Arrival of the Rifted (The Rifted Series Book 1)

by C. C. York

  The warrior looked a little woozy as she shrugged. "It's effective."

  Alik nodded to her and turned back to the man curled up on the ground. "I have grown up with terror, and I can assure you, no one is feared more than Firtina Iktidar. Start at the beginning. Who is this Dark One, where are we going, where are the girls you've kidnapped? Everything, or I promise, I will keep you alive and deliver you to my mother as a Cez."

  Elaine only saw the "Cez" once. When she first went out on her own from the Trades, she followed streams of people to the uppermost Tier. The crowd wound its way to the widest plaza where a man screamed, suspended in the air, with ribbons of skin hanging from him like a macabre maypole. It was the first and only time she'd seen the Queen. She stood underneath him, picking her nails with a bloody dagger as streams of blood fell around her as if she held an invisible umbrella. Elaine threw up on the steps before running back to Kara. "The Cez," Kara explained, "is an example."

  Handen cried out and held his head in his hands. Tufts of white hair poked through wrinkled, grime-laden fingers.

  "I'm dead either way." He shook his head. "Hvard said it'd be the best paying job of our life. It was supposed to be my last. We took strays--girls no one cared about at first---and then he got specific. Needed someone with this Dua, one with this Dua, ones well into their powers, others not yet in full control. Sometimes he had specific names, other times just a description. It ranged. We were to take them through a secret tunnel to the Batiwood where he's waiting.”

  Alik’s hands clenched at her sides. “Go on,” she said.

  “We don't know his name. I don’t think even Hvard got it, so we started calling him the Dark One at first because of his cloak. He's got an underground prison. That's where he keeps them. Their Dua is weakest the further down you go and he only comes above ground for the 'ritual' with a prisoner."

  Kanne Da’Neen’s stories of the Edicisi crawling from the roots of a Batiwood flashed in Elaine’s mind as Alik pressed, "What does he do with them?"

  Handen stopped speaking for a few moments while Alik flicked her flint rings back and forth, a tiny spark in a dirty palm. He whispered as if afraid someone would overhear him, "One of the company followed him one time. Too stupid for his own teeth. He didn't like the splits and wanted to see what Hvard was selling us for. He said—” Handen stopped speaking and fisted his shaking hands before continuing. “He said that he takes them one at a time to the surface. He's got a table there. Tools. He said he carves them. Chunks at a time."

  Elaine's stomach roiled. She wished for the first time that the voices in her head would drown out whatever came next.

  Tears fell down Alik's plump cheeks, and Handen watched her with pleading red eyes. "He's eating them, Princess. Bits at a time."

  Alik doubled over with an anguished cry, clutching her chest as she fell to her knees. Mara whispered a prayer to Ruzgar, hands over her mouth in horror while the bearded man with her vomited in the grass. The boy from the pastel Tier rubbed a hand over Alik’s back, his other hand shaking. Every part of Elaine willed her to run as far away from this as possible as she held herself with shaking hands. Even home is better than this. This is who has been calling to me. A monster brought me here while he has eaten kids like me.

  Handen said through tears of his own. "It started as a job, but now, none of us can get out. Hvard says he knows us all by name."

  "Why does he do it?" The bearded man next to Mara asked, wiping his mouth.

  Handen shook his head. "He's looking for someone. He's evil.” He jerked his head towards the black cloak in the grass. “Evil like these cloaks. He gave them to us one day when he got more specific with his requests. They ain't right, and they're doing something to all of us. It's like the more you wear it, the more you need it. Even Hvard. I feel like it's eating my soul, but the others don't seem to notice."

  Alik demanded, "Shauna Tyid. Was she one he called for by name?"

  He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I don't know. We divvied up lists. I was put on this one for a while now." He nodded to Elaine. "I've been with Hvard the longest. I was supposed to find the Rifter, but he found her first. I swear---if I'd been alone and knew she was this young, I wouldn't have ever turned her over."

  Alik watched him with flat eyes. "Good to see you have a moral floor. At what age is it appropriate to give girls to a monster? 13?"

  He cried harder, snot running down his upper lip. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't know what it was for, and then it was too late."

  "You will not live to see this month's end, Handen. But if you help me, you will have the chance to redeem yourself in front of the Goddesses before I kill you." Alik said.

  He nodded, slowly at first and then more emphatically. "What do you need?"

  ***

  Elaine tracked the sun's rays shift across the valley as Alik, Agnian, and Damari grilled Handen on details and layouts of the prison. After hasty introductions, they promptly left Elaine out of the discussion. She listened though.

  I can’t believe Alik is going in there knowing what is waiting in the woods. She’s gotta be as powerful as the Queen if she thinks she can take the Edicisi on. But didn’t Reiki say she had hardly any Dua? Elaine shuddered. This princess is insane.

  Elaine walked to Mara's at the edge of their makeshift camp. Her hands spiraled in the air as the paper she scrawled on moments before floated on the horizon, a mere glimmer now.

  "What are you doing?" Elaine asked.

  "Sending word to friends. If we're to go in the woods, we'll need help."

  Elaine turned back to the fire-orange tree line in the distance. She whispered to Mara, “I can hear voices.”

  “Now?” Mara asked, scanning the woods behind them.

  She shook her head, “No. Like in the Trades. I heard girls’ voices sometimes when no one else did. I think they’ve been calling me for help this entire time, and I did nothing.”

  Elaine looked at Mara’s ramrod straight frame, her lean muscles, and determined face. She rushed to head off Mara’s anger or disgust as the others walked up to her side. “But I could go with you. I can help,” Elaine said.

  Damari pointed to Elaine, “Absolutely not. Besides, if what my sister believes to be true, a Rifter could be the weapon this monster needs the most.”

  Mara, to Elaine’s surprise, gently squeezed her shoulder. “He’s right. We need to get you somewhere safe.”

  Damari ignored the argument Elaine tried to take up and said, “Alik, please reconsider. You have to have Firtina if he’s the Edicisi.”

  “And what if she wanted the Edicisi here to begin with?” Alik asked.

  Elaine laughed at that, but everyone else listened as if she was serious. Ohmygod, she’s serious.

  “She. Is. Firtina. Iktidar,” Damari said. “If she wants the Edicisi, she will find a way to get him. Running through the Batiwood on your own doesn’t keep her from him; it just gets you killed.” He grabbed her shoulders. “Wait for her. If it is Edicisi, you have no way of protecting yourself, let alone the others.”

  Elaine watched Alik pace, wondering what it would feel like to be brave enough to fight this world’s most horrific legend willingly. Mara, with crossed arms and an unfazed look on her face, did not try to convince Alik the two of them should not go. They would never have left me to Hvard.

  Kara was once her idol, the funny, bold, confident big sister she desperately wanted to be like since Kara helped her stand that first day in Low Town. But she was so angry and so bitter. All the time. And so afraid. She said she had to give me to Hvard. She watched Alik and Mara hash out a plan. But then you’ve got these girls. They could wait for the scariest Duawielder in history, but instead, they’re gonna go face the Edicisi alone. All to help other girls they probably don’t know but know they need help. Elaine’s realization cut through the fog of pain since Kara left her with Hvard.

  I will never be like Kara.

  I will not run from
this too.

  She took a deep breath, readying herself. “I want to go with you.”

  The response was instant and simultaneous between the others arguing around her, “No.”

  Alik spoke as if Elaine hadn’t just made a life-altering proclamation. “We’ll do this: Mara and I have a few hours’ heads start on the Horde. Damari, go back. Get Firtina and the Horde, and we will stick with my plan to sneak in with Handen. That will at least buy me time to get Shauna and the others out before Firtina gets to this Dark One, but it will put Firtina in place as a back-up if things go horribly wrong.”

  Damari rubbed his face in his hands but nodded. He asked Mara, “Which Eye did you send the letter to?”

  She didn't look at him when she answered. "I sent the letter for Taavi as you requested. This one is not for an Eye, but a friend. A friend who may be able to deliver faster aid than even Firtina.”

  Damari’s brows furrowed, but Mara interrupted whatever he was about to ask. "We need to go, Alik. Agnian and Damari, leave now for Efendi. Stay on guard; some Garfus have been spotted during daylight. The Horde will meet us at the Batiwood. I’ll keep Alik safe in the meantime."

  "Wait for them, Alik. Just a little more time," Agnian said.

  She tossed her hands up. "We've wasted enough time arguing! Handen said he picks someone new each moonrise. I'll not let another girl be tortured while we wait."

  "Then I go with you," Agnian said as he slipped his sword into a sheath on his back.

  Alik growled her frustration. "We've been over this. Handen said that they beat all male prisoners before taking them to a separate cell far away from the girls. You’d be no help, and if you fought back, you’d jeopardize us before we can get Shauna. You can’t hide in the woods safely for the time it will take for the Horde to reach us. And most importantly, I'm not taking a little girl to that place or back to Efendi. She can barely Rift more than two feet right now after that chain of Tuzaga."

  Elaine sputtered, “I can go more than two feet.” Maybe. She shook her head. “I still want to go with you.”

  All four simultaneously said, “No,” before ignoring her again.

  Elaine threw her hands in the air. Of course, I’d land in an entirely new world and still get ignored.

  Alik put her hand to Agnian’s chest. “Just make Elaine disappear. Take her to Dvari with you. Get her as far away from the woods and Efendi. I don’t know what the Edicisi wants, but I sure as Ates am not bringing a Rifter on a dinner plate, and I don’t want her near my mother.”

  Elaine raised her hand, "I'm right here. You could ask me."

  They just kept arguing. Agnian turned to Damari, “You’re fine with her going alone?”

  Damari hovered by Elaine’s side, watching the pair argue. He crossed his arms and said, “Absolutely not. But the only way I see either of us accompanying them is if we wear the cloak, and Handen believes the Dark One monitors the cloaks.” He dropped his arms and continued, “Alik is stronger than you give her credit, and Mara is the most powerful Airwerker outside of Ordu ranks. I don’t like it any more than you do, but I believe we’d put them in more danger by going.”

  Mara nodded to Damari and said, "Come, Princess. We have to go."

  "You heard Handen. Dua is practically useless if you are in those cages. Why not send the kid back with Mara?" Agnian said, half pleading and clearly grasping at straws given the way Mara stared at him.

  "I knew how to kill long before I came into my Dua, Agnian. You should take her to the Magarans. They will protect her."

  Agnian’s eyes widened at Mara, but she kneeled to Elaine's eye level. "Be smart little one. Efendi is not safe for you like the Batiwood is not safe for any of us."

  "We can send her with you to Dvari when this is all over,” Alik said. “The Magarans might be safest for her, but not for anyone else. They haven't answered any of our missives in weeks. If you have to go there, do not linger and don't tell them you are working alongside an Iktidar."

  "I have never been on the Iktidar side, Alik, but I'm always on yours. I’ll figure out what to do with her and follow the Horde's trail back to you.”

  Agnian picked up the meager bag of provisions they'd divvied up and stalked towards the Magaran mountains. Damari hugged Alik tight before pulling Elaine with him to follow. Elaine glanced over her shoulder, watching the princess and the warrior walking towards the Batiwood across the valley.

  Reed

  Reed scoured his hands in the pale blue river that would eventually snake its way to the Turkaz Sea. There was no blood on them, but he felt death caked on his palms regardless for the second time in his life. He ran the rough river rock not yet smoothed with time over his knuckles and tried to block out what he did moments before, his mind alternating between his first murder and what he assumed was his second. The sound of water forced that memory to the surface.

  The water turned on upstairs as he cleared the plates. He and Staci fought enough for one night, and they silently agreed that he'd remain downstairs to tidy while she put their daughter to bed. He wiped off the linoleum counter, thinking of another path in his argument to convince her to move. The same despair that followed him all his life now crouched in the flower bed they planted when they first arrived, a shadow of darkness blotting out sunlight on anything he touched. It perched on their bed at night and waited in the dark crevices between their clothes on bent wire hangers. His curse followed him everywhere, and he knew it was time to move again.

  Staci was adamant that he was losing his mind. She called him a psychopath, told him to leave if he was that scared of shadows and mocked him when he told her about the cashier singing the same haunting lullaby to him that morning. Perhaps he was losing his mind, but Maddy was his priority now. Reed needed to get her away from this place before he finally found them, a sinkhole at the ready to suck them into the pit of darkness he ran from.

  Reed knew he could show Staci his powers to force her to believe him, but his mother ardently believed that any use of Dua would be a beacon to his father. He couldn't do that, not with Madeline in his life now.

  Maddy, the world changer the size of a football. Even now, he had a hard time believing she was his, and though he knew she was sturdier than glass, he was so nervous that he'd accidentally break her. He never appreciated how hard it was to hold a baby. Is he holding her too tight? Not tight enough? The nurses at the hospital laughed at his panicked face when they put her in his arms the first time.

  He never wanted to be a dad this young, but he would figure out how to be the best parent he could be now that she was here. He didn't realize that there was a 7.2lb, 19-inch hole the shape of a little girl in his life until that day. That day changed everything. Every paranoia he'd been ignoring became a real threat, and it was his responsibility to keep her safe above all else. He knew in his bones that his father was coming. It was time to move again.

  He felt better when he touched Maddy. Sometimes he'd wake up in the middle of the night to just put a hand to her swaddled belly to make sure she was OK. Small hills of breath that barely filled his palm became the most soothing balm to his frantic heartbeat. He folded the dish towel and figured he'd sweep after he just checked on them. He was at the base of the stairs when he heard Staci singing.

  Take me down to the river

  The river that's wide and blue

  Take me down to its water banks

  So I may swim with you

  He flew. Two, three stairs at a time. The bathroom was a quick turn at the right up top. He glimpsed beyond the two-inch molding of chipped white paint that encased the open doorway, and his heart stopped. Staci's back was to him, the bathwater running over the lip of the tub in fat rivulets to the floor and pooling around her bare knees. Staci sang the song this time, and Maddy giggled in Staci’s hands, kicking her chubby legs through the water. Reed leapt over them, jabbing his palm into the faucet handle to turn the water off.

  "Look at me, Staci."
Reed reached over to grab Maddy, but Staci blocked him with a shoulder.

  Staci looked over her shoulder at him with a maniacal glint, otherworldly in her muddy green eyes, and smiled small. "They're coming. He's waiting."

  The voice reverberated in his brain, and he felt someone reach for him as the voice in his mind said, "There you are."

  The paisley wallpapered walls surrounding them pulsed in towards Reed as the bathroom lights flickered. On, off, on, off. Something was reaching. Maddy wailed, and Reed turned just as Staci pushed her under the water to the bottom of the tub.

  He shoved. With air, with the water, with the floorboard, his hands. The air sucked out of the room like a vacuum. Every drop of water pushed against the far left wall so that only a wailing, naked baby laid in the tub. Laughter rang out in between his ears.

  He had to step over Staci's body for the towel.

  The blood from her head ran down blank eyes; her neck unnaturally bent against the wall below the towel rack. Maddy's cries shook him out of his stupor. He picked up his shivering baby with the towel, its bottom edge dotted red with her mother's life, and he ran out of the destroyed bathroom.

  The pulsing walls stopped, the lights back on, as he sank to the floor in the hallway opposite the bathroom door. He rocked Maddy, quieting now that she nestled in the towel against his chest. He shushed her the way YouTube taught him weeks before when they first brought her home. Reed stared at his dead wife's legs lying on the floor in front of him while he made his decision.

  He held Maddy with one hand and called the cops with the other.

  Reed splashed the icy river water over his face to wash away his tears. The Magaran he'd convinced to take him to the valley floor to retrieve his things was a still pile of wings and legs in the grass several hundred feet behind him. He didn't have time to check if he was still alive, but his body's unnatural stillness was uncannily similar to that horrible night in Texas.