The Agrista (Between the Lines Book 1)

by Shannon Lamb

  “Wow. Fallon’s going to be so embarrassed when we tell everyone what we just saw!” Bria irritably flicked fat drops of rain off the butt of her nose. “Better yet, let’s use it to blackmail her!”

  “We’ll do no such thing,” Laylia shook her head, smiling.

  “And just how are you going to stop me from blabbing?”

  “If you don’t keep your mouth shut, I’ll tell everyone your real dress size,” Laylia teased.

  “You don’t play fair!”

  PREPARATION AND PERSPIRATION

  The nine of them reassembled in Dübess quite some time later, at a loss for words and worse for wear. Fallon and Cayden tried to distance themselves from one another as much as possible, but found it rather challenging in conjoined thrones.

  Much to everyone’s shock, Fallon let Johanna stay for the meeting. She claimed that, as a palace servant, Johanna was privy to information that might be useful, but Marie knew better than to believe that. Fallon’s reasons weren’t quite so selfless or logical. Truth was, she wanted to direct attention away from Cayden and herself and used the poor unsuspecting child as sparkly bait.

  “I have a question before we begin,” Raeph stood.

  “You’re certain it can’t wait until after the meeting, soldier?” Fallon sighed.

  “It’s a simple question.” Fallon rolled her eyes and motioned for Raeph to go on. “Less than an hour ago, in this very building, you told the Rank Leaders that we were leaving on a mission to save Cayden, who is presently at your side. I’m just curious, what lie will you tell them next?”

  “No one knows that I’m here. I made sure of that,” Cayden reassured Fallon. “Raeph, you’d be wise to curb your tongue around your superiors,” he warned halfheartedly.

  “Aren’t the three of us past formalities at this point?” Raeph flashed his dimples in a menacing grin. If they weren’t going to follow the rules, why should he?

  “I thought you smarter than that,” Fallon clucked her tongue. “You’re in for a hard lesson if you’re quite so naive. You’ll find that the higher up you go in the chain of command, the more you’re prone to secrecy, and that’s putting it mildly. It’s far from a perfect system, but it’s one born of necessity.”

  “It’s never been okay to lie to your men!”

  “I’ll make it simple for you, Raeph,” Fallon broke her regal tone and relaxed her posture. “As far as the others are concerned, Cayden was never here, and our mission hasn’t changed. If you can keep that straight, there’s a promotion in it for you. If you find that you have a loose tongue, you’ll be tried for treason and demoted to a foot soldier, if you’re lucky. You’re more likely to face exile, or worse, the gallows. The choice is yours, but I do hope you’ll choose wisely.”

  Raeph snapped his mouth shut and threw himself back in his chair. He’d had his fill of shady politics and two-faced dignitaries, but his hands were tied.

  “Cayden’s return brings everything into focus. With three Umbra and two Clamans rings, we just might have a shot,” Fallon muttered to herself.

  “It won’t be that simple, I’m afraid,” Johanna half-raised her arm.

  “Why not?” Fallon snarled.

  “An important prisoner escaped the castle recently. Rumor has it that the prisoner was an Umbra,” Johanna explained.

  Could it be Aruzhan? Cerin perked at the news, sitting straighter in his chair.

  “The rumors are true. Arécia escaped nearly the same time as us.” Alex refused to elaborate beyond that. His sloppy escape was his own shame, one that the others weren’t privy to.

  “Since it happened, the Queen has taken extra precautions. There’s a chemist that works at the castle, Aemilius. He’s a horrible man,” Johanna shuddered. “He’s managed to convert Baindingu poison into a clear gas. Since it’s only harmful to the Umbra, it’s constantly being pumped in through the vents. It only takes five minutes to get into an Umbra’s bloodstream. I’m afraid you’d be quite visible.”

  “That certainly does present a problem,” Fallon groaned. “The worst part is that we have to rely on Cerin for a solution.”

  “Me?” Cerin squawked.

  “You possess the Clamans ring. You can locate the source of the gas and turn it off. I’m more than willing to do it myself, if you find yourself incapable.”

  “You don’t even have a science background! No, I’ll do it,” Cerin conceded anxiously. “I’ll try, at least.”

  “You’ll try? That’s not good enough! We need someone we can depend on. Is that you, or not?” Fallon challenged.

  “I surmise that I’m the only one who can do it, so you’ll take what you can get it. Masterful Lucidus, Quinque is a hellish maze! Locating the gas will take some time, but I’ll do my best.”

  “I know where the controls are located,” Johanna added meekly.

  “Perfect! Johanna has a Clamans ring as well. She’ll escort you,” Fallon said decidedly.

  “What? No!” Cayden rose from his seat in a cloud of vehemence.

  “She doesn’t have to. It’s her choice, though,” Fallon shrugged.

  “She’s just a child! She’s incapable of such a choice!” Cayden protested.

  “If I may,” Johanna harrumphed. “I stopped being a child the day I was brought to the palace. My loved ones – what few I have left, that is – are being kept at the castle. They may be nothing more than rebels and vagabonds to you, but they’re my people. My family,” she eyed Cayden with blatant disapproval. “I want to help them. In this case, it just so happens to mean helping you. Therefore, I am at your disposal. My decision is final.” By her words, Johanna was anything but a child. She understood what she was getting into, and there was no convincing her otherwise.

  Johanna’s cutting glare said it all. The fact that Cayden didn’t want her to go only strengthened her resolve. She hated him nearly as much as she hated Cailene. She could easily count the number of appearances he’d made in her life on one hand, and it was always to romance their mother. And for what? To harbor a collection of misfit bastards to do his bidding one day?

  She had no idea why he’d risked his life to rescue her from the castle. It certainly wasn’t out of fatherly love. If that was his driving force, he would’ve saved her years ago. He had ulterior motives, she was sure of that, and hard-pressed to find out what they were.

  “Why is this girl of any concern to you, Cayden?” Bria fluttered her eyelashes in a mockery of innocence.

  “She’s not,” he lied.

  “Exactly right. My wellbeing is none of your concern.”

  “Now that you mention it, why is Johanna here? I understand why Raeph’s here. He’s one of Fallon’s men and he’s been with us from the start, but why include a palace slave?” Cerin asked, eyeing the girl suspiciously.

  “The slaves are just as much a part of this as you are, if not more! You were able to run away. We’ve had to endure the Queen’s cruelty for years, with no one to speak for us! We are the heart of the castle!”

  We weren’t all able to run away, Laylia sulked in silence.

  “As a palace slave, Johanna knows every inch of the castle. Surely you can see why that’d be useful,” Fallon quirked a brow.

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” Cerin muttered, feeling somewhat the fool.

  “Let’s not lose focus. Cerin and Johanna will locate the controls and shut off the gas,” Fallon said, eager to move on.

  “It’s not quite that…” Johanna began.

  “Let me guess. It’s not quite that simple?” Fallon mimicked Johanna’s soft, unimposing tone.

  “Aemilius’ lab is located at the center of a large maze comprised of electric barbed wire. If you come within even a breath of the charge, you’ll die. The paths of the maze are little more than two feet wide, and wrought with a multitude of tripwires and traps. The only time the maze is deactivated is when a slave is sent in to deliver Aemilius his daily meal. The location of the maze changes every day, and whoever is most unfortunate to be selec
ted to serve him that day is given a set of coordinates to guide them through the maze. He reactivates the maze as soon as he has his meal, and sends them back through it. Everyone knows that once you’re chosen, you don’t return.” Johanna struggled to maintain a calm, emotionless tone. She’d lost many friends since Cailene recruited the chemist, and sometimes, she envied their fate. They seemed better off, not having to live the life of a slave any longer.

  “Is the entire maze deactivated, or just the triggers?” asked Cerin.

  “Just the triggers, I believe.”

  “That’s unfortunate. I hate wearing rubber,” he joked. Those who picked up on the sexual innuendo refused to dignify his perversion with a response.

  “Where will we be stationed while Johanna and Cerin are in the maze?” asked Alex.

  “Slave Quarters. Cailene would never expose herself to such filth. No one will think to look for us there,” Fallon said smugly.

  “Five minutes isn’t enough time to make it to Slave Quarters before the gas takes effect! I can personally attest to that,” Cayden shuddered.

  “I may have a solution, but you aren’t going to like it,” Cerin frowned. “With Milités’ advanced technology, I can create a device that will emit a steady flow of Infragilis venom into the Umbra’s bloodstream and slow the effects of the gas. It will give us more time, but it will be beyond excruciating.”

  “I’m used to stuffing my fat arse into corsets and stilettos. The pain can’t possibly be worse than that!” Bria laughed halfheartedly.

  “Oh Bria,” Laylia’s face split in a grin.

  “We’ll do what we must,” Alex nodded. Nothing cowed that man.

  “We have two more things to discuss before we can formulate a solid plan,” Fallon said grimly.

  “Aruzhan,” Cerin whispered.

  “Yes, Aruzhan.” For the sake of peace, Fallon had avoided this topic for as long as she could, but the time was upon them.

  “We all want to save Aruzhan. She was very kind to the slaves, before...” Johanna shook her head as if to stop it from going in a different direction. “Aemilius’ resources are boundless. Perhaps you could find something to save her in his lab?”

  “Yes. Yes, perhaps,” Cerin nodded, deep in thought.

  “I suppose that’s all we can hope for. Unfortunately, we can’t really plan around it. We can at least retrieve her body, and work from there,” Fallon said with an unsatisfied sigh. “The last order of business is Marcel. How are we going to get to him?”

  “He shouldn’t be that difficult,” Johanna said softly.

  “Oh? Do you have some master plan?” Fallon snorted.

  “No, but the prince is predictable, and the palace guards aren’t very bright.”

  “Stupid and armed is an extremely dangerous combination,” Raeph chimed in bitterly.

  “Then smart and armed should be even more dangerous, don’t you think?” Johanna smiled.

  Reluctant as she was to admit it, Fallon admired Johanna’s gumption. The young girl possessed the steel mettle of a rebel and the grace and intelligence of an Umbra. Not surprising, considering where she’d come from. The reminder of that knowledge made Fallon immediately recoil from her momentary lapse in judgment. Knowing who her parents were, she could never accept Johanna.

  “I’m famished! Let’s gather in the Heavy Hall for the Final Feast.” Fallon coasted down the menacing concrete steps and landed in a heap of bouncy limbs by the door.

  “Don’t you need to iron out the details still?” asked Johanna.

  “I find that I win more battles when I play it by ear.”

  “Play it by ear? That’s the worst strategy I’ve ever heard!” Marie gaped.

  “That’s how you get people killed!” agreed Johanna.

  “Trust me,” was all that Fallon had said as she sauntered out the door.

  “I guess we’ll have to rely on each other,” Laylia said as she turned to Marie and Johanna.

  “And me!” Bria chirped in a merry recitative.

  “Come. We don’t want to miss the Final Feast,” Alex smiled, ushering Marie toward the door.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “We gather in the Heavy hall for one last meal the night before every battle. You never know who’s not coming home,” Raeph said somberly.

  “That’s morbid,” Marie shuddered.

  “War is morbid. At least this way, we can fill the soldiers with fond memories before sending them into hell.”

  Hell...Marie reflected grimly. Tomorrow they were going into hell.

  Marie’s head was whirling from the suffusion of dark thoughts birthing in her brain, like eggs exploding in an incubator, giving life to unfathomable grotesque images; each new creation was more horrifying than the last.

  The sight of Cayden walking by in his Umbraic form heralded a spring of hope. He was a beautiful distraction that consumed her forthcoming thoughts and wiped the sanguine slate clean. So long as she was looking at him, she could think only of his ethereal splendor.

  Cayden’s lustrous cream coat was embellished with gilded emerald rosettes that shone with the unique brilliance of glass foil, capturing the light and reflecting it back in fractured tendrils that sparkled like no other. A rippling, golden mane cascaded over his strong shoulders like flowing water, pulsing with life as it surrounded him with a glowing nimbus.

  His wings looked as delicate as a bee’s. Gossamer iridescence peaked through a thin green-gold membrane that draped over the fragile frame like sheer eyelet cloth. They gave the illusion of the sun trapped in a skeletal prison of avian majesty, harnessing the power of an infinite universe as they soared through the air. Even Johanna, who thought him an ugly soul, couldn’t deny his outer beauty.

  “Alex, why can I see Cayden? I thought I could only see you. Can I see the others too?” Marie asked eagerly.

  “I guess I wasn’t too clear when I explained how it works. We were in a hurry, though,” he mindlessly rattled off in excuse. “You can see your siblings’ protectors in their Umbraic form as well. I suppose I thought you would’ve figured that out on your own when you saw Aruzhan at the castle.”

  “I hadn’t even thought of that,” she said, feeling foolish. “There’s still a couple things I don’t understand.”

  “Such as?”

  “Why couldn’t Marcel see us at the castle? Rotten as he is, he is my brother. Wouldn’t the same rules apply?”

  “No. He’s more than willing to kill any of you if it assures his ascension. If a fellow royal violates the sacred bond, they lose their sight. He can no longer see us. It seldom happens, but I suppose evil begets more evil.”

  “His Umbra Arécia can see us,” Marie thought aloud. “What if she betrays us?” The poor condition Arécia was in when they’d found her starving in a cell was proof enough of her loyalty, but Marie wasn’t so quick to trust when her life was at stake, not to mention the lives of countless others.

  “If she were to betray us, she would lose her sight as well, but Arécia would never do that. She hates Marcel as much as we do. Headstrong as she is, she has a good heart.”

  “There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” Marie smiled apologetically.

  “Yes?”

  “How did they capture Aruzhan if they can’t see her?” Alex stiffened at the mention of his sister.

  “I imagine she let herself get captured. They most likely threatened her with Cerin’s safety, and forced her to ingest Baindingu poison,” he shuddered at the thought.

  “That makes sense, but why was she in her Umbraic form when we saw her?”

  “Ah, that. You know me as a man, but what you see when I transform is who I really am. It’s who we all are, deep inside,” he pounded his fist over his heart for emphasis. “I think humans are much the same. When we’re close to death, we revert to our natural state. It’s a phenomenon that’s even stronger than Baindingu poison.” Marie still had questions, but she could see that talking about this was making him unc
omfortable and decided she was done interrogating him, for now.

  The Heavy Hall, perhaps a trifle trite in its naming, was aptly titled for several reasons. Originally and unspectacularly referred to as the mess hall, its well-known reputation had earned it the aforementioned title; a title that weathered the years to come as steadfastly as deep-rooted tradition.

  The Heavy Hall was named thusly because it was filled with heavy conversation, deep emotions, sorrowful goodbyes, and more lightheartedly, because one would be fifty pounds heavier after they partook of the Final Feast. The building itself wasn’t impressive, but what it stood for held strong over the years.

  It was a large, open building made of concrete, much like the other official buildings randomly scattered across Milités. Bland and gray with high ceilings, poor lighting and deafening acoustics, the atmosphere was expressly dependent on the attitude of the people it held inside, for it offered little in the way of ambiance.

  At the center of the room was a large, round wooden table on which the feast was laid, flanked by dozens of identical tables that cowed in size and symbolized parity. While knowing ones rank outside of the Heavy Hall was crucial, inside these thick walls, everyone was to feel as equals, for on the battlefield every man was.

  Marie rotated her head as if it rested on a wobbly swivel in an attempt to take in the copious amounts of food masterfully arranged. There were roasted meats, steamed vegetables, glazed fruits, crusty breads, and a cornucopia of stews, salads, and pastas, chased by an assortment of pastries and vibrant custards.

  Marie didn’t realize quite how famished she was until the warm scent of honey butter and pumpernickel bread wafted up her nose and caused her to noticeably salivate. Alex playfully wiped the corner of her mouth with the tip of his thumb and nudged her forward. The others quickly followed suit in their audible hunger pangs, prompting Fallon to gesture them toward the tables with a hoarse laugh.

  Johanna’s timid demeanor had disintegrated completely upon seeing the mounds of food, and she harbored no shame when it came to digging into the generous portions. As a slave, she hadn’t eaten well in years. She wasn’t accustomed to such rich foods. She made herself sick in her zeal, but was determined to try a little bit of everything, regardless of the ill aftereffects.