ashen city (Black Tiger Series Book 2)

by Sara Baysinger

  And I wonder.

  I wonder how much like this dirt I am. Dead. Useless. I mean, I always imagined myself producing fruit. I always thought there might be something I could offer to the world. Something big. Meaningful. Earth shattering.

  But here I am, more coward than hero. Just like this dirt beneath my feet, I have no purpose. I’m too scared to step out of these caverns, and I’m too useless to allow the seed to take root and produce fruit.

  Prepare the way, the Light said when I was millimeters from death. And what a good job I’m doing.

  I step away from the fire. I need to breathe. To think. To inhale. Exhale. Replenish bad air for good.

  And believe for one second that everything is going to be okay.

  These caverns are so big, so spacious, and there’s enough air circulating the area that the smoke of the fire clears out before anyone can breathe it in. This place is a mystery to the outside world, just small openings yawning to the throat below Louisville, and only the Resurgence knows about them. Rain gave me a pretty good tour of the basic living area, but, like Jonah Walker said, the caverns stretch for a good hundred acres, and we barely occupy a tenth of them.

  The Resurgence has strange rituals here. Stuck in the darkness of the caverns, there’s no way to tell when it’s morning, so Jonah sets an alarm on his watch, much like Rain’s, and he makes a point to rise at exactly six o’clock every morning. Richa, the woman who makes it her business to be head cook, gets up too and begins boiling water for tea and oatmeal. Then at nine o’clock we do morning exercises. Everyone is expected to participate. We work out and then take a mile-long walk/jog through the caverns. Jonah explains that, while this keeps our bodies in shape, it also keeps our minds sharp by all the oxygen we’re taking into the brains. Also, the exercises keep us busy so we don’t get too bored.

  I love to run. The morning jog is one of my favorite pastimes. Sometimes I want to run farther than we’re supposed to, though, and I can’t. Because wandering too deep into these caverns, one could easily get lost. And wandering around outside the caverns is forbidden, in case Defenders are on the lookout. Which, with my escape, is more of a hazard than usual.

  Lunch at noon. Free time until three, when we have afternoon exercises, which are optional. Then dinner. After dinner is one hour of a volunteer reading a book to the crowd. Another pastime, Jonah says, that brings the community together and sharpens their minds. Another pastime that I actually enjoy. And I realize, living here isn’t really that bad. I mean, it’s better than Frankfort.

  Rain enjoys the reading time, too. The book we’re currently reading is a classic from the old world called The Princess Bride, and Rain practically has the whole thing memorized. But why am I surprised? He’s always been knowledgeable of our country’s past culture.

  Rain. He’s been…different lately. Less cold, more warm. Less snappish, more talkish. Less arrogant, and more…attractive. Though I loathe to admit it, I kind of enjoy his companionship. Even in Frankfort, I felt like I could be myself around him. I didn’t have to hold myself up to impossible standards like I did around Forest. And Rain’s the only one who hasn’t been shoving me in the direction of taking Titus’s place as chief. Which makes him almost better company than Dad. I guess he feels like he already made his point in the chapel and drove that point home when he had me arrested. But he’s still Rain. And it’s only a matter of time before that arrogant grin returns and some heartless remark tumbles out of those lips.

  But the speech he gave in the chapel still eats at me. How he talked about God being the Sower and me being the Garden, and how God wants to know all of us on a deep, personal level. I think back on that speech and feel a measure of discouragement.

  The truth is, I haven’t felt that overwhelming Presence since I almost died, and I’m beginning to wonder if that voice calling out to me was me going mad. Perhaps Rain had me start to believe in God, only for me to realize how stupid I am for thinking that a powerful, invisible being that supposedly cares for his subjects but does nothing for them could actually exist.

  Before I can stop it, the conversation with Rain in the chapel comes back to me.

  “Haven’t you ever watched the life bloom in the garden and wondered where that life came from?” Rain asked.

  “It came from seeds,” I said. “Which came from the sower.”

  “You are the garden, Ember. And God is the Sower.”

  The Sower. So if God is the Sower and I’m the garden, who is the seed? The Light told me to prepare the way. But for whom? For Forest, who doesn’t even want the chief dead? For Rain, who doesn’t want to be a leader any more than I do? Or for myself? Which seems kind of egotistical, but I’m apparently the option everyone is looking at to lead Ky.

  “You’ve been quiet today.” Dad’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts, and I look over to find him sitting by the fire. “You alright?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. You tell me.” I walk over and sit beside him. “The Resurgence wants me to help them assassinate Titus. Then they want me to take his place as chief. But they’re expecting some high Patrician to lead them. Not a low-born farmer.”

  “The Resurgence knows you’re a farmer.”

  “I know. But their expectations are…higher than that. They know I’m Patrician. They know I’m the chief’s sister. They think of me as some high-and-mighty wonder woman. But I’m not. I’m weak. I’m not smart. And I’m definitely not a leader.”

  Dad sighs heavily and looks at the fire. “Ember. These people are counting on you.”

  I groan and dig my fingers into my hair. “I don’t want them to count on me. Why doesn’t Walker take the place as chief? He is the chief’s uncle, after all.”

  Dad snorts. “That’ll go over well. The leader of the rebel group taking his place as chief of all of Ky. The Patricians would totally be okay with that.”

  “Okay, okay. Mercy. I get it.” I roll my eyes and hunch forward. “But can’t you understand where I’m coming from? I never asked for any of this. Why can’t we just leave all this behind? Cross the river and go to the Indy Tribe?”

  Dad frowns. “You want to…run?”

  It’s the wimpy way out. Not at all heroic. But I nod.

  “You think that’s what Mom would want you to do?”

  I wince. I hate it when Dad brings Mom into this. Funny how he didn’t want to talk about her at all for eight years after her death, and, now that I know the truth about her, he can’t keep his shoddy mouth shut. She’s come up in every conversation since I arrived at the caverns. He’s not afraid to play her heroic card to reveal my wimpy one.

  He places a hand on my shoulder and squeezes hard. “You might not remember much, but your mom counted on you. She named you Ember long before she ran away from the capital.”

  “Did you know her then? When she lived in Frankfort?”

  “No. I didn’t meet her until I found her cold and shivering in the orchard with you wrapped up in her arms. But once we were together, she told me everything. I guess she knew she could trust me since Jonah and I were friends. She talked about how Aden, your father, abused her. Then he sought out other women, which isn’t uncommon in Frankfort.”

  I remember the club that Rain took me to, where girls were forced to dance and serve. And how Cherry told me that marriage is a way to promote yourself. Sex is a form of recreation.

  “I still don’t understand how she could leave Titus behind.”

  “She…she always intended on going back for Titus when he came of age,” Dad says. “She always wanted to make things right with him and—” He sighs, swallows convulsively. “Unfortunately, she got caught before she could do that.”

  Not that Titus would have allowed her to take him anyway. Spoiled, rotten kid.

  “So she tried to plant the seed in my head to make things right,” I say, “since she couldn’t get to Titus.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The night just before she got caught,” I explain, “w
e were sitting by the fire, and she told me she named me Ember because embers seem harmless, almost hidden and unnoticeable, but have the capacity to burn down an entire city.”

  Dad smiles. “Sounds like her. So you know this is what she would want you to do. It was her plan all along. If you do this, if you help take down Titus and replace him as chief, you would be doing exactly what she wanted you to do. You’d make every decision she made—risking her life to leave Frankfort—worthwhile.”

  And just like that, the conversation goes back to using Mom to motivate me to become a shoddy leader. Way to go, Dad. I stand, dust the dirt off my pants, suddenly feeling irritated.

  “Nope,” I say, shaking my head. “I can’t do it. I won’t do it.”

  “Ember—”

  “There’s too much!” I gesture with my hands. “Too much going on. Too much expected of me. I don’t want to be a leader. I don’t want to go back to Ky, or worse, Frankfort, to fight in a battle we will never win. Don’t you understand? I almost died! Three times! Titus will always win! I just want to be free of this madness.” I sniff and grab a lantern. “You promised, Dad. You promised me we would cross the river. Remember?”

  He looks down at his hands.

  I swallow, shake my head, whirl around, and storm away from all the fires, away from the tents and the people who expect way too much from me. I miss the days when I was completely unnoticed. When nobody counted on me. When I felt as disregarded and useless as the dirt.

  I select one of the tunnels and break into a sprint, racing into the black abyss, and I think, I really wouldn’t mind if the darkness came to life right now and swallowed me whole.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I never asked for this. I never asked for their reverence. I never asked to be a shoddy Whitcomb. Dad’s always been on freedom’s side. Forget life, forget caution. If you’re not free, you’re not living, he always said. Now, we’re finally free. We’re not on the orchard. We’re not forced to break our backs and starve for the government. We’re so close to the river, to the border of Ky, to freedom; why don’t we just grasp it? Why is Dad suddenly interested in going back? Even willing to put my life on the line for the sake of the freedom that Ky will never have? Doesn’t he care that I almost died? Does he even love me like a daughter, or have I just been a tool for him this whole time? His key to bringing down the chief?

  Angry blood rages through my veins as I race deeper and deeper into the giant caverns. I don’t care if I can’t find my way back. Maybe it would be better if I died back here, alone. That’s what I’m going to do anyway, isn’t it? If I show my face in Frankfort, I’m going to die. Titus wants to kill me, and he usually gets exactly what he wants, so….

  Something strange and foreign and beautiful meets my ears, and I stop running. A tune, a song, a lovely acoustic melody vibrates through the cavern tunnels and echoes off the walls. I walk at a slower pace and follow the music that’s completely out of place in these pitch-black tunnels. The chords wrap around my soul, pulling and tugging and demanding to be heard.

  My heart stirs in recognition. “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” the hymn that went through my head on Death Day. The song Rain taught me.

  I round another corner and find him. Rain. Sitting with his own lantern, using a rock as a bench. His newsboy cap is crooked, his shirt untucked and his flask sitting open on the ground by his feet. And he’s playing a guitar. I didn’t even know he could play guitar. My lantern distracts him and he looks up. Stops playing.

  “Well, son of a jackal,” he says with a grin. “Look at you, brave little apple-picker, exploring the deepest corners of the caverns.”

  “Please,” I say, desperate for the music to take me away again. “Keep playing.”

  He offers a slow nod. “As you wish.”

  He looks down, places his fingers on the neck of the guitar, and continues playing the same hymn. And Rain’s lucid voice washes over me like a summer storm. Refreshing. Cleansing. Utterly purifying. I walk closer and sit on the edge of the rock beside him. Setting my lamp down, I listen to the music. I remember hearing this song in my mind when I was being burned to death.

  O come, O come, Emmanuel,

  And ransom captive Israel

  That mourns in lonely exile here

  Until the Son of God appear

  Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

  Will come to thee, O Israel

  That dream—or vision—of the Light One, seemed so real at the time I almost died. PREPARE THE WAY the Light had said when I was burning upside down on the Rebels Circle. Just before Forest rescued me. And those words have haunted me since.

  Yet, here I am, cowering away in these caverns. But that voice, that pull…I haven’t felt it since the day I almost died. It’s like the Being told me what It wanted, and when I returned to the orchard, It decided I wasn’t worth contacting. I mean, I don’t know how deities work. Rain told me God is all around us all the time, but I have a hard time comprehending that. It seems more like He comes and goes as He pleases. At least, that’s how it was when I was in the prison and when I lived in Frankfort. I felt the Presence, and then I didn’t. And now I’m wondering how much of it was in my shoddy head. How much of it was just empty hope or illusions. And if that’s the case, then I don’t owe it to anyone to go back to Ky.

  But even as I come to that conclusion, the song Rain sings brings back the dream, and it’s so vivid, almost like it happened this morning. I remember the Light. The hands outstretched and how badly I wanted to grab them. I remember the plea to prepare the way. Not a command. No threats followed the words. Just a simple plea. But prepare the way for what? For whom? I don’t even know what It meant, so how can I do what It said?

  Sorry, I think to the Unseen. Can’t.

  YOU CAN.

  Chills flesh out across my skin, and I tuck my elbows closer to my side. There it is. Not in a booming voice, not a glaring sign, but a simple whispered breath into my mind with the power to shatter all my resolve. And it definitely wasn’t in my head.

  Rain stops playing the guitar. I look at him. Did he feel that, too? That Presence? But he seems oblivious as he begins playing a different set of chords this time.

  “I wrote this next song for you,” he says, grinning.

  The flame of embarrassment heats up my neck. “No you didn’t,” I say.

  “You wanna hear it?”

  The heat floods into my cheeks, and I almost shake my head no, but curiosity wins out, and I whisper, “Okay.”

  And Rain looks at me, a smile in his gray, gray eyes, and he begins to sing.

  Ember, oh Ember, you are like a flower in December, Ember.

  Ember, oh Ember, you are like a flower in the snow.

  A laugh escapes me, and a tear I didn’t know was there suddenly emerges and splashes down my cheek. Rain always knows how to cheer me up. It’s something in his personality, his character. The charisma that’s always glowing in his presence through the good and the bad, somehow finds a way to rub off on me. And I hate it and I love it—this power he seems to have over my every emotion.

  “Rain,” I say. “That’s—”

  “Hang on,” he says, holding up one finger. “I’m not finished yet.” Then he plays again, and sings.

  When nothing else will grow, You come up out of the snow.

  When nothing else will bloom, And there is only—

  Ember, remember, You’re a wild fire in December, Ember,

  Ember, Little Ember, So much warmth from one persistent coal.

  How does he do it? How does Rain always have this power over me with one batch of words? Why does he have to be so compelling? So persuasive? So incredibly moving when he’s so completely unfeeling?

  He says nothing after the song. He doesn’t offer an explanation, because none is needed. Because Mom already made it clear to me why she named me Ember. The persistent coal, she’d said. The small flame that will grow into a raging fire that will blow over the entire city of Ky.

 
“A coin for your thoughts?” Rain asks, still picking the guitar.

  “You’ll need about a thousand of them.”

  “That’s a lot of thoughts whirling around in your head, little apple-picker.” He sets the guitar aside. “I’m all ears. Tell me. What’s the problem?”

  “You really need to ask?”

  He lifts a brow, leans back on the rock, crosses his arms over his chest, and waits.

  I blow out a frustrated breath. The one person who hasn’t pushed me on the subject of leading Ky is the only one I really want to talk about it with.

  “I want to leave,” I finally say. “I need to get out of Ky, like, yesterday.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  “Well, we’re this close.” I gesture with my forefinger and thumb. “Freedom is just across the river. What’s the hold up?”

  He shrugs. “So go.”

  Not exactly what I was expecting to hear. I chew my lip, study my hands, wonder if I should just leave, and then immediately feel guilty for thinking that.

  “What’s holding you back?”

  I lift my eyes to his. “Remember that talk you gave me about God being the Sower and me being the garden?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, you were right. But I’m not the garden. I don’t bring forth life and meaning. I’m more like…the dirt.”

  He arches a brow. “The dirt?”

  “I’m plain and completely useless. I can’t even get myself to save my own country. What’s the point of my life?” I heave out a sigh and bury my face in my hands. “Maybe it would have been better if I’d died on the Rebels Circle.”

  I hear him snort. “You’ve gotta stop being so selfish.”

  I jerk my head up; his words pierce what little pride I have left.

  Rains eyes harden to cold steel. “People are counting on you.”

  “Who? The brainless, manipulated Proletariat?”

  “How about the people who haven’t been brainwashed?”

  “Oh. Yeah. They think I’m some snotty Patrician holed up in the hotel.”