She inhaled a deep, shuddering breath, and leaned toward him, her lips parting, her eyelids sliding shut.
“Layne? Are you there?”
Marysa's voice from the mirror interrupted them, and Alayne jerked back, gasping as if a bucket of ice water had sloshed over her head. Daymon dropped his head against the wall with a thud and a groan. “Your timing, Marysa,” he muttered.
Alayne ignored him, reaching for the shelf and snatching the mirror piece. “Marysa! Are you okay?”
Her friend's reflection flooded Alayne with relief. When she'd said goodbye to Marysa and Jayme the day before, hidden places in her heart had whispered she'd never see them again. Marysa's freckled nose and wide blue eyes in the glass assuaged her fears. She was outside—the sky behind her head was pinpointed with stars—and the dark outlines of buildings and spires blackened the background. “Where are you?” Alayne asked.
Marysa glanced over her shoulder, tension lacing the movement, and Alayne's small measure of relief evaporated. “A City Centre not far from our destination. We went to Cliffsides first, but it's crawling with EA soldiers, almost like Tarry expects us to do something. We couldn't find a way in, so we retreated to a nearby City Centre to regroup. Alayne, I need to ask you something. You've never been Shadow-Casted because of the Vale, but you've had someone try. Twice, right?”
“Yes.” Alayne glanced at Daymon. He watched her, his expression tight. “Once on the ice-rink at Clayborne, and once when I jumped from the top of the spire with Jayme. Although Tarry was aiming for Jayme and not me. I just got in the way.”
“Do you—know how to block a Shadow-Cast?” Marysa's breath came in soft huffs, and the cityscape over her shoulder jarred.
“Marysa, are you running?”
“Only for a minute,” Marysa said. “Hang on.” The reflection waved wildly. Alayne gripped the mirror piece with both hands.
“It doesn't look like she's running for the fun of it,” Daymon murmured.
“Is she being chased? Where's Jayme?”
Marysa was back. “I'm here,” she whispered. “Sorry. Some people were following us and neither Jayme nor I liked their looks.”
“Where's Bryce?”
“He's with Jayme.” She turned the mirror, and Alayne caught a glimpse of a long, darkened alley. Jayme's tall form stood in the shadows. Beside him, the shorter outline of Bryce cringed against a wall. Marysa's face returned. “We're okay for now, but I need to know how to block a Shadow-Cast.”
“I—I'm not sure. I mean, I know it doesn't work on me because of the Vale, but I don't know—”
Daymon leaned close over Alayne's shoulder. “Marysa, I know how.”
Marysa blinked, startled. “Daymon. Sorry, I didn't know you were there. I mean, not that I'm surprised, but—”
“You want to know how to block a Shadow-Cast?”
“Please tell me.” She looked relieved.
“When a Shadow-Caster takes their victim's mind, they have to push their control out from themselves onto someone else. Most of the time, if they're really good, this is done in the blink of an eye, long before you know it's coming, which is why Casters are so successful. If you have any sense that a person is a Caster, though, you have a split second to prepare yourself, and that's when you can set up your defense.”
“Which is ... what?” Marysa asked.
“Swath your mind completely in your element—nothing left unprotected. In your case, as a Fire-Breather, it would be excruciating.”
Marysa blinked. “But—how? How can I swath my mind in fire?”
Daymon shook his head. “You live for the second the pain eases. It's temporary and fleeting, so you go into it knowing it won't last. Once you catch the Cast, the element that surrounded your mind moves to the Cast itself, and the pain goes away. As for catching it in the first place, it's instinct, the self-preservation of a body that wants to live. That's why it's so hard to block a Shadow-Cast—because you so rarely know the Cast is coming. But if you do, you protect your mind with your element.”
Alayne cut in. “Marysa, are you—were the people following you Shadow-Casters?”
Marysa glanced to her right, presumably at the mouth of the alley where she hid. “I'm fairly sure. Jayme overheard them talking as we passed. We think they're bounty hunters, because they mentioned the missing twenty-four. One of them said he had a Casted bound for Cliffsides, and they would leave in the morning. I—thought we might be able to get into Cliffsides if we could go in sort of—Trojan Horse style, if you know what I—”
“Marysa, that's terribly dangerous!” Alayne cried.
Marysa's eyes iced over. “Stop trying to keep everyone from doing anything dangerous, Layne. It's a battle. We have to win. At any cost. So stop trying to shove everyone into their bunny holes to keep them safe.”
Alayne sealed her lips, stung.
Marysa continued. “It's a better idea than trying to break through well-armed and well-guarded defenses at Cliffsides. If we can catch the Cast—”
“If, Marysa, and that's a big if!”
“If we can catch the Cast,” Marysa repeated firmly, “we'll fulfill Manders's mission, and we'll meet you at Clayborne per the plan. From what Daymon said, catching the Cast doesn't seem that difficult. Anyone can handle a little pain as long as it's temporary.”
Alayne sagged against the wall. “Marysa, can you please touch base with me again after you do this?”
Marysa nodded. “I'll try. If it works and they take us into Cliffsides, I'll contact you again first chance I get. I could report to Manders, too, but I imagine it'll be hard to have one mirror conversation, let alone two.”
“Choose me, then,” Alayne said. “I'll pass on everything to Manders, but I want to see with my own eyes that you're okay.”
Jayme's voice broke in, his face appearing over Marysa's shoulder. “Sorry, Al. Those guys are coming back this way, and if we're going to try this, it's now or never.”
“G—good luck,” Alayne murmured, but they were already gone. She turned to look at Daymon, swallowing hard. “Daymon, I'm so scared.”
He slid his arm around her, his expression serious. “I know. I am, too.”
Alayne dropped her head on his shoulder. Daymon didn't mention their near-kiss, and Alayne's mind moved to darker matters. Eventually, she fell into a troubled sleep, but the rhythm of Daymon's heart beneath her ear beat a steady accompaniment to her dreams.
Chapter 18
In the morning Alayne stretched like a satisfied kitten, blinking her bleary eyes at her dark room. It was hard to wake up in near total blackness, but her internal alarm clock faithfully pulled her from her dreams every morning.
This morning, though, Alayne didn't appreciate it. Sleep brought the haze of forgetfulness, a numbing mercy for a mind that sat on the razor edge of tension and pain—ready to drop into the dark reaches of despair.
Manders expected that those around her wouldn't survive the battle.
She couldn't confront Tarry.
But if she didn't, Tarry would win. The Last Order would be demolished. Her parents would die. Elementals would erase an entire people group from CommonEarth.
Of course, there was no guarantee that the Last Order would win even if she went and fought. But at least, as Manders had said, there would be a chance.
One chance. That's all it took.
Alayne sat up, remembering that she'd fallen asleep on Daymon's chest. “Daymon?” she whispered, stretching to look at the bed below her. It was empty. He'd left.
She scrubbed her eyes, twisted the elements, and placed a fiery beacon in the corner of the room for more light. She wished for sun.
The mirror piece on her shelf flickered in the light, and Alayne palmed it, turning it over. She desperately wanted to check on Marysa, but knew that if she did, she risked putting the mission in danger. If Marysa happened to be in a place where her mirror was visible and the wrong people surrounded her, and if Alayne happened to appear in it at exactly th
e wrong moment... Alayne shuddered. It wasn't worth it. Marysa had promised to try to contact her, and Alayne would have to wait.
Marysa's words about a Trojan Horse bounced around the recesses of Alayne's mind, torturing her. It was so much more dangerous than Alayne had imagined, and a small part of her blamed Manders for sending student volunteers instead of trained, specialized Last Orders. Surely, they could have done a better job.
But as Marysa had said, Manders always offered a chance for a person to redeem himself. Jayme was determined to take that chance, and Bryce was determined to use that chance—whether to benefit himself or not, Alayne wasn't sure. And Marysa was there for Jayme and for a cause she believed in.
Alayne wished she could have gone instead. It's better than sitting down here in the dark just waiting. Then she was ashamed at how similar to Bryce she sounded.
She jumped out of bed and shed the t-shirt she'd slept in, pulling on jeans and a black tank top. Sliding her black steel knife into the leather sheath Daymon had made for her, she strode into the chute and dropped to the commissary.
Daymon was nowhere to be found, although quite a few people dotted the benches. Tension settled heavily in the air; everyone knew that this was the last day of routine and normalcy. The next day, if all went to plan, they would travel to meet thousands of Last Orders from across the Continent, taking a final stand for Natural Humans and equality of races.
Alayne's jaw hardened as she glanced around. Manders was nowhere to be seen, either. She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a biscuit and an apple, biting into the juicy fruit as she exited the room. Ryanna sat near the doorway, aimlessly stirring her coffee as she stared at the wood grains in the table.
“Hey, Ryanna,” Alayne said, hating the tremble that eked into her voice. “Have you seen Daymon?” If anyone would know, Ryanna would. Though she wasn't as pushy as she had been soon after they'd arrived, she still shadowed Daymon. Alayne felt a little sorry for her. Daymon was, Alayne thought with a flip of her stomach, pretty obviously interested in someone else.
Her face heated all over again.
Ryanna glanced up and pulled back defensively when she saw Alayne. Then she returned her attention to her coffee. “No. I haven't seen him since yesterday.”
Alayne backed away. “Uh ... thanks.” She turned for the chute.
Alayne wanted out of the stifling tension of the Hive, but she knew the hazards of going above ground. This close to battle, Manders would kill her himself if she dared defy his orders. Not literally, of course, but he'd be more angry than she'd ever seen, she was sure.
The only other option was the sewers. She couldn't go into the city, but the sewers offered their own brand of quiet and peace. The smell was appalling, but at this point, Alayne didn't care. She had to escape, at least for a little bit. She knew the schedule; the tunnels flooded every three hours. A quick glance at the clock on the wall in the commissary told her they'd last flooded forty-five minutes ago.
Reentering the chute, she dropped to the bottom level and finished her breakfast in the hallway before entering the lavatory that led to the sewer entrance.
The stale, foul air wasn't as bad as she'd been anticipating when she stepped into the tunnels. Sliding her knife from its sheath, she tossed it into the air as she walked, counting rotations as she went—a mindless, numbing activity that smothered her worries for a while. She pulled out her mirror piece from her pocket, glancing at her own reflection, again tempted to ask to see Marysa.
She couldn't risk it. Reaching the first turn in the tunnel, she took it. A clink in the darkness ahead froze her, and the breath stilled in her lungs.
Likely a returning spy—most of them used the sewers to return to the Hive—but Manders had called all spies in the Capital back into headquarters to prepare for the journey to Clayborne and battle tomorrow. Still...
Alayne moved a few noiseless steps. Another corner loomed ahead, and she peered around it.
Daymon yanked his knife out of a makeshift target he'd set up on the opposite wall, paced back to the other side of the tunnel, turned, and hurled his knife again at the target. It caught and quivered near-center. He fetched the blade again and set up for another throw.
Alayne stepped around the corner.
Daymon whipped sideways, gripping the blade behind his ear, ready to hurl it at her.
Both froze in a motionless tableau.
A heartbeat passed before Daymon dropped the blade with a clatter on the tunnel floor, sinking into a crouch and covering his face with his hands. “Alayne,” he mumbled, his words muffled, “I almost killed you.” He slid his hands down to his knees, his blue eyes wide and tense. “You can't sneak up on me like that.”
Alayne's heart slowly dislodged from somewhere near her throat, and she nodded weakly. “Sorry.” She approached the target and fingered it. It was a simple foam board Daymon had drawn circles on. Almost all of the blade punctures were within the center circle. “May I join you?” she asked.
“It seems you have already.” Daymon retrieved his knife and grabbed another target from the floor near his feet. “I'll put up a new one; that one's about torn up.”
Alayne crossed to his side of the tunnel and faced the new target. She pulled the knife behind her ear, carefully balancing the weight and straightening her wrist, whipping the blade forward and releasing. The knife sailed dead-center.
“Beginner's luck.” Daymon retrieved the knife.
“I'm not a beginner,” Alayne retorted.
“Then you must have had a good teacher.” Daymon smirked.
“Eh, he wasn't too bad.” Alayne accepted her knife from his hand. “But his head was pretty big.”
“Must not have been anyone I know, then.” Daymon hurled his knife from an angle, cracking the foam board clear across. He grabbed the next target to replace it.
“Probably not. People with multiple personality disorders rarely introduce their various alter-egos to each other.”
Daymon snorted. “Let's do a game of H-O-R-S-E. First one to E loses.”
Alayne faced him, cocking her head to the side, enjoying the banter. It was a nice change-up from the tension inside headquarters. “What do I get if I win?”
Daymon looked thoughtful, rubbing his hand over the stubble on his jaw. He took a step closer. “I'll bet you a kiss. We never got to finish that last night.”
Alayne sucked in her breath. Her mind whirled, not just with the possibilities Daymon's tone suggested, but with a sudden, jolting thought that gripped her stomach and wrenched—a thought that had skirted her mind since she'd sat in the corner of the common room and eavesdropped on Manders's and Daymon's conversation.
Slowly, she nodded. Daymon's eyebrows shot to his hairline. “Really?” he asked with way too much eager anticipation in his voice.
Alayne licked her suddenly dry lips. “If you win, Daymon, you'll get a kiss—”
“Not just a peck on the cheek,” he interrupted skeptically. “A real, honest-to-goodness, mouth-to-mouth kiss.”
Alayne rolled her eyes. “Fine, but you have to agree to something if I win.”
Daymon's expression changed instantaneously, his eyes guarded. “What do you want?” he asked suspiciously.
Alayne took a deep breath and plunged in. “The Vale is going to end people's lives when we get to Clayborne. I don't know whose, and I'm terrified that Manders will be included, Luke, Eryc, Rachyl, even—even you. Daymon, in—in spite of that—I have to remember what your uncle told me. He said that soldiers go into war committed to winning the war, not just one battle. I'm in that fight, you're in that fight. To win the war, I have to be willing to let you go—”
“Let me go—”
“No. All of you. I can't win this battle by myself. No one can. We have to all be ready and able to give ourselves—our whole selves—to the cause. Manders seems to think I'm strong enough to carry through with it, but I'm not. Not even close. I'm afraid that when it comes right down to it, I'll—stop, that I
'll back away from what I have to do, because I'm so afraid of hurting you.”
Daymon shook his head. “The Vale can't hurt its Guardians—”
“THE GUARDIANS WON'T BE THE ONLY ONES THERE, DAYMON!” Alayne shouted. She shook her head, her jaw aching from gritting her teeth. “That's not the point anyway! Yes, my decision will hurt you, Daymon. Probably even kill you! Just like it will kill me and all the Guardians! But the rest of the world has to survive; I can't hold back just because I—just because I don't want you hurt! The fate of the world rests on my decision, and the question is, am I going to have enough courage when it comes right down to it? I need your help, Daymon. I—I'm begging for it.”
Confusion tinted Daymon's gaze. “Help to do what, Layne? I don't understand.”
Alayne turned away, gripping the hair at her temples, panic racing through her veins. “Skies, when I think about what people are doing to win this fight... Marysa, Jayme, basically offering themselves as bait to get inside Cliffsides—”
Daymon's finger on Alayne's lips stopped the flow of words. “Shh, Alayne, you're overreacting. Listen,” he forked his fingers into his hair and sighed, “everything Marysa and Jayme are doing, they’re doing for you—for you, Alayne, not for adrenaline or excitement or glory or anything else. They believe in you, in the hope of the power you possess to overcome wrong. They’re supporting you so you can do what is right. They're paving a way to make it possible for you to take down the Alliance and Tarry and—and evil! It would betray their sacrifices to deviate from the plan. You know what we have to do at Clayborne. You know what is at stake. You. Can’t. Help. Them. Trust them as they trust you. They’re both stronger than you give them credit for.”
“Daymon, don't you see? That trust is misplaced!” She threw her hands into the air. “How many times have I lost control of the Vale recently? Not only has it taken control of me on multiple occasions, but when it unleashes its uninhibited power, it always results in death and destruction, not life, not safety. And it uses me as its instrument.” Alayne buried her face in her palms and shook her head frantically before dropping her hands again. “I mean, we can’t even trust that we actually like each other, Daymon! It’s all about the Vale, not about what I value regarding love, or life, or morality, or the basic presuppositions of existence. The Vale consumes me, and I can’t trust anything.”
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