Arrival of the Rifted (The Rifted Series Book 1)

by C. C. York

  Only the Magaran named Risindi, Reed, and Monti remained in the room. Reed clenched his jaw at Monti's proud back, racked with tears, as she stood apart from them.

  Something is waiting in the Batiwood, and it’s tied to my father. Uci's words were true. Reed was wholly unprepared to face what he had been running from his whole life. If he couldn't get back to Texas, the speck of a village a sea apart from the Batiwood was the next best thing.

  Monti swiped at her face. When she turned, she shed no more tears, though she didn’t look at Reed. She asked Risindi, "You're the one taking me to Efendi or this Bakilar place, right?" At his nod, she continued, "No need to take me the whole way to Efendi. I just need to be dropped off where you found us."

  The Magaran scout watched her for a moment silently and then nodded his head once. "If you are to go to the Batiwood, you'll need this." He slipped out a heavy dagger the size of her forearm and tightened the leather sheath from his waist around hers to slip the blade back in. "You need to leave now if you want to do this. Uci will not be as lenient if you jeopardize her plans."

  She nodded, perhaps more to herself than him. Some of the blood from her temple seeped through the white bandage, a pink dot wreaking havoc to Reed's plans of fleeing. "Thank you."

  Risindi said, "You remind me of Ceren. She is the Rifter Uci spoke of that is missing. She could have stayed behind to let us seek out this power source from the woods on our own, but she threatened to Rift us all to the Efendian Palace if we tried to leave her. She will like you, and she would skin me alive if she knew I kept you away from someone you loved."

  Reed's heart sped up. He was sure no healthy 24-year old died of heart failure, but today was testing that theory. "Monti, please. You don't understand. You cannot go there. It is an evil unlike anything our world could describe."

  Monti held her hands up in question. "How do you know, Reed? I can't read between your lines when all of them are half-truths. What are you not saying?"

  He held his hands in supplication between them, close enough to see the specks of gold fire in her eyes. "I can't explain it, Monti. I don't know myself, but I feel it. The voices, the despair, my nightmares. It's hovered over everything I touch for two worlds. It's coming from the woods. Please don't do this. I'll find another way; just give me time."

  She closed the gap between them, full lips pressed against his cheekbone. His brain split apart as to whether to pull her to him or stay still to let her choose what happened next. The decision made before ever asked as she said, "Sometimes we don't get time to be brave. Sometimes we have to do life scared shitless."

  She squeezed his hand as she turned, maroon nails ragged and plastered with mud. "Thank you for keeping me alive this far, but I can take it from here."

  Risindi and Monti walked out of the room to the empty terrace above. Reed wavered while his mind shot out every bad possibility of what to do.

  He ran up the stairs behind them. The sun would rise soon, but Monti was cloaked in darkness when he got to the uppermost platform. She looked once back to him before Risindi cradled her in his thick arms and shot into the sky without a sound.

  Elaine

  Elaine didn’t know if her nausea came from the thin metal wrapped tightly around her, the swaying of the cart, or the fear of what would come next as they bumped through the underground tunnel. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness not long after the men removed the hood over her head, but she had no idea if hours or days had passed. Time felt stagnant underground when she couldn’t see anything in front of her face, and she focused only on keeping her panic at bay.

  The hidden tunnel beneath the Silos felt smooth at first, but enough holes, roots, and rocks littered this section that Hvard’s men often had to stop the cart. The lone lantern at the head of the cart swayed over Elaine and the woman next to her before illuminating a gnarled mess of roots blocking the dark path. The men hacked at the roots, the silver gleam of an ax flashing in the firelight.

  "Filbish roots. How in Ates did you get past this without cuttin' it off?"

  "I already said. It weren't there before."

  "Or you took us the wrong way you idiot."

  "Oh now I'm the---"

  Elaine’s temple bumped against the wooden cart as she lay curled on her side. The pounding in her head and emotions threatening to drown her preoccupied all thoughts, but one broke through as the older girl shifted closer to her. She should get out now while they’re not paying attention.

  It didn’t occur to Elaine to do the same herself. Now that she stopped struggling, the thin, dark chain across her arms and chest slipped with each movement, but it felt as if a thick oak tree pinned her down to the cart.

  A cool hand grabbed her own as a whisper cracked through.

  "Did you hear me? I need you to hold on a little longer. My friends are coming for you."

  She could just make out the shape of the older girl in the dim light. Elaine looked dubiously at the pitch-black tunnel around her and whispered, "I think you've hit your head. No one is coming for either of us down here."

  The voice in the dark whispered back. "You will get you out of here. Do you think you can Rift if we get the chain off you?"

  She shrugged, though in the throes of nausea, she forgot the stranger couldn't see her and that no one was supposed to know she was a Rifter. Guess the gig is up. Doesn’t matter, though. Elaine felt like she'd never Rift again now that the chain had settled over her.

  "We'll see. I need you to stay with my friends. Do not Rift without them; they will protect you." The lantern swayed, jostled by one of the men pulling a shovel out from the driver's seat. Elaine glimpsed olive skin, jet black hair spilling in waves, and wide, caramel eyes. She was lying on her side as well, tied up with rope. At some point, she lost the veil that covered her face when they first shoved her in with Elaine.

  Elaine nodded to the frayed rope the girl loosened. "You could leave now. You should."

  Elaine’s eyes welled at the thought of being alone in this black tunnel with Hvard’s men, though she didn’t know how she could cry anymore.

  The girl scooted closer. "It's OK. It's going to be OK."

  That's exactly what she said. Elaine's chest constricted at the memory of Kara. The way she stood there while they carted her off like a sack of grain.

  One of the men stopped hacking. "Did you hear that?"

  Everyone stopped speaking. Elaine held her breath, afraid the men heard their conversation, but then she heard the scratching. The tunnel amplified all sounds, and in the darkness, she would not be able to know what scratched along the walls until it was on top of them. Whatever that is, it’s coming faster.

  Digging, faint clicking, nails on a dirt floor.

  The girl grabbed her hand painfully tight, a tremor attached to her palm. Elaine twisted to see ahead of them but could only see the men standing stone still in the lamp light, watching the funnel of black ahead of them.

  Hvard’s men tossed down the shovel and scrambled into the cart. One crawled over them to the back edge of the cart, holding a dagger in one hand and his cloak in the other. He laid down next to them, the other girl pressing herself as close to Elaine as possible at his proximity.

  He said low, "Hush luv, you'll want me close in a minute." He opened the cloak wide and draped the three of them under it like a blanket.

  The light cloth was deceptively heavy, their breaths pushing and pulling small puffs of air into threads that reeked of cheap tobacco and sweat. The cloak sucked into Elaine's mouth as the two next to her frantically pulled air into and out of their lungs. They know what’s coming.

  Elaine tried to see beyond them as the other man extinguished the lantern, but the man sharing his cloak whispered, "No moving. The cloaks can only hide so much from them."

  The clicking and digging came closer. Something scaled the walls of the tunnel. A white glow appeared at the front of the cart, and Elaine shook when something heavy joined them in
the cart. Yurutecs.

  She'd heard stories of Yurtuecs from the Clusters, but they sounded so improbable that Elaine assumed they were made up. The thin cloak did not hide the hooked claw, the spade-shaped head, or the elongated torso as the Batiwood creature passed over them. Spindle legs, jointed at multiple points like a spider, gripped either side of the cart. It looked like a praying mantis, but only if a mantis stood taller than a man. The creature’s stark white skin glowed in the dark, illuminating massive pinchers protruding from its mouth. Another Yurutec crawled the opposite wall. They clicked a guttural noise rumbling deep within their throats as the cart shifted back and forth. The second Yurutec joined on top of the cart, rocking it back and forth, testing it.

  Warm liquid trickled down to Elaine's knees, and she didn’t know if it was the girl or the man next to her that pissed themselves. The Yurutecs jabbed their front turned claws, hitting the inside of the cart to Elaine's immediate left and another near her feet, clicking and stabbing at the cart. The girl whimpered, gripping Elaine’s hand tight as a third Yurutec appeared on the ceiling of the tunnel, kicking one of the others in the head as it passed. The injured Yurutec launched at the newcomer, and all three creatures tumbled in the tunnel past the cart. Their glow inched further and further away, a light disappearing down a tube.

  Ear piercing screams echoed through the tunnel in the darkness a few minutes later. Hvard’s men, the stranger, and Elaine laid there, quietly panting while the danger either passed or returned to them. The wrongness of the cloak felt heavier and heavier over Elaine's small frame as if it pressed itself to every inch of her body.

  After enough time in silence, the man next to them took the cloak off, a lid lifting off a stifling trunk. She breathed deeply, finally, and heard the girl whisper a prayer to each goddess. A match struck, the catch of the pitch in the lantern, and the men carved a path for the cart without another word to each other.

  The older girl didn't say anything else to Elaine but never let go of her hand. The cart continued its slow rumble down the tunnel, and adrenaline and fear warred with exhaustion, the latter finally overruling all else. Elaine jolted awake when the cart stopped moving. She still couldn't see anything beyond the lantern's pool of light, but the air tasted different. Less stagnant.

  One of Hvard's men stood on top of the cart, lantern held high, and the light flickered over an indention in the shape of a circle in the ceiling. He grunted, and as he pushed up, dirt rained down on his head. The top opened like a portal to the night sky. Clusters of dust poured light into the hole, and Elaine blinked several times before she recognized the dust as stars.

  She didn’t realize how much she missed Efendi’s stars until that moment. A pang broke through the container buried in the recesses of her mind as she realized she would not see the Trades again. She grit her teeth. Lock it away. You’ll figure this out too.

  One of the men used an ax handle to pull down a rope ladder while the other released one bound hand from each captive. Head spinning, Elaine climbed up behind the first man with one hand and an elbow. She heaved her body over the lip in the ground, rolling over in the tall grass.

  The city of Efendi rose high above the fields like a squat, gilded cake. The domed roofs of the Palace glittered under the two moons even from this distance. Elaine tracked the hair-thin line of fire at the top of the Perimeter Wall, guessing where the Hadishi house lay against its imposing base.

  That doesn’t matter now. It’s not like I’ll--

  Elaine cried out as one of the men kicked her ribs.

  "Get up. We're suppose' to feed 'ya. No good to him if you're dead."

  The dark-haired woman scrambled to her knees in between them and demanded, "Who? Who wants us? Where are you taking us?"

  The taller of the men backhanded her to the ground near Elaine's feet. "Not so strong now that you've been under the cloak are ya? The only thing that fire of yours will do is getcha eaten. Nice, tasty snack. I wonda' if he'd notice a different taste if I had a go at you first?"

  “Enough.” The older man pushed him aside. “Give them the bread."

  The horrible one snickered, a wheezy exhale somewhere between a cough and a leer, and yanked a canteen from a pocket. His black pants slung low on his hips, held up only by a crude rope belt over his gaunt frame. He scratched at an oozing scab at his neck and tossed the women a hunk of bread found in another pocket.

  Hunger outweighed disgust, and Elaine gnawed a hunk off with one hand and gave the rest to her friend. Not friend. I don't even know her, she reminded herself.

  The men bickered about the first watch as the sun started to rise behind Efendi, a warm beacon of light fanning quickly over the jade and gold grass surrounding them in every direction. Elaine faced the Magaran mountains, watching the sun crawl over their jagged peaks. The early rays had yet to touch the Batiwood, the woods Efendians spoke of only at night, in the far west. The orange-red horizon formed a veritable wall of other that no one ventured to, and everyone avoided its proximity. After months of living in this new world, Elaine only knew that the Aygir refused to walk through those gnarled trees, and the Yurutec and Garfu creatures called it home. The line of encroaching trees at the far edge of the valley might as well have been the edge of the world to Efendians.

  "Sleep while you can, lovelies. We move in a couple hours." The older man shuffled a few feet from them, hefted the window to the tunnel closed, and sat with his back to them while he lit a pipe.

  His discarded cloak lay several feet away, but the wheezy one used his own cloak like a pillow, snoring within moments. Elaine curled on her side, dizzy with nausea, and the girl mirrored her in the tall grass.

  "I'm Alik," she whispered.

  I don’t need to know your name. You’ll be gone like everyone else that comes around me. She closed her eyes, ignoring the waiting caramel eyes on her. I don’t know why I thought this world would be any different.

  "I know you're tired, but you must be ready. My brother saw you on the Solmas Tier, and I've been looking for you for months without realizing it."

  Elaine opened her eyes at the admission, her body tensing with the need to flee. The chain at her waist tightened.

  "I've never met a Rifter. When did you come into your--"

  Elaine tracked the movement at the same time the girl stopped speaking, stifling all conversations Elaine didn't want to have. The grass swayed above the portal. She tried to sit up, but Alik held her to the ground. Her bound forearms leaned into Elaine’s mouth as she shook her head silently. The chains around Elaine squeezed with each struggle against Alik, but Elaine did not stop trying to get away as the portal to the underground tunnel pulsed up. Something below struggled to get out.

  Elaine, wide-eyed and shaking, muffled for Alik to get the cloak, but Alik did not take her eyes from the portal in the ground.

  The older man turned as the door swung back to the ground with a thunk. "What the—"

  Both men lifted off the ground, grasping at their necks as they kicked their legs. The thing that emerged was not a Yurutec, but almost as haunting. Black gore streaked her dark hair, and her midnight eyes sparkled while she raised her fists in the air. Terrifyingly beautiful, Elaine now understood the difference between the Dua she'd been around in Low Town and the power radiating from this one. She’s Efendi’s Monica Rambeau, she thought in awe. The men gagged and gasped against the Airwerk the older girl shoved down their throats with a satisfied smile.

  A sword broke through the opening, followed by hands tattooed with black markings and fingers stacked with silver rings. He brushed gore off the sides of his leather pants and close-cropped beard when he emerged fully. His eyes skimmed Elaine, but lingered over Alik as he nodded once. He leaned back into the hole, helping a third stranger through it before closing the lid with a thunk. The final arrival withdrew a dagger from his waist, eyes on Elaine.

  She managed to wiggle from under Alik, away from the boy she recognized from the past
el Tier. Alik said her brother saw me. Anger rolled off him in waves as he stepped closer, but before she could question anything else, he slit the thin chain cutting off her circulation.

  Alik said, "Mara, stop. I need one of them alive."

  To Elaine's surprise, the warrior immediately dropped them. "Do you have a preference, Princess?"

  Elaine's head whipped back to the girl in the grass, covered in dirt. A dried stalk stuck out of her mangled hair. That’s a princess?

  Alik glanced between the two kidnappers for less than a heartbeat before motioning to the older man watching her with wide, pleading eyes. The warrior, Mara, barely acknowledged the choice as she clinched her fist in the direction of the wheezing one. She held a deep breath at the top of her lungs. When she breathed out with a sigh, Hvard’s man lay dead in the grass.

  Alik held her bound hands out to the man cleaning off his sword, and rubbed her wrists after the ties fell. Next to Elaine, Mara sank down, legs splayed in the grass with her head bowed. She drank from a leather skin pulled from the dead man with an Airwerk, offering it to Elaine when she finished.

  Alik stood over the older man on the ground, "What is your name?”

  "Handen. I'm so sorry, Princess Alik. We had no idea who you were. If we did, we never would have--"

  Alik's soft eyes took a hard turn as she hissed, "You wouldn't have what? Kidnapped me like you have dozens of other women? Children like this one? How many have you taken?"

  Handen looked to the ground. "I tried not to count. I'm just followin' orders."

  "Who's? Hvard's?"

  He nodded but said, "His. Yea, but he follows the Dark One's commands."

  Alik stilled, and Elaine's bones chilled at the laughter ringing out in her head. Elaine whispered, “The Edicisi.”

  Alik whipped her head to Elaine, her brows furrowed. But she turned back to Hvard’s man, " Keep talking."

  He shook his head, lip quivering. "I can't."

  Mara flicked her wrist, picking Handen up in an Airwerk like a rag doll several feet into the air. She slammed him back down, hard, into the ground before he even had time to scream.