Haven (War of the Princes)

by A. R. Ivanovich

  Resurfacing on the other side, I pulled myself up and out. I wasn't prepared for the result. The weight of my exhaustion and the pain of my body slammed back into me the moment I was clear of the still pool. I reeled, my vision blurring in response to the onslaught.

  I fell to my knees, wanting to crumble in on myself and cry. How had I gone on like this?

  It wasn't much farther. I couldn't give up. I was as good as home. If I let go now, no one would find me in a tomb at the bottom of a sealed mausoleum.

  Groaning, I got back on my feet, affording the pool one last glance.

  DON'T LET THEM IN.

  I read it and reread it. It was like the message had been left solely for me. How narrowly I had come to destroying everything. Stakes had nearly forced his way through. I had almost let Dylan in. He was one of them too. Rune was different. He wouldn't even give me the opportunity to make the same mistake.

  Rune wouldn't succumb to fatigue now. He was a soldier. He would fight on... and so would I.

  Placing my goggles over my eyes again to brighten the pitch darkness, I clambered up out of the tomb, reliving the last moments we were together. He was all that kept me from thinking I couldn't take one more step.

  It was finally over. I'd come full circle from the moment I'd decided to leap into the cave pool. Haven was safe, nothing had changed... but everything had changed. I left the Outside World behind me, and didn't look back again.

  Epilogue

  Struggling onward became my obsession. He wouldn’t have wanted me to give up.

  I trudged away from the mausoleum at the center of the verdant graveyard, hardly believing my shoes were finally on the same ground I’d known so well. Every sight was familiar and I drank it in. I'd wanted this so much for so long that it felt unreal.

  I couldn't let myself rest in the graveyard. It was far too macabre. I'd had enough brushes with death. I didn't need to take up a night's residence with the mortally challenged. Not to mention, it would just be way too creepy for someone to find me battered and unconscious beside a lily-covered tombstone.

  Walking through the graveyard to the tall wrought iron gates was like a blurry dream.

  The stars shone as brightly as the fireflies weaving through the reeds. I could hear the trickle of so many roadside streams complementing the song of crickets. The faint scent of night blooming flowers came and went with each stride.

  I passed the fence that Kyle and I had broken when we were thirteen. We'd thought it would be fun to ride a cart down the hill, but completely misjudged our speed and didn't factor in that we had no way to steer.

  A bend in the road and I was at the little wooden bridge that packs of us, as children, would jump from, into the deep side of the lazy stream.

  Rubin's Grocery Store was closed, with the lights out. Street lamps were lit on every corner, except for the one at the edge of Broadstreet and Brook, as usual.

  Most of the tall, stacked houses were dark in the windows, their occupants sleeping at this late hour. I knew I'd find people in the pubs betting, brawling and laughing it all down with beer, but I wouldn't go there.

  One foot in front of the other, I told myself.

  From Parker Street, beside the Dewry Water Mill, I caught a glimpse of the Clockwork Ferris Wheel, flashing its many lights over the treetops. Kyle, Ruby, Sterling and I had jumped from that wheel into Dragonfly Lake. It seemed so long ago.

  Reaching my street was surreal. I was in Rivermarch. I was home. Every crack in the sidewalk was familiar to me, every knot in each tree. There were so many memories, and so many things I'd taken for granted. It’s funny how that works. It never really hits you... until it does.

  Grendel, my dad's pony, was in the stall below the house nudging his bucket for a snack, but I kept moving. I walked up the steps of my second story, wrap-around porch, focusing on taking one at a time, trying to hold myself steady from the reeling I felt.

  I made it. The relief was insurmountable. I just wanted to crawl into bed and challenge the backs of my eyelids to a very short staring contest.

  My hand clasped the door handle to find it locked. The smallest setback seemed impassable. Why wouldn’t it just be open? I didn’t have the strength for another obstacle. Despair blanketed me and I began to cry. It would be fair to assume that I was delirious. It easily explained why I was overly emotional about my front door being locked in the middle of the night. It may sound stupid, but after everything I'd been through, I hardly believed that I was really home. I was afraid to blink and find myself back at the Installment Fortress. The door was the symbol of my safety and it had shut me out.

  I pried weakly at the handle, knocking and scraping at the door, and pressed the doorbell button about fifty successive times. Lights flicked on upstairs and I sniffed, slumping against the doorframe.

  It was flung open and my father, dressed in pajamas and irritation, held out an accusing finger. “Who in all the hells disrupts a man from his sleep on a work night? Wait... Katie? Katiebug is that you?”

  “Hi dad,” I said, stepping across the threshold into my house. I did it. I'd gotten home, safe.

  I guess I noticed the look of fear on his face as he took in my appearance. Mom and Kevin ran down the stairs, asking if it honestly was me, but none of it really registered.

  I was far too busy fainting.

  * * *

  “You're grounded!” was the first thing I remembered hearing after waking up. It made me smile. The implications sounded lovely.

  I was even more pleased to discover that I was tucked in among the purple blankets and pillows of my very own bed.

  My father was pacing the room. Anger didn't really suit him. He was far too nice to be taken seriously. Rivermarch's weatherman wasn't very intimidating.

  “Disappearing like that! We thought you moved to the big city for good. No word, nothing, and then you show up like, like this?” he raved.

  “We were worried sick,” my step mom agreed, doing her best to look stern.

  “Absolutely sick!” my dad blurted. “Your actions were completely reckless and irresponsible. I don't know what you did, but look at you! It couldn't have been good! Did you fall in with the wrong crowd?”

  “What your father wants to know is, did you do the drugs?” she whispered the last two words.

  I wished I didn't laugh. It hurt.

  “This isn't funny! This isn't a joke. We aren't laughing,” my father said, looking frustrated.

  “Sorry,” I croaked in my scratchy voice. I was still smirking.

  “What exactly did you do to yourself?” my dad demanded.

  I didn't want to lie to him, but, well, I couldn't exactly tell him either. If he believed me, his head would probably explode. So, I did the next best thing: I went with the half-truth.

  “I did some survival training,” I told them, hoping it was a good enough explanation.

  My dad put his fists on his hips and sized me up skeptically. “Well that does sound like something you'd do. Did you at least graduate the program?”

  “I'd say so,” I said honestly.

  At that moment, Kevin zoomed into the room and leapt, arms out, onto the bed.

  “Katiekatiekatiekatie!” he said crazily as he squeezed the life out of my legs.

  I yelped, still aching from my wounds. Dad came to my rescue.

  “Get off her. Your sister still isn't feeling well,” he admonished, lifting Kevin off of me. My little brother grunted, trying to fight Dad off of him and succumbed to giggle fits.

  The noise and energy level of a little brother was something I'd have to get used to again.

  “I'm serious though, Bug- Katelyn. You are grounded,” he said jabbing a finger in my direction. “You won't argue your way out of it this time young lady!”

  “Okay,” I said happily.

  He quirked a brow with suspicion.

  “Now, this won't be a pattern, but your friends are here. They've been as worried as we have. They can come up and talk to y
ou this once, but after that... that’s it! Grounded,” he told me definitively.

  “I'll get the hot chocolate,” Mom said, ever the enabler.

  The three of them walked out, leaving me in momentary silence. I breathed deeply, relishing the peace and comfort of my room.

  On my dresser, right where I left them, were the rows of little clay birds that I'd hand-sculpted. They reminded me of the one I'd made for a Dragoon of the fortress. Solemnly, I thought of Leila March. The absolute isolation that was the life of a Dragoon was a tragedy in itself. Her death hurt me, bitterly. I could never feel innocent about my involvement. Stakes had promised that my friends would bleed, and I had promised Leila that she was my friend. I was the reason she was killed and it sickened me. Difficult though it was, I reminded myself that I wasn't the person to take her life. That crime belonged to Stakes... and Dylan.

  If I didn't turn my thoughts away from the ugliness I left behind, it would swallow me whole. If I was to heal, mentally and physically, I had to immerse myself in the life I had returned to.

  It was difficult to feel like things were back to normal when I was so thoroughly swathed in bandages. I looked like a paper-mache experiment gone wrong. My throat, arm, chest and hands were all layered in gauze. My chest hurt more than the spot where a rod of metal had ripped clean through my arm. The circle of cuts beneath my collarbone weren't as deep as they felt.

  Propping myself up against my pillows, I sat up a bit higher. It was amazing how much better I was feeling. Pain medication was really an ingenious invention.

  I was just absentmindedly touching the dirty, battered, orange scarf that had been rolled up and placed on my bedside table when Ruby and Kyle burst into the room.

  As soon as she saw me, Ruby was an instant mess. Her eyes became nearly as red as her unnaturally colored hair and tears escaped beneath her glasses. Kyle's posture relaxed when he looked at me, but when he noticed that Ruby had gone all emotional, he sighed disgustedly and walked to my bedside.

  “Bout time you woke up,” he said. I could tell he was playing down his relief.

  “Good to see you too. I'm doing okay, thank you for asking,” I said, somewhat dissatisfied by the greeting.

  “Kat, I'm so glad you're okay!” Ruby said, plopping down at the edge of my bed. “We were afraid you'd left us forever, and then we thought you'd never wake up.”

  “Oh stop exaggerating you guys. I mean, I might have slept in,” I admitted, noting the soft evening sunlight coming in through my bedroom window.

  “Kat, you were out for two days,” Kyle said seriously. Ruby nodded to confirm.

  “Two whole days?” I couldn't believe it.

  “And most of today,” Kyle added.

  “You spent the first day in the emergency at the hospital. Your dad forced them to let you come home yesterday. Doctor Graves is not so happy about having to make the house calls,” Ru explained.

  “Ugh,” I groaned. “Graves? Could I have gotten a Doctor with a worse name? All I need is an angry Doc. Graves checking in on me... seriously. Doesn't anyone else wonder where in his family history he earned his last name?”

  “I'm just glad someone's taking care of you,” Ruby said, earnestly.

  “Kat, I don't know how to tell you this,” Kyle said, fidgeting. “But there are only so many times a person should go exploring abandoned mine shafts alone.”

  “We looked for you,” Ruby said quietly. “We even put up posters in Pinebrook.”

  “You went all the way to Pinebrook?” I asked, more than a little shocked.

  “We had to get part time jobs to pay for the train tickets,” Ruby told me.

  They really had looked for me. It was, in a way, a great thing to hear. My friends really did care about me. What didn't sit so well was the guilt I felt for making them worry so much.

  “You wouldn't have found me in Pinebrook,” I said lowly, keeping my eyes down, on my bandaged hands.

  “We know... we didn't,” Kyle said. “Even Sterling got his dad to rally some officers to do an official search. Kat where were you?”

  “I guess Grendel wandered home then?” I asked, figuring the grumpy pony had waited around only long enough to eat all the graveyard's flowers.

  “Your dad found him in the driveway, eating your neighbor's marigolds,” Ruby said.

  They'd answered my question... now they awaited my answer. I didn't know how to begin.

  “Remember the day Professor Block mentioned the Outside World?” I began, wishing that I knew what to tell them.

  “Yeah,” Ruby said.

  “And you know how I'm good at finding things?” I asked, hoping that they'd put the two together. No such luck.

  “Yeah, you've always been weird like that,” Ruby said, not understanding the relevance.

  I sighed. There was no way around it. I just had to tell them.

  “I found a way out of Haven,” I said, wincing, ready for impact. I would have gotten a better reaction from a pair of goldfish. At least they look surprised.

  Kyle squinted at me, speculatively. “Have you been doing drugs?”

  “Kyle!” I groaned, tossing a pillow at him. “No! I'm serious. I found a way to the Outside World. I was there.”

  “Ridiculous,” Kyle said, crossing his arms. “I don't know why you won't just tell us the truth. You don't have to come up with stupid stories.”

  “It’s not a story,” I insisted, getting frustrated. “It’s true.”

  “Whatever,” Kyle said, grouchily. He must have thought I didn't trust him to tell him what really happened.

  “I believe you,” Ruby said from her perch at the foot of my bed.

  Kyle eyed her with disappointment.

  “We've known each other since the first grade. When you lie, you pull your eyebrows in a tiny bit,” Ruby explained.

  I didn't know if I was happy she believed me, or disappointed that she could call my bluffs.

  “What happened out there? Why were you gone so long?” Ruby asked, with her full attention zeroed in on me. Kyle was clearly unconvinced, but looked like he was waiting for the story I was going to give him all the same.

  Taking in a deep breath, I let my mind flick back over everything that had happened. My story began in the cave where I found Rune, and followed through with careful detail, to the very end where the procession of Lurchers escorted me back to the cave mouth.

  I didn't describe the part about Stakes nearly draining me. I just told them that he'd caught me. I wouldn’t think about the feeling it gave me any longer than I had to. It was bad enough I'd probably have nightmares for the rest of my life.

  I also skipped the detail about the two kisses I shared with Rune. I'd tell Ruby that part another time.

  “Oh Kat,” Ruby said, shaken by my misfortune.

  “See, I told you I didn't like that Dylan guy,” Kyle said smugly. At first, Ruby was very taken by Dylan's description, title and habit of showering me with gifts. Kyle, however, had snorted and said, “A person who uses material possessions to get people to like them obviously doesn't have anything else going for them.”

  Kyle's lingering doubt was a letdown. He was treating my account like a fairytale story I'd made up for fun.

  My feelings about Dylan were still very complex: hurt, bitter, angry, and sad. He had been my friend. At least I thought he had. Kyle couldn't cheapen that.

  If he decided to pick on Rune, he’d be crossing a line he didn't even realize was there. I didn't want to lose my temper. It wasn't Kyle’s fault. My story did sound ridiculous and if our roles were reversed, I would probably be even more skeptical and mock him into the ground.

  “Answer me this,” Kyle said, and I braced for more skepticism. “If we’ve been separated for seven hundred years, why were you able to understand their language?”

  “They all had very thick accents,” I said, knowing it wasn’t any kind of explanation.

  “Accents change faster than that. The University has done studies about it.
In that amount of time we would have had two completely separate languages,” he persisted.

  “I,” I stammered. Truth be told, I was so wound up in everything that was going on, that I hadn’t thought about it. “I don’t know, Kyle. Our people came from there, maybe we just didn’t change much.”

  He did not look satisfied. “Just tell us you made it up.”

  “Ruby, you were with me that day in class,” I said, refocusing on what mattered: history. “Even before I found Rune Thayer, I'd set out to learn why our entire country is barricaded in a valley. I bit off more than I could chew, I'll be the first to admit it. But I have my answers, most of them anyway.

  “In the Outside World, right now, as we speak, there is a war going on between two immortal Princes... an old war. At least one of the Princes wants to harvest our entire culture, meaning everyone in Haven, to use as slaves and batteries until every drop of life has been sucked out of us. It must have been like that seven hundred years ago. Our people must have banded together and fled. They've been looking for us since, hoping that we'll be the power that gives them the upper hand in their war. They almost used me to get to Haven. Stakes nearly won.

  “It sounds scary, and trust me, it is. But if we didn't have defenses, we wouldn't have lasted here as long as we have. I'm convinced that the Lurchers are guardians. They're deadly, intelligent, very difficult to kill, and they listened to every word I said. It was creepy. They're kind of scary looking, but it was amazing that I could command them. With Lurchers as our protectors, Haven is still safe.”

  “I hope you're right,” Ruby said, wrapping her arms around herself like I'd told a scary ghost story.

  “Doesn't make sense. Why would a species of wild animals understand what you say and pro-create for hundreds of years, guarding one area? Their only instinct should be for survival,” Kyle said.

  “Unless they were really intelligent,” Ruby chimed in.

  “Kyle, what do you know about J. G. Kiteman?” I asked him, hoping he’d recognized the name.