“Want to know your fellow kamikaze pilot, huh?” He grinned.
“Something like that, but not quite as depressing.”
“Sorry.” He stopped walking to catch his breath. “What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know … What are your hopes, fears, dreams, stuff like that?” It sounded so lame considering our situation, but I had to take his mind off things. Plus, I genuinely wanted to know.
“I hope to destroy the Kindred. I’m afraid of failing. Dreams? I haven’t thought much past the next twelve hours.”
“Permission to treat the witness as hostile?”
He started climbing again. “Sorry again. It’s been so long since I’ve thought about that kind of question.” We walked in silence for a moment. “For a long time, I wanted to be a cop, like my dad, but then when I found out what he did, I wanted to be a Kindred Elder. Then I found out what that really meant, and I spent months and months just kind of drifting. I mean, aside from wanting to take the Kindred down, I really hadn’t thought further than that. That was everything I thought about, everything I wanted. It gave me so much purpose but at the same time was so ...”
“Empty?”
“Yeah. I don’t want the whole purpose of my life to be about destruction. I want to build, create. When I met you, I don’t know, I guess I started wondering what could be.” He looked back at me, and I raised my eyebrows. He continued. “I always thought that where you’ve been defines you, like where you are and the actions you’ve taken and the situations you’ve been a part of, those are what shape your future. But then meeting you and talking to you and even seeing you last night ... You’ve been through so much, you’ve carried so much pain, but you keep going. You stay strong.” I didn’t feel strong, but my cheeks flushed as he looked at me. Was that really how he saw me?
“The past happened, there’s no changing that,” he said. “The past affects your future, there’s no changing that either. But I can choose how it changes things. We all can. I can dwell on the past, live in the mess and the lies and the death and everything else, or I can use it. I can harness it, use it as fuel to change the future.”
There was a blaze in his eyes as he talked.
“When I was recovering, just lying in bed in the farmhouse, with nowhere to go, I had a lot of time to think. I’m not the only kid who’s left the Kindred; there are so many others like me. When you leave, you lose everything. If you join the Unseen, you have a place to fight but not a place to belong. It’s not that kind of environment. I’ve seen a few young kids, twelve, thirteen years old, leaving the Kindred with nowhere to go. They come into the Unseen for a while, but it’s not the kind of place a child should live. The Unseen don’t send kids into the firing line, and there’s nothing else for them to do. Most of the time, they drift and then quit. When they leave, they have no family, no friends, no place. They end up on the streets, using their abilities to scrounge or steal to survive.
“I was in the city a few months ago, and I saw this girl, ten, maybe eleven years old. Her parents had left the Kindred and were murdered as they fled. I recognised her from my time there; she was only about six when I knew her. Brown hair, brown eyes, she had such a cheeky smile. But now that was gone, and she was so skinny and small it was obvious she hadn’t been eating or anything. I tried to help her, tried to get close, but she used her abilities to bring down a chunk of awning, got me square in the head. When I woke up, she was gone.
“It’s dangerous for people like us out there, but even more for these kids. If enough of them out there got together … They’re angry, they’re tired, they’re alone ... Who knows what they could do? I couldn’t even imagine the consequences if they became known to the Kindred.”
He teared up a bit talking about these kids, especially the little girl. He was really scared for them, really moved. I found myself moved too. Hopefully, the girl was okay; hopefully, she was still alive.
“I want to start a place for them,” Noah said.
“What, like a kids’ home or something?”
“I guess. I wouldn’t even know what to call it. But after—I mean, if we take down the Kindred, there’s gonna be a lot of kids without parents running around. Even more than there already are. That’s the aftermath of war. Always has been.”
I’d never really thought about that too much, and I especially didn’t want to now, after killing Elijah. But there was no doubt many of the Unseen killed in the assault were parents. Not only that—so many of the killed Kindred had children, innocent bystanders who would never know why or how their parents died or what they were involved in. If by some miracle the Kindred collapsed, the world would be flooded with a new wave of orphans, some with abilities like mine. I had been so focused on destroying my enemies, I hadn’t stopped to think too hard about the consequences. The realization blunted my determination to fight. I couldn’t be responsible for that kind of death, that kind of suffering.
“I want to help you start it,” I said. “Your home. Orphanage. Whatever you call it.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin. It’s just a hazy kind of dream right now.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll be there. It’s been hard enough losing Mum and Skye, even though they’re still alive. I can’t imagine what I’d do if they died. These kids have lost everything, and they won’t be the only ones. So I’m there. Let’s do it.”
We reached the top of the hill, and it was time to get our bearings. Noah had spent more time with the Kindred, so he had a better idea of where we were. We could see most of the landscape from here; the hill was rocky and mostly bare, and the trees lower down only just got in the way at the bottom of our view. There was a series of cliffs that stuck out like pineapple on a pizza, huge lumps rising from the bush. In places, they joined up and formed ranges cutting their way across the horizon. Noah pointed to the largest one, which covered about a third of our view. That was our goal. That was the top of the Kindred complex.
“I’d say that’s about six hours from here,” he said, “if we keep up our speed.”
I thought he was being optimistic but needed all the hope I could get. We tried to spot the easiest path through, which is normally a riverbed. If we followed the river up, it might turn into the creek that ran right near the hidden entrance and past the arena.
Noah found the river glimmering through some trees to our right, not too far away, and we set off towards it. He was still breathing heavily, but that was probably from the hard slog up the hill. The way down the other side was easier and gave us both time to catch our breath.
We tracked the river for ages, sometimes having to step into the water to avoid huge tangled bushes that blocked our progress on the bank. The river was never more than waist deep at the centre, so walking upstream was easy enough, aside from our feet slipping on the rocks. The cold water was nice anyway, as the sun was really starting to cook. The shirt I borrowed from Noah had long sleeves and was turning my top half into a pressure oven. At least it stopped me from burning. Noah’s shoulders were bare in his singlet, and the sun had coloured them bright red. That was going to hurt later.
We reached a bend, and the water blazed bright orange, alive with a colony of algae that streaked across the rocks and through the water. It happened sometimes, especially in summer, and I’d seen it in the creek near our house a few times as a kid. I’d always thought it was pollution, but up here everything was crystal clear, untouched by humans. For all my angst, all the worry and pain and stress and chaos happening all around me, it was like this part of the world hadn’t even noticed. For these trees, these rocks and birds and spiders, none of this battle mattered. We could win, we could lose, but they would continue, oblivious to the fate of the two intruders currently crashing their way through the water. We would go, and they would forget.
As we walked, even the water forgot us. It sloshed around as our legs cut a path through the surface, rippled off the bank, and then moments later returned to its normal rhythm.
It was strangely comforting, knowing the world would continue just fine without me. It was also a little sad.
The orange streaks continued, and so did we. Until a hard edge caught my eye. Out in the bush, it’s all curves and soft edges; nature doesn’t like straight lines. It was off to the right, through some stringy paperbark trees. Noah had seen it, too, and was shading his eyes trying to get a better look.
“It looks like sandstone,” I said.
“It’s man-made for sure. A big sandstone wall. How would you even build something like that out here?”
“Sometimes hikers or rangers set up shelters with emergency supplies in case bushwalkers get lost.”
“Let’s see if there’s anything we can use. I could do with some lunch even if it is from a can.”
“I’d love a burger.” My stomach growled.
“Burger in a can? Sounds delicious.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I laughed.
Noah clambered over the side of the bank and gave me a hand up. As we drew closer, I got a better look at the structure. This was not a hiker’s shelter. It was too well built and about the size of a carport. The walls were made from flat sandstone blocks that must have been dragged here from somewhere else. There was no natural sandstone around that I could see.
We walked around to the front, and I stopped dead.
The entrance was incredible, with carved stone columns that looked almost Roman. They weren’t that tall, only a few heads higher than Noah, but they were impressive. Two statues stood motionless on either side of the entrance, dressed in robes, hands over their eyes, mouths curled in identical snarls. Neither was armed, but they were definitely guarding this place. The entrance itself had no door, just a threshold of worn timber embedded in the dirt floor. Wind whipped through it and whirled around inside, moaning as it tried to escape back out into the open air. The whole place felt cold. Dark. It looked different, but it was the same building for sure.
In the daylight, it was just as terrifying as it had been the night I passed my test with the Kindred.
The chapel.
I turned to Noah. “We need to go. Now.”
The sun dipped behind a cloud, and I shivered from the wind that scattered angrily across fallen leaves and twigs.
“What is this place?” Noah murmured. There was a fear in his voice I hadn’t heard since the first night we were attacked.
Something was calling. I could feel it reaching out to me, to the darkness in my stomach. A whisper swirled around my mind, behind my eyes, and into my heart. There was no figure this time, no melting, awful ghost, but I knew it was calling. The whisper coalesced into my name.
Ari.
“I don’t know why, but I feel like we shouldn’t be here,” Noah said.
I nodded, but whether it was the wind at my back or the calling in my gut, I was propelled forward, legs pulling me over the threshold.
Inside, the air was damp and dark, the only light fighting its way in through tiny cracks in the stone joints. The ground was dust, and the atmosphere ancient. It was an aberration, a place that shouldn’t be. I’d thought the first time that maybe it wasn’t real, but here I was, inside it. The last time, an awful figure had grabbed my arm and held me tight. This time, there was nothing holding me … and yet I couldn’t run. The building itself had taken hold. I couldn’t have left even if I’d wanted to.
“Ari? What are you doing?”
I barely heard him.
I was looking at the bodies.
THIRTY-SIX
They stood watching me. Six figures propped up by rope and twigs and wire, arranged in a half-circle along the back wall. They’d been there for a long time, decades at least, because most of the skin was gone, along with the flesh. They were mostly just bone, but not the white, glistening kind of bones you see on TV. These were brown, worn, with stuff still hanging onto them like someone had toilet-papered a house before a rainstorm. Dark stains on the floor showed where most of the remains had fallen, and small paw prints indicated anything that had fallen there was cleaned up by scavengers.
Was it an altar? Some kind of sacrifice? Perhaps it was a warning.
There was one feature of these figures that I found even more disturbing than their cold, eyeless sockets. The robes. These once were Kindred.
I should have been thrilled that someone killed these Kindred. I should have been excited that whoever it was could be on our side. But this was so gruesome, so utterly, intentionally dark, that whoever had done this to the Kindred had the potential to be even worse than them.
“Look at this,” Noah said behind me.
I turned and followed his gaze. On the wall, above the door, were words written in a language I didn’t understand. It looked a bit like Latin, which I’d seen in history class a few times at school, but the shapes were all wrong, square, and angular. They were carved into the wall as a banner.
PEAH CWALU SUNIS CONSUMPTEI
“I know this,” Noah said darkly.
“What do you mean? You can read this?”
“It’s the traditional language used by the Kindred.”
“Latin?”
“Almost. It’s a modified version, not too hard to interpret if you know Latin. Not that I do. The Kindred adopted it as their written language when Rome did, but it morphed over time and across continents to become its own version of the script. Some of it is taken from Anglo-Saxon English, the oldest form of the language, spoken more than fifteen hundred years ago. They call it the First Language. The higher you go in the Kindred, the more of this you learn. The Eldership all know and speak the First Language in their closed meetings.”
“Can you read it?”
“I think so. The promises you made on entry into the Kindred were just the first creed. As you move up in the Kindred, you learn the creeds in the First Language instead. A lot of these words were in my creed to become Brother, although they weren’t in this order. I had to memorise it by heart.”
He paused for a moment, carefully studying the text. When he turned, his eyes were narrowed. “This is a loose translation, but I don’t like what it says.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“It means ‘Through death we are consumed.’”
Goosebumps rose on my neck. “That’s creepy.”
He frowned. “I get the feeling these guys died on purpose.”
“They sacrificed themselves?”
“Or let someone sacrifice them. Cwalu doesn’t just mean death. It means violent death.”
I started to shiver, half from this revelation and half from the cold wind seeping through my clothes, which were still wet from the river.
There was a screech from outside, the sound of something dying. Then another, and a third.
“Something’s out there,” I whispered.
“I’ll take a look,” Noah said. “Will you be okay to stay here?”
“Better the devil you know,” I said, trying to sound brave. “I’ll see if there’s anything here we can defend ourselves with.” I nodded at the bodies. “They might have something useful on them.”
“Don’t come outside until I’m back.”
I nodded and turned to face the bodies as his feet crunched outside through the leaves.
“So,” I said to the bodies strung up before me, “let’s see if you’ve got anything useful on you.” It was weird talking to a row of corpses, but it helped me ignore the dread creeping up my spine. I walked slowly towards the figure on the left, trying not to look him in what remained of his eyes. I wasn’t even sure it was a him, as the bodies were so badly decomposed it was hard to make out gender. At least the smell had faded a long time ago; although, the wind stirring around the room occasionally brought a pungent pang of death.
The robes were remarkably intact, and there were pockets stitched onto the outside of each. I grimaced and looked inside the first, not wanting to simply stick my hand down there in case a spider or something worse had moved in. The first corpse’s poc
kets were empty, and the second. The third and fourth had a few scraps of cloth, and the fifth a small pocket knife, which I stuffed in the back of my jeans. That could come in handy.
The sixth body, the one on the far right, was just as decomposed as the others. The robe was different, though, a lighter colour. The body seemed fresher somehow, as if it was newer. It wasn’t gooey, but it had more skin on it than the others. I could almost make out its face, but I tried not to. I was spooking myself too much.
There was screech outside, followed by a howl, but it was far away, so it couldn’t be Noah.
The left pocket of this body was empty, but the right held a small, folded scrap of paper. It was yellow, browning around the edges, and nearly fell apart as I tried to unfold it.
“What have you got?” I said aloud. The storm outside was building, and the atmosphere felt charged. I couldn’t make out the writing on the paper in the half-light, and wind scattered dust into the air. There was a tiny shaft of light glowing through a crack in the wall to my right, so I turned towards it, holding the paper up. The writing was in English but really old. It could have been from medieval times, but that was impossible. Europeans had only been in this country for a few hundred years. I read aloud:
“Light will die,
and the bones of the fallen
fuel the fire of resurrection.
We stand eternal.”
Something caught my eye as leaves blew through the door, and I turned around, expecting to see Noah. He wasn’t there. I was. It was me. The sixth corpse had become me.
Its rotting eyes were mine—one blue, one brown, both dead. It had my mouth, grey, and my hair, caked with blood. It was my body, tied limply to a frame of twigs, cold and lifeless and decomposing like all the others. I couldn’t move and couldn’t look away.
I reached toward my own dead face. The wind whispered my name with one voice, then two, then a hundred, thousand calling me.
Ari.
The Fire Unseen Page 22
