Guardian of the Vale

by Shoemaker,Tamara

  Alayne noticed some other figures moving about as they walked through the room. People sprawled on the numerous couches, talking, reading, two of them even sleeping. The couches were strewn in a similar pattern to those at Clayborne. A smile crossed her face. It felt almost like coming home.

  A home in the dark. A home in the shadows. Alayne sighed.

  Manders flicked his gray gaze over her face. He continued, “At any rate, over time and as more and more construction took place, the city grew, and this spire and many others like it were eventually buried.”

  “You mean, there's a whole city buried underneath the Capital?”

  “I suppose you could say that, yes,” Manders nodded. “It wasn't the Capital then—the old buildings. It was simply Croylar Mol Iompayr, but it was at the central hub of three prominent trade routes, and the citizens grew more and more prosperous. Eventually, the Leader decided to set up his headquarters here, and the High Court was born. It's still that way today, you know. Many of our Last Order members call this city the Hub.”

  Alayne mouthed the word, tasting it. She liked it better than the Capital. It seemed to fit somehow. “The Capital has been in existence all this time, then, since before the Great Deluge?”

  “Yes,” Manders answered, “though of course, it has morphed over time, as I was explaining.”

  “So the Alliance doesn't know anything about the underground city?” Daymon asked.

  “Well,” Manders hedged, “it's possible that they know about it, although I don't think they know that any specific structure is in use. If it were one tunnel, that would be one thing, but a whole city beneath the current city—that's something else. As far as we know, and according to any information we've been able to glean through our spies, the Alliance has yet to suspect our hideout.”

  “Sir.” A man strode through the flickering light, a paper in his hand. He stopped next to Manders and nodded at the three students. “I think we've gotten everyone. Twenty-three were missing. Your three brings the total to twenty-three.”

  “And they're all here?”

  “Yes, sir, including the two who had remained in the alley above. Down six levels. We've taken them to the commissary for some food.”

  Alayne's stomach growled as if on cue. She flushed as Manders turned to her, his salt-and-pepper eyebrows arched on his lined forehead. “Well, it appears my three are hungry as well. Please follow me.” He was quiet as he turned for the chute once again.

  They stepped on and dropped several more floors. Bryce grew more quiet and still the deeper they went. When the doors opened, he stumbled out and sank down onto the nearest bench.

  Manders smoothly slid a cup onto the table from a nearby shelf and twisted the water element until the cup was full. “Drink up, Mr. Marshall. Then wash your own dish. We don't have a full-time kitchen staff here.” A young woman approached with plates of food, placing one carefully in front of Bryce. Manders, Alayne, and Daymon dropped onto the bench nearby, thanking the woman for the food.

  “Usually, we'll go through the line and serve ourselves, buffet style.” Manders tore a roll in half. “You get special treatment since it's your first day here.” He took a huge bite, turning in surprise when a loud squeal sounded behind him.

  “Oh Daymon, I'm so glad you made it safely,” Ryanna gushed as she circled the end of the table and sat down next to Daymon, leaning forward so he couldn't access his plate without getting food in her hair. “You didn't come for such a long time, and I was so worried! I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't shown up.”

  Ryanna's hand pressed against her ample chest as if she were truly struggling to calm her heart palpitations, and Alayne repressed a disgusted eye roll. She caught Manders's eye, and the older man's gray gaze twinkled at her from behind his glasses. Her face heating, Alayne picked up her roll and took a tiny bite.

  Ryanna still hadn't shut up. “We saw several of the EA guards while we were walking, and Lance almost gave us away at one point when a soldier started following us. We lost the guy, but if you had been with us, I know it would never have happened in the first place.” She brushed her fingers down Daymon's arm, arresting his hand as he tried to lift his fork to his mouth. “Promise me that we won't have to go up there again.”

  The words were so ludicrous, her tone so ridiculously saccharine, Alayne choked on her bread. She threw the roll down on her plate and leaned around Daymon. “Hey, Ryanna, would you mind grabbing an extra roll for Bryce over there? I think he needs one.”

  Ryanna blinked and frowned. “Why can't he get his own—”

  “He's in shock and needs your help.”

  Ryanna's gaze hardened, and she started to protest, but Daymon interrupted. “Seriously, Ryanna, the poor guy looks like he needs it.”

  Ryanna hesitated, but finally pushed up from the table and headed to the kitchen.

  Daymon didn't crack a smile, but his dimple deepened a shade as he bent over his plate. “Most unusual case of shock I've ever seen.”

  Manders smiled. “You're quite the diagnostician, Alayne.”

  Alayne flushed. “She just—she shouldn't—she's been all over Daymon since we left Clayborne, and I thought—I mean, maybe Daymon doesn't mind—and I'm not saying I mind either—I just thought—”

  She sank into embarrassed silence as both Manders and Daymon broke into laughter. “I don't think you need to worry, Alayne,” Manders finally managed. “I'm sure Daymon understood what you meant, if Ryanna didn't.”

  Alayne stabbed a potato wedge harder than necessary.

  She took a few moments to gather her thoughts and peered around the commissary, relief spreading through her as she did a quick head count. Most of the students had finished their food and sat quietly talking over the tables. Marysa sat at the far end near Alex. Rachyl was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Jayme.

  “Where's Jayme?” Alayne gasped, reaching for Daymon's hand where it rested on the table.

  “In the health ward,” Manders answered. “He's going to need some recovery time.” As he sawed a chunk of beef, he looked up at Alayne. “I'm sorry, Alayne. About Kyle.” His fork paused as he watched her.

  Alayne stared at him for a long moment before lowering her attention back to her food. She was still holding Daymon's hand, and she quickly released it. “Don't be.” She attacked a carrot with a vengeance and rammed it into her mouth. “He brought it on himself.”

  “Still, it must have been a shock when you found out.”

  Another carrot died beneath Alayne's vengeful fork. “You tried to warn me, Professor.” She chewed her bite and swallowed with difficulty. “Speaking of which, how did you know? Before, I mean. Everyone knows now, but how did you guess he was undercover for the Elemental Alliance while we were still at Clayborne?”

  Manders chewed thoughtfully on his meat and then chased it with a swallow of water. “I didn't know, though I suspected. If I had known for certain, I would have been much more forceful in keeping him away from you last year, Alayne. It was his constant need for attention that set off my internal alarm.. I had seen the lost little boy look in his eyes when his mother was around and made note of his longing for her approval. And then you remember when Justice Connel was killed?”

  Alayne's memory flashed back to that day when she had been sitting in the common room at Clayborne and all the MIUs had switched on at the same time. Chadwick Jones, news anchor for Continental Media, had announced Connel's death. His son, Eryc Connel, an exchange student from Andova—Clayborne's sister school near the Capital—had been passing near the couch where Alayne had sat. As the news had spread across the entire common room, Eryc Connel's face had turned the color of ash.

  Alayne's mouth tightened. “Yes, sir. I remember.”

  Manders sawed another forkful of meat. “Just before his death, I'd planned to travel to the Capital to inform Justice Connel of the developments within Clayborne. You remember, Alayne—after our talk in the library.” His jaw tightened in anger. “I'd gon
e to Grenton to meet a shuttle for the trip. It was midnight; I didn't want anyone at Clayborne to know I was leaving. The pilot was a Last Order member; he was to meet me on the landing pad on the west side of town. Due to the nature of the trip, this was all absolutely secret, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw Kyle.”

  “In Grenton?” Alayne gasped.

  “Yes, indeed.” Manders laid down his fork and wiped his goatee with his napkin. “He'd been watching me through a shop window. He disappeared as soon as I saw him. That shop belonged to Professor Lye's half-time assistant, and I knew that Kyle knew the man, so I tried to reason it away. It was just too suspicious, though—midnight, well past curfew, watching me, and then Connel's death following quickly behind those events.” Manders shook his head. “Kyle had to have tipped his mother off, who would have set up the assassination. She and her husband, Petyr Pence, had been suspicious of both Connel and myself for a long time, but our secret meeting finally confirmed it.”

  “That was when you had to go into hiding.” Sadness gripped Alayne's stomach. When had their lives become a game of cat and mouse? The cat always won. The mouse could escape only so many times.

  “Yes.” Manders rolled a toothpick between his fingers, his gaze far away. After a moment, he sighed and glanced around the commissary. “I did try to warn Daymon, but the EA was closely monitoring all media in and out of the school, and all I could send were coded messages. I don't think the message came through clearly.” He winked at his nephew, and Daymon dropped his gaze to his plate. “I'm not blaming you, Daymon. I'm fairly sure I told you to watch for the bananas to ripen in the strawberry fields when the wolves ran under the bridge.”

  Alayne giggled, shattering the tension she felt whenever Kyle's name was mentioned.

  Manders smiled. “Finish quickly, Alayne. We have much planning to do, including but not limited to the search for and the rescue of your parents.”

  Alayne swallowed the last of her food along with the dread his words invoked. She hoped her parents were safe, that they were merely in hiding, that Tarry's claim that she held the Worths was nothing but a bluff, but the deep echo of fear whispered that nobody and nothing close to Alayne could ever have such good fortune. They were captured, she was sure, and in the cruel hands of the enemy.

  Alayne followed Manders to the chute, stepping in ahead of Daymon. She peeked back at Bryce as he stared glumly at his untouched food, including the extra roll Ryanna had brought him, and she felt a twinge of guilt. The poor kid hated to be underground, and she didn't blame him. As large and spacious as this underground spire was, Alayne still felt smothered when the only light filtering through the rooms were the torches mounted on the wall.

  Bryce batted his napkin aside in a fit of temper. Alayne's lips twisted. She wasn't so sorry for him after all. The kid's constant complaining didn't help his cause.

  Alayne caught Marysa's eye as Daymon stepped into the chute. The black-haired girl jumped up from her seat and hurried across the floor. She followed Daymon into the car just before the doors slid shut. “Layne! Eryc Connel's here.”

  “What?” Alayne glanced back at the commissary just before it dropped out of sight. “Where?”

  “I don't know, but he's here. In the Last Order headquarters! Rachyl heard he was here as soon as they brought us in. You know they were secretly seeing each other, so when she found out—well, she didn't hold it together very well. I've never seen her cry like that. She's gone to find him.”

  “But he wasn't a part of our group that escaped.” Alayne glanced at Manders. “How did he—”

  Manders smiled. “I'll let him tell you that story.” The doors slid open into the common room again. He stepped out. “Mr. Connel is over there.” He pointed to a table that stood along one wall of the common room, just beneath three of the torches. Eryc sat next to Rachyl. Their chairs were angled to face one another, and both leaned toward the other, their hands joined in the middle, their faces close. Another man and two women sat near them at the same table. When Manders led Alayne, Marysa, and Daymon toward them, Eryc and Rachyl looked up.

  “Professor,” Eryc said as he rose. He glanced at Alayne, Marysa and Daymon. “Hi, guys.” His cheeks flushed in the torchlight; shyness kept his gaze on Alayne's chin.

  “Hi, Eryc.” She walked to the seat Manders held out for her and sank down into it. Daymon sat next to her, and Manders briefly squeezed Alayne's shoulder. “I'll be back in a few minutes.” He walked off with the man and two women who had sat at the table.

  Eryc watched them go before slowly sinking again into his seat, the long fingers of one hand fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. His other hand still clasped Rachyl's tightly. “So.” He nodded at them before dropping his gaze back to his lap. The silence stretched into awkwardness.

  Alayne finally cleared her throat. “How—how did you get here, Eryc? I mean, all the other Clayborne students were taken on exam day, imprisoned by the Elemental Alliance, and we still don't know where. Only twenty-four of us escaped. We didn't know anyone but the ones who ran had actually made it out.”

  Eryc spoke to his lap. “I was one of the last students to leave Clayborne for exams that day. My friends had already gone while I was trying to finish some last-minute prep-work. When I got down to the common room from my dorm room, there were already EA soldiers filling the area.”

  Alayne looked at Marysa and Daymon. “They would have started arriving as soon as we left then.”

  Daymon nodded, his gaze calculating as he stared at Eryc.

  Eryc shrugged. “They came, and they flooded through the chute as wave after wave of them walked in. I didn't know what was happening.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What my father had always taught me: when you're unsure of a situation, get somewhere secure until you can figure it out. So I did.” He swallowed and dropped his gaze to his hands again. “I hid in a closet that whole day and night until finally, the common room emptied and I could sneak out. I was going to go down by the chute, but there were guards posted, so I had to find a window, and I jumped.”

  “But you're an—Earth-Mover, right?” Marysa asked, her mouth falling open. “How did you keep from killing yourself when you landed?”

  The tips of his ears turned red. “I pulled the earth up into an incline that gradually leveled out to flat ground again, and then I released the element once I was running across the prairie. The fall was long and fast, and I rolled a few times and face-planted at least once. I didn't win any points for style, but it worked. They didn't capture me.”

  “And then you came here,” Daymon's deep voice pulled Alayne's attention to him.

  “Yes.” Eryc's thumb rubbed lightly over the back of Rachyl's hand. “I ran and ran for miles. Finally found a shuttle pilot outside of a City Centre, and he brought me to the Capital at my request. So this is where I've been ever since, getting in everyone's way.”

  Manders spoke quietly behind them. “Don't let his modesty fool you. He's turning into an excellent tactician. I think we're going to be able to use him.”

  Alayne paced uneasily across the common room floor. Eryc and an emotional Rachyl had disappeared, and Alayne, Daymon, and Marysa had taken couches in the common room. Manders had found an overstuffed armchair to the side. All of them stared tiredly at each other before hashing out the events of the last few weeks and what that would mean for Alayne and the refugee students.

  “Because that's it. We're refugees, aren't we?” Alayne finally asked Manders as she halted her pacing, her fingers nervously playing with the end of her braid. “We have no home; we don't know where our classmates are, or our families. And you say you haven't seen my parents in the Alliance headquarters.”

  Manders shifted to lean forward. “No, we haven't, Alayne, and I'm sorry about that. But that doesn't mean we will stop searching. You said Tarry told you that your parents were at Alliance headquarters in the Capital?”

  Alayne nodded, sinking onto the couch next to Daymon.
“I keep hoping she was only using it to blackmail me into giving in, letting her use the Vale, but I'm starting to lose hope. They could still be free, right?” The pleading note in her voice softened Manders's expression.

  “There's a shred of a possibility, Alayne, but it's best to be prepared for any eventuality. What I would guess is that—if Tarry does hold your parents—as soon as she realized you and the others were making a run for it, she did one of two things. She either had your parents transferred to a Natural Re-Education Center—likely one here in the Capital—or she had them brought closer to her for safe-keeping. She wasn't about to let her only leverage be so easily recovered.”

  “Easily!” Alayne's exclamation echoed in the large room. “What do you mean?”

  Daymon nudged her shoulder where his arm lay across the back of the couch behind her. “You keep forgetting your abilities, Layne.”

  The Vale. It always came back to that.

  Marysa jumped in. “But just because she's a Quadriweave doesn't mean she can stroll into Alliance headquarters and politely ask for her parents to join her.”

  “No.” Manders shook his head. “But, Alayne, you're capable of a lot of damage to the EA's plans, and since you rescued Jayme, the only people Tarry has left to use against you are your parents. She assumes, and correctly, that you would do just about anything to keep them safe.”

  “Yes!”

  Manders nodded and sat back in his chair. “Then for now, we assume your parents are at Clayborne with Tarry. In the meantime, we can work on organizing the Last Order here in the Capital and elsewhere to prepare them for war.”

  Alayne's heart sank. Daymon had mentioned that word, too, soon after their flight from Clayborne. It terrified her. “But surely there aren't enough of us. How can we even start to get enough people to join the Last Order, who are willing to fight?”