by Audrey Grey
Riser wedges between us, fighting a smile. He leans forward and whispers something into her ear.
I fully expect her to challenge him, so I am surprised when she flashes a tentative grin, replaces her weapon, and adjusts her hat in a gesture totally girly and un-Flame-like. “Time to skedaddle.”
Riser turns to me once she’s gone. “Wow, Digger Girl, I think she really likes you.”
“Wow,” I parrot back. “Nicolai really botched your sense of humor, Pit Boy. And for the record, I don’t need protecting.”
A swath of raven-black hair has eclipsed part of Riser’s forehead, and he swipes the locks out of his face, his lips teasing into a half-grin. “I know. I was protecting her from you.”
Shadow Fall makes it seem like dusk. We cut through the alleyway and wait until Brogue, scouting from the corner, gives the okay to cross the street. I’m halfway across when I realize Flame has lagged behind. Turning around, I spy a soft-orange glow illuminating the dirty window I peered out earlier. There’s a sharp pop as the glass explodes, and hungry flames leak out, spilling across the roof.
Flame makes it across the street just as a fireball consumes the house. She smells of kerosene and smoke and is clutching a tattered book to her breast. A feverish shine glimmers her eyes. We stand there a moment, watching, the heat caressing our faces. Cage reaches across and squeezes Flame’s hand.
With the streets empty, we make good progress. Flame’s fire lights our way. It’s still burning by the time we catch the rail.
Most of the Silvers have already taken the winding railway to their Caskets below the mountains, so our car is empty. I sit alone, my eyes drifting to the growing fire. With no one to fight it, it greedily devours the sky, a starving monster set free from its cage.
Soon, the coach’s rhythmic motion lulls me into a kind of stupor. It feels good to close my eyes.
In my nightmare, I am trapped between the fire and my mother. Her voice whispers through the crackling of the flames. “Do you see now how beautiful it is, Maia? Do you understand now?”
Everything in me screams to go to her, to find the hollow just above her clavicle where I used to lay my chin. But then Riser steps through the fire. He’s wearing the rags from the pit and holding out his hand. “Trust me, Maia.”
Looking back at my mother, I see she has changed into Everly March, with a sleek curtain of red hair and pale, dewy skin. She shakes her head at Riser, slowly. “Look at your Pit Boy now, Maia.”
Riser holds up the ropes he used to tie me with.
“He wants to bind you, Maia, make you helpless, just like in the pit.”
Before I can respond, Riser lunges at me.
I wake up to Riser gently shaking me. Still stuck in my dream, I cry out and shrink away.
“Whoa.” He raises his hands. “It was just a bad dream.”
“Promise?” I mutter, my heart still fluttering like a bird startled from its perch.
Riser’s forehead furrows as he studies me. Not wanting to explain, I stare out the window. Shadow Fall’s nearly over, which means we should be passing the string of Diamond Cities that trace the rivers and tributaries in the flatlands.
But all I see through the greenish shadow murk is Pandora’s destruction. A flooded city, the tops of the factories barely breaking the surface of the water. Logging towns with forests burnt to stubs. Fields of crops that refused to grow. Factories that made the Royalists’ favorite silks reduced to mounds of rubble.
The asteroid isn’t satisfied pitting us against one another; She must destroy our homes too.
In the distance, a city burns, the black line of what must be escaping Bronzes snaking around a hill. The fire reminds me of Flame, the way her eyes danced earlier as she watched the fire grow. “Why’d she do it? Burn it down?”
Flame sits with the others near the front. Riser studies her for a moment, the way a brother might look at an annoying little sister. “Exorcising demons.”
“Seems a little extreme,” I point out, annoyed by the affection in his tone.
Riser chuckles. “Perhaps Flame’s demons need more encouragement than most.”
Suddenly, a lightning bolt of understanding blasts my brain. The ravens in the book. The ravens winding across Flame’s neck. They’re the same! Which means . . .
“The rendezvous point was their home!” I blurt proudly. I remember all the beautiful books. Harboring or trading in banned items is a dangerous pursuit. Her parents couldn’t have hidden their secret for long, not in a Royalist city.
A horrible thought comes to me. I hold up the skirt of my dress. “Whose clothes are we wearing?”
Riser blinks. “Why ask a question you don’t want answered?”
My mouth goes dry. “Her parents are dead, aren’t they? And these are their clothes?”
“They were Silvers, but that didn’t stop them from taking two orphaned Bronzes like Flame and Cage off the streets and raising them like their own.” His eyes glitter with anger. “When Flame was twelve, the Emperor executed them.”
“The Emperor.” My fingers knot together in my lap. “You mean your—”
“Father?” Riser’s voice is knife-edged.
I nod.
“What? Are you wondering if I can kill him now that I know?”
“Yes, actually.”
“I watched my mother torn to pieces because of him.” He leans in, a tight, bitter smile curving his jaw. “So the answer to your question is: with relish.”
Flame clears her throat, breaking the tension. “This looks fun.” Her gaze finds Riser. “Care to join me, Prince?”
Riser chuckles, his dark mood evaporating. “Give me a second?”
She cuts her eyes at me. “Yup.”
I watch Flame join the others at the front. “Prince?”
“A bit more distinguished than Pit Boy, don’t you think?”
I laugh. “I don’t know; Pit Boy was growing on me.” There’s a moment of awkward silence that stretches into a whole minute. I bite my lip. “So . . . you and the crabby arsonist are close?”
“Crabby arsonist?” He raises an amused eyebrow. “Not close. Comfortable. With each other.” He shrugs, fiddling with the loose thread on his vest. “The crabby arsonist doesn’t flinch when I’m around.”
A bitter feeling rises in my throat. I swallow the emotion down. Peering out the window, I spend an inordinate amount of time studying smudges in the glass. To me, Riser seems complex beyond understanding: a coin you never know which side will land up. I could ask him a thousand questions and never understand him. Or feel completely comfortable around him.
“Well, Flame wasn’t in the pit, was she?” I say, annoyed at how shrill my voice sounds. But she didn’t have her arms tied so tightly behind her that her shoulders popped and her wrists bled. She didn’t beg Riser to help her, only to be ignored.
“You’re right.” His hand rakes through his hair. “Which means you know me in a way no one else ever will. Maybe that’s why I . . . I care what you think about me.” He forces an empty laugh. “I mean, there has to be something about me that you find redeeming.”
My breath catches as I study his face. Mismatched eyes study me back. The blue eye dark and unsettling, the green one warm and clear.
Who are you, Dorian Riser Laevus? Can I trust you?
Don’t be stupid. I blink and look away. Of course you can’t trust the person who nearly killed you in the pit.
The sound of paper being smoothed draws my attention back to Riser. He hands me the page without looking at me. “I found this on the roof. It’s from your diary.” He stands to leave. “I didn’t read it, if you’re wondering.”
“Thank—” But he’s gone before I can finish. It’s for the best anyway, I tell myself, but my words ring hollow as I watch Riser and Flame laughing at something near the front.
The paper feels heavy in my hand. I decide not to read the words. They will only bring up memories of the past, and right now I need to focus. I dig in my satch
el for matches to burn the page, and my fingers scrape cross Bramble.
I lift him up and plant a quick, motherly kiss on the cold metal of his back, then I switch him off. “Sorry, B, but they won’t like you much where we’re going.”
Just like the letter, he belongs to my old life and the weak, cowardly girl who will get me killed.
I find the matches. There are two left. The letter is balled inside my hand, moistened with sweat. Perhaps I should let it dry a bit, I think, since there are only two matches. I set the paper on the seat next to me and lean my head against the window.
I will burn it. I will.
I finally succumb to sleep, and when I awake, the debris outside has been replaced by lush green mountains curving round and round. I must have slept through the night because it’s near dawn, the dark curtain of night lifting slowly. As we top the mountain, Dominus spreads across the horizon, my mother’s birthplace and the largest Royalist city.
Before they left for Hyperion, Golds lived here on majestic estates overlooking the sea, waited on by an army of Bronzes. Many of the Bronzes who served here have been granted entry to Hyperion.
Because what would the new world be without peasants to lord over?
One of those palatial, meandering estates along the cliffs once belonged to the accursed House Croft. After the bombing that killed the Empress, Ezra fled, so they raided the estate and imprisoned the entire House Croft—even though his family had publicly disowned Ezra years before.
In exchange for their release, Ezra gave himself up.
Impatient to announce their victory, the Emperor ordered the trade broadcast over the rift screens. Everyone saw Ezra Croft blow himself up, taking out a slew of unsuspecting Centurions. In retaliation, they hung his tattered red cloak from the square, along with every male from House Croft, ending the Croft line.
Or so the Emperor thought: He didn’t know about Riser.
My gaze roves the now abandoned city as I try to imagine my mother here as a child. Pale marble spires and pillars and domes sprout from the white buildings, along with the long, slender aqueducts that bring water into the city and fill their famous hot baths. I think there’s a street named after my mother’s family—or maybe it’s a park. Lockhart. I have half a notion to go find it so I can blow it up.
Careful, Everly. You’re starting to sound like a Fienian.
The thought isn’t as alarming as it should be.
More mountains, more abandoned Royalist towns. I must fall asleep again because when I come to I see flat verdant fields and impossibly thick swaths of blue sky, the occasional empty village.
Finally, a marble dome rises from the valley below. I blink sleepily at the Royalist Headquarters, about the size of a watermelon, surrounded on all sides by gray mountains and a barbed steel fence. It takes a moment to realize that the metallic spheres swarming above the headquarters are drones.
Just over the tallest snow-peaked mountain lies Emerald Island, really more of an inlet stretched across a shimmering green lake.
The windows abruptly darken. There is a falling-feeling in my middle as we descend the tunnel inside the mountain. The rest of the way will be underground.
It’s time to destroy the letter. The match head erupts with a soft whoosh. I hold the flame to the corner of the paper, meaning to burn it, but as soon as my loopy, childish handwriting comes to light, I hesitate.
Alarm bells ring inside my head. The page is dated three days before my father’s death, but I don’t remember writing anything then.
I lean in close:
I, Maia Graystone, am writing this message for myself, with the full knowledge that as soon as it’s completed, I will hide it away and forget I ever wrote it.
Father told me everything today. We decided, together, to store the map and the key inside Max and me. Afterward, I would record this message to you from Father and then forget everything.
Please don’t be mad at him, Maia. I volunteered over his protests, and you know how stubborn we can be. I don’t know where you are in your journey now, but I hope you’re still the optimistic, funny, self-reliant girl I am now—of course you are!—and you are being nice to Max—I know it’s hard. Just remember Father loves you and you are doing the right thing.
Oh, the most important part. Don’t forget you are so incredibly brave!
Signed,
Your Younger, Amazing Self
My father’s message, although delivered by my hand, has his elegant, meticulous penmanship:
My dearest Maia,
If you are reading this, then you are still alive and, I pray, healthy. By now I am most surely dead and Project Hyperion will be in its final stages. If this is true, then I hope it has not caused you much pain. I know I was not always the most attentive of fathers, but I promise you, everything I did was for you and your brother.
Project Hyperion began as a last-resort solution to the asteroid. In the case the damage done to the remaining population was catastrophic, the Chosen were to rebuild the human race. However, the Emperor promised to use a significant portion of his resources to research ways to protect the earth from the asteroid. As I discovered later, that promise was never kept.
Unable to accept the destruction of so many, I began to explore the possibilities using materials banned by the Reformation Act. Six years into development, I stumbled upon the breakthrough I needed. I worked in secret, calling my project the Mercurian. The Mercurian was developed to knock the asteroid off its course enough to minimize the damage and spare most of the population.
Unfortunately, by this time, the Emperor had also discovered the Mercurian. Blinded by his own warped ideology, he ordered it destroyed rather than use the technology he forbade. So I hid the Mercurian and ensured the only way to find it was through Max. You are the other failsafe, because in some ways, the Emperor was right: There are those who would use the Mercurian as a weapon.
Maia, this is very important. In the wrong hands, the Mercurian could do the one thing it was designed to prevent: destroy humanity.
I cannot tell you how long I wrestled with the decision to involve you and Max. I knew by doing so I would be putting you in mortal peril—but by then there was no one else I fully trusted. Although I weep for the life I will undoubtedly deprive you of, I know you are not like most children. You are strong, honorable and resourceful, and wise beyond your years.
You weren’t meant to marry a Prince, Maia; you were meant to rule.
Please remember, Maiabug, to the moon, stars, and universe, that is how far my love for you reaches.
I hope this cryptic letter—by design—has allowed you some peace. I know I have already demanded more than any father should ask of his daughter, but there is one more thing I need from you. You must find your way to court. The Mercurian is hidden on the Island, in a place designed especially for you. There is still time to activate it and stop the asteroid. What others would use to destroy, you must use to save. But you cannot do this alone. You must ally with the people; you must wake them up. Billions of lives depend on you, darling—as hard as it is, I know you will not let me down.
All my love,
Father
I watch the page burn at my feet, a brilliant star whispering little red fireflies that drift silently to the ceiling.
I open my mouth to make sound, to cry, but all I conjure is the sour saliva that means I am about to puke.
Father wasn’t a traitor. He was trying to save the populace. And now billions of people depend on me. Not just one annoyingly precocious little brother. Billions. For a second, the darkness seems to collapse over me. I am drowning, drowning in it. Then I wade through the murky haze of shadows and memories: my father, Max, the white gown I wore for the small procedure, the way my father smiled and hugged me afterward.
My brain struggles to process this new information. There is still hope. I look up, even though I cannot see through the ceiling of the rail and the mountain to the giant hunk of rock in the sky, hurtling tow
ard us with quiet efficiency. I think of all the years, all the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, who have looked upon their death crying for someone to save them, knowing no one would.
There is a way to stop Her wrath—and they have known about it the entire time.
It’s like one of those nightmares when you are falling. You know at some point you will have to hit the ground, but at the last second, you realize it’s only a dream and you wake up sobbing with relief.
Except I am not sobbing—not even close. And the relief I feel gives way to anger. Cold, hard, overwhelming rage that simmers beneath my sternum and ignites inside me a sense of purpose.
It’s this same rage that drags the memory of my father’s body to the surface. Eyes glazed and rolled to the ceiling. Blood pouring in thick, shiny rivers from his neck and side. His mouth open, gasping for breath—a fish out of water. Soft, gentle hands open as if still reaching for my door handle. He could have run, could have escaped, but he had come to save me instead. They executed him just as I opened my door.
“They killed him,” I say aloud.
They killed him.
They killed him.
They murdered him.
My body rocks with the movement of the rail. The darkness is all encompassing, the loud purr of the rail echoing off the tight walls. In a few minutes, we will arrive at Headquarters, where Brogue will deliver us for travel to the Island. I am surprised at how calm I feel. How very, very determined. Somehow it feels as if I have been preparing for this very moment my entire life.
After all, it’s not the first time I have been here. Scared and alone. Unsure whom to trust. Struggling for survival in a harsh, unforgiving environment.
Except this time will be different.
Because this time I am going to fight back.
Part II
The things that pleased us withered into dust.
And the things that haunt us sprouted from their remains.
Until the rotting harvest, watered in the blood of our children,
grew so tall it hid the sun—
