by RS McCoy
Raene’s anger softened, if only a little. “Thank you, Olin,” she said, though she knew he was wrong. Raene Randal was a high-class Pyro woman with a bright future ahead of her. But that was all gone, and now she didn’t know who she was.
She shut the door before he could say more.
The room was small and modest, all silvery metal and smooth, white stone. It was undoubtedly Aero, and Raene couldn’t help but wonder why. Didn’t they know people of all branches used these rooms?
Raene sat on the edge of the narrow bed. She was far from uncertain of her totem. She would be Pyro. She would be a tiger, like her mother.
But up until this afternoon, she’d been confident in Kaide, too. Never could she have predicted his sudden shift, his ice-cold demeanor that shattered their relationship in a single blow.
Maybe she’d be wrong about her totem, too. Maybe she’d be a snake like her father or a wolf like her grandfather. Maybe they’d turn her into something unnatural like Kaide’s monster. Maybe she wouldn’t even make it there like Blossom.
Doubt and confusion muddled her thoughts.
Raene lay across the stiff bed, drifting between concern and fitful sleep—between dreams of her totem and nightmares of Kaide and what he’d done.
Blossom wasn’t sure she could accurately convey how tired she was of being dragged around, but she was sure the right hook to Eton’s face did a pretty good job.
He released her immediately.
“By the Mother—” he hissed. His fingers delicately turned the metal stud in his lip—the one Blossom had managed to strike dead on.
Beyond the closed doors of the Syndicate’s office, Eton had no reason to hold his tongue. “You’re the most difficult person alive, you know that?”
“Yes.” Blossom only grinned. “So, what happens now? You drag me around some more?”
“We run some errands,” Eton replied, rubbing his cheek as he walked back to the elevator, quickly reigning in his anger.
Blossom was forced to trot after him. “We?”
“I’m your advisor now. As much as you don’t like it, we both just got a major promotion. I’m stuck with you, and you’re stuck with me. And now we have a lot of work to do.” Eton leaned against the wall of the elevator and crossed his arms.
“Like what?”
Eton looked at the ceiling as if the answers were written there. “Fitted suits, a cloak, your Vice Syndicate quarters. I’m sure she’ll have sent you a few documents to sign by now. And your hair, of course.”
Blossom’s lip curled. “That’s it? I had to come here to be some all-important Vice Syndicate so you could dress me up and sign my name on a few forms?”
Eton shook his head, and his gaze shot to the marble floor of the elevator. There was something he wasn’t telling her.
Blossom took up residence in the same corner as she had during their trip up—her nose pressed to the glass as they descended toward the ice-covered landscape, the whole world spread before her like an open book. “I hate dressing up,” she grumbled. Her heated breath fogged the glass, and for a moment, it was possible to believe she was falling through a cloud.
“Get used to it. That’s half your job.”
“Do I want to know what the other half is?”
“Probably not.”
Blossom would have pressed him further, but the elevator landed and released them back into the lava tubes. Eton took a sharp right and started down the northern corridor and toward a part of Aerona Blossom had yet to see. Then, again, she’d been locked in her ‘personal quarters’ for almost a week.
As before, the lava tubes were split between on-foot traffic navigating the uneven, pitted surface of the stone floor, and the aerial, gliding traffic sailing overhead. Blossom couldn’t help but watch the graceful motions in awe.
This time, Eton was less pushy about her slow speed. When he thought he was too far ahead, he stopped and waited. He didn’t rush her, and he didn’t grab her again. At least he was learning.
For the few minutes they walked, the birds became gradually larger and slower. The sweeping circles and racing arcs of finches were replaced with the steady glide of eagles. The bouncing tunes of song birds became infrequent screeches of owls or falcons.
Falcons.
Blossom was a falcon. Her shackled hand moved to the tattoo on her neck, trying to remember if it was even real.
She hadn’t been a falcon since the day of her transformation. She’d flown high over Seraphine City, looked out over the wide markets and buildings that sat in neat rows. Her wings had easily ridden the currents of air that raked across the sky.
Her falcon eyes had looked east, toward the tower and the beast and the man she’d left there. But Blossom had balked. Too afraid of her own ability, afraid she wouldn’t make it so far, afraid she’d get lost, Blossom landed on the steps of the Syndicate Building and transitioned to her human form. She only made it halfway across the lobby—halfway to the portals—before Eton materialized from thin air and slapped the metal cuff on her wrist.
Seven days had gone by since then.
The memory faded into dream, and Blossom couldn’t help but wonder if it had ever really happened at all.
The tattoo on her neck was the only proof, but she couldn’t see it. At first, it had been bandaged, and after that, scabby and rough. But now, the skin was smooth to the touch, like it had never been inked.
“Come on. We have a lot to do.” Eton’s voice was kinder than it had been since their meeting with the Syndicate. Blossom realized she’d stopped walking, and at the sound of his voice, she forced herself into motion.
“Is your neck bothering you?” Eton asked, noting the hand cupped over her tattoo, his voice in total control. When she shook her head, he continued, “Sometimes they itch. I can get you a cream if you like.”
“No.” It would take more than a bit of cream to fix what ailed her.
And while Eton was never cruel to her, he was far from thoughtful. His offer had to be a test or a trick. Blossom was weary of kind strangers with promises. She wouldn’t fall for it so easily this time.
After that, they both walked in silence, her eyes cast up at the slow-gliding birds. Within minutes, they arrived at another elevator. Rather than afford her another glimpse of the world, this one stayed within the ground, though it took them up at least six or seven floors. Blossom wondered how close they were to the surface—how far underground they really were. Never in her life had she gone so long without seeing the sun.
The elevator doors opened and revealed yet another white corridor. “We call this the Halo. These are the main homes and offices for the Aero branch. The Syndicate lives in the tower, but everyone else is here.” As something of an afterthought, he added, “Your apartment is here.”
A pair of glass doors slid apart as they approached, revealing an intersection where the corridor split in two. “It’s a loop, so technically you can go either way, but your apartment is on this side.” Eton pointed to the first door on the left. It was made of stone and looked to weigh more than ten men could lift, but Eton’s hand on a wall scanner made it slide away, as if it was as light as rain.
Blossom’s eyes went wide when she saw the space. It was the same crisp, sterile whiteness of the rest of Aerona. The walls were so opalescent white they looked to be made of diamonds or ice. Frosted-glass sconces gleamed off the polished alabaster floors.
The only color in the room was the furniture: a frost-white seating set arranged around a low aluminum table complete with metal serving tray.
Acting as nothing more than her guide, Eton motioned around the room as he described the amenities—shower with water purification system, full kitchen stocked with fresh meat and fish daily, programmable air circulation system, door security with fingerprint scanner—punctuating the details with a motion toward each feature. “It should have everything you need, but if you have any requests, just let me know. Your room is over that way. This is mine.” Blossom looked whe
re he pointed to a pair of doors but didn’t bother to voice her complaints about living in such close proximity to one another. It wouldn’t do any good.
Instead, Blossom approached the doors to her bedroom, and in it she found yet another luxurious space. A stone-grey comforter was spread over the enormous bed—large enough to sleep a dozen people. Blossom didn’t know what she would do with so much bed, but as soon as she sat and felt the softness of it, she knew she would never sleep on it.
Then she noticed the plush rug on the floor. White, of course, but when she lay across it and spread her arms wide, it almost felt like the rug in Raene’s room in the manor. If she closed her eyes, she could picture the woven tiger image and the greenery, the colored lights shining on the ceiling, the blonde girl kicking her feet on the bed and pestering her with a hundred questions.
Blossom’s thoughts were interrupted by Eton. “What are you doing?” he asked in that way of his, as if she’d licked the bottom of her foot.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Blossom answered with a sigh as she propped herself up on her elbows.
He shot a disapproving glance at her Pyro clothes before he admitted, “You’re right. Ready to go?”
“Go where?” Blossom was entirely sure she didn’t want to know the answer.
Eton’s lips twisted into something like a smile. “To make you Aero.”
By morning, Raene’s neck was stiff, and her eyes were mildly puffy from the all her crying. A night without sleep didn’t help, either. She smoothed out her hair and re-braided it, taking extra care to make sure it was neat. She wanted to look good today.
It was her eighteenth birthday, after all.
This should have been a good day—a happy day when she attained her mother’s totem. This wasn’t anything like she imagined this day would be.
From her bag, she pulled out a fresh scarlet top and wide-legged pants—the clothes that marked her as Pyro. She made easy work of the many straps that held her top in place, and within minutes, she was ready.
When she opened the door, she found Olin fighting sleep, his head pressed back against the wall and his eyes squeezed shut. He didn’t move until she said, “I’m going down now. Are you going to wait here?”
Olin pushed to standing with all the heaviness of the night before. “I can go with you as far as the interview.”
“No, that’s all right. You should lie down for a while.” No use in them both being exhausted. Raene pushed open the door to her little room and pointed to the still-made bed on the far side.
Olin protested a while longer, but eventually her stern voice and his fatigue sent him shuffling into the room. As she pulled the door shut, she heard the bed shift under his weight.
It was then Raene felt alone. She didn’t want Olin to go with her, not really. She wanted to do this on her own. But Olin was her last connection to her old life. Moving forward alone felt like the beginning of the end.
Transformation marked the start of her new life, one in which she was alone.
Raene reminded herself she’d be back in a few hours, and hopefully, she’d have her tiger totem to show him.
Holding her head high, Raene marched to the elevator and followed the posted instructions to the third floor. There, she found a tall, cavernous corridor with a small desk positioned in the center. Four others already stood in line. Two were Hydra, based on their clothes, likely twins. One was a Terra youth with bouncing brown curls that made him look younger than his eighteen years. And the last was an Aero boy with shimmering-white hair shaved on the right side.
Raene took her place behind them.
Her heart sped up when the line moved forward. The twins walked to the end of the hall and disappeared behind a white door.
“Are you literate?” The Aero attendant asked the Terra boy. When he only shook his head, she proceeded to ask him a series of questions and fill in his answers. Raene’s heart softened for him. A child of the Alderwood, he was likely poor, uneducated, and far from the comforts of home.
Raene pictured Blossom here, standing in line, intimidated by the Aero woman. Maybe it had been the pressure of upcoming transformation that made Blossom flee.
But Raene knew better. Blossom wasn’t one to be scared away so easily. And neither was Raene.
A minute later, the attendant motioned the Terra boy through the door, and without question, he trotted to the end of the hall and disappeared.
“Welcome, Master Nalla,” the attendant said to the boy in front of Raene. He only scanned his fingerprint before moving forward.
When Raene approached the screen, she lifted her finger over the scanner as the Aero boy had done, but nothing happened.
“Are you literate?” the woman asked.
No name. No welcome. No warmth.
Raene looked up at her, torn between confusion and shock. “Of course I am. Why can’t I scan my finger like the last one?”
“He’s Aero. You are not.” She made it sound like the most obvious thing in the world.
Raene narrowed her eyes at the girl as she filled out the questions. Her birth branch. Her mother’s totem. Her birth date. All in all, she thought there would have been more questions, rather than just these basics. Regardless, she filled in her answers on the screen.
Then, the woman pointed her toward the door. Raene was more than happy to leave the company of the attendant but soon found she wasn’t going to be left alone for very long. A pale-eyed woman met her on the other side.
“Welcome, Ms. Randal. I’m Orsa Yuman, and I’ll be administering your interview. Follow me right this way.” She grinned and started down the hall.
Raene wasn’t sure she could tell one Aero apart from another. This one, while friendly enough, wore the same white suit fitted to her narrow figure, and she had the same pale blonde hair shaved on one side and the same fair complexion as any other Aero she had seen.
The same look, and the same untrustworthy nature as all Aeros.
But Raene had no choice but to follow her down a long, crooked corridor until they entered a small room. It was as white as the woman’s suit and contained only a small table with two chairs.
With the cold of the metal chair against her skin, Raene waited for the interview to begin. Fatigue gave way to excitement. It was here her nerves finally registered the momentous occasion. She was minutes away from receiving her totem. Only this woman and a few questions separated her from her tiger.
“Your birth branch was Pyro?” the woman began.
“Yes, I answered that before.”
After typing Raene’s answer into a small, screened device, the woman continued, “And your mother was a tiger?”
“Yes, I already said that as well.” Raene clenched her jaw in frustration. Why were they stuck on these generic questions? Why didn’t they ask her about her strengths, her personality, her passions?
“Do you have a pending marriage arrangement?”
Raene’s ears perked at the mention of a new question. “Oh, yes—” For a half-second, she thought she might have left the document in her room, but she found it deep in her pocket a moment later. She slid it across the table.
Like it was nothing, the woman popped the wax seal and read over the document, telling Raene nothing of its contents as she typed the information into the device. Raene was tempted to ask what it said, but a part of her didn’t want to know. Not yet.
She didn’t expect the woman to keep it. “At this time, I’m going to take you to the transformation chamber. You’ll be injected with a serum, and you will undergo the transformation process. After that, I’ll take you to receive your tattoo, and you’ll be free to go. Ready?” The woman’s smile was soft and warm, and Raene couldn’t help but nod and follow her out of the room.
By the time they arrived at the transformation chamber, Raene’s heart pounded hard as she tried to swallow down her nerves. The metal walls were a patchwork of scratches. Tufts of hair clung to the edge of the circular floor, and the ceiling stret
ched high above her.
“It’s for the Aero totems,” the woman explained though Raene hadn’t asked. “For those with flight, the height is comforting. You won’t need it, though.”
“Oh,” was all she could manage.
The woman moved behind her. “You’ll feel a pinch.”
While Raene’s eyes were still pointed up at the ceiling, the needle punctured her neck. It was little more than a prick, but then, as if someone had doused her in hot tar, her whole body burned. She was nothing but pain embodied in physical form. Raene clutched at her stomach and doubled over, but not even the smallest sound could escape her locked-up throat.
When she could take it no more, Raene collapsed on all fours—only her hands were no longer her own. Her warm, summer skin was covered in rusty-orange fur tipped with white. Sharp, pointed claws emerged and scratched the floor, producing a shrill, metallic sound.
Raene stretched her paws out before her and marveled at the length of them—at the sheer size of her tiger form.
She was a tiger.
Not a mouse or monster, but a tiger. The totem she was always meant to have. It was too good to be true.
The space was impossibly small, but Raene trotted around the perimeter in tiger form. Her new legs carried her easily. She was strong and quick and, when the idea struck her, she bounded up the side of the wall, climbing two, three times higher until she fell back onto her paws with the grace of a gazelle.
This was going to be fun.
The rightness of it consumed her. She’d been wrong about Kaide and Blossom, and so many things. But this—this tiger was her.
She threw up her head and growled in satisfaction.
In the metallic chamber, her tiger ears easily caught the echo of her own voice as her deep, feline growl faded into the laughter of a young woman.
When she looked down, she was herself again—her human self, at least. Tiger-Raene was gone, and the tall, blonde girl she’d always been stood in her place.
And now, in her human form, she couldn’t make sense of anything. Her ears pricked at every little sound—the whirring of moving air, the clink of stiff shoes on the white stone corridor, the pumping of blood in her own veins.
