Haven 6

by Aubrie Dionne

  “Someone who be­lieves in a new fu­ture.”

  “What about Ar­ies and Striker? What would they say if they were here now?”

  “They’re not here. All you’ve got is me, and I choose her.”

  Ri­ley bolted for­ward into Striver’s stom­ach, knock­ing them both into the dirt. He rammed a fist at Striver’s head. Eri’s heart stopped. Hit­ting him was a dir­ect blow to her­self.

  Striver de­flec­ted the blow with his arm and kicked Ri­ley over. Ri­ley pushed him­self back at Striver and they rolled over and over un­til the dan­cers stopped, part­ing around them in a circle. The flute trilled off and the drums pattered out.

  Eri clutched her stom­ach, fin­gers dig­ging into her ribs. “Someone pull them apart be­fore they hurt them­selves.”

  A man moved to sep­ar­ate them and Ri­ley flung him back into the crowd. A young girl threw a reed bucket of wa­ter on them, and they fought through the splash, ob­li­vi­ous.

  “Stop it!” Eri shouted un­til her lungs grew raw. She reached out for Striver’s arm and Ri­ley whacked her back­ward, not know­ing whom he’d just sent fly­ing. Eri landed hard on her butt, the air knocked out of her and her chest throb­bing.

  They’re go­ing to kill each other.

  Just as she con­sidered go­ing back in, move­ment rustled the hairs on the top of her head. Phoenix and two other Guard­i­ans des­cen­ded like an­gels from the sky. They slipped through the crowd and ripped the young men apart. Ri­ley con­tin­ued to writhe in the Guard­i­ans’ arms as Striver caught his breath, a red scratch run­ning across his cheek.

  “We will settle this like civ­il­ized people,” Phoenix an­nounced to the crowd. He and the other Guard­i­ans lif­ted both young men to the tree huts.

  “Where are they go­ing?” Eri turned to the nearest vil­la­ger, an older man with a white beard as long as his arm.

  “The coun­cil room, where all dis­putes are re­solved,” he answered in a resigned voice, his face un­mov­ing.

  Eri watched the Guard­i­ans dis­ap­pear around the tree huts. “Can I fol­low them?”

  The older man gave her a tired frown of con­dem­na­tion. “I think you’ve done enough for to­night.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Eavesdropping

  As soon as the drums began, Weaver had slid his hands through the loosened bind­ings.

  Soon.

  He’d wanted to throw his plan in Striver’s face when his brother vis­ited, but he couldn’t give away his strategy. If only I could see the look on his face when he real­izes who’s gone.

  Weaver had listened for the fa­mil­iar shouts of laughter. Idi­ots. They cel­eb­rated while their doom hung over their heads. He’d be the one to save them, not Striver. He’d do what the oth­ers were too afraid of. He’d take on the vis­it­ors single­han­dedly. All he needed was the power be­hind the golden li­quid. Even then it called to him, ig­nit­ing memor­ies he’d rather have dead.

  Ima­gine how it could ma­nip­u­late the minds of oth­ers. The sym­bols were the key.

  Guards who were out­side his door cast flick­er­ing shad­ows through the ferns. The mu­sic had grown louder, and Weaver broke the leg of the chair in the rhythm of the drums. He gathered dry fern leaves from the floor and rubbed the end of the stick into the wood with both hands. His father had taught him well.

  A spark caught, the golden-red flame re­mind­ing Weaver of the golden swirls. No, not now. He blinked, try­ing to re­fo­cus, but the swirls danced in his vis­ion. Damn it. I’m not even next to the pool. Would his ex­pos­ure to the pool af­fect him forever?

  “Come, son. Hold the stick in the palms of your hands and rub them to­gether.” They sat un­der­neath an open sky, the river gurg­ling be­side them and the stars shin­ing down. Striver hung the trot­ter from the day’s catch as Weaver sat with their father.

  His skin turned raw and red as the wood cut splin­ters into his hands. The sense of fail­ure lurked, al­ways im­min­ent. “It’s too hard. Noth­ing’s hap­pen­ing.”

  His father placed a re­as­sur­ing hand on his shoulder. “Have faith, Weaver.”

  Weaver glanced up and his father smiled in en­cour­age­ment. Even though Striver usu­ally star­ted the fire, this time his father had chosen Weaver for the task, not his brother. Pride surged up and he rubbed harder.

  A thin rib­bon of smoke waf­ted up. Weaver shook his head, fling­ing the memory from his mind. He’d al­ways thought his father had given Striver all of the hon­or­able tasks. He’d for­got­ten this par­tic­u­lar memory un­til now. My father meant well; he wanted me to suc­ceed, just like Striver.

  Stay fo­cused. You’ll never achieve lead­er­ship with such a mushy heart.

  Weaver kicked the plate over, trot­ter fling­ing across the room. The pun­gent odor of the fish masked the reek of smoke. The guards wouldn’t de­tect any­thing un­til he was long gone. Us­ing the beat of the drums to hide his steps, Weaver kicked the weakened floor­board un­til it broke. The hole was jagged and nar­row, but his wiry body slipped through with only a few scrapes. Us­ing the bind­ings, he swung to the nearest tree. Branches provided hand­holds as he climbed down and slid into the dark­ness.

  Un­like Striver, Weaver blen­ded in. He could morph into part of the wall, melt into the shad­ows be­hind the fire, or sneak un­der­neath the cov­ers un­til no one knew he listened to the con­ver­sa­tion. While Striver shined, Weaver hid. He got so used to blend­ing in, now that was all he knew how to do.

  Skirt­ing the cel­eb­ra­tion, Weaver climbed a thickly branched tree. He curled up against the trunk, the bark cut­ting into his back, and waited. The mu­sic and the shouts of laughter had ceased. Weaver watched the paths be­low, a cur­rent of un­eas­i­ness slip­ping through him. It was too early for the cel­eb­ra­tion to end. Some­thing must have triggered a prompt con­clu­sion, and he wondered if they fought over the vis­it­ors. Maybe someone with half a brain stood in the crowd.

  Was he too late? He couldn’t stay an­other day in the vil­lage, so he had to claim his tar­get now. He’d over­heard the guards, and he knew the hut where they’d stored the vis­it­ors’ equip­ment. That’s where she’d stay for the night. He hovered above the main path, search­ing the dirt for foot­prints caused by ridges from her plastic boots. Surely she wouldn’t seek an al­tern­ate route through the un­der­growth.

  Weaver shif­ted, dangling his foot to­ward a lower branch when voices pen­et­rated the night.

  “I want to help him. It’s my fault he got into a fight.”

  Weaver froze, then slowly pulled his leg up, re­cog­niz­ing the voice right away, the same voice that had said: With enough time, I’d fig­ure out the whole lan­guage.

  “That was his choice, Eri. You heard what the Guard­i­ans said. They’ll re­solve the is­sue. Wait un­til morn­ing, then seek him out.”

  Damn mother of a boar her­der. The other voice was Mars, the wo­man who’d pushed Snipe into the golden li­quid like he was a toy. Weaver flexed his sore arm muscles, feel­ing weak. With no weapons, he’d never stand a chance against her.

  Eri stopped be­low his feet and Weaver prac­ticed his art of blend­ing in, al­low­ing the leaves to si­lently shift between him and the path be­low, turn­ing him into shad­ows.

  She pulled on a leaf un­til it tore from the tree and ran her fin­gers over the sur­face.

  Damn vis­it­ors have no re­spect for our world.

  “You go ahead. I need some time to clear my mind.”

  “You’re not go­ing to storm the coun­cil room, are you?”

  Eri shook her head, pock­et­ing the leaf. “No. I just need to think.”

  Mars leaned on the tree and Weaver held his breath. “Gotcha. You’re in a tough spot, between this young man and your mis­sion. I can see it tear­ing you apart.”

  “What would you do?”

  “Me?” Mars laughed, the sound like the in­hal­a­tion
of a mother boar. “I’ve never been in love. My lifemate is ad­equate, but he’s not someone I’d fall head over heels for. Sup­pose it’s good, keeps me lo­gical, on track.”

  “Don’t you ever feel like you’re miss­ing out?”

  A swil­low wisp took off above him and Eri glanced up at the branch where he hid. Weaver closed his eyes, afraid the sheen of his dark ret­inas would re­flect the moon’s light.

  “Hell, no. Look what love is do­ing to you.”

  Weaver flicked his eyes open. Were they talk­ing about Striver? If his brother had picked a fight over this space girl, then he cared about her. Weaver’s plan took on a new mean­ing. This would turn per­sonal when he’d only meant it to be a minor slap in the face. Could he really steal his brother’s new­found love in­terest?

  Why not? Striver stole yours. Whether he meant to or not.

  Weaver threaded his fin­gers to­gether in thought. It wasn’t just to an­noy Striver. He needed her to de­cipher the sym­bols.

  Did he dare be­tray his brother so deeply?

  Mars shif­ted off the tree be­low. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be back in the tree hut go­ing through the rest of our sup­plies.”

  “You can have the soy­wafers. I don’t want them.”

  Mars waved over her shoulder. “Suit your­self.”

  Weaver leaned over, watch­ing Mars dis­ap­pear into the dark­ness. His chance dangled in his face like a grub­ber on a lure. Reach­ing into his shirt, he ripped open a secret pocket and pulled out the last of his coma darts. The venom was mostly dried and stale, but it would sub­due her long enough to drag her to the other side.

  Block­ing his mind, he switched to com­bat mode. He dropped from his branch and slid down the tree faster than a Guard­ian des­cen­ded from the sky. The bark scratched at his back and legs, but he ig­nored the pain, reach­ing Eri just as she turned to­ward the rust­ling leaves. Her pretty face blanked in shock as he brought his arm down on the back of her neck, knock­ing her to the ground. As she struggled to rise, he stuck the coma dart into her neck.

  Ad­ren­aline rush­ing through him, Weaver whirled around, search­ing the forest. Dark­ness and si­lence. No one had seen the struggle. He dragged Eri into the shad­ows, head­ing dir­ectly for the wall.

  …

  Striver stared into Ri­ley’s harsh face, plead­ing. Just say you apo­lo­gize. You don’t even have to mean it. Any­thing to get us out of here. Every cell in his body yearned for Eri. Their kiss had been a mo­ment of pure ec­stasy, and he wanted to know if she’d felt it as well.

  Phoenix paced across the floor of the high-lof­ted Guard­ian meet­ing room, his clawed, tri-toed feet scratch­ing lines in the wood floor. The Guard­i­ans had painted geo­met­ric sym­bols all over the walls in the hiero­glyphs of their nat­ive tongue. Striver had already read all of them, each one a riddle of a pro­verb of­fer­ing wis­dom with no true ker­nel of ad­vice. At least for him today.

  Guard­i­ans were pa­tient enough to watch a sprout un­furl from the soil. They could be here un­til the swil­low wisps sang.

  Ri­ley shook his head, bend­ing a white feather he’d found on the floor and whip­ping it back up again. “I’m not go­ing to give in to this mad­ness. These vis­it­ors are here to take over, and Striver wel­comes them with open arms.”

  Phoenix’s head turned to Ri­ley and he stared with his blank, sil­ver-eyed gaze, re­mind­ing Striver of the glow of their moons. “You don’t think I’m aware of the im­pend­ing at­tack?”

  Striver stiffened. Im­pend­ing at­tack? Surely Eri would have warned him of such danger.

  Phoenix spread his long arm, wing un­furl­ing like a cape be­hind him. He poin­ted to the sky­light where the Her­it­age hung. “These are tur­bu­lent times. Any num­ber of paths could be taken. As the weaker of the two fac­tions, we must choose the path of least res­ist­ance. We must work our way into the vis­it­ors’ minds and hearts if we are ever to sur­vive ex­tinc­tion.”

  Striver swal­lowed. Maybe Eri didn’t know? Or maybe Phoenix was wrong? His gut told him no. Guard­i­ans were sel­dom, if ever, wrong. Which meant he had to talk with Eri as soon as pos­sible.

  “Striver works to be­friend the vis­it­ors and show them our world. Only through his al­li­ances can we achieve sal­va­tion. Ri­ley, you must not get between him and the young wo­man.”

  Ri­ley clamped up and clenched his fists. He was a fighter un­til the end. Un­for­tu­nately, his in­clin­a­tions didn’t help either of them get out of the coun­cil cham­ber any sooner.

  “I don’t need an apo­logy.” Striver ap­pealed to Phoenix with a friendly smile. “I prom­ise I won’t let our dif­fer­ences come between us again.”

  “You won’t, but what about Ri­ley?” Phoenix’s head twitched and a feather waf­ted on the breeze, lilt­ing in the morn­ing light. “We need to unify in this com­mon cause.”

  Striver leaned for­ward. “Which is?”

  Phoenix spread his branch­like fin­gers. “Sur­vival of our colony.”

  Ri­ley spoke through grit­ted teeth. “Why can’t we fight? Send these vis­it­ors back to space. Let them find their own planet.”

  Phoenix stepped to Ri­ley, bent down, and whispered by his ear. “Simply be­cause we won’t win. Per­haps if we joined forces with the Law­less we’d have half a chance, but with ac­cess to our secrets, they’d over­take us after the fi­nal battle, and we’d lose in the end.”

  Ri­ley glanced up with a skep­tical frown, “How do you know all this?”

  Phoenix re­mained si­lent, as if such a ques­tion didn’t war­rant an an­swer. Striver stepped in for him. “They’re Guard­i­ans, Ri­ley. You have to trust them.”

  “They may have the power to fly, but they’re not gods. They can’t de­cide our fate.”

  The first ray of morn­ing sun warmed Striver’s skin, and he res­isted the urge to throw back his head in dis­dain. How long would they ar­gue?

  Phoenix poin­ted an elong­ated fin­ger at Ri­ley’s chest. “Your ac­tions de­cide your fate.”

  The floor­boards out­side the hut creaked with foot­steps. Hope rose in Striver’s chest. Maybe Carven had come to bail him out—he could think of a mil­lions reas­ons Carven could fab­ric­ate to whisk him away from these cir­cu­lar ar­gu­ments. Or maybe it was Eri her­self? His heart jump-star­ted.

  Mars rushed in, the broad wo­man push­ing through the ferns, and Striver’s stom­ach sank. Not only was it not Eri, but from the crush­ing look on her usu­ally stoic face, some­thing had gone ter­ribly wrong.

  Phoenix straightened up. “Dear vis­itor, what brings you here?”

  “It’s Eri.” Mars caught her breath between words. “She didn’t come back last night, and I can’t find her any­where.”

  A thun­der­bolt jol­ted through Striver, al­most stop­ping his heart. He leapt up from his seat, knock­ing over the tweed stool. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “After the cel­eb­ra­tion. We were walk­ing back to our tree hut and she said she needed time to think. I thought she’d snuck into this coun­cil cham­ber to go after you, so I came to look here first.”

  “She’s not here. Nor has she stopped by.” The feath­ers on Phoenix’s wings prickled out be­hind him as if he itched to fly. “I’ll check the sur­round­ing area.”

  A sick feel­ing stung Striver’s gut. Weaver? Has he es­caped? It made per­fect sense his brother would at­tack the one per­son who had come to mean everything to him. Striver knew just where to look. “I’ll check for Weaver.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Event Horizon

  Eri awoke bleary-eyed to the jungle press­ing in on all sides in a vi­cious tangle. Had she passed out be­fore she reached the hut? She didn’t re­mem­ber drink­ing any pearl-berry ale. Un­less someone slipped it in my wa­ter canteen.

  “Morn­ing, curly locks.”

  Her sight ad­jus­ted to the bright
light as she re­cog­nized the edged voice. Weaver sat cross-legged be­side her, twist­ing reeds around a long black branch. No, it wasn’t a branch any longer; he formed a bow. Sharp-tipped ar­rows were strewn around him.

  Eri yanked her arms and kicked, but he’d tied her hands and feet. Nausea rose swiftly and she coughed, dry heav­ing un­til her stom­ach settled. Her neck throbbed as the at­tack came back to her. After say­ing good-bye to Mars, she heard some­thing above her head and thought it was an­other one of those cute little furry black birds that Striver called swil­low wisps. As she looked over her shoulder, an arm col­lided with her neck. She ducked, feel­ing like she moved in slow mo­tion. A heavy weight landed on top of her, knock­ing her to the ground. Pinned down, she felt the fa­mil­iar prick of the coma dart on her neck.

  An­ger rose in­side her. “What are you do­ing? Where are we?”

  He grinned, tight­en­ing the ties on the bow. “We’re on the other side.”

  “The other side of what?”

  He pulled the bow back and re­leased an ar­row into the jungle. The shaft tore through a gi­ant leaf and landed in the hol­low of a trunk. “The wall, boar brain. What other side is there?”

  Eri tore her gaze away from the ar­row to glare at him. “The other side of san­ity. You’re go­ing to get us both killed.”

  Weaver hung the bow over his shoulder, look­ing like he’d done it a thou­sand times. He prob­ably had. Whereas Eri’s laser gun felt like a for­eign sub­stance in her hands. She checked her hol­ster, but it was empty.

  “Calm down, sweetie. I got it covered. Jolt can’t hurt a hair on my head, and once he finds out you’re the only one who can de­cipher those sym­bols around the golden li­quid, he won’t touch you, either.”

  “You’re crazy. People have lost them­selves in that stuff for cen­tur­ies. Didn’t you hear Soren’s tale?” And your father’s, for that mat­ter. But she didn’t want to make him angry by bring­ing up touchy sub­jects.