Arrival of the Rifted (The Rifted Series Book 1)

by C. C. York

  Elaine squeezed her calloused hand. "It's OK, Kara. I'm going to my family. I'm not scared. It'll all be OK soon. And I'll figure out how to write you or come visit you with my parents."

  Kara stifled a sob, letting go of her hand to swipe her tears. "I can't—"

  A shrill whistle interrupted her in the darkness ahead of them. The girls stopped, and Elaine grit her teeth against the need to run. A bird call answered behind them. The girl from the cluster said they heard animal noises in the Silos before her friend disappeared.

  She whispered, “Kara, we gotta get out of here. Now.” She spun frantically around at the footsteps behind them.

  Kara, though, stood still.

  Two men appeared in the pool of light, each wearing a long black cloak and dull black boots. Elaine tugged at Kara, pulling her as she screamed, "Run!"

  Yet Kara did not budge. Instead, she gripped Elaine's wrist as a man's laughter ricocheted off the Silos surrounding them. Hvard Canavar stepped into the pool of light.

  "I always knew you were a smart one," he said to Kara. Another man looped a thin, dark metal chain around Elaine before she even realized he stood behind her.

  Chills ran down Elaine's arms and legs, and the chain felt heavier than it did a moment before. This isn’t happening. This is a mistake. Or part of some plan Kara has that will wind up capturing Hvard Canavar so that I don’t have to leave right away.

  Elaine faced Hvard, ready to make a run for it at Kara’s signal, but she glanced at the girl that saved her months ago and realized no chains looped her. She asked, “Kara?”

  Kara just cried harder.

  The Hadishis had been a giant raft in a dark sea, Kara, her anchor. Elaine couldn't get enough air in her lungs, and with each struggle, the chain pinned her arms tighter to her sides.

  “Kara? Please.” She didn’t want to beg, but she would. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted your family hurt. I will go away. I’ll get to my family in Bakilar. Please. Help me.”

  The men around her laughed, Hvard leaning into her face. “She told you you’ve got family in Bakilar, did she? And you believed her?”

  Elaine thought of the taffy pink door and the bewildered older boy. She held her breath once more, closed her eyes, and...nothing. She tried to Rift to the next set of Silos, to Kara, to anywhere. But nothing happened.

  Tears marred Kara’s dark charcoal-lined eyes, and they were the only things that belied a face otherwise devoid of emotion. A cloaked man reeking of booze bound Elaine’s legs with another chain and stuffed a cloth in her mouth before Elaine could scream more than, "Please!"

  Elaine frantically kicked and wiggled, but to no avail. She sobbed into the scratchy cloth threatening to choke her.

  Kara finally met her eyes and said softly, "I'm sorry. I didn't have a choice," before she melted back into the shadows without another word.

  Elaine thought she knew what helplessness felt like. She felt it when her parents left her for days alone with empty cabinets, when they screamed at each other, when they hit each other. She felt it the night her Ma took so many pills that she couldn’t speak. And she felt helpless the night her Da put her in the hospital. But when Elaine couldn’t move her arms to swipe her tears, she felt the floor shift under her, and she could not breathe.

  She spiraled into a panic, past the denial of Kara hurting her, past the fear of what will happen. She felt smaller than she ever had before, small enough to fit in a locked compartment in the darkest part of her mind.

  Then a voice, one she’d never heard before, whispered to her, “Lock it away.”

  Elaine focused on that phrase, repeating it over and over in her head. She rocked herself back and forth, pushing Kara’s betrayal far down into a locked section of her mind. She pushed the faces of the laughing men down into another cranny and shoved the fear of what will happen into a space she could address later. Lock it away.

  Hvard turned sharply at something in the shadows beyond her and ordered one of his men to check it out. Another man lifted Elaine over his shoulder and into a grain cart just beyond the pool of light. He took off his cloak, his scabs glistening along the side of his face under the dim light. He wrapped it over her, light as a gossamer veil. She strained to hear the voice that calmed her, but only a familiar one echoed in her mind once more.

  “Come.”

  Alik

  Alik pinned a light opaque veil over her nose and mouth. The ends of it skimmed the unremarkable servant garb Damari sent, and she slid her flint rings over her fingers. Mara strapped on a slim dagger in a holster wrapped on her thigh, hidden once she tied her wide-legged dhoti. A thin, black chain wrapped around Mara’s waist. Alik had no idea where she and Damari obtained the Tuzaga chain, but her mind volleyed too many questions and fears and hopes to ask. The sun outside her east window began to melt into the jade sea.

  "It's time," Mara said.

  She led the way through the garden terraces to the hidden stairwell behind the hearth of Ates. Alik thought back to the carefree time she and Shauna walked through this orchard on First Night, never realizing how much things would change in a matter of hours. We are so close, Shauna. Stay alive. We are coming now. She didn’t dwell on the possibility that Shauna could be dead. Or how terrifying the Edicisi would be if they found him. She kept her mantra up, willing every positive thought to go to her best friend. Stay alive, Shauna. Stay alive.

  She and Mara circled down the stairwell to the alley in the Trades. Damari and Agnian waited for them at the bottom near the same broken chair Mara waited in on First Night. So much change in just a few nights, she thought. Soon, this will no longer be my home.

  Even as the low horn of the curfew reverberated through the Tiers, the main path of the Trades emptied; its usual throng a distant memory. Stragglers shuffled quickly into stairwells that would lead to their homes and hideouts at its mournful bale.

  Shadows bounced off the covered market stalls, and wheeled carts shrouded in chains gave Alik the impression they were not alone. Yet no patrol had reached this central Tier.

  Damari and Mara took turns leading through a labyrinth of stairs that wound around the Trades and down to the mid and Sub Tiers, Agnian only a step behind Alik. Aygir hoofbeats echoed in unison from above, where they patrolled the Upper Tiers. When they finally reached the bottom, the only sounds came from the fabric Towner roofs snapping in the wind. The Hordesmen will be on foot in Low Town, Alik thought. There’s no way the broad Aygirs can wind through this web of Clusters.

  The fire-rimmed Perimeter Wall usually comforted Alik, a massive stone barrier between her and the beasts roaming the fields beyond. Down here, the wall felt suffocating. It blocked out one moon's light, and dark shadows cast over Low Town. The only light came from a few meager fires spaced out, so they walked in a checkerboard of darkness and light. She tripped over a small, crude effigy of the Edicisi near a broken fountainhead, and Alik shuddered despite herself.

  “We must hurry,” she said, trying to calm the frantic pulse of her Dua.

  The four rushed through the Clusters, ignoring the eyes that peered out from behind the shanty lean-to's surrounding them. Finally, the back entrance of the Silos appeared around the bend.

  Alik scanned the surroundings, holding onto Damari's shoulder, as her eyesight blurred. Before she cleared her eyes, she spotted a shadow of smoke gray behind one of the silos. Heart pounding, Alik said to the group, "Mara, you and Agnian walk the opposite path. Damari and I will take this one."

  Damari and Alik slipped into the black shadows of the Silos adjacent to the Perimeter Wall. The thick vats clustered together in rows of two; the only light drifted from the fire orbs in the wide center path. Alik could no longer see Mara or Agnian in the darkness.

  Damari stilled, and Alik heard it a moment later. A creak of a wheel, the crush of gravel, and affirmation that she was right. I may not know what my dreams tell me most of the time, but I am learning to trust myself. She nodded once to D
amari, and they crouched low to peer between two vats into the clearing ahead.

  Two men blinked into the light. That's the only way Alik could describe it. No one was there one moment, and then the next, they stood in the center of the meager light. By the way Damari stiffened, she knew he saw the same thing. The men pushed their dark cloaks from their heads to reveal black ink curved around their eyes.

  Hvard Canavar stepped into view, and Alik nearly laughed.

  Thank you, Ates, this makes so much more sense. I genuinely believed the Edicisi and his Handwaidens waited for us here. She grinned ear to ear, gripping a bewildered-looking Damari. Thank you Sulu, thank you Ruzgar and Yapi. I have never been so happy to see that ugly thug and his men. She didn’t know how the cloaks hid the men in plain sight or muffled all their sounds, but it was far less daunting to confront these men than a monster.

  The stories from the girls that got away make sense. Hearing voices, seeing no one, the number of girls missing. It was a man I saw in the Trades that chased me. Alik felt foolish for her fantastical theories of the Edicisi; she blamed the creepy effigies. This makes more sense. This we can kill. She was almost giddy.

  Her relief evaporated as the trio of men separated into the recess of shadows. One brutal-looking man stepped into the darkness mere steps from Damari and Alik, hunkering low. Alik stilled, not daring to breathe, and then she heard footsteps on the center gravel path.

  A girl sobbed, "I can't," and the man closest to them whistled, loud and shrill. Alik held onto Damari as two girls came into view, a bird call calling out far to their left.

  The older girl was tall and lean, a riot of black curls cut high on her head and dark coal makeup streaked down her angular face. She held a little girl's wrist, and Alik understood why Damari didn’t believe this girl could Rift multiple people at once. Alik only saw her back in the dreams, never her aura. It took a moment’s glance of her Dua to realize that this Rifter was as much a victim as Shauna and the others.

  The man Alik crouched behind and another from across the path stepped out into the light.

  The little girl screamed, "Run!" and the most painful thing Alik ever witnessed occurred. The older girl held her in place, eyes on the men. She's giving her to them!

  Hvard's booming laugh echoed around them before he walked into the light ahead of the pair. Alik put both hands on the sides of Damari's face and forced him to look at her, not the scene playing out in front of them.

  She whispered as low as she could, "They will take this girl where they have taken all the others. I'm going with them." She put a hand over his protesting mouth, and his eyes surged with anger and fear. "Shhh! I need you to listen. It’s the cloaks. Not the Edicisi.”

  He whispered, “No kidding. But why would Firtina want this Rifter in particular?”

  “How would I know? I clearly don’t know a lot of things,” she whispered. “But men, not that Rifter, took Shauna somewhere. I can’t go back to the Palace; I’m supposed to be in exile already. You, Mara, and Agnian follow us and rescue the Rifter. Hide her in one of your haunts; you’re the best person for that. Tell Firtina she—I don’t know, is in the Magarans or something. Lie. Then send Taavi and the Horde.”

  Damari shifted on the gravel, grabbing her by the arms. "That's the worst plan I’ve---" Alik shrugged him off and put her hand back over his mouth. One of the men peered at the shadows they hunkered in and slowly walked towards them. As he reached their shadows, Alik shoved Damari behind the vat and stumbled into the light.

  "What's this? A pretty one, eh?" The lanky man scratched oozing welts that covered his neck and chin under the flickering light. "Hvard, lemme have her. We've got all we need, and I could use a bit a fun."

  Alik prayed to each Goddess that Mara or Agnian would not step out. She took several steps back like she was going to run, and another man roughly grabbed her by the arms. Hvard stood ahead of them. The scrape of a match fractured the otherwise silence while he lit a short pipe.

  "Not much Dua in that one if she's not trying for a fight. We've got the one we need. I can't have her telling anyone about this, so do what you want with her."

  Alik hadn't expected that. She quickly snapped her flint rings, drawing flame to her palm, and pushed a ball of fire to the man behind her. His pants caught, and he abruptly fell back with a shout and stifled the flames with his hands. The second man pinned her palms flat down at her sides while Hvard watched her struggle. He took a puff. Sweet smoke wafted through the still, cool air underneath her veil, and Alik dared not look to either side in case the men followed her eyes to her brother and friends.

  Hvard nodded once, and a rough bandage shoved into her mouth before a man hefted over his shoulder and shoved Alik into the waiting cart.

  Reed

  The Magaran mountain range snags the sky with jagged white tipped teeth. It looks like one sheer vertical stretch into the sky, a stone wall separating Efendians from everything else from a distance. Reed thought, though, as he came to suspended over the range, that it was less like a wall of stone and more a sea of stone waves. Dark valleys of undulating burgundy and gold trees sandwiched in between the crests far below.

  Efendians never saw beyond the first monolith that greeted the dead-end dirt road from Efendi Reed now flew over. The Canavar Company Troupe once spent a week pit stopping at farmhouses and Aygir training facilities with little coin to show for it. Hvard had aimed the caravan at Magara, unfazed by legends of its winged creatures and encouraged by the lack of competition. Reed had been giddy with excitement as he sat on the roof of the first wagon, his mother next to him worrying her cuticle.

  "Do you think one will let me touch their wing, Maman?"

  Alisha hissed and turned him fully to her by his chin. "Heed me, child. Do not get close to them. You are to stay next to me the entire time. No tricks with Tilli today. If I have to sing, you are to stay in the caravan, do you understand me? Hvard has lost his mind coming here."

  Alisha adjusted her bone-white dagger beneath the slit of her dress and whispered a prayer to Ruzgar. Their wagon bumped over holes and pockmarks of the road. Reed's mind whirled at the possibility of seeing a Magaran up close by the time the caravan finally snaked into a half-moon at its entrance.

  Usually, the announcement of a caravan is met with eagerness, or at a minimum, curiosity. But as the troupe waited at the end of the road, no one came. The mountain base was one vertical wall, with the first crevice high in the sky above. Reed assumed that there would be an entrance of sort, guarded by the fearsome winged creatures. Or perhaps they would defend a ridgeline above like the Perimeter Patrol of Efendi. Yet the troupe saw no one.

  Hvard stood in the center of the half-moon awaiting an audience, but none came. He shouted for the troupe to set up, to run through practices, and the troupe did so with reluctance. They spent the remainder of the sunlight practicing routines in front of each other that they could have done in their sleep. Yet still, no one came.

  Finally, when both Mizi and Mina were high in the dark sky, the creatures came. The fires outside the iron caravans bounced off the stone wall and flickered with shadows high above them. Reed curled against his mother in the caravan, her low sung songs vibrating against his ribcage when she abruptly sat up.

  They landed with a soft thud like rain pellets hitting glass. The first three Magarans stood taller than even Hvard, the claw tips of their wings a few feet higher. They stood, unspeaking, with swords hung loosely in each hand and malice rolling off them in waves.

  Reed recalled the nervous way Hvard began his entertainment pitch, an unnatural hint of fear lining his deep vocal cords. When they still said nothing, Hvard beckoned Alisha to them. Reed watched his mother sing through the open slit of their curtained caravan window. She started with a tune he'd heard a hundred times before, but then the creatures moved in silence to enclose the caravan in between them.

  Alisha stopped mid-song and switched to a language he'd never heard. Her
melody turned from carefree to haunting, her voice modulating from a jaunty tune to a sung chant that ran chills up his bones for the duration of the song. She stopped abruptly, the final high note echoing off the stone wall ahead of her. For a moment, no one said a word. The air strung tight between them. Suddenly the creatures shot into the air and back into dark pockets out of eyesight, startling everyone. Agitated dust from their launch danced around the tallest three Magarans that remained on the ground in the firelight.

  Reed jumped back from the window, but not before seeing the final three nod once to his mother before launching up into the mountain.

  Back in Texas, Reed only unpacked his memories of Efendi in small doses as if just the thought of his former life would drag him back to this hell. He assumed Magara would be a stone fortress with pockets of caves to huddle in at night. And so, it was with little surprise that Reed was taken aback at the series of roped bridges and wooden structures he was thrust upon when his captors dropped him unceremoniously from several feet in the air. He landed hard on gnarled wooden planks and found himself in what felt like an elaborate village of treehouses that stretched throughout the valley before him in a series of bridges, terraces, and thatched roofs.

  A group of winged male Magarans stood behind a stocky, pale female. Instead of feathered legs like the males, her smooth legs were heavily muscular like an Olympian. Strong thighs stood hip-distance apart under a leather dress crisscrossed with small blades. Her hair was shaved down to the scalp, and she wore an ivory bone beaded headpiece that crested thin, white, membranous wings. She was beautiful in a brutal way. Angular cheekbones, marred with lines, supported tawny eyebrows that arched over hard golden eyes like that of a hawk. She said something in a language Reed couldn't understand, and his abductors knelt before her before they too spoke in the foreign language.

  She looked sharply to Reed at whatever was said and walked barefoot to him with her arms still crossed across her chest.