground. “Not a day goes by that I don’t regret abandoning you.”
I don’t know what to say. In spite of the heat, a chill takes hold of me.
Dayne continues, “When I found you, when I learned you weren’t dead like I thought, all I wanted was to stay with you, to protect you. I thought if you knew who I really was, you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.” Dayne reaches a hand toward mine where it rests in the dirt. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“But the Captain isn’t your father, then?” I manage to choke out.
“No. Before she married the Captain, our mother was with another man. Clarion was his name. He was a Solguard, and died in a skirmish with Duskers a few years after I was born. Our mother married Zeidan seven years later because she saw the qualities of a leader in him.” His expression darkens. “She was right, but just not the way she thought he was going to be.”
Dayne swallows, and then shakes his head. “When I was fifteen years old and you were just a baby, I ran away to join Jadem and the Solguards. Our mother told me some of what my father had done, and I wanted to help finish the work he had started.”
“You were with Aunt Jadem? The whole time?” My mouth feels dry. Exhaustion is beginning to edge out every other feeling.
Dayne nods. His thin, lined face is filled with grief.
His gaze darkens. “Of course, once Zeidan found out, he forced our mother to disown Jadem and I and never speak of us again. Our mother knew if she tried to come with me, Zeidan would never stop searchi
ng for you, and she feared what he would do when he found you.”
I try to see the man Dayne is describing, but all I can picture is Captain Harkibel, fearlessly defending the Dwellers as the Halves closed in around him. The Captain might have been difficult to know well—all I knew about him before he was the Subterrane captain was that he was a healer—and he might have been traveling outside of the Subterrane more often than he was inside it, but he protected me from the Duskers. He made difficult decisions for the sake of the Dwellers.
“It’s not possible,” I whisper. “My father would never….”
But even as I say the words, I feel a seed of doubt take root.
“Believe me he would,” Dayne says with a bitterness I’ve never heard before. He takes quick, shallow breaths. “Zeidan has many spies. When he learned that Jadem and I had infiltrated Malarusk….”
“He wouldn’t—”
“He sold us out to the Duskers. And they rewarded him for it.”
My father is the reason why Jadem and Dayne were imprisoned? I don’t know what to say.
Dayne grimaces. “Neither Jadem nor I would give up the names of any of the other Solguards or the location of the cave fortress. We were tortured and left in the Malarusk dungeons to rot. It was eight years before we escaped.”
Eight years. Dayne’s lined face and gray hair make sense now.
Dayne continues, “When Jadem and I broke out, we came straight to Subterrane Harkibel to see you and Mother. We were going to take you both away from the Captain. But we were too late.” He sags against the tree trunk. “On our way, we learned from one of Jadem’s spies that you and our mother were killed by a Halve.”
“Me and our mother? Killed by a Halve?” My brain is slow to register his words.
Dayne looks at me with desperate, pleading eyes. “We saw both of your headstones in the forest where the spy said the Halve attacked. I never dreamed your headstone was…fake.”
I sit numbly as Dayne’s words wash over me. I remember Aunt Jadem saying something when I first met her…something about hearing that her sister and niece were killed by a Halve.
She must have been with Dayne, then.
Betrayal, at no one in particular—at everyone—washes over me. A single question emerges from the fog swirling around my head.
“How could my mother—my own mother—not have told me? How could she stand to lie about her own sister? Her son?”
“Haven’t you been listening?” Dayne growls. “She didn’t tell you because she couldn’t. Telling you would have put us, and you, in more danger.” He pounds the ground with his fist.
I shake my head. Is it possible my parents lied to me for my entire life? About my own family?
“I never knew.” I turn away so Dayne can’t see the angry tears spilling down my cheeks.
Dayne says, “After we heard about your deaths, Jadem returned to the cave fortress, but she stopped all her Solguard work. She said too many sacrifices had been made. But I was angry. I wanted someone to pay for what happened to you and Mother.”
I remember the tension between Dayne and Jadem. Now, I understand why.
Dayne continues, “I went out on my own to do damage to the Duskers where I could. It took me five years to work up the nerve to go back to kill Zeidan.”
“You were going to kill…my father?”
“Yes. But on my way to the Subterrane, I found you. I recognized your eyes, and then when you told me your name….”
I’ve been holding my breath, and force myself to let it out.
Dayne says, “I could have come back for you sooner if only I’d known.”
Too many emotions are at war inside of me for me to think of a response.
Dayne’s face twists in bitterness. “I sacrificed everything for the Solguards. I was rotting away in Malarusk when I should have been there to protect you.”
Dayne nods at the tattoo on the back of my hand, which glows red in the light of the branch. “And now you will make the same sacrifice.”
“Joining the Solguard was my choice,” I say.
Dayne’s anger disappears. “I’m so sorry.” A tear slides down his cheek.
I can’t make sense of any of this. First an aunt, and now a brother? My parents…both of them lying to me….
Remembering what I had wanted to know before, I ask, “What was the urgent errand you left Jadem’s fortress for?”
Dayne’s gaze is far away. “You told me everyone in Subterrane Harkibel was killed by the Halves, but then one of Jadem’s scouts brought word the Captain survived.”
I leap to my feet.
“He’s alive? My father’s alive?”
Dayne nods.
“And you didn’t tell me?!”
Dayne looks up at me. “I couldn’t explain to you why I needed to kill him without telling you who I was. There wasn’t time to explain it all to you then.”
Dayne was going to kill my father. It’s only the destroyed look on Dayne’s face that tempers my fury.
There is truth in Dayne’s eyes, and there would be no reason for him to lie. But I still can’t imagine Captain Harkibel…my father…making a fake grave for me and giving up his wife’s family to the Duskers.
He wasn’t the kind of man to be cruel for cruelty’s sake…was he? I’m struck, once again, by how little I really knew my father. He was so often away, and when he was in the Subterrane, his time was taken up by the guards and scouts. Outside of the Dusker inspections and weapons training, which stopped after my mother’s death, I barely saw him.
Destinel was an orphan and Brice’s parents died soon after my mother, so it never felt strange to me to have so little to do with my father.
“Hemera, he’s the reason why I thought you were dead…for years,” Dayne says. “He’s the reason I wasn’t there to protect our mother.”
There is so much anguish in Dayne’s blue eyes. Now that I know, it’s impossible not to notice their resemblance to our mother’s.
“Did you do it?” There is no emotion in my voice. “Did you kill my father?”
Dayne shakes his head. “Right before I left to go in search of him, I discovered Gorgoran was a Dusker spy. I came to warn you.”
I’m filled with relief, but the feeling is temporary. Footsteps pound the ground outside the specere tree. Vlaz, who had been lying beside Dayne, jumps up as Wade lifts one of the leaves and ducks his head in.
“Time to go,” he beckons us. “Halves are coming.”
“No, there’s more,” Dayne grabs my cloak to keep me from leaving.
“Now,” Wade says. “There’s an army after us.”
I give Dayne my blade and unwind my sling. When we duck out from the specere tree, the Halves are galloping toward us on all fours. Within seconds, we’re surrounded.
There’s no point in trying to talk to these Halves; they would kill me before I could even get close enough. I place a stone in the leather pouch of my sling, wind it in two short rotations, and then let it fly.
I reload my sling before the first Halve has even hit the ground. Vlaz is in the air, snarling and biting. The Halves scatter out of his immediate path, but don’t flee as they had before. Beside me, Dayne slides his blade through two Halves in a single motion.
An enormous Halve runs at me with its stone club poised to strike. I reach for another stone, but my leather pouch is empty. The Halve swings its club at my head. I duck under the blow, and then bring my elbow down on its curved back. Crack.
The Halve lets out a terrific roar as it sinks to the ground.
“Hemera!”
Brice tosses his blade to me. I catch it, and dive under a club that narrowly misses my head. I drive the blade into the Halve’s gut. Thick blood oozes out of the wound as I draw the blade out.
The Halve’s black eyes go wide. White froth flecked with blood erupts from its mouth as I use the blade a second time to end it.
Five Halves surround me in a tight circle. I dart between and around them as they swi
ng their clubs. These Halves are better fighters than any I’ve encountered, but I’m faster.
I use my fist to break one Halve’s arm. It howls as its stone club falls to the ground. I pick up the club and throw it at another that is closing in on me. The club strikes its head, and the Halve collapses.
“Look out!”
I turn, catching the side of a Halve’s rough fist as it hits me in the jaw.
My eyes swim with tears. I blink to clear my vision as the sound of their heavy footsteps draws nearer. I throw wild punches, listening for the crack as my fists connect with the Halves’ bones.
My vision clears enough for me to see the club just before it connects with my upturned face. Everything goes black.
CHAPTER 44
I open my eyes. The light shining from the lanterns makes a fiery pain erupt in my head. Where am I?
I’m lying on a strange bed. My arms and legs are stuck against my body as though a blanket is wrapped tightly around me. Too tightly.
Every breath is an effort. If I stay still, my head throbs less viciously. There is a smell in the air, familiar yet repulsive. Sweat, fear, and death.
I ignore the surge of nausea as I lift my neck to look around. Beside my bed, there’s a wooden box draped with a once-white cloth, which is now speckled with dried blood. Fine-tipped knives crusted with blood rest on top of the cloth.
Beside the box are two iron cauldrons on a raised platform with clear tubes running between them. One of the tubes carries red liquid, blood, between the cauldrons. The other tube carries a liquid that is more of a rust-brown hue, like the blood of Halves. Pools of congealed blood have gathered in the divots on the uneven stone floor.
Built into the walls are carved-out spaces for crude, human-length boxes.
“I’m in the catacombs,” I say out loud.
“You are, indeed,” agrees a voice. The sound bounces off the stone ceiling, which gives the effect of being everywhere at once. The voice is familiar but does nothing to lessen my growing unease.
I try to sit up but find I can’t move anything below my neck. Glancing down, I see it’s not a blanket, but rather iron chains that have immobilized my body. My bed is nothing more than a thick wooden board resting on an iron scaffold.
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