by Sarah Chorn
Vadden stepped away from him, put distance between himself and the water, thumbing the lightning bolt on his cheek. “I don’t think our natures mix well, Neryan. Not while they are riding us this hard, at least.”
“What do you need to talk about, Vadden?” He didn’t want to discuss how they were changing. There were truths couched in those thoughts he wasn’t prepared to face.
Vadden’s brows furrowed. “This thing between you and your sister needs to end. Whatever this tension is that’s eating you both alive, you need to move past it before we get to the Reach or we’re dead before we begin. We cannot be divided, Neryan. The three of us need to stick together, or Eyad will eat us for dinner.”
“It’s not that simple,” Neryan said, knowing Vadden wouldn’t understand. Neryan had his sister back, but she wasn’t really his sister anymore. She was angry, reasonably so, but he was also angry. Their argument was festering between them, but more than that—he’d never asked to be saved. He’d never wanted to escape and leave her back there just to reappear five years later, carved out of pain. And then he felt guilty for being angry. She’d sacrificed herself for his freedom, why couldn’t he just thank her for that and move on? Why did he have to tie himself in knots like this?
“It needs to be that simple, Neryan. Tomorrow we’ll be in the city. Eyad will probably know we are there the second we arrive, and he’ll be waiting for us. Maybe we won’t see him for a day or two, but soon he will make a move and flush us out unless we move first. We will have to face him. I’d rather face him as a united front than a divided force mired in anger and regret. Neryan, there is a very high probability that none of us will survive this.” Vadden glared at him. “Talk to her. Lance this festering boil. Tonight.” He pushed past Neryan, forged ahead, and left him alone.
Neryan ran a hand through his hair and glared up at the vault of the sky in challenge. The night was silent, not even crickets chirped. He stood alone, wrapped in darkness and silvery moonlight, a swirling cacophony of complex thoughts and painful emotions all roiling under his skin, an uncertain future looming over him like the shadow of fate.
Vadden was right, damn him.
He hurried ahead, popping out into a clearing. A fence leaned over, wood split, decaying and pitted by neglect. The door to the cabin hung off its frame like a particularly determined bad idea.
Vadden called from the cabin, “We don’t want to sleep in here.”
“Why?” Neryan asked.
“These people ate each other,” he replied. “They will stay where they fell. I’ll check the barn.” He moved over to the large, looming barn and disappeared inside.
A chill walked up Neryan’s spine. He’d known things were bad, but he hadn’t quite understood the reality of it until he stood here, in the middle of a farmer’s barren field, next to a house where a family had been so starved, they’d devoured each other. Theirs was a world carved out of sin, haunted by ghosts.
He looked around until he saw his sister standing against a post that used to hold up the fence. Now it was akimbo, wood fraying, some ax-thrust slicing it down the center, angry splinters sticking out like knives.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Seraphina whispered, her face turned toward the silver eye of the moon. “This silent, still night. Nothing but the two of us and the moon.”
Moments stretched, turning each heartbeat into forever, each blink into eternity. Finally, she spoke again. “I know you are angry with me,” she said without looking at him. “I will not apologize for pushing you through that door and locking it behind you all those years ago, and I won’t apologize for going back to the Reach.”
“I don’t want—” he began.
“Yes, you do. I think that’s what is at the root of everything between us. You want me to be sorry. You want me to feel remorse for saving you from my fate. I don’t, Neryan, and I never will. You survived out here, and I’m not sure I could have. I survived in there, and I don’t know if you could have. We each have our strengths.” She paused. “We have been apart for so long, changed into different people.”
“Who are you, Seraphina? Who have you become?”
“I have decided,” she said, “that I will not be a rose picked for my beauty and left to fade. I do not want to fill the air with the perfume of the past. I should like to be wild as the wind, and as untamed as fire. After I pass by, I want the very earth itself to tremble and say, ‘I felt her carve her name into my bones. She scarred my flesh with the fury of her soul.’”
He waited, tensed, poised, anxious to hear what would come next.
She stared up at the sky as though she wanted to run her fingers along its surface and hold its mysteries in her hands. She wore darkness like she was born to it. She was a dance of starlight and dreams, and seemed to issue from that hidden place between soul and sinew. She was beautiful, and terrible.
“My heart pumps anger and fire. I bleed rage,” she paused, let out a shuddering breath that was so full it could have held a universe in it. “But I am still a slave.”
“Seraphina—” he began.
“I can still feel my collar, and the weight of my tether. I can’t move on until I find closure, and I want to move on so desperately. I want to leave all of this behind. He destroyed me. Destroyed us. I will wear his mark on my skin always.” She licked her lips. “He frightens me.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that, and now he felt like a fool for even demanding her acknowledge his anger after everything she’d faced. Felt like an ass for all the things he’d said to her outside of that cabin, now that she wore her pain so openly. What was he, twelve?
“Neryan, I will not apologize for your freedom. I know you are feeling guilt and anger over what happened, I can feel it in the bond between us, but I suggest you find a way to get over it, because I will absolutely never feel anything but happiness that you managed to find a life without chains. I am sorry I forced you into this situation, going back into the city. I’m sorry you lost Mouse. I’m sorry about so many things, but I will never be sorry that you were free.”
She looked at him defiantly, daring him to challenge her, and he’d no more challenge her in that moment than he’d challenge a god. “We’re going to get to the city tomorrow,” Neryan finally said. “Seraphina, it will all change then. All of this.”
“We are walking toward fate. She’s waiting for us with a knife in one hand and a noose in the other,” she replied.
“I think we need to agree to move forward from here, rather than dwell on the past. I would like to get to know this woman you have become, but more than that, I want my sister back.”
“I don’t know how to be anything but angry right now, Neryan, and I am so full of pain…” She flashed a smile at him, a shy, timid creature and he felt like the sun was shining.
He pulled her in close, and they held each other as though it might keep them both from bursting and becoming dust and echoes. Water touched fire, and the air around them sizzled. Neither of them mentioned it. For now, at least, it seemed safer to ignore all of the changes, in themselves, in each other, and just hold on like their lives depended on it.
It felt like he was whole. One soul, severed by catastrophe, uniting again after years apart.
“Neryan, I’m scared,” he heard her whisper into his chest, her voice soft and childlike.
“Oh, my sister,” he replied. “Fear is just the mask that bravery wears.”
She pulled back and grinned at him. “You still are always ready with some profound line, aren’t you? You always were. It used to drive me crazy.”
“You called me a puffed-up sage a few times, if I remember correctly,” he said, giving both of them space.
“I’m glad you haven’t changed in that respect,” she admitted.
“The barn is fine,” Vadden called. “All the animals were probably bought by the state, or eaten long ago. No bones. No tack or leather. Nothing in there, but there’s a roof and it’ll do.” He looked at the twins, relief floo
ding his features. He didn’t mention their reunion, but his entire body seemed to ease. “We should talk.”
They made their way into the barn. Seraphina was leaning half on him, half on her cane, unable to hide her pain. Vadden and Neryan helped her lay down. She stretched out on the hard ground, squeezed her eyes shut while her chest shuddered and rubbed at her leg with a shaking hand.
Silence filled the space punctuated by the soft rustles of bodies shifting as they got comfortable. Finally, Vadden broke it. “Ten years ago,” he said, his voice dark and low, “two young men killed the Lord and Lady of the Sunset Lands, ending a three-hundred-year dynasty. They had no hope. They were two men standing against an empire, with nothing but knives in their hands and some people they’d paid off hidden in the government and all around the city. They never expected to walk out of that room. They thought they’d die there as martyrs for the revolution. Instead, they both survived, and one became Premier.” His voice trailed off, husky and raw, tinged with regret.
Neryan studied his friend. He’d heard bits and pieces of this, but Vadden’s past was a secret he’d kept locked tight, and probing just seemed to close him off more. He knew that Vadden had been involved with the Premier, and the rise of collectivism, but he’d gleaned that much through bits and pieces, dribs and drabs collected over the years, puzzle pieces he’d put together on his own.
Vadden looked uncomfortable, closed down. His eyes looking anywhere but at the two of them. The lines on his face stood out, making him suddenly look so much older than he actually was.
“And what happened to the other man?” Seraphina asked, her voice brittle, filled with pain.
“He became an outlaw with a stain on his soul that no amount of washing would ever clean off,” Vadden stared at her, eyes flashing with lightning. “People do impossible things all the time. Eyad’s mind talent makes it harder. We are going to Lord’s Reach to face a dictator, possibly kill him. Even if we succeed, we will probably not survive. He has a nation at his feet. We have nothing but personal vendettas. We need to go into this realistically.”
“Tomorrow we enter Lord’s Reach,” Seraphina said, pulling herself to sitting, undaunted by anything Vadden had just said. “Tonight, we need to plan.”
She looked excited, Neryan realized, and he wished he could feel the same way, feel anything but this coiling, poisonous dread. He didn’t want this. They shouldn’t be doing this. Her eyes were gleaming with an intensity he’d never seen in them before. He felt the fire in her, hungry and eager to be released, and belatedly he realized that she wasn’t really fighting it. No, an excited line of flame burst down both of her arms, lighting up the darkness. She was smiling like an angel, welcoming the burn, eager to ignite.
Fire, he realized suddenly, was a force that devoured, and Seraphina looked like she was ready for a feast.
He reached over and grabbed her hand. Steam hissed in the air. His water slowly quenched her flame, and when the air cleared, Seraphina was glaring at him. “Damn you, Neryan,” she hissed. “I wanted to burn.” Something cold and full of dread filled him. Belatedly, he realized that for the first time in his life, he was afraid of his sister.
Seraphina
“Tell me about the city,” Seraphina said. She was excited. Bursting with it. She’d spent her entire life feeling helpless, like a victim, a slave at the whim of a man who could read minds. Trapped. This was the first time she’d ever felt like she held any true power, or the ability to change anything—and it was intoxicating. She was more than a beaten, bent woman covered in scar tissue, overshadowed by a dark past. Now she was a force. She was a flaming knife, and she could thrust herself into the heart of an empire, twist, and make it all change.
Excitement and anger were her armor and she wrapped herself up in it, keeping away all her fear and her deep-seated worries. She was losing control. She could feel it. Losing control over herself and her fire, and what would happen when she just let go? When she burst? When the woman stopped ruling the element and the element took over? She saw the way Neryan and Vadden looked at her, like they were afraid of getting too close and afraid of being too far away at the same time. She was terrified, part of a world she didn’t understand and was unprepared to face, going back to stare down the man who had dominated every aspect of her life for so long. Burning up from the inside, all that tender flesh on the outside.
Maybe she was going mad.
Neryan. He had a daughter, and here she was, dragging him into something he’d rather run away from. He’d probably never see her again, and that was Seraphina’s fault. Whatever happened next was because she’d made a choice. She’d stuck herself in the middle of events, and refused to budge. Neryan already looked like he was in mourning. Vadden looked sick, and Seraphina was just one mass of complexities and warring opposites.
But they had to plan.
Night was progressing. Soon, the sun would be rising in the east and it would be time to move. Neryan yawned, obviously exhausted, but unwilling to sleep. Seraphina was too anxious to rest.
“I think,” Vadden said after some thought, “we should go directly to Freedman’s Quarter. It’s mostly freed slaves and the impoverished. You two will blend in there better than anywhere else. We’ll find a place for you to hide for a few days while I wander around the city, see what’s going on, and get a feel for the atmosphere. There are people in the city I need to speak to. Others who may help our cause. I need to find them, and see if we can work together.”
Neryan was nodding. “Mouse said that there are tunnels under the palace.”
“Yeah,” Vadden tied his dreadlocks back with a thong and leaned back against the wall. He pulled a knife out of his boot and flipped it around in his fingers. “I don’t know them that well. When I entered and exited the palace, I did it through the doors. There were rumors…” his voice trailed off.
“Rumors?” Seraphina prodded.
“Lord’s Reach is old,” he finally said, meeting her eyes. “I don’t know much about it, but when I was in school they taught us that the city was built on top of other cities that had been in that place for time immemorial. Old civilizations that rose and fell. Some of the tunnels were erected by the old dynasty for escape routes if the city was ever invaded, hiding places, ways to get outside without being seen. However, if there are cities upon cities under Lord’s Reach, using the tunnels will be dangerous. It might be easy to get lost in them.”
“We could try it,” Neryan said.
“We could, but without Mouse to lead us through them, I worry. She’s been through them before, found a way to the palace. I’m afraid we’d get lost on our own, without a guide,” Vadden replied.
“We need to find another way into the palace,” Seraphina said. “A way to get through the doors without being stopped.”
The barn was filled with stillness as each of them turned to their own thoughts. Finally, Vadden cleared his throat. “There is a way,” he said slowly. He was fidgeting, playing with his hands. “There is a way we can walk right into the palace, and directly to Eyad.”
“Do you have connections inside?” Seraphina asked, pinning Vadden with her eyes. She watched him shift and fidget. He was a man who was full of secrets. It was easy to see how he and Neryan had grown fond of each other over the years spent together, but she had a feeling that Vadden kept most of himself locked away. What did either of them truly know about this man they were traveling with? Neryan seemed to trust him, but something about him kept her on edge.
“Eyad will let me in,” he finally admitted. “I may have connections inside, but Eyad will let me in.”
Those five words fell like boulders, and then shattered like glass. They told Seraphina everything she needed to know. Whatever Vadden and Eyad had been to each other, it had been the sort of relationship that time and distance hadn’t diminished. Eyad would let Vadden in, despite the fact that Vadden had spent the past ten years of Eyad’s reign subverting his rule in every way he possibly could. Despit
e the fact that he was the most notorious counter-revolutionary in the Sunset Lands.
Eyad would let him in.
“So, you propose that we just go with you to Lord’s Reach, wait around while you track down people who may or may not help us, and then walk right through the front doors of the palace,” Neryan said. Seraphina studied her twin, saw the anger in his eyes, the muscle in the curve of his jaw ticking, but mostly felt the angry surge of his water. He’d realized what she had, that whatever lay between Vadden and Eyad, it was far more intense than just friendship and a childhood bond, and he wasn’t happy about it. Just how much had Vadden hid from them? How close were Eyad and Vadden truly?
A hesitation, then Vadden whispered, “Yes.”
“Vadden—” Neryan began.
“It’s in the past, Neryan, but he will let me in. I will be led directly to him. Whatever happens to me, he’s going to want to be the one to make it happen. He’s going to want to be part of it. So, I propose we use that to our advantage.” He licked his lips, clenched his hands, and studied his fingers like they were all he could see. “I think we should enter the city as refugees. You two should keep your hair covered. We can find a group of peasants traveling to the city and hide amongst them. Then, we’ll find a place for you in Freedman’s Quarter, and you two will wait there while I scope out the city, and find my old contacts. When the time is right, when I understand how things are operating in Lord’s Reach, I’ll come get you and we’ll—”
“Walk right into the palace,” Neryan spat. “Because Eyad will let you in.”
Neryan sounded angry. His voice was hard and brittle, ready to break.
“I knew you two were friends, Vadden,” he said finally. “But you weren’t just friends, were you?”
“No,” Vadden whispered. He sounded like he was being torn apart.
“Do we need to worry about your loyalty?” Seraphina asked, resting a hand on her brother’s arm. Fire and water met. She watched Neryan’s muscles ease, the gleam in his eyes diminish just enough. She felt him settle back into his body, his water retreating to a muted roar rather than the rapids it had been just an instant before.
