Shadow Fall

by Audrey Grey

  “I’m sorry about the light,” a man says from the darkness. “The blackouts last for days now.” There is something off about his voice, an electronic, warbling timbre.

  The remnants of a fire smolder behind the man. I am silent as I wait for my eyes to adjust.

  Two chairs come into view. A table. The small, barred window against the back wall is open, and the candle on the table flickers in the breeze, dancing light off the form of a man slumped in a chair, his hooded face cloaked in shadow. Judging by the shiny gold timepiece hanging from his pocket, the luxurious black fur lining the cloak, and the subtle air of superiority in his voice, he is a Royalist. Even the wealthiest of Bronzes wouldn’t own such luxuries.

  The man clears his throat, and I startle from my thoughts. For some reason I have the feeling he’s glad for the darkness. I search the shadows for his Color but come up empty.

  “Sit, please,” the man commands. “We are short on time.” His speech comes off as refined despite its unnatural quality.

  I hesitate. An oblong, convex silver capsule the length of a tall man protrudes from the wall. It’s an Uploader, what we Bronzes call a Casket. Made from a mixture of titanium, steel, and silver, it was undoubtedly manufactured in Cypher, at one of the hundreds of metalwork factories lining the bay. “I’ll stand,” I say, gesturing toward the Casket with my head. “Why do you have that? Lags are prohibited from uploading.”

  “Who said I was a prisoner?”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Oh, you know. Little bit of this, little bit of that.”

  His smugness leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I cross my arms. “You’re Fienian, then?”

  “Do I look like a Fienian Rebel?”

  Not in the slightest. Shaking off another dizzy spell, I flick my gaze to the Casket. “Will you do it? Upload when the time comes?”

  He shrugs. “The cold does horrible things to my skin.”

  “You mean being turned into a hunk of ice and living inside the mind of a Chosen isn’t your idea of a good time?”

  “Oh, I’ve met the Chosen. Most are boring clods whose minds would be a ruthless form of torture.” Tapping his fingers on the table, he nods toward the chair closest to me.

  I stay rooted to the ground. If I have to walk, I’ll undoubtedly keel over.

  He sighs. “I will make this simple. Are you Maia Graystone, daughter of the traitorous Bronze, Philip Graystone?”

  For the second time tonight my heart skips a beat. “He wasn’t a traitor!”

  “The bomb he built to kill the Emperor says otherwise.” His words are slathered in arrogant boredom. “Not that I blame him, of course.”

  “That’s a lie!” I don’t care what the Royalists accuse my father of, or the fact that I know he was building something; I’ll never believe he could knowingly build a bomb.

  “Spoken like a loyal daughter.”

  “I never said I was her—”

  “Shame. I was going to help you escape. But if you are not Maia . . .”

  “What’s the point?” I cross my arms. “Or haven’t you looked at the sky lately?”

  “You haven’t heard the rest of my offer, Everly.”

  “Everly?” I repeat, trying to keep the confusion from my voice. “But you just—”

  “Your new name: Everly. It rather rolls off the tongue, wouldn’t you agree?” His shroud suddenly shifts, revealing part of his forearm. The skin is stretched and waxy. “Everly, how would you like to compete in the Shadow Trials?”

  His question thrusts me into a world I have been trying the last seven years to forget. “But the Shadow Trials will be held in Royalist country, on Emerald Island, and the contestants are exiled courtiers from once prominent Gold Houses—”

  “Yes, yes,” he interrupts. “Let’s not dally with the obvious.”

  “This is a joke, right?”

  “A joke? I imagine the thousands of northern lords and ladies waiting to be chosen don’t think so. It’s not a joke, Everly. A simple yes and you get a second chance at life.”

  I somehow manage to cross the floor and pool into the chair. I am acutely aware of the blood swimming down my side. “Who are you?”

  “There can be only four champions at the Shadow Trials. The right question is how will you be one of them? Or have you forgotten what the winners—?”

  “A seat.” My head is spinning, but I can’t be sure if it’s from the blood loss or the offer. “The winners receive a seat on the space station.”

  “Right. A seat alongside the Emperor and his beloved Chosen on Hyperion, the castle in the stars. And the best part is you are not required to do anything for me until you win.”

  “You mean if,” I say, enunciating carefully. “If I win.”

  “Naturally.”

  I shift. “What’s your end in this?”

  There’s a pause. “Do you recall what transpires after the Shadow Trials?”

  It’s been years since I heard any Royalist news, and I rack my brain. “There’s a . . . a ball. The Immortalis Dominium.” I shake my head at the crop of memories that come rushing back. “The last feast for the Chosen.”

  “And the Shadow Trial champions, those lucky four, will be invited to dine with the magnificent Emperor Rand Laevus.” Grunting, he flips back his hood to reveal his face.

  Or what’s left of it.

  I give a startled gasp. His ears, nose, and lips are gone. The entirety of his exposed flesh is shiny and pitted, pulled taut, missing in some places, melted in others.

  Strapped to his throat gleams a shiny, metallic electro-larynx. “Behold, Emperor Rand Laevus’s masterpiece. Don’t bother concealing your disgust. I react the exact same way every morning when I gaze into the mirror.”

  I avert my eyes. “The Emperor did that to you?”

  “Now you understand, don’t you?”

  “Retribution.” Any hope I harbored bleeds out of me. “You want retribution.”

  “Well, to be clear, I want you to plunge a knife into Emperor Laevus’s twisted black heart. Although a blunt instrument across his skull would make me almost as giddy.”

  He stifles a groan as he twists his mangled body into a more comfortable position. I notice his fingers have been burned to bony nubs. “Fire would be the poetic end,” he continues, “but not particularly pragmatic, given the circumstances.”

  “Pragmatic? We’re talking about assassinating the Emperor, head of the Royalists, second firstborn descendent of Emperor Marcus Laevus from the most powerful House in history.” I rise unsteadily as a wave of dizziness crashes over me. “You’re . . . You’re insane!”

  I make it two steps toward the door before I see him. He must have been here all along, slunk against the wall deepest in shadow. There is something inherently predatory about him, and my senses scream as our bodies nearly collide. It’s only when he shifts to catch the light that I recognize he’s missing an eye.

  Pit Boy.

  “Is he here to scare me into saying yes?” I snap, glaring at the one-eyed boy who is still appraising me quietly. His intense, detached gaze seems to bore straight through me.

  “That lovely specimen is Riser,” the burned man says. “Your partner.”

  I snort, holding my ribs as pain lances down my side. “Impressive. You are delusional and insane.”

  The blood from my wound, masked by the dimness, has soaked my pants leg and is now dripping quietly onto the floor. Riser cocks his head, just enough I know he has noticed. I can’t help but feel he is constantly assessing me, tallying my strengths and weakness, searching for chinks in my armor.

  “We could debate the veracity of my mind all night,” the burned man says. “Except by now the Emperor’s favorite genetically mangled attack dog has discovered her new toy is missing. Trust me; you don’t want her to find you again.”

  Her strange eyes pop inside my mind, and my body shudders. “I didn’t know there were any Malignants still alive.”

  “Emperor Laev
us kept the ones he found useful, and I imagine the Archduchess is extremely useful.”

  Malignants were the first subjects genetically tampered with. That was before we understood nanotechnology and tissue engineering. Before the glitches in the procedures were fixed. The rare Malignant that survived conception, like the Archduchess, looked human, but they weren’t—not completely. They were something else. Something damaged.

  Something wrong.

  I turn to face him. “Why me?”

  “Because, contrary to appearances, you are Chosen, that abundantly fortunate, genetically flawless subgroup that represents us all. You were around enough Golds to know how they talk, how they think. Given the right aesthetic enhancements, you can blend into their world.”

  It feels like lifetimes ago that I was called Chosen. Well, I don’t feel Chosen, at least not for anything worth choosing. My blood looks the same as the others’. My insides, I imagine, if I were cut open like the Archduchess seemed so eager to do, would look entirely the same as well.

  But I’m not the same, and sometimes I forget that.

  “Exactly,” I say. “And Riser . . . or whatever his name is”—I nod at the one-eyed boy—“can’t. The Bronze candidates for the trials are picked from fallen Gold Houses, and they’ve spent at least one summer at court. They will never believe he was once . . .” A wave of dizziness washes over me, and I clench the chair’s seat. “Once . . .”

  “Shamelessly privileged, impeccably bred?” the burned man finishes, eying me carefully. “Please, have a little faith. The Shadow Trials begin in less than a week. By then, with the right tinkering, Riser will resemble every other well-heeled contestant.” He gives what would have been a winning smile, if not for his grotesquely disfigured face. “Emperor Laevus isn’t the only artist to create masterpieces.”

  “He’s not a canvas!” I snap. “He’s a killer.” I still remember the day they caught me in the pit, the way Pit Boy’s ragged fingernails jabbed my wrists as he tied them together. Snot and tears pouring down my face, I begged him to help me.

  Shut up, Pit Boy had said. Look, just be quiet, okay? Everything will be all right.

  I force myself out of that dark memory and focus back on what the burned man is saying, but not before shooting Pit Boy a death stare.

  “Precisely the point,” the burned man continues. “You see, for the right sum I can fix his scars, his horrible teeth. I can make him speak eloquently and open doors for ladies and perform the most exquisite bows. I can even endow him with a new eye. But what I cannot do is give him your knowledge of their world. The little nuances that even the best Reconstructor in the world cannot implant. If you want that seat, it has to be a team effort.”

  “What if we don’t kill anyone?” Again I cut my eyes at Riser, who is watching our interaction with mild interest, like a sated snake watching two mice play. “What’s to stop us from splitting once we win our spots?”

  “Besides your word?” The burned man lifts what must have once been an eyebrow, the stretched skin of his face twisting almost comically. “Considering what the Emperor did to your father, Everly, I thought you would jump at the chance to kill him.”

  For the span of a breath I am nine again, watching my father fall seemingly in slow motion, bright red blood weeping down his forehead, his once vibrant green eyes flat and faded . . .

  I gasp and refocus on my current surroundings. Riser’s eyes sharpen with cold curiosity, but I keep my face impassive. The snake is suddenly interested. “I don’t want revenge,” I finally say. “I just want . . .”

  Max.

  To be alive.

  To be safe.

  But I don’t dare say this, because now that I’m out of the tunnels and some of my madness has faded, I realize there’s no way he’s still alive.

  “Pity.” The burned man frowns. “Then perhaps one more spot on Hyperion will motivate you. To whomever actually spills Emperor Laevus’s blood.”

  “Why would I need more tickets?” My heart hammers. Very few people would have access to another spot on Hyperion. The cost alone would require more wages than a Bronze could earn in a lifetime at the factories.

  “Why, Everly, surely you weren’t thinking of abandoning Max, again?”

  It’s as if the air has been stripped from my chest. “Max is . . .” I try the words, but I’ve never stated them out loud before, and they lodge in my throat. Blinking away hot tears, I try again. “My brother is dead.”

  I quickly rub at the tears; I cannot show how much this hurts me.

  “Well, that’s a disappointment. The Maximus I met told me all about himself. How his parents named him after the god of the skies, Jupiter Optimus Maximus. How his big sister would yell at him for messing with the nice new telescope she got for her birthday, but she always gave him the last bite of toffee. How she was Chosen but he was left to enter the factories when he was six, to slave away his childhood until forced to upload.” He leans in. “How you left him one day and never even looked back.”

  “Where?” My voice sounds hollow, desperate. “Where is Max?”

  Before he can answer, a screeching alarm pierces the air.

  Chapter Five

  The screw bursts through the door. Without so much as a blink, Riser slips behind him, knife twinkling at the screw’s throat.

  “Nicolai, get this Pit Leech off me,” the screw growls to the burned man, obviously named Nicolai, who gestures Riser away.

  When Riser doesn’t budge, Nicolai says, “First lesson outside the pit, Riser. Don’t kill the man that’s going to help you escape.”

  Riser’s fist tightens on the dagger, but he melts back into the shadows, a disappointed frown tugging his lips.

  “Decision time, Everly.” Nicolai’s voice is brusque with impatience. “Although, if you say no, I will instruct our civilized friend over there”—he nods to Riser— “to assist you to the extraction point.”

  The dizziness comes in waves now. Crashing over me until I am on the verge of drowning and then letting me up for tiny gulps of air. Black bits float across my eyes. I am dangerously close to passing out.

  I want to say I am not Everly. I am Maia Graystone. I want to say I am not strong enough to do this. I want to say that it’s my mother, not Emperor Laevus, who should be punished. I want to say if the brutish one-eyed boy dares touch me, he’ll find himself missing the other eye.

  Instead, I lift my chin and whisper, “I’ll do it.”

  For Max.

  “Good.” Looking relieved, Nicolai nods to a black bag on the floor. “Now, take that and go. It may already be too late.”

  I watch in disbelief as Nicolai and the table disappear. A hologram! I scan the dark floor for the Interceptor that relayed his image, but the screw grabs my arm and yanks me out the door.

  As soon as the chilly outside air hits me, I catch a second wind. Sirens shriek, and spotlights roam the grounds, dark shapes slinking along the fence line. Dogs bark in the distance.

  We stick together, scurrying low along the shadowed path in between the houses. My lungs burn with cool, fresh air for the first time in years, and I wonder if I am still inside my dark little tomb, dreaming.

  The woods rise up like a dark wall. We claw our way through the trees, branches tearing at our face and arms. The sky twinkles through the treetops, the stars so bright, so wonderful that I get lost in them for a moment.

  Someone is shaking me by my collar, and I open my eyes to see the world doing lopsided pirouettes. I anchor myself to Riser’s one blue eye. Despite our predicament, he is calm, scanning the trees as he drags me along, my toes digging into the ground with each clumsy step.

  I greedily inhale the smells of earth and grass and sea. The sensation is overwhelming, like gulping giant swallows of ice-cold water after being stranded for years in the blistering desert without a drop . . .

  The screw is cursing under his breath at me. I must have been drifting off again. I get the feeling he is regretting his deal with Nicola
i.

  That makes two of us.

  The dark ceiling of branches parts to reveal the diamond-encrusted sky. We fan out in the open, a few feet apart, fighting our way through knee-high grass. I can hear the ocean . . . smell it . . . taste it on my tongue . . .

  Another jerk rips me from my reverie. Keep going, Graystone. One foot, now the other—

  A black chasm opens beneath my feet. My hands flap in a desperate attempt at balance. Rocks clatter down the cliff’s face and disappear into the frothy waves sixty feet below as my stomach lurches. Just before I tumble over, hands grip my shoulders and rip me backward. Riser. His chest is warm against my shivering flesh.

  Fighting the urge to sink into his heat, I let out a nervous laugh. “Is this a bad time to mention I’m terrified of heights?”

  Riser glowers at me.

  The screw paces along the cliff’s edge, his gaze skimming the woods as the shouts grow louder. “Nicolai isn’t paying me enough for this.”

  Riser taps me on the shoulder and points. Nestled inside the obsidian swells bobs a small, white boat. “We have to swim to it,” he says, his voice as emotionless as a piece of wood. “Can you make it?”

  “Of course she can’t!” the screw snaps. “Look at her. Nicolai didn’t say nothing about her being injured.” He runs a hand through his close-cropped hair. “They’re gonna catch you two Pit Leeches.” His hand falls to his stun baton, the slender black metal stick on his hip. “And you’re gonna have a lot to say.”

  Riser cocks his head, watching the screw in a way that chills my blood.

  Let’s just give up. I think I say this, but maybe I am thinking this. Give up. Go to sleep. Find warmth . . .

  Burning in my cheeks. Riser is lightly slapping my face; I must be drifting off again. Pain cuts through the fog inside my head. A peal of laughter works its way out my lips as I realize I can’t feel my legs.

  “We have to jump,” Riser states again. “The water will be freezing. Can you make it?”

  What will you do if I say no, Pit Boy? Snuff me so I can’t tell them Nicolai’s plans?