by Kate L. Mary
The room I now found myself in had a large pool in the center, and the glowing creatures were everywhere, not just in the water. They were on the walls, crawling across the rocks, and even hanging from the ceiling. Their pace was much slower on land than in water, which gave me a chance to get a better look at them. They were about the size of my hand and scaly like fish, but they had eight legs and front claws, and a tail that flipped up. It fanned out when I came near, emitting an even brighter light than before, and the little thing snapped its claws in my face as if trying to ward me off.
There were more than enough of them to light up the room, and I hugged myself as I looked around, getting a feel for where I was. It was smaller than the main room, and the stream had opened up here and doubled in size. It whooshed through and disappeared under the rocks, probably going outside, but before it did, it was joined by another stream, only this one came from a small pool on the other side of the room. I moved toward it, shivering and hugging myself, certain my eyes were playing tricks on me. There was no way steam was rising off the little pool. It made no sense.
But the closer I got, the more certain I became of what I was seeing, and then I was next to it and could actually feel the heat radiating from the water. After the cold stream, just being near this little pool was like slipping under a layer of fur after a snowstorm, but even more important, it meant I would not freeze to death.
I knelt down to test the water, afraid it might be too hot, but one touch was all it took to convince me that getting in would not melt the flesh from my body. I stripped my clothes off then once again tested the water with my toe before slipping inside.
The water warmed me almost immediately, and my brain function returned to normal. I was no longer lost because I could follow the stream back and make my way to the main room. Even better, if I could capture one—or more—of these creatures, I might be able to light my way as well.
I stayed in the pool just long enough to get warm before climbing out. After the hot water, my clothes were chilly against my skin, but it was not bad enough to kill me. As I dressed, I watched the little creatures for signs that they might be dangerous. They had no spikes or teeth that I could see, but there were pinchers. That could be a problem. Of course, it was possible they still glowed after death, which would make my task a lot easier. There was only one way to know for sure, though.
I pulled out my knife as I approached the nearest bug. It lifted its tail, and when it fanned out, the creature’s glow intensified. The thing tried to run, but I was too fast, and I speared it through the middle with my knife before it had gone two steps. Blood that looked blue in the limited light sprayed across the rocks, and the bug twitched twice before going still. I barely had time to blink before the glow faded from its body and the thing went black.
“Crap,” I muttered and tossed the bug aside.
The second its body hit the ground, a few of the nearby creatures scurried over and began devouring it, which gave me an idea.
I moved about the room, spearing bug after bug until I had a handful of the things, and then headed for the opening of the cave. I went as far as I could before the lights were too dim to see where I stepped, and then tossed one of the bodies I was carrying on the ground in front of me. The click of feet against stone as the creatures scurried forward echoed off the walls around me, and the tunnel grew bright again. I started walking before the things had even reached the body, moving as far as I could before once again tossing a dead bug on the ground. The creatures scurried after it, and I moved.
I glanced back to find dozens of the little bugs following me, with more of them crawling from the stream every few seconds. I dropped another body and more came, so I dropped another, and it happened again. I kept walking, dropping the bodies every few steps, spearing more of the bugs when I ran out, and the things followed me the whole way. Before long, the tunnel began to look familiar, and I realized I had reached the point where my torch had gone out. I tossed another body on the ground and walked faster.
By the time I reached the large room, there were so many bugs behind me that it was like day. They emerged from the tunnel and began scurrying up the walls, illuminating the room as they went. In the distance, I spotted more openings I knew would hold other wonders, but I also saw a few little rats digging in the crevices of the rocks. The sight of them made my stomach rumble, reminding me of why I had come into the cave to begin with.
I speared a rat easily, aided by the light the bugs gave off, and then cut it open, tossing the entrails on the ground. The glowing creatures swarmed them as I headed back into the main part of the cave.
My fire was low, so I added a couple more logs and settled in. Then I pierced the rat’s body with a stick and cooked it over the fire.
It had to be dark outside by now, and I was in the middle of trying to decide if I should try to make it home or sleep in the cave when a boom of thunder broke through the silence, answering my question for me. I would sleep here and head out at first light. Not only would it prevent me from getting soaked, but it would also be safer that way. The Fortis hunters had no doubt headed back to their village, but I would rather not risk it.
5
I made it back to the village just after dawn, giving me enough time to change and say a quick goodbye to my mother and Anja before heading out to meet Mira. The previous night in the cave had been warm thanks to the fire and fur, and comforting because it had made me feel like Bodhi was near, but on my trek back to the village my thoughts had once again turned to Asa. What had he told the other men last night, and what would he say to me when I saw him today? More importantly, what I would say to him?
He was different than the other Fortis. I knew that by now, but he was still one of them, and I had been killing his people. No matter how he felt about me, Asa would not be able to condone my actions, and I understood. If he were able to turn a blind eye to what I was doing, he would not be the man I thought he was.
Still, I could not tell him I would stop. He had to know why, had to understand what my people went through every day. It was part of the reason he had started helping me to begin with, but I was under no delusions about it. Asa would be angry with me.
“Why are you so quiet this morning?” Mira asked on our way to work.
I startled then shook my head as if the action would clear my thoughts, but it did nothing to help me sort through the emotions surging through me. “Tired. I got stuck out in the storm last night and had to sleep in the cave.”
Mira’s steps faltered, but she did not stop completely. “What cave?”
More than once I had told her about the time Bodhi and I spent together in the woods, but never about the cave. It had seemed wrong. It was something that belonged to my husband and me alone. Our special place. Even now that he was gone, I found I did not want to share it. I liked going there so I could feel close to him, and I did not want anyone, not even Mira, to take that away from me.
But I owed her some sort of explanation, so I said, “A place Bodhi and I used to go. That is all.”
She nodded like she understood, and the fact that she asked no other questions confirmed it. She also did not speak again during the long walk to Sovereign City, almost as if she knew I needed this time to think.
The Fortis village was in an uproar when we reached it, and for the first time since they had begun construction on the quarters, the bang of hammers was not the loudest sound. People were shouting, angry, and it filled me with dread. I knew what this was about, but I tried to tell myself it would be okay. Asa had covered for me and there would be no angry mob of people waiting to rip me to shreds when I arrived.
“What do you think is happening?” Mira whispered as we approached the outskirts of the village.
“I do not know,” I lied.
We had just crossed the threshold into the village when the door of the first house opened. A man stepped out, towering over us and close enough that it made me jump. I looked up, and to my shock cam
e face to face with the very man I had spent the whole walk thinking about. The usual relief at Asa’s presence was absent, though, and the expression in his brown eyes was like a burst of cold wind sweeping over me.
Before I had time to figure out what he was thinking, he had already looked away. My heart was pounding, nearly drowning out the angry voices surrounding us. I grabbed Mira’s arm and pulled her with me, walking faster through the crowd in hopes of escaping not only Asa, but the rage throbbing through the air.
There were too many conversations going on at once for me to hear them all, but I caught enough to know the uproar was, in fact, about me. Just like I had thought, my arrow had given me away, and the Fortis now knew an animal was not responsible for their missing people. They were angry. Outraged. Out for blood.
They wanted revenge.
But the arrow, as damaging as it was, could not reveal my identity. Neither my name nor my tribe was identifiable by looking at it, and I tried to cling to that knowledge as Mira and I moved through the Fortis village, past angry words and violent threats against the person who had been slaughtering their people.
Asa was the only person who could identify me.
I ventured a look over my shoulder, but could not find him in the crowd. He had to be on his way into the city, though. He would not abandon me so quickly after my return to work, especially not after what had happened last time. Would he?
Doubt crept through me. He had saved me yet again last night, making it seem like he would still be on my side, but there was always the possibility he had had second thoughts. Maybe, after letting me go, he had changed his mind. Perhaps I had crossed a line that could not be forgiven. Perhaps I looked different to him now that he knew I was a killer.
Mira and I made it into the city without any real interaction with the Fortis, but we were both too shaken by the rage we had walked through to talk as we continued our journey through Sovereign City, headed for Saffron’s house. Even though I was unsure whether I wanted to see him, I found myself looking over my shoulder every few seconds, searching the mass of people already crowded in the streets for Asa. Once I thought I caught sight of him, but when my heart skipped a beat, I quickly looked away. By the time I had gathered enough courage to look back, the crowd had once again swallowed him up.
I was jumpy and out of sorts all day, both waiting for and dreading the moment I would get a chance to talk to Asa. It was early afternoon before we finally came face to face. As usual, he found me in the hall leading to the servants’ bathroom, only this time when he cornered me with his large body, it acted as a sudden reminder of how small I was and how, no matter how many Fortis hunters I had killed, I was still very much at the mercy of others inside these walls.
Asa looked down at me with menacing brown eyes, and for the first time since I had gotten to know him, fear shot through me. “It’s time for you to tell me who you really are.”
“What?” I had no idea what he meant, and for a moment all I could do was shake my head. Then I found my voice and said, “I am Indra of the Winta tribe. That is all. Just an Outlier.”
Except that I was not just an Outlier, because I had been born within in these walls, to Sovereign parents. Only that was something I could not tell Asa.
He leaned closer, making me shrink away. “A girl who is just an Outlier doesn’t kill more than fifty men and women all on her own. She doesn’t turn a village upside down the way you have. My people know animals aren’t responsible for killing our hunters. A person is. They’re angry, Indra. They want blood. They want your blood.”
My heart pounded against my ribcage and I gasped, “You told them it was me?”
Asa startled, and when he shook his head, his gaze softened, making him look more like the man I had gotten to know. “No. You know I wouldn’t do that.”
“Then what did you tell them?”
Asa exhaled, and in the process leaned further away from me, giving me space to breathe. He ran his hand over his head, and I found myself wondering how the short fibers of his hair would feel against my palm. Bodhi’s hair had been long and wavy and soft, but I imagined that Asa’s would be prickly to the touch.
“I told them I came upon a man, a man like none I had ever seen before,” he said, his words drawing my gaze from his head and back to his face. “He had a bow in his hands and a bloody knife, and our men were dead. I told them the man ran when he saw me, and the rest of our group arrived before I could chase him.”
“They believed you?”
“They believed me.” We stood in silence for a moment before he said, “You’ve started down a very dangerous path, Indra. You have to know that. You’ve been lucky so far, but it can’t last. Eventually, one of the men you attack will get the better of you, and then you’ll get hurt.”
Anger flared through me then, replacing the fear that had been swimming in me since Asa came upon me in the forest yesterday. He knew I had already been hurt, in so many ways. He had seen it with his own eyes, had told me that my pain had hurt him as well, yet he had the nerve to say this to me.
“Hurt?” I found myself spitting the word at him. “I am getting hurt every day, Asa. You have seen it. You have seen what these men have done to me, to the people I love, to my tribe, and to all the other Outliers working in the city. I stood by and let it happen for too long, but I will not do it anymore. I will not be the person who watches others get hurt and does nothing to stop it. Not anymore.”
We stared at one another for a moment, each of us lost in our own pain, in the pain that was both for ourselves and for our people. I could see the battle raging in him, the one that pulled him in two different directions. Between me, a person he had come to care about, and his people. It was unfair to ask him to do this thing for me, to make a choice that went against who he was, but I could not turn back now, just as he could not change the fact that he had been born a Fortis. Those were his people, but I was an Outlier, and we had been fooling ourselves for too long. Our worlds were too different to mix. We were too different.
“I understand the things that have been done to you,” he finally said. “I understand your anger. But I’m looking out for you, Indra.”
“I know, but maybe it is time I learned to look out for myself,” I replied.
“Are you saying you don’t want my help anymore?” he asked, surprise and doubt clouding his vision.
I exhaled as the truth settled over me like a heavy weight. There was no way I could walk away from his help, not if I wanted to keep Mira safe.
“You know I cannot do that,” I finally said, “but you must also know I cannot turn my back on my people either. I will leave it up to you to decide what you must do from here. If you cannot live with the things I have done, the things I plan to continue to do, I will understand.” I stepped back, and it seemed as if a large canyon had opened up between us. I waved down at myself when I said, “This is who I am, Asa. That will not change.”
His brown eyes swept over me, softening even more. “I know who you are, Indra, and even if I don’t agree with it, I can’t turn my back on you now.”
For once, his assurances gave me no comfort. Asa and I were involved in an alliance which defied logic, and one which could not last. Eventually, something would happen that would cause him to turn his back on me, and when that time came, I was unsure of what would become of us. Of what I would be forced to do to not only save myself, but my people.
6
Weeks went by, and the wilds were once again covered in snow. Things between Asa and me stayed the same, a silent partnership that defied our background and logic, but one we were both comfortable with. Before I knew it, I had been back at Saffron’s house for more than two months, and God had smiled down on me during that time. I had not run into Lysander once. It was a situation that could not last, but one I was thankful for nonetheless.
With each passing day, I adjusted more and more to being back in the place where I had been brutalized, to being in the house of the wom
an who was responsible for my husband’s death. I was no more comfortable than I had been on that first day back, but I was learning not to jump when someone came into the room behind me, and I began bracing myself for Lysander’s appearance less and less whenever I walked into a room. I had almost convinced myself that I might be able to go forever without seeing him again, and no matter how foolish the thought was, it made my time in Saffron’s house a little bit easier.
Then, one day, he was there.
I stepped from the kitchen and found Lysander standing in the middle of the dining room, his plump frame seeming to take up most of the open space. It was almost as if he had been waiting for me. As if he had known I would walk through the door at that exact moment.
He was already smiling, his round face sweaty and his skin yellower than it had been the last time I saw him, and when I froze, his expression morphed into something grotesque. A shudder wracked my body, shooting from the back of my neck all the way to my feet, and my stomach convulsed. I tried not to think about what had happened the last time I was alone with this man. Tried not to remember the sting of his hand hitting my face or how rough the wall had been against my cheek, but blocking it out was impossible. I could feel it, I could feel him, and it turned me into a mute. Made every part of my brain shut down until I was only able to do one thing: replay what had happened over and over again.
He stepped closer, practically waddling on his stubby legs, and stopped four feet away from me, but close enough that his body heat engulfed me. In one hand he held the electroprod, which he flipped on dramatically. The soft hum of the electricity filled the room, and my entire body jerked away from the blue glow it gave off. I had never experienced the shock of an electroprod, but I had witnessed enormous Fortis men fall to their knees from it. Had witnessed the shrieks a full-grown man could give off from the slightest touch.
