Blaze of Embers

by Cam Baity

  Text copyright © 2017 by Cam Baity and Benny Zelkowicz

  Map illustration by Kayley LeFaiver

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

  Designed by Marci Senders

  ISBN 978-1-4231-9039-4

  Visit www.DisneyBooks.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1: Life and Limb

  Chapter 2: Return

  Chapter 3: On a Prayer

  Chapter 4: Before the Dawn

  Chapter 5: Closing In

  Chapter 6: Rust Risen

  Chapter 7: By a Thread

  Chapter 8: A Wake

  Chapter 9: Seeds of Doubt

  Chapter 10: Exodus

  Chapter 11: Leave of Senses

  Part II

  Chapter 12: The Beaten Path

  Chapter 13: Offline

  Chapter 14: Voices from the Past

  Chapter 15: Shocked

  Chapter 16: Backlash

  Chapter 17: Pilgrimage

  Chapter 18: Unity

  Chapter 19: Emergence

  Chapter 20: Running Out

  Part III

  Chapter 21: Back in the Game

  Chapter 22: Within Grasp

  Chapter 23: Breakthrough

  Chapter 24: Breach

  Chapter 25: She Comes

  Chapter 26: Face-to-Face

  Chapter 27: Allegiances

  Chapter 28: Through

  Part IV

  Chapter 29: Unearthed

  Chapter 30: Judgment

  Chapter 31: Power

  Chapter 32: The Betrayal

  Chapter 33: High Tide

  Chapter 34: Outburst

  Chapter 35: Reignited

  Part V

  Chapter 36: Ascension

  Chapter 37: Desperate Measures

  Chapter 38: Pray

  Chapter 39: Unleashed

  Chapter 40: The Drop

  Chapter 41: Dawn Breaks

  Chapter 42: Breathless

  Chapter 43: Everseer

  Chapter 44: On the Air

  Chapter 45: On Solid Ground

  Chapter 46: Home

  Chapter 47: The Last Word

  Glossary

  About the Authors

  For Olive, and the day you can read this to give me notes

  —CB

  This one is for Gavi and Asher—may you both be

  fierce seekers of the truth

  —BZ

  Margaret Tanner already wished she hadn’t come home.

  When she got the news that Micah had run away, Margaret had requested a leave of absence. It had taken an entire week for her submission to be processed. Tensions had spiked after President Saltern’s condemnation of the Quorum at the Council of Nations, so it was an “inopportune time” for an officer of the Foundry’s special engineering corps to be off duty. Nevertheless, she had managed it, and after a high-speed Galejet flight from Vellaroux, Trelaine, to Albright City, Meridian, she was home.

  Yet international strife was nothing compared to what was waiting for her at Plumm Estate.

  “Not like that,” Deirdre Tanner snapped, snatching the ornamental zigzag silverware from her daughter to properly pack it for shipping. “Fold the table linens.”

  Accustomed to taking orders without question, Margaret moved with military precision to the other end of the giant brass table in the dining room. She adjusted the cuffs of her starched gray-and-gold Foundry uniform, brushed a strand of copper-blond hair from her heart-shaped face, and set about the new task.

  In their correspondence, her mother had neglected to mention that Dr. Plumm had fired the Tanners, and that he and Phoebe had moved out without so much as a thanks. Foundry officials had packed up all of the Plumms’ necessities, mostly files and personal effects, and shipped them to their new, undisclosed residence, leaving the staff to take care of the rest. Of course, Mr. Macaroy, Mr. Kashiri, and most of the others had abandoned ship at the first sign of trouble, leaving all the remaining work to the Tanners—namely Margaret and her mother, since Randall was utterly useless.

  So they had been at it for hours, working away into the night. Margaret wouldn’t have said no to a quick bite to eat, especially because a Televiewer in the kitchen was blaring with revelry from President Saltern’s campaign rally, and she was curious to hear his address.

  “No, no,” Deirdre said, slamming down the box of silverware and stomping over to Margaret. “The trim folds in. Like this.” She yanked the silversilk tablecloth away.

  “Mother,” said Margaret.

  Deirdre flattened the pleats of the tablecloth as if she were spanking a disobedient child. Margaret placed a firm hand on her shoulder.

  “Mom?”

  Strands of cobweb hair framed the gouges of grief in Deirdre’s face. Bruise-colored bags hung beneath her mud-brown eyes, which swam with tears.

  “I just…What am I going to do, Margie? Where am I supposed to go?”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “It won’t be,” Deirdre sniffled. “I’ll have to go back home to Oleander. Back to…him.”

  Margaret stiffened at the mention of her drunken absentee father.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” she stated. “We’ll figure it out. I’m here. We’re together now.”

  “We’re not,” Deirdre whispered. “Not all of us.” Her round shoulders quaked. “My baby…My baby’s gone.”

  Margaret handed her mother a silversilk napkin from the table.

  “Not the linens, Margie.”

  Margaret insisted, forcing the napkin into her hand. Her mother conceded and dabbed at her eyes.

  “Go lie down, Mom. You need a break.”

  Deirdre appeared eager for the opportunity, but she glanced with some concern at the mountains of valuables that still needed to be packed.

  “I’ll take over here,” Margaret said, offering a soothing smile. “Don’t worry, you can redo everything I touch in the morning.”

  Her mother smiled in return, a little embarrassed.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Deirdre said, kissing Margaret on the cheek. She took one last uneasy look around the cavernous dining room of Plumm Estate before shuffling off to her quarters.

  Margaret breathed a sigh of relief. She loved her mother and would do anything for her, but the atmosphere in a room always felt lighter when she left it.

  A sudden spray of wet coughing came from the kitchen. Concerned, Margaret put down her folding and walked over to see. Her brother, Randall, decked out in his Military Institute of Meridian uniform, sat hunched over the counter, sputtering. Tennyson the chauffeur chuckled as he pounded the teen’s back. Between them sat a brown bottle of liquor.

  “Tenny’s bailin’,” Randall managed, wiping his mouth. “Just havin’ a little farewell drink, is all. Don’t tell Mom.”

  Margaret huffed. “A chip off the ol’ block, aren’t ya?”

  Randall narrowed his beady little eyes at her.

  “Go see if she needs anything,” Margaret ordered, and her brother obliged, breezing past her. Tennyson followed, offering Margaret a sly wink as he slipped away.

  A tumultuous ovation on the Televiewer grabbed her attention. On the screen, three Razorback fighter jets flew in formation, blazing a trail of golden fire above a gleeful
crowd packed onto the bridge to Foundry Central. Newscam drones swept over the bay, looking for the perfect angle of the Crest of Dawn, the titanic sunburst that towered over Albright City. There, thousands of feet above the crowd, emerging onto a platform festooned with bunting and ribbons in patriotic red, white, and gold, was President Saltern with his beautiful wife and children. The leader of the free world had never looked more youthful or vibrant.

  An orchestra started playing “Our Shining Hearts.” The crowd sang, voices ringing throughout the glorious metal city. This was a celebration for the ages. The nation’s beloved first family sang along with the people.

  “Meridian cast off all her bonds,

  when Creighton Albright forged the bronze.”

  The sky crackled with fireworks, a frenzy of dazzling lights reflecting off the gleaming skyscrapers.

  “With ball of lead and sword of steel,

  we’ll crush our foes beneath our heel.”

  The Salterns laughed, squinting against the spectacular light show.

  “So praise the gold, the brass, and chrome,

  of Meridian, our mighty home!”

  A Newscam drone held the President’s proud visage in an iconic beauty shot.

  But something was wrong. His eyes went wide. His mouth went slack.

  Fear paralyzed Margaret as she too understood.

  Fireworks were speeding toward his platform.

  Not fireworks. Missiles.

  An explosion—a blinding white supernova. The gut-wrenching screams of an entire city in shock. A strike against the legendary Crest of Dawn.

  Thus the war began.

  The cords tying Micah to the back of the Cyclewynder were pulled so tight that his legs were numb, and the digital manacles biting into his bruised wrists felt icy in his lap. Goodwin wasn’t taking any chances this time, but it didn’t matter one bit.

  Micah had nowhere to run.

  And no will to try.

  His freckled face felt frostbitten, and he shivered uncontrollably. Though the Foundry workers had draped Micah in a foil thermal blanket, he was frozen from head to toes—especially toes. His boots were gone, and all he had on were his grease-covered overalls and dingy T-shirt.

  Sharp wheels carved the rough ground of the Coiling Furrows, their grating sound echoing off the curved walls of the impossible maze. Facing backward, Micah counted four Cyclewynders behind him, but he knew there were twice that many up ahead. The headlights of the Foundry convoy cut harsh beams through the gloom and threw twisty shadows everywhere.

  Flaring light revealed a limp form strapped to one of the Cyclewynders. He caught a glimpse of her dark, uneven hair fluttering in the wind. Micah had to look away.

  Phoebe.

  Micah wished he was dead instead of her.

  He closed his one good eye and savored the pain that flared in the mess of the other. Micah had gotten that shiner for trying to attack Goodwin—he had barely even grazed the old man’s pinstriped coattails before a Foundry soldier socked him one. And sure enough, it was the same jerk whose nose Micah had smashed down in Emberhome.

  Smashed him with a human bone. Micah couldn’t imagine what that had been doing at the bottom of the CHAR pit in Emberhome. Nor did he have the energy to think about it.

  All he could think of were Goodwin’s unreadable blue eyes.

  Standing above Phoebe’s body in that flare-lit chamber, when it had felt like the universe was caving in, the Chairman hadn’t shown a flicker of…well, of anything.

  “You,” Micah had managed to croak at him. “You killed her.”

  Goodwin’s face had revealed nothing. No anger, no sadness, not even a smirk. If he had taken pleasure in her death, then Micah would have known for a fact that he was a monster, but Goodwin wouldn’t even give him that. Just an empty stare.

  “I had no hand in this,” the fat man had replied. “I warned you of the danger here, but you ignored me. This was inevitable.”

  That was when Micah had pounced at Goodwin. He would have kept trying too, if it hadn’t been for the black eye and the Foundry workers. Micah had watched them strap Phoebe’s lifeless form to a Cyclewynder loaded with the coveralls and field pack and other stuff the kids had stolen—like she was nothing more than another piece of luggage to them.

  Then the tears had come and put out his fire.

  They were taking him in now to be questioned. Goodwin would ask about the Covenant and the Ona, ask what he and Phoebe were doing to help the mehkans. Micah wouldn’t say anything, no matter what they did to him.

  They couldn’t make him hurt more than this.

  Which meant the Occulyth would be safe. Micah hadn’t seen it anywhere in that chamber. Maybe—just maybe—Phoebe had managed to get it to the Ona. That was all that mattered. He told himself that, again and again. Whatever happened to him and Phoebe, saving Mehk was the most important thing.

  He desperately wanted to believe that. But he didn’t, not really.

  Micah couldn’t guess how long they had been puttering through these stupid passages. Star-streaked sky peeked in through irregular openings above. Those interconnected, vibrating stars had been the first thing Phoebe noticed when they stumbled into Mehk, the first sign that they were in a world stranger than anything they had ever imagined. Now those same stars danced on, oblivious to the life that had ended here below.

  At last, the Foundry convoy emerged from the Furrows and arrived at a bleak camp of pentagonal tents at the foot of a monstrous mountain range. Obscuring the peaks was the Shroud, a wall of fog that stretched up and out as far as the eye could see. Harsh floodlights and humming generators were huddled around a pair of Gyrojets, sleek multi-winged aircraft like raptors waiting for prey.

  The team of Cyclewynders parked alongside the tents. A couple of soldiers untied Micah from the vehicle and roughly dragged him to Goodwin, his toes barely scraping the ground.

  The Chairman looked like he had something to say. If this were an episode of Maddox, Micah’s favorite Televiewer show once upon a time, the hero would have a clever zinger ready to deploy. Or he would spit in the villain’s face before wiping out all the bad guys single-handedly.

  But Micah was not Maddox. He was just a boy—a helpless, broken boy, and weary beyond belief. So Micah did nothing.

  “I am sorry Phoebe is dead,” Goodwin said.

  Micah looked up at him.

  “Believe me, I would not have wished it so,” the old man went on. “I will ensure that she gets a proper—”

  “Sir!”

  One word, ringing with alarm. Goodwin stiffened.

  The Foundry worker who had spoken held open a tent flap, spilling out yellowish artificial light. He stood staring at Goodwin with his mouth opening and closing wordlessly. He pointed at a bank of Computators within the tent.

  Goodwin hurried inside. The rest of the Foundry team gathered around, frozen before the screens. Micah strained until he could see. The Computators all displayed the same footage—sixteen seconds on loop.

  Micah couldn’t comprehend it. No matter how many times the images repeated, he simply could not believe it was real.

  The Crest of Dawn exploded on the screens before them.

  Over and over and over.

  The stolen magnetic hover disc was not built for two, so Dollop locked his mismatched modular limbs tightly around the Marquis’s waist. Wind tore at them as they raced across the barren red landscape.

  A rumbling blast behind them nearly threw the pair from their transport. Dollop didn’t want to look back. He refused to look back. Would never ever look back.

  Dollop looked back.

  The Depot was receding, but the lights of its cannons seared brighter than ever. The surrounding battleground was an eruption of fireballs. Mehkans fled the onslaught, retreating to salathyl holes dug into the ore. In the strobing blasts, Dollop saw many mowed down, heard their screams amid the murderous explosions.

  The Covenant had thrown everything at the Foundry stronghold. Bef
ore their surprise attack, it had seemed to Dollop like they couldn’t possibly fail, not with so many weapons, so many brave warriors, and with the certainty that the Great Engineer herself had guided their hands.

  Yet it had been a slaughter. The Covenant was being wiped out.

  The burning lights blurred through Dollop’s tears, and he wiped his bulbous amber bug eyes. He looked up at the Marquis, still clad in his loose-fitting Watchman bomber’s armor, complete with cumbersome ammo case and launcher. This wicked mehkan had already betrayed him once, sold him and Micah and Loaii into slavery. So what if the Marquis had just spared Dollop from the rust in the Depot? He’d be a fool to trust this crooked lumie for a second. Not just a fool, but a coward too, abandoning his duty to the Covenant and running away with a traitor. Dollop felt sick to the core.

  “St-stop!” Dollop shouted.

  The Marquis lifted the faceplate of his helmet to flicker an agitated message from the signal lamp opticle that was his head.

  “Let me off,” Dollop insisted. “I ha-have to g-go back!”

  The lumie ignored his pleas and leaned forward to make the disc accelerate. With his disjointed pieces wrapped around the Marquis, Dollop yanked backward to slow the disc down.

  “No! I said st-stop!”

  The Marquis shook his head.

  The cracked red ore and sparse, stunted pipework trees whipped past in a blur. Dollop untangled himself from the Marquis and jumped off the disc. His body burst apart on impact, his segments scattering like shards of shattered pottery. With a snap, he summoned himself back together and re-formed.

  All except one leg. The hover disc landed abruptly, and the Marquis hopped off, holding Dollop’s squirming, detached leg aloft like a hunter displaying a trophy.

  “G-g-give that back!” Unable to balance, Dollop toppled over.

  Flicky-flashy-blink! the Marquis flared in response.

  “My br-brethren need me,” Dollop cried, getting back up and bouncing on his remaining leg. “They’re d-dying. The F-Foundry’s going to w-wipe them out!”

  Blinkety-flashity! Blinkety-flashity!

  “What?” Dollop said, momentarily confused. “I don’t un-underst-stand a word you’re saying.”