by Kate L. Mary
When I stopped in front of her, my gaze moved to the child without my permission. Her brown skin seemed at contrast with the large, gray eyes looking back at me. They were unnatural looking, making her appear almost evil. As if she were a fiend that had clawed her way from the underworld to torment me.
“Emori did not want her.” Isa’s words drew my attention from the baby, who was really no longer a baby, but a toddler. When our eyes met, I found tears shimmering in Isa’s eyes. “She wanted me to come with her, to leave you and the Windhi, but she did not want her child.”
For a moment, I was without words.
I knew how this child had come about, knew she was a product of Lysander’s abuse, but it had never occurred to me that Emori felt anything but love for her daughter. Now, though, thinking back, I realized that Isa had spent a lot more time caring for the girl than her own mother had. I had given it little thought before, or perhaps had attributed it to Emori’s active part in our fight, but I now realized I was not alone in seeing Lysander when I looked into this child’s eyes.
Isa seemed to cling to the girl as she bounced her on her hip. “I am not a fool, Indra. I know what happened to my sister inside the city. Know she had no choice in the matter.” Her gaze moved to the child. “But she did not have a choice either. She is like us—a victim in this war—and casting her aside would be as wrong as what the Sovereign has done to us.”
Her words slammed into me.
She was right. This child had Lysander’s blood flowing through her veins, but she had no choice in the matter. She did not choose her father. Like the rest of us, she was born into a role and would have to work to find her own way in this world. Hopefully, it would be an easier path than the one we had been given, but even if it was not, there were no guarantees she would become the monster Lysander was. Look at me, born Sovereign yet raised Winta. Look at Asa, a man who grew up surrounded by hate, yet found a way to embrace love and compassion.
“You are right,” I said, not bothering to hide the regret in my voice. “I could not see it before now, but you are right. Like Emori, I only saw evil when I looked at this child, but I realize I was wrong. People can become so much more than what they were born.”
The smile Isa gave me was sad, yet hopeful at the same time. “I am glad you are Head, Indra. I love my sister, but Emori has been filled with hate for so long that at times I barely recognize her as the girl I grew up with. She has been through many horrible things in her life, more than any of us know, I think, and I am afraid she has been changed forever by them.”
“I am sorry for what I had to do to her.” I reached out, almost hesitantly, and laid a hand on Isa’s arm. “I did not want it to come to this.”
“None of us did.” Isa looked around the cave, past me and to the other members of our tribe still gathered in the chamber. “None of us wished to lose our people and our home, but it was what had to happen to lead us here. Great things can come out of horrible circumstances if we allow them. Hopefully, this child will be one, and our freedom will be another.”
I thought of the girl in front of me, remembering the day in Saffron’s house when I received a punishment for trying to protect her. Isa was so young then, and even though only two years had passed, her maturity at this moment seemed decades beyond her age. Somehow, amidst everything else, I had missed the woman she was becoming. Like our tribe and like me, she had grown and changed with the passing seasons, and the girl standing in front of me no longer resembled the one I had taken a whipping for all those years ago.
13
Asa
My cell felt twice as cold without Nyko at my side. The last time I saw him, he was in the stocks and unmoving. Now, covered in darkness and uncertain what our future held, I found myself praying for the gods to take him. At least in death his suffering would be over, and then he would be reunited with his wife and daughter.
My body ached with every move, the pain made more intense by the hard surface I was stretched out on. My mind knew my torture was just beginning, though. Lysander was a fiend, or possibly even a demon, and I knew the extent of what he was willing to do to other human beings. He would make sure I suffered, and when he was done, I would die and Indra would be left alone.
I focused on thinking about her instead of what lay ahead of me. Remembering the way she’d floated through the house when she first started, timid and a little frightened, but still determined. I had watched her from the shadows, silently begging her to notice me when she slipped by, and at the same time terrified she would.
When she finally did, when she started watching for me the way I had been watching for her, I’d found myself living for those moments when our eyes would meet. Found myself memorizing the way her eyebrows would lift in confusion, the way her green eyes would flit away a little too fast, a little too hesitantly. I’d studied the curve of her lips, her jaw, the lines of her passage markings, taking the memories home with me at the end of the day. Imagining she was with me.
I was alone back then, and although Indra’s presence hadn’t been real, it had kept me company. Kept me sane. But it had also made me long for something I was sure I would never have.
Then I had touched her for real.
It had been a bittersweet moment, sweeping her into my arms. She’d been as warm as I’d imagined, as soft and as light, and every inch of me had ached for the thing I knew was out of my reach. It wasn’t just that she was an Outlier and I was a Fortis guard, though. It was why I had her in my arms. She had been attacked, and I had failed to save her, and because of that, her husband would die.
I had carried her into the mudroom and set her down, desperate to do something to ease her pain even though I knew there was nothing to be done. When I held her hand in mine, it had meant more to me than it had to her. Even at the time, I knew it. To me it was a symbol of how much I cared, of what I would do for her, of everything she stood for. To her it had been comfort in the midst of despair.
Life careened out of control after that, twisting every time I thought things might be returning to normal. When she’d once again been ripped from my life, I’d thought for sure I would never see her again. Had even suspected she was dead. But someone had different plans, and once again our paths had crossed.
The first time I kissed her, it had been out of desperation. I was injured, shot by Emori, who’d thought I was the enemy, and Indra had hurried to help me. I was shirtless when she’d run her warm hands down my arm, and it had ignited something inside me. I had kissed her then. Had pressed my lips to hers, not caring if she threw me aside as long as I had the chance to finally tell her the truth about how I felt. Not a single part of me believed she could return my feelings, but I had been wrong. So very wrong.
Would I ever see her again? Would I ever lie next to her the way I had that night, naked and exposed? It seemed unlikely, given my current situation, but so many unlikely things had happened over the last two years. I had come so far, and things had changed so much. Wasn’t it possible that we would somehow get out of this and find our way back to one another?
In my cell, it was impossible to know how much time passed. I dozed on and off, and woke to blackness that was as dark as Lysander’s soul. My body hurt, and no matter how I twisted and stretched, it was impossible to find comfort on the cold stone of my cell floor.
When the door was finally ripped open and a large figure rushed in, I tried to scramble away, but there was nowhere to go. I was pulled into the hall by rough hands, blinded by the sudden brightness after hours in the cell, and then dragged from the building.
Greer didn’t utter a word, not even when I was pulled out of the building. I squinted, trying to get a look around, and found Nyko still in the stocks. This time, however, he was awake. He lifted his head as we passed, and through his swollen features and scraggly red beard, shot me a grin that only he could pull off in the face of such treatment.
Nyko was a good man. Better than this world.
Greer moved
at an impossibly fast pace, making it difficult for me to keep up without stumbling over and over again. The stone streets were jagged and uneven, something that had never mattered before today. Now, though, with my arms and legs still weak from the effects of multiple electric shocks, I found the roads difficult to traverse.
Not that Greer bothered to slow down for me.
Whenever I stumbled, he jerked on my arm harder, his fingers digging into my skin. If my body hadn’t already been covered in bruises, it would be now for sure.
I wasn’t at all surprised when Greer turned onto the street that led to Saffron’s house. The woman wasn’t on the council, but she had a presence that seemed to rise higher than even the governing body.
Just like when Nyko and I had first arrived in the city, Greer entered the house without knocking. He dragged me through the mudroom, the kitchen, and into the dining room. Unlike earlier, however, he didn’t stop there, but instead took me into the study.
There she stood, her back straight and seemingly tall despite her short stature. She stared at me with icy gray eyes as I was pulled forward, not betraying even a single emotion. When I was still six feet from her, Greer shoved me forward, releasing me at the exact right moment so I stumbled yet somehow managed to remain standing.
Saffron’s eyebrows lifted as she waved to the couch. “Sit.”
I wanted to resist, but the effects of the electroprod still tingling through me made my legs shaky and unreliable, and I found myself dropping onto the couch against my will. The woman standing over me smiled, a gesture that didn’t reach her gray eyes, and I was reminded of one of my first few weeks working in the house. I had found myself alone in this very room, studying the books. There were hundreds, shoved onto the floor to ceiling shelves, their covers worn with age and their pages dusty from disuse. Saffron, I knew, read, but the men didn’t. Meaning most of these books hadn’t been touched in decades.
It hadn’t taken long for my gaze to move to the picture hanging over the fireplace. I’d known it was a map of the old world, but the words printed on it had made little sense to me.
“Find something interesting?” Saffron had snuck up on me as I was staring at it, making me jump and spin around to find an unreadable expression on her face.
“I’m sorry,” I’d said, lowering my head. “I was just curious.”
“Curious?” She’d crossed the room to stand at my side. “About what?”
I’d ventured a look up to find her staring at the map.
“The old world, I guess,” I’d said.
Saffron had lifted her eyebrows and looked me over like she wasn’t sure what I was. It had unnerved me even if I understood. The Fortis weren’t known for being great thinkers. We could read and write, which was more than could be said of the Outliers, but our knowledge of the world was basic when compared to the Sovereign. Even the men living inside the city had more education than the Fortis.
“This was what the world used to look like.” Saffron jerked her head toward the picture. “The blue was water, the rest land. Impressive, wasn’t it?”
My gaze had moved over the large sections of blue. Water. Had there really been that much water before the cataclysm? It didn’t seem real. Not with the current state of things. Now we were surrounded by wastelands, the earth having turned to dust long ago, and the sole source of water was the river and Sovereign Lake. Back then, however, most of the world had been water.
“Is it all gone?” I had asked her.
“You are a curious thing, aren’t you?” she’d said in reply, her tone a mixture of disgust—probably at the idea of talking to a Fortis guard—and amusement. “No one knows for sure.” She had waved to the picture. “But we believe so. The cataclysm destroyed everything, and as far as we know, the people living here are the only survivors. At one time there were billions of people, but now the Sovereign, Fortis, Untouchables, and Outliers are all that’s left.”
I had swallowed, overwhelmed by the numbers. Billions. It didn’t seem real. “How did it happen?”
Saffron had sighed and turned away, waving at me in a dismissive manner. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. Back to your post.”
That was the only time I had ever spoken to the mistress of the house. Did she remember that day? Did she know I was the man who’d stood at her side asking about the past, or did my face blend together with all the other large men and women who used to work in her house?
Now, sitting on the couch with her staring down at me, that conversation seemed like a dream. Saffron was such a cold woman that I had a difficult time believing she’d ever taken the time to say more than a single word to me.
“I’ve watched you over the years,” she said, breaking the silence. “Since the day I found you staring at the map. You were different than the others. I saw it. Saw it when you talked with Indra.” My gaze snapped from the picture to Saffron, and she shrugged. “Despite what my son thinks, simply observing people gives you more power than torturing them.” Her lips twitched. “Although it isn’t quite as enjoyable.”
Saffron walked across the room and stood in front of the map, her back to me. If Greer wasn’t directly behind me, I might have thought she was a fool. That she had underestimated my will to live. She’d left her electroprod on the table beside the fireplace, after all, and I was more than twice her size. Even as battered as I was, I could take her with no problem. Too bad the man standing guard could take me.
“You asked once what caused the cataclysm.” Saffron turned back to face me. “There are many stories about it, and not all of them agree, but to me, it doesn’t matter. The point in all this shouldn’t be what caused it, but how humanity survived.
“The energy shield is the only reason my ancestors didn’t perish with everyone else. They built this city. They knew the end was coming, and they were prepared. Before disaster struck, they put the energy shield up, and it saved us.” Saffron paused and stared at the map for a moment before saying, “They weren’t alone, but they didn’t know that.”
I sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”
Saffron turned to face me, her eyebrows raised. “You are a curious thing.”
My spine stiffened at the word thing. That was how she saw us. Not just the Outliers, but the Fortis, too. As objects. Things she could use and throw away. It didn’t matter to her that she’d killed over a hundred Outliers today, or that most of the Fortis were gone, because we weren’t people, and one way or another she’d find a way to keep her world going.
“There was another shelter.” She waved her hand as if to indicate which direction it had been in.
“In the wastelands?”
“Of course. That was all that was left after the cataclysm. The wilds came later—decades later, actually. The green began to grow, and it spread out, making my ancestors believe things would get better. But it never spread further than what we have today. A speck of green in an otherwise worthless world.” She turned back to stare at the map. “That was when the others showed up. By then, we’d lowered the power shield and diverted our energy so we could focus on growing and manufacturing food. The people who showed up at our door had been underground, but their resources had run out, and they came here looking for help. We threw them scraps. Used them to gather information about the outside world, and many of them settled outside our walls.” Her gray eyes darted my way. “Those were your people. The ones who chose to stay close to the city and live off our help.”
“But others went into the wilds,” I said.
I’d heard part of this. We’d all heard part of this. Had grown up on it. Never before, though, had I gotten this much information about the past and what started all this. What separated us in the very beginning and made us hate one another so much.
“That’s right,” Saffron said slowly, as if she knew I was dying for information and she was teasing me. “They went off and tried to find their own way, but despite the green of the wilds, life was hard. Plus, they weren’t used to livi
ng without things. In their shelter, they’d had electricity and water just like we did here in the city. They’d had medicine when they got sick. Out there they had nothing, and it wasn’t long before they came back, once again groveling for help.
“By then we’d established a good relationship, if not a little uneven, with the people outside our walls, and they didn’t want to share the few resources we gave them. So we struck a deal. It was opportunistic, I’ll admit, but no one complained.” Her lips curled into a malicious smile. “Not that we would have listened.”
“Is that why the Fortis hate the Outliers so much?” I asked, feeling suddenly desperate to answer the question that had plagued me for years.
Saffron shook her head, disappointed. “You keep asking the wrong questions.”
“What are the right questions?”
“It isn’t why, you see, because hate is human nature. It’s natural to hate what is different.” Saffron waved her hand. “Not that any of this matters now. What matters now is that the Outliers are still out there, and I want them stopped. My son saw to it that they had time to escape when he chose to put his need for revenge above the needs of his people. Had he used the weapon first, this would have all ended in a second.”
Saffron snapped her fingers as if to indicate how easy it would have been, but she didn’t need to tell me. I had seen the bodies. Had smelled their charred flesh and been forced to search for my wife. The memory of it made my stomach twist.
“He wants Indra, and it’s blinded him,” Saffron continued. “He’s weak, as all men are, and it has made him shortsighted.”
