Before the Raging Lion

by Everly Frost

  The song could have described each of them. Quake could make the earth tremble; Snowboy could freeze mountains; Pip could tell people’s secrets; Rift’s shadows could reach beyond himself; and Blaze could scorch the earth. And I … I could drown the world with or without nectar. I could destroy it just by existing.

  Ember reached for my hand, smiling as she continued to sing, as if she understood my thoughts. I remembered that President Vale had said Rift refused to leave Ember’s side the night before. He must have told her everything—about us and about the tree.

  To my surprise, the song had a powerful impact on the watching Seversandians. The warriors lining the walls began to sing—even the warriors behind me guarding the tree lifted their voices. And to my greater surprise, President Vale joined in.

  What was this song?

  The last line faded. Ember stopped singing and the crowd was wide-eyed. Ember had spoken aloud a story they didn’t know—the real reason the tree died. And on top of that, her final song had stirred something in them.

  But I still hadn’t located the weapons. They could be anywhere, hidden in any device. I froze as Ruth’s words from that morning rushed back to me: we dusted the air over the tower with sleep pollen. We wouldn’t normally take a chance with airborne chemicals…

  Mr. Bradley had warned me many times that he’d been forced to give up his inventions. One of those inventions was mortality serum in an airborne form. He’d told us about it when he’d warned against trying to breach the secret level at the Terminal.

  The weapons were in the drones after all.

  “Archers!” President Vale cried, her voice clear but strained, choking on the last consonant.

  The two women raised their bows. The arrows quivered, bows taut, waiting for the order to unleash them.

  Olander hadn’t made any move to save me, but I suddenly realized that he didn’t have to. Michael and his mother stood behind me. My brothers stood in front of me.

  Olander was counting on others to save me for him.

  The only move he made was to reach into his pocket, flip a small, transparent square into his hand, and fit it over his nose and mouth.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I STEPPED IN FRONT of Ember, turning my body into a shield.

  “Victah-Var-Soul!” I cried, surprising the archers so much that they lowered their weapons. “You won’t kill her! Look to the drones! The drones!”

  Olander launched into action, shouting into a communicator.

  The drones shot downward in every direction, spewing red mist as they sped by. People screamed, but it was too late.

  The mist washed over all of us. I coughed as I inhaled a mouthful. Only the Evereach soldiers remained quiet, their faces covered like Olander’s. They unsheathed their daggers and lined up across the entrance, shoving at the first people to reach the exit, refusing to let them through.

  President Vale jumped to her feet, her hand at her throat, coughing. She inhaled a deep breath into the microphone she wore at her throat. Her eyes met mine.

  She screamed. “My warriors! Protect the innocent!””

  In one swift movement, Rachel and her sister turned their weapons on the drones. They quickly shot down two of them, but the damage was done. The drone’s bellies were empty.

  Michael’s voice was a growl at my ear. I spun to find him standing beside me, next to his mother and Ember.

  “Time to move, Ava.”

  He pulled his collar down just far enough to show me what looked like a blemish resting right over his heart, an imperfection in his skin. The fact that it was black was the only indication of what it really was.

  Michael thumped his chest, right over the spot, and the black liquid disappeared into his chest like water into dry sand.

  “Nanobots,” he whispered. “Excellent delivery system.”

  His gray eyes lit up like a thousand starry nights.

  At the same time, my brothers roared.

  Blaze exploded into flame. “I’ll take the drones! Quake, you break the glass. Rift, get Ember out of here!”

  He launched himself into the air, a fiery comet, grabbing the nearest drone and setting it alight, pitching it all the way across the enclosure at the soldiers blocking the exit. They scattered and for a moment a stream of people got through before the soldiers rallied and plugged the gap again. He raced to the next drone, launching himself off the back of a chair and into the sky, bringing it down, hitting it into the Evereach soldiers again.

  At the same time, Rift burst into more shadows than I’d ever seen before. One of them sped to us, picking Ember up bodily and racing away with her, speeding through the opening Blaze created before the soldiers blocked it again.

  Rift’s other shadows sped around the enclosure, herding the rushing people toward the left hand side of the enclosure, picking them up when he needed to. There was no door in that direction…

  Until Quake ran straight for the wall ahead of the screaming people. He smashed into it at full force. With an ear-splitting crack, the glass split. But it still held. He took a step back, turned to the side, and slammed into it again. The structure shattered. Glass sprayed across the walkway.

  “Watch the sharp edges!” he shouted to the civilians as Rift funneled them toward him.

  Cracks sped around the glass wall, speeding away from the site of the impact all the way around the enclosure. It wouldn’t take much to knock the whole thing down.

  But Olander had already mobilized his soldiers.

  They grabbed people, anybody they could find, stabbing them at will. They were … killing them…

  The Queen of Tenacia and her staff were closest to the soldiers guarding the entrance and she was one of the first to fall, her silk dress twisted around her body.

  I screamed. “Get her to Mr. Bradley! He’s the only one who can help.” I wasn’t sure if Rift could hear me above all the noise but one of his shadows sped toward her, snatching her up before her attacker could land another blow. Another one of Rift’s shadows toppled the soldier, slamming into him.

  The Seversandian warriors took formation and fought back, but they’d inhaled the poison too, making the fight anything but fair. A soldier ran at Rachel with his dagger held out, slashing at her. Rachel twisted. The knife cut a long line through her arm and slashed her clothing. She bled and didn’t heal, but fought on. She and her sister gravitated toward Blaze and Quake, fighting back to back with them against the Evereach soldiers.

  “I’m going after Olander,” Michael said.

  The Evereach President had removed himself to the side, still in control of several drones and he targeted them at anyone who wasn’t mortal yet.

  Michael sped forward, almost as fast as Snowboy. He rammed into Olander, knocking him down. The President’s shout was broadcast through the remaining drones.

  “Go, Ava.” Michael’s mother braced beside me. “Go to the tree while you can. The mortality serum has no effect on me. I’ll keep Alexander busy.”

  Then she was gone into the chaos, a streak of jeweled color.

  I quickly assessed the situation around me: Michael was fighting Olander—Michael was protected by nectar so the serum wouldn’t hurt him. My brothers fought alongside the Seversandian warriors, trying to get people out and rescue the injured.

  There was nothing I could do to help them.

  I knew where I needed to be.

  I turned to the tree.

  My footsteps crunched. Scorpion shells bit into the soles of my feet. I was afraid. I couldn’t deny it. The tree was like a giant fist, ready to fight me at every turn. How could I stand before it and ask to be judged?

  Mother had said: You have to find the raging lion.

  Helen had told me that rage could be a weapon—but she’d made me leave it behind before I jumped into the sand shark pool, as though it didn’t belong to me. But it had belonged to my brother. His strength had been rage.

  Had Mother meant that I had to find my brother?

&nb
sp; I’d already seen him lying alone on a bed attached to machines. I’d already contemplated the fact that one day I might have to turn those machines off. It wasn’t rage that consumed me, but grief.

  I held all my emotions inside me and ran for the tree.

  “Look out, Ava!”

  Helen’s shout was closer than I’d expected. I glanced back to see Alexander pounding after me like a beast released from a cage. Helen raced after him, the real lion surging ahead of her. It stretched out and snagged Alexander in its claws, dragging him into the sand. For a moment, it savaged at his neck.

  There was a flash of metal. The lion snarled and sank, lifeless, to the ash. Helen was caught behind it.

  I couldn’t hesitate another moment.

  I fled, my feet flying through the sand, tripping, righting myself, and running on. I had to get to the tree before Alexander stopped me. He was quick and strong. Immortality had given him that. It had given him more strength than I could possibly imagine.

  I sensed his presence behind me. Heard his quick breathing.

  I stretched out my arm, my fingertips, desperate to reach the tree first.

  Despite my head start, I was still several feet away from it when Alexander slammed into me from behind. His arms closed around my chest, tackling me to the ground. I braced for the impact. I didn’t have time to raise my arms, falling on my unprotected face instead.

  Ash filled my mouth and the taste of it was choking, suffocating. But I’d landed with my arm outstretched and the very tips of my fingers brushed something that was icy cold and burning hot at the same time.

  The tree.

  Agony shot through my arm. The pain of Alexander’s body crushing mine was nothing compared to the screaming that filled my head.

  The screaming wasn’t mine.

  It was coming from the tree.

  An unnatural wind picked up around me, swirling ash into my eyes. Tiny tornados whirled close to the ground, spinning scorpion husks inches above the surface.

  Alexander attempted to turn me over, grabbing at me, pummeling my torso and back.

  He shouted. “You’re just like your brother!”

  Failing to turn me, he hefted me upward instead, spinning me at the same time so I was chest to chest with him. He was all muscle, sharp and unbending.

  Before I could draw a breath, he threw me onto my back. I bounced. Pain exploded through my head, but it was nothing compared to the agony that shot through my hand. As I tried to turn, almost making it my side, I touched the tree again.

  The scream from the tree found its way through my windpipes, through my mouth. I screamed and couldn’t stop. I was in so much pain. It was this place, this tree, and something beyond it that held so much agony.

  Alexander straddled me and his fist smashed my face. I coughed blood and ash as his knuckles connected with my other cheek. I was lucky he hadn’t broken my jaw already. I knew I had to speak while I still could. “You can’t hurt me.”

  He stopped hitting me. His dreadlocks were splattered with my blood. They tickled my face as he leaned down close to me. “Of course I can. I’ll hurt you the same way I hurt your brother. I’ll keep hurting you as long as I like.”

  “But you won’t kill me.” I forced my hand back as far as I could, gripping the hot branch behind me, shivering with the contact, agony ripping through me. I took the pain into myself and held on tight.

  “You won’t kill me because I’m your key. I’m the only way you can create your supreme race. You know about Ember. She can’t help you. Maybe one day there’ll be another girl with the right DNA. But right now, I’m the only sure path to power.”

  I gripped the branch with all my might and released my brother’s rage from my heart. It sped away from me into the branch like a physical force.

  A shriek split the air. Not mine. This shriek was made up of wood and bark. The branch slipped out of my fingers, rising up and out of my grip, shifting for the first time in hundreds of years. A giant shadow rose above me as black boughs screeched and groaned.

  The clawed tree opened.

  Alexander sat up, wobbling as the ground around us trembled. “What…?”

  The pain inside my body eased as my contact with the branch broke. The branches above me rose higher and higher like dragon’s limbs unfurling into the sunlight. The tree’s trunk became visible for the first time, a shrunken, gnarled thing, painfully twisted.

  Alexander’s weight lifted. He hauled me to my feet, dragging me across the ash, where he heaved me up against the trunk. He pressed me into the sharp, broken wood, shoving his hand so hard against my chest that my bones shifted. I was moments away from a broken rib.

  He said, “You think I won’t kill you?”

  He pulled a dagger from his belt. It was a simple, short dagger with a wooden handle. There weren’t any jewels on it—only lion’s blood. I recognized it from the image of the dying brother that Mother had shown me.

  He snarled. “I used this before. I can do it again.”

  “Then do it! Get it over with!”

  His face was close to mine. There might have been a time when he was handsome, his features cut from something beautiful, but now his eyes held nothing but…

  Fear?

  I’d expected hatred, but not fear. I sucked in a sharp breath. “Kill me, Alexander. Just like you killed your brother. Just like you killed my brother.”

  His big hand closed around my throat and the edges of my vision swam. “Stop talking.”

  I couldn’t get any sound out. My mouth formed the word: Why?

  Why was he afraid? It wasn’t of me, I knew that much. Was it the tree? Even though he shoved me against it, was he careful not to touch it himself?

  I gripped the tree trunk, dusty ash falling away in my fingertips, but I had nothing else to cling to, nothing else to focus on and I refused to focus on his face. I dug my fingers deeper into the layers of rotted wood and dust, down deep until I struck something solid, something that wasn’t burning hot or icy cold, something…

  Alive.

  A tingle shot through my hand, a burst of light so sudden and bright that Alexander jumped away from me. “What did you do?”

  Air burst into my lungs. I pressed against the tree, clinging to the contact, my senses buzzing.

  “No.” Alexander stumbled back to me. “You can’t touch it. It’s dead. I killed it. Nobody else gets to be immortal.”

  I frowned at him. “But isn’t that what you want? A race of immortals?”

  “I want the strong to rule the earth, but I will always be their leader. I will always be the strongest.”

  I shook my head. “Look behind you, Alexander. They are the strongest.”

  My brothers had rallied from the fight and now they raced in my direction: flame and strength and shadow. Michael was close behind them, starlight streaking around him.

  Behind them, President Vale fought beside Helen and Ruth. The civilians were evacuated and the Seversandians had formed a defensive line between the tree and the attacking soldiers. My eyes widened in horror to see that there were more and more Evereach soldiers filling the space, more of Olander’s reinforcements arriving every second. The Seversandians were outnumbered two to one.

  Still, my brothers ran to me. And the Seversandians gave them the chance to reach me.

  “My brothers are good and kind. They will always be stronger than you.”

  He smiled, his teeth very white in our dark surroundings. “They have a weakness.”

  He gazed back at me, the wind shifting around us, the light glowing through my hand and arm, the tree’s branches still creaking upward, reaching for the sky.

  He leaned in close, pressing up against me, his lips close to mine. He stroked my cheek. “Their weakness is you.”

  He moved so quickly.

  My heart thudded once, twice.

  The knife remained where he left it in my side.

  He released me, but I grabbed his shirt and held on tight as I slid down
the tree, collapsing at its base. Somehow, my torso stayed upright. Somehow, my right hand remained stuck in the ire, glued to the living trunk.

  Somehow … I held on tight enough to drag him with me.

  My voice faded. “Oh … but now … my brothers don’t have a weakness anymore.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ava and Josh, now

  THE DARKNESS lifted.

  The tree was warm against my back. Sunlight streamed across my body and the first thing I noticed were my hands, folded in my lap across a dress made of gossamer black. I clasped and unclasped my fingers, twining them around each other, surprised that the simple movement was so difficult.

  A leaf dropped from the low branches, falling into my lap. I glanced up in time to see others fall, dripping from the tree like teardrops.

  The air was cool and I inhaled it deep into my lungs, sighing it out again.

  A boy sat beside me, his shoulder brushing mine. He gazed out beyond the branches, past the leaves, and the dark edges.

  The place beyond was nothing but white starlight. It was bright and sparkling, but calm. Otherwise, there was only the tree, the grass, the boy … and me.

  His eyes met mine. “Hi, Ava.”

  I whispered, “I died, Josh.”

  “Not yet, little sister.” He reached for my hand, holding his palm open. I placed my left hand in his, trusting him.

  “Then … what is this place?”

  “It’s for waiting. And deciding.”

  Sound flowed from the distance, from the starlight beyond. The wind sighed, and it should have been restful but it wasn’t. The sighing wind carried pain.

  Painful cries flew to me from far away. Ava. No.

  I sucked in a sharp breath, wondering if Josh could hear it too. “I found you,” I whispered.

  Find the raging lion, Mother had said, and I had.

  His forehead creased in deep thought.

  My brother said, “Before my world broke, I was made of pieces. Shards of them, held together with glue made of fear and hope. But when I pulled you out of the Implosion room, when I got you away from Alexander that night, all the pieces came together. All of me. Everything I had. Every single small piece. I had to save you, so you could fight him.”