Chosen (Dark Powers Rising Book 3)

by Rebecca Fernfield

A rough hand shoves at my shoulder.

  “Hey! Wake up. It’s time we got started.”

  My eyes burn with tiredness as I squint at the silhouette of Nicklas’ face as he bends forward over me.

  “What’s your name anyway?” he asks.

  “Meriall Beswice,” I reply through a layer of fatigue, trying to pull myself back to the courtyard and the rest of the day. I could give up right now. This second. It all seems too much. It all seems impossible and so, so easy to just slip back into the blackness of sleep and not knowing.

  Owin’s voice tugs at me.

  “Well, Meriall Beswice, what’s your poison?”

  “Cyanide,” I answer without thinking, my mind still fuddled with tiredness and the whiskey running riot through my veins.

  “Eh?” he asks confused and raises his eyebrow at me. “I meant what weapon is your favourite.”

  He walks over to the rack, picks up a long sword, and stands with it stabbed into the ground, his fingers stroking the leather-bound hilt. “What do you want to have a go with first? Sword, spear, cat-o-nine-tails?”

  Nicklas steps forward and picks up the leather handle of a vicious-looking cat-o-nine-tails, a strangle of leather strips metal-spiked at the tips, raises it above his head and begins to circle it round in the air. Terrified at the thought of spikes slamming into flesh I desperately think of what skills I have that will save me.

  “I can use a knife and the killing stick, I mean the spear. I can have a go with the spear. I’ve hunted pigs and squirrels.”

  “It’s not pigs and squirrels you’ll need to be killing tomorrow,” Owin says as he puts the sword back on its hooks and pulls me to my feet, “and it won’t be in a forest that you’ll be doing it either.”

  He walks me over to the Pit and jabs at the sunken floor. “It’ll be down there.”

  I look down into the Pit with sickening horror.

  “Clear out you lot. We’ve got work to do.”

  The thud of wood on metal, and crack of clashing swords, stops and six faces turn towards us. “What’s the hurry?” a large man with straw-blond hair and dirty streaks of sweat running down his face shouts back.

  Owin shoves me forward. “This one’s for the Pit tomorrow.”

  There’s a jeer from the boys. “It’ll be a short fight then!”

  My stomach lurches and my anger rises. “Teach me! Teach me how to win Owin. I’m not going to die tomorrow.”

  He looks down at me and a smile twitches at the corner of his lips. “Feisty! I said you was feisty. There’s hope for you yet—but not much.”

  I am small standing in the Pit and the stone wall seems like a grey prison around me. Owin interrupts my thoughts and pushes a wad of leather and cold metal into my hands, the weight pulls my arms down. “Put this on. You can get used to the weight whilst you’re training.”

  The leather tunic, plated with discs of metal and lined with padded cotton, weighs heavy on my shoulders and reaches just above my knees. Leather plates are tied across my biceps and strapped across my wrists and lower arm.

  “It’s so heavy! I can barely move,” I complain.

  “You’ll need it when it comes to fighting. Otherwise, if you get caught with a sword, it’ll bite into you.”

  “Here, stay still,” Nicklas orders as he pushes a helmet down onto my head. Leather flaps cover my ears and a nose guard protects my face.

  “You’re ready. Now show me what you’re made of,” Owin shouts at me across the Pit throwing a sword in my direction.

  It clatters to the floor.

  “You were supposed to catch that!”

  “Sorry, the helmet—it makes it difficult to see.”

  “You’ll get used to it—you’ll have to.”

  “Thanks for the sympathy!”

  “Meriall, this is no time for a pity party. You’ve got to make some serious effort if you want to stand a chance of getting through it.”

  My stomach lurches and my bowels are queasy. “Ok, ok,” I say, scratchy with irritation. “Let’s get on.”

  I reach down for the sword. It is heavy in my hand and drags on the ground.

  “What skills do you have?”

  None. Not with this thing!

  I drop the sword and pick up the spear instead then launch it in answer, scoring a direct hit to the manikin’s throat.

  “It looks like your pig hunting has paid off,” he says with admiration.

  The afternoon passes quickly as I practice stabbing sharp metal and swinging angry spikes into the wooden man picked out as my victim.

  The light begins to fade and a black shadow is growing across the pit when Owin calls it a day.

  “Let’s stop here,” he commands as I crouch and rub my bruised hands, sore from grasping the heavy sword, “you’ll need to eat and rest before the fight.”

  “Did you show her?” Nathaniel’s voice booms out behind me, rough and agitated, as he steps down into the Pit.

  I stand quickly, turning to him, but he ignores me and walks to Owin instead.

  “Yes. We’ve done what we can. She’s handy with the spear but her strength’s not up to much—she’s too small and weak for the sword—she hasn’t got the skills.”

  “Ughh!” Is Nathaniel’s response. “I’ll take it from here,” he says as he grabs my arm and pulls me forward with unnecessary force, keeping up the deception.

  “Hey! I can walk without you pulling me,” I say roughly, yanking my arm from his grasp, making sure my annoyance is well heard, playing my part in keeping our secret.

  He tightens his grip and practically drags me back to the weapon room. “In there,” he commands gruffly and shoves me through the doorway.

  Once inside he locks the door. I turn on him. “Was there any need to be so rough? I would have walked-”

  “Mother is here!” he says, his voice strained.

  “What? How?” I ask in disbelief. “What have they done to her? I have to see her.”

  I’m suddenly afraid. How can she be here? Who brought her here?

  “Calm down Meriall. She’s ok. She’s not hurt but-”

  “Was she brought here? Why would they have brought her here? She’s of no use to them.”

  My head is buzzing with questions.

  “Father has her.” His brow is furrowed.

  He turns away from me, clutching at a sword hanging from the wall, his knuckles sharp and white.

  “What?” I ask, incredulous. “Father? Have you seen him?”

  “Yes, he’s here Meriall.”

  There’s more, but he’s not telling me and dread is creeping into my gut. “What is it Nate? Tell me. Have you seen him? Why does he ‘have’ Mother?”

  “Our father-.”

  He stops again.

  “Tell me Nathaniel. Please!”

  He looks at me, locking onto my gaze. “Our father is Baxter. Kendrick Baxter.”

  It suddenly dawns on me why the portrait in the School Room looked so familiar and so threatening.

  “You mean our father is one of the Five? A Founding Father?”

  “Yes,” he says with dread certainty.

  “How long have you known?” I ask, struggling to process the awful truth.

  “Always.”

  I suck in my breath. I have memories of my father, but they are blurred visions and emotions. I have never been able to remember his face.

  “I saw him soon after I arrived here. He didn’t recognise me and I didn’t let on I knew him. It was for the best.”

  “So, he doesn’t know that you’re here?”

  “No. And I don’t want him to know.”

  “Why didn’t she tell us? Why didn’t she tell us who our father was?”

  “She couldn’t. She hid it to protect us all. She escaped from him and we were safe in the village, at least until the Primitives came, but even then she knew staying there was safer than moving on or risking being found by him.”

  “He’s a monster then—our father,” I say flatly.
>
  The thought that Kendrick Baxter is my father makes my head reel and disquiet is pricking at me. “Is there a monster in me too?”

  “No, Meriall. You want to fight wrong, not create it.”

  His voice is kind, soothing even, but I remember how much I want them all dead and how I convinced Bettrice to poison the Watcher and wonder if he’s right.

  “You said that ‘Father has her’. What did you mean?”

  “He’s been looking for us since we escaped. The Watcher realised who mother was a few weeks ago and sent word. That’s why the Overseer went to the village. They were furious with the Watcher when they found out you’d already escaped.”

  “That’s why the Watcher was at the house!” I exclaim.

  “He came to the house?”

  “Yes, on Fawkes’ Night. He came to the house to talk to Mother. I couldn’t understand why, but now it makes sense. I couldn’t stand that he was in our house, sitting at our table—it gave me the creeps to think about him in our kitchen.”

  “He must have been digging for answers—checking that he’d got the right family.”

  “I guess so. Father- Father wanted us back then?”

  I have a glimmer of hope.

  “Does he know about us? Me, you and Jey—what’s happened to us? If he know-”

  “Don’t get your hopes up. He’s a cruel man Meriall. I haven’t spoken to Mother, but the word is that the Founder has his runaway Wife back and that his daughter is to marry Eistrich Kannis, the Overseer. Nobody mentioned you, but that could be because they’re afraid of being heard.”

  “But he knows about Jey? It’s true then—what Owin and Nicklas told me—they said the Overseer was to marry a girl he had bought. At the village he-, you could tell he wanted her. I spat in his face.”

  Nathaniel’s eyebrows arch. “No wonder he sent you to the pit then!”

  “We can’t let him have her. We have to save her Nathaniel. Did you find out where she is?” I ask desperately.

  “Yes, she’s being kept at the Overseer’s house.”

  “We have to get her away from him,” I insist. “If we talk to Father then perhaps he will stop the marriage. And maybe, maybe he’ll stop the fight too,” I add in desperate hope. “I have to speak to him Nathaniel. He has to know that I’m here and have to fight in the pit and that Jey was bought by the Overseer. He won’t let that happen I’m sure.”

  “I’m not sure Merri-”

  “He may be cruel,” I interrupt, “but he won’t let his children suffer, once he knows about everything, surely! You have to tell him, Nate. You can let him know who you are now that we’re all here—there’s nothing to hide anymore.” I sound desperate even to myself.

  Nathaniel steps forwards, wraps his arms around me and gently strokes my hair, “I don’t know Meriall. He created the Primitives. They’re inhuman. Their Rule-”

  “Their ‘Rule’ is just made up to control us,” I say angrily. “He’s our father. He must have loved us once.”

  “Perhaps he did, in his own way, but that’s not how I remember him.”

  “Please Nathaniel, we’ve got to try. We have to let him know that we’re here and that he can save us.”

  Chapter Eight

  Evening is shifting to night as we walk through the town and shadows play dark on the grey stone. My stomach clenches as we pass the building we were first brought to and I remember the ‘purity’ test. Nathan’s voice breaks into my thoughts,

  “Merry, I’ve been thinking. It’s best if we don’t tell Father who I am.”

  “But why?”

  “Because then I’m still just a guard. I’ll be free to move about here. If things go wrong … if he won’t change his mind-”

  “He will. We’re his children. How can he let us be bought and sold? No father could do that.”

  “Still. Don’t let him know. Ok?”

  “Ok,” I agree although I feel sure that once Father knows about us things will be different.

  I hear the rumble of wheels before I see them. Further up the road, rolling out of the gloam are three carts, each pulled by two horses—just like the carts we were brought in on. I pull Nathaniel’s arm,

  “Nate, they’ve got more!” I blurt, shocked at the groups of children huddled on the carts. “And … they’re so young!” I say horrified. “I thought they only collected us if we were older, like you and me.”

  “Looks like they’ve decided to get them young!” He looks over at them with a frown. “It’s sickening,” he says, obviously troubled. “I know they’ve ramped up their collections and started to raid other areas, but this …”

  “We have to do something Nate. It’s barbaric.”

  “Keep calm Meriall. There’s nothing we can do right now.”

  “Bettrice told me that they were trying to collect from further north, but that the people were fighting back.”

  “Well, it looks like these ones lost.”

  I pull at his arm again and we take a step back into the growing shadows beneath the dark walls and watch as the weary horses drag their burdens and stop at the market gates. I stand still, anger scratching over me, and look at the strapped figures on the flat beds of the carts. They look cold and dirty, starved. A young girl, her dirt-smeared face tracked with the lines of tears, looks up and sees me watching. Her face is pinched, her eyes pleading. I want to step out of the shadows and jump onto the cart and break the chains that are holding her fast. My jaws clench in frustration.

  “Meriall, come on. It’s this way,” Nathaniel demands and I wrench myself away from the scene.

  We walk through the town and up the hill towards the outskirts where the trees at the roadside have been allowed to grow tall, blinkering us as we walk forward in the growing darkness. Eventually, the hedge gives way to an iron gate and Nathaniel stops.

  “It’s here. This is his house.”

  I turn and look through the gates into the twilight. A dark block sits at the end of a stone-filled drive, rectangles of stark light shining into the night.

  “Are we just going to walk up to the door and knock then?” I ask, uncertain what to do.

  “I guess so.”

  Nathaniel turns to me as we stand before the door, its gargoyle door-knocker scowling down at us. “Remember, don’t let him know who I am. Let me talk to them first. Ok?”

  “Yes,” I reply, my mouth and throat dry, my voice a rasp as I nod my head. Another lie.

  He knocks. My heart pounds like a hammer in my throat as footsteps approach from the other side. A stern, bearded face appears as the black door swings backwards but breaks into a smile as the doorman recognises my brother.

  “Thanks be to the Elect,” he nods.

  “Thanks be to the Elect,” my brother returns.

  “Nathaniel. What brings you here?” A frown crosses his face as Nathaniel pulls me into view. “What’s this?”

  “Christof, this is Meriall, an Outlier, from one of the stock farms. She’s come to see Father Baxter.”

  He’s serious now. “What can an Outlier want with Father Baxter?” He looks at me with confusion. “On what business do you come girl?”

  “I-”

  “She’s his daughter and she needs to speak with him.”

  “What! You can’t be serious. His daughter! She doesn’t look like an Elect. Are you sure?”

  “That’s what she says. I wouldn’t want to be the one keeping Father Baxter’s daughter from him. Would you?”

  “No! No. Come into the hall. I’ll find Captain Blaylock and let him know you’re here.” He turns and walks away down the long hallway before disappearing through a door.

  The Captain! My heart sinks and I look at Nathaniel in desperation. “Nathaniel—is it the same captain who tried to …” I stop, dread at facing him again rising up within me.

  “Yes, it is,” he whispers. “Stay strong. I’m here to protect you.”

  The minutes drag by and my heart pounds with each dreadful second as voices sound d
eep within the house. Christof appears again and beckons us to follow.

  The walls are hung with portraits of the five Founding Fathers, dark, oppressive men, necks held high by frilled ruffs, eyes staring and unforgiving. A chill runs through me as I remember the hundred times I’ve felt them staring down at me as though trying to read my soul. Voices grow louder as we walk deeper into the house. We stop outside a large, panelled door. Christof knocks and the voices stop. There’s silence as the door opens.

  The room is warm and the soft light of the logs crackling in the wide grate glimmers on the polished panels of the walls. Tall candles sit in ornate holders and flicker bright either side of the portrait hung above the mantel. I am barely able to hide the shock as I recognise the image. The lines that frame her eyes, the grey that colours her hair and the hardship that has worn her down are not visible in this younger version, but it is my mother. Three men stand before the fire. I recognise them all. The Overseer, the Captain (the deep scratch across his face still raw) and, standing in the middle, one hand on the mantle, head high and stiff, face waxen and unreadable is Kendrick Baxter, my father. The same eyes that scowled down at me from the School Room walls now take me in—and find me wanting.

  “Father, I-”

  He holds up his hand, palm facing me.

  “Do not speak,” he scowls, his voice heavy with threat. “I have been hearing about you. I have been hearing about how you break the Rule and lead others away from the right path.”

  The Captain looks at me with a smirk on his lips.

  “I had to save-”

  “Shh. I told you not to speak.”

  “Kendrick, let her speak.”

  The soft voice of my mother sounds behind me and I spin round to see her. My relief at hearing her voice short-lived. She’s even thinner than the last time I saw her and a blue circle of ownership is etched on her chin, the skin around it still red from the freshly pricked wounds. I move towards her but Nathaniel holds my arm tight and pulls me back.

  “I have told her not to speak. She must obey me. As must you.” He looks hard at my mother then motions to a guard. “Escort my Wife back to her room.”

  I watch silent as my mother takes a step back through the open door.

  “What are you going to do with her?” I ask, worried.