Luminary: Book Two In the Anomaly Trilogy

by Krista McGee

  “The guard met us outside the city.” Carey’s voice is low. He is holding something back.

  “What happened?”

  “The Athenian army made it clear they are more powerful than New Hope’s army.”

  There is so much more I want to ask—were they hurt? killed? captured? But I cannot ask that now. And clearly, Carey does not want to share the details with me. “What can I do?”

  “The king has called for a trial. You, Berk, and Helen will be placed on the stand.”

  “What about Alex?”

  “He is testifying against you.”

  “What?” I press my hands against the door. Surely I heard wrong.

  “He and his father planned the trial.”

  “No.” I look at the note still in my hand. I will do everything I can to help you and Berk. I will not believe Alex turned against me, deceived me. He must be pretending to aid his father in order to help us.

  “I have been given permission to represent you. I will meet with you in one hour. The guards will release you from your room and bring you to me. I need to know everything that has happened. Anything that would help me clear your name.”

  If the king is making us stand trial, he will not allow himself to lose. He is simply bringing us forward so we can condemn ourselves in front of the people. Or worse, he is planning to use us to bring condemnation on New Hope.

  “Thalli, did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes.” If surveillance devices are here, I do not want anything potentially incriminating to come out of my mouth. I will keep these thoughts to myself.

  “John sent this for you.” Another slip of paper slides under the door. I can barely read the writing. John uses an ancient script and his hands are shaky. It takes me several minutes to decipher it.

  “Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

  I read the words and calm washes over me. I can trust the Designer in this. John is right. I move away from the door. I step into the bathing chamber and imagine I am rinsing away my fear with the water, putting on courage with my clothes.

  By the time the guard comes, I am ready. I do not know what awaits me, what waits for Berk or Helen. I do not know if Alex is working for or against me. But I do know that the Lord my God is with me wherever I go.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Death is not a sufficient sentence.”

  The king has been talking for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes without a pause. This is not a trial. It is a demonstration of his power. And it is, as I feared, his plan to incite the people against New Hope. We were dragged out here in front of everyone, our hands restrained behind our backs, guards positioned behind us.

  “Thalli deceived us. She claimed to come from the State, when in reality she came from New Hope. She claimed to seek refuge, but she was actually seeking to destroy us. She claimed to care for my son—your prince—but those feelings were as false as her story.”

  No one speaks. They do not even shout their approval. These people have obviously been conditioned to remain deathly silent when the king is speaking.

  “Thalli took advantage of our hospitality . . . she took advantage of our prince.” The king gazes at Alex, a blank look on his face, sitting beside him.

  Alex has only looked at me once since the trial began. He, who never stopped looking at me whenever we were together, is avoiding my gaze. I am beginning to wonder if he really is on the king’s side. I pray that is not true. I thought he cared for me. That he was good. But I cannot forget he is this king’s son. This wicked, heartless, murderous king. Maybe Alex is like his father. I recall our time together, his kind words, his care and protection. Is he capable of that kind of deception? And if he is, am I so naive that I fell victim to it?

  “She mocks me and you. She mocks Athens. And for what? For whom? For the wicked people of New Hope.”

  The king is silent. I glance around and the people’s eyes are wide with fear. What do they believe about New Hope? I want to jump up, shout to them that everything they are being told is ridiculous. But I bite my lip. Speaking will do no good. So I pray.

  “She infiltrates our city, brings in an accomplice.” The king motions to Berk who is strapped to a chair on the platform below the king. “And she makes her malicious plans even as we welcome her into our homes, into our families.”

  Hundreds of gazes lock on me, following the king’s lead. They are angry, fearful. They believe everything he says.

  “She has even turned my own daughter into a traitor.” The king glares at Helen, sitting beside Alex on the platform. She is sitting straight, but fear clouds her eyes. She does not deserve this. I am guilty of deception. The king is right about that. But Helen is guilty of nothing but kindness to a stranger, of believing in love.

  “If we simply execute these lawbreakers, the people of New Hope will send others. They will not rest until they accomplish their goal.”

  The people nod. I look closer at the crowd, and I see guards walking among them, with small contraptions in their hands. They are always moving, one hand on the tops of the contraptions. It is a drug. This is how they are controlling the people, keeping them quiet.

  I gaze at Berk, my eyes wide. But he is affected as well. He looks through me, not at me, and his stare, like Alex’s, is blank. I want to rip my hands out of these restraints, shove the guards aside, and grab Berk away, shake Alex out of this mindlessness. But even my slight movement forward on the chair causes one of the guards to advance.

  Carey, Kristie, and I are on a platform several feet above the crowd, across from the king’s platform. I glance behind me. Our guards have no contraptions. I wonder why.

  “We will give these lawbreakers an opportunity to defend themselves.” The king points to us. “Then we will determine their fate.”

  Carey stands. The muscle in his jaw is tense. “People of Athens, what your king says is untrue. We mean you no harm. We want to live peaceably with you—”

  “Then why send a spy here? Why trick my son into an engagement and sneak another man here to stop the wedding?”

  I jump up from my seat. “You announced my engagement without even consulting me!”

  “You dare to contradict me?” the king bellows, and the people begin to get agitated.

  Carey places a hand on my arm. “You have allowed us to speak in Thalli and Berk’s defense. May we continue?”

  “You may speak in their defense.” The king leans forward. “But you may not speak lies to my people. They will not tolerate that.”

  The people nod furiously. Their gazes dart from the king’s platform to ours. The guards continue to move among them.

  “Then you should follow your own decrees.” Carey is yelling now, his hands punctuating every word. “Speak truth to these people. Tell them how you have been seeking to destroy New Hope for years. How you hurt innocent people, steal from us, how you refused to negotiate when we attempted a peaceful solution to the problems you began!”

  “Silence! You see why we must take seriously this threat against us? They wish to destroy us and our way of life. Even when faced with execution, they defend their lies. This must not be allowed to continue.”

  The people nod at the king. They move closer to him. This is exactly what he wanted. This is why they were drugged and we were not. He wanted us to get angry. He wanted the people to see it and manipulate our anger to his advantage.

  I turn and see one of the guards standing close behind me. Too close. I hold my breath. I will not be drugged. I will fight him before I take in one more lungful of Athens’ pharmaceuticals. But he does not carry a drugging contraption with him. He carries a weapon. He steps behind Kristie and points the weapon at her head.

  I feel like the world suddenly stops moving. He is going to kill Kristie right here on this platform. I stand but I lose my balance because my arms are pinned behind my back. I cannot do anything. The guard looks at me and reaches for a bu
tton on the side of his weapon.

  “No!” I shove my body into his. A deafening sound causes me to freeze.

  I am too late.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  My daughter.” The king’s voice is still magnified, but he is no longer yelling.

  Kristie is not injured. The guard has rushed down from the platform. The weapon is beside Kristie.

  “She killed my daughter.” The king begins to wail—an unnatural sound. It takes me a few moments before what he says registers. I look at the platform where Helen was sitting. She is no longer in her chair. The king is standing over her body. Bright red blood flows from a wound in her chest.

  Helen is dead.

  I stare at Kristie and Carey. Their eyes are wide.

  The people follow the king’s example. They begin wailing, screaming. They raise their fists at me, rush toward me.

  “Stop.” The king addresses the people. They are all silent. “We will not give these murderers the satisfaction of a quick death. They will not be excused so easily.”

  The king wipes tears from his eyes, and the people do the same. “Please give my son and me time to say good-bye to my daughter. Return to your homes and wait for further instructions. Guards, confine these prisoners to the lowest level of our prison chamber. Protect yourselves against them. Protect us from them. We cannot allow them to do any more harm to the good people of Athens.”

  I feel my elbows pressed together behind me. I cry out as a new set of restraints is fastened so tightly to my wrists it tears the skin.

  “This is nothing compared to what will happen to you,” the guard holding on to me growls into my ear, his breath rancid.

  “Thalli—” Kristie tries to turn toward me, but another guard places a knee in her back and she crumples to the ground.

  Carey tries to reach for his wife, but he is also subdued. The three of us are dragged back into the palace through a side door that leads to a small transport that takes us below the main floor. Far below it. When the doors of the transport open, we are in a dark, narrow hallway. The walls are made from a different material than the rest of the palace. They are chalky and dusty. Cobwebs block our way and the guards push us through them. The sticky webs cover my eyelashes and my nose. I cannot move my hands, so I have to leave them there.

  I try to rub my face against my shoulder, but the guard behind me shoves me down. I fall into Carey’s back and we both tumble to the hard floor. I land on Carey. Without the use of his hands to stop his fall, his head bangs hard against the floor. He doesn’t move.

  “Carey.” I try to roll off him, to nudge him with my elbow, but a guard pulls me into a standing position by my restraints and walks right on top of Carey.

  “No.” Kristie is behind us. She can barely speak, barely walk. She is too old to be treated like this. Carey is too. They won’t survive this treatment.

  “Take the girl,” a guard shouts. “I’ll peel this one off the floor and put him and the old lady in together.”

  “Shouldn’t we separate them?” the guard by me asks, his voice echoing off the narrow walls.

  “The old guy might be dead already.” The guard laughs. It is a horrible sound. “If he’s not, it won’t be long. Having him in with her will be a good reminder for the lady to do what we say.”

  The guard shoves me against the wall. Dirt is ground into my pores. I didn’t shut my mouth in time, and a gritty substance on the wall falls into my throat. I cough, and the guard only pushes me harder.

  “Quit it, or you’ll end up just like your friend there.” His breath makes my eyes water. “If I didn’t believe the king wanted you alive, I’d kill you myself.”

  I am thrown into a cell, right into a sleeping platform. It hits me below my knees, and I turn myself so I land on my back and not my face. My head still slams into the hard platform, and I am momentarily stunned.

  The door closes and I am in complete darkness. Complete silence. It is then that the image of Helen lying bleeding on the platform sinks into my consciousness.

  Helen is dead. She wanted only to escape. To be reunited with Peter. To be loved. She helped me, risked her life for me. And her life was taken from her.

  The sickening reality of the farce of a trial rushes in vivid color to my mind: The king planned everything. The drugs, our response. He even orchestrated his own daughter’s death. Not only our deaths, but also the deaths of all the people of New Hope. Did he know I would try to see Berk? That Helen would help? Did he instruct the guards to let us walk down that hallway? Was he watching all of it, a sadistic grin plastered on his face as all his plans were coming together?

  Tears slip from my eyes, past the cobwebs that surround them. I cannot stop them. What will the king convince the people to do next? What can I do?

  “Thalli.” Kristie’s voice sounds like it is coming from a hundred miles away.

  “Are you okay?” I shout into the darkness. “Is Carey all right?”

  “Carey is unconscious, but he is alive.”

  “I’m sorry.” I rub my face with my shoulder, but the tears refuse to stop.

  “There is nothing you could have done. We were all set up. I should have known.”

  “Where is Berk?” He was not taken away with us. He was next to Helen. Drugged. I tried to see him in the moments after the weapon discharged, but the crowd was too thick. I recall seeing the king, but I do not recall seeing Berk. Where was he?

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Wait,” Kristie says, her voice a whisper in the darkness. “We just wait.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  I feel like I have been in this cell for weeks. In reality, I suppose it has only been a day or two. But there is no light, and we have been given no food. The air is stale, fetid with the stench of my inability to control my own bodily functions. My lips are so dry, they are bleeding. I cannot speak anymore. Kristie has not spoken for far too long. I have yelled for her, cried out for her. Nothing. I pray she has been taken away, that she is not lying in there with Carey, their cell a death chamber.

  I recall the last time I was plunged into darkness. I was undergoing cerebral testing back in the State. Something went wrong, and I lost my eyesight. I was terrified. But Berk was there, letting me know with a touch that he was with me.

  Sometimes I’m sure that is where I am again. That all this has been part of the testing. That Dr. Loudin is watching from his laboratory. And sometimes, I hope that is true. I would prefer life in the State to this. I would allow Dr. Loudin to do any kind of testing on me he wishes. I would prefer the annihilation chamber, with its kind gas lulling me to sleep as I watch the image of a garden and feel its breeze on my face.

  Sometimes I am sure I hear Berk talking to me. He is beside me, but I cannot touch him. He tells me he will come for me. He will break through the wall and we will escape and everything will be fine.

  I don’t know if those are dreams or hallucinations. But they are not reality. The reality is I am living in a dark cell with little oxygen and no help. My rescuers are dead or dying. Helen is dead. Alex . . . I have had dreams about Alex too. Sometimes he is coming to rescue me. Other times he is with his father, part of the grand plan to destroy New Hope, thanking me for making that plan a reality.

  I try to recall the words John taught me, the words he sent about being strong and courageous. But I cannot be strong and courageous. I am so very afraid. And so alone.

  “Get up, girl.” The door opens and the light from a torch the guard carries makes my eyes burn. It is so bright. “Get up.”

  I roll to my side, try to use my elbows to lift myself into a sitting position. But I cannot. I have no strength. What little I might have had was extinguished by the blinding light.

  I feel a strong hand at my shoulder, propelling me up. I cry out from the pain of his grip, but he does not release me until I am on my feet. I fall forward and the guard catches me. My eyes are closed, but I can see the glow from the torch in fro
nt of my eyelids.

  “You stink.” His breath is hot on my face. If I had energy, I would tell him that at least I have an excuse for my odor. But I do not have energy. And I am hurting all over. I cannot risk being hurt more.

  “She needs to bathe.” The guard pushes me so far that I am forced to open my eyes so I can see where I am going. But the light is too bright. All I see is red. And then I land on a hard surface. One that smells terrible. Another guard. He pushes me away from him.

  “I’ll take her to Melitta.” The guard keeps his palms against my back, pushing me ahead of him.

  We walk through the hallway. I open my eyes a millimeter at a time until I can open them all the way without them burning and watering. I am filthy. The chamber I was in must have been covered in black dirt, because that is all over my arms and my clothes. There are holes in my pants from where I hit the sleeping platform, and there is a rip down the side from where I rubbed against the wall, trying to hear from Kristie.

  I want to ask for water, but I am too frightened to speak. And I am sure that even if I tried, nothing would come out. I don’t even know how I am able to keep one foot moving in front of the other.

  “Take her.” We have reached a room carved out of the chalky walls. It is moist and smells of soap.

  “I clean laundry, not prisoners.” The woman at the far end of the room is middle aged, with wiry black hair sprinkled with white strands. Her face is prematurely wrinkled, and she is missing most of her teeth.

  “You do what you’re told or you’ll end up a prisoner yourself.”

  The woman dumps a silver tub filled with water into a receptacle in the wall and places it under a faucet. Clear water runs out and fills up the tub. The guard leaves.

  “Get undressed.”

  “I cannot.” I glance behind me. The restraints keep my arms pinned behind me.

  The woman rolls her eyes. “You think I am so stupid that I would remove those for you? So you could kill me like you killed the princess?”