by David Estes
A joke. It’s like a key part of our survival—our ability to laugh. As important as food or water or sleep. The thing we’ve all needed since we watched Ram die protecting us.
I laugh because if I don’t I might cry.
The others do, too, including Trevor, who says, “I didn’t say I didn’t have to go.”
Girls head one way—just Tawni and I—boys the other. We meet back in the middle.
My muscles protest, cramping and aching and burning, as they anticipate the start of the next phase. I’m not sure I can—
“I don’t think I can run another step,” Tawni says.
“Me either,” Roc says. “I’m spent.”
“Well, we can’t stay here,” Tristan points out.
“You all start walking as fast as you can,” Trevor says, “and I’ll run on ahead and scope things out.” I don’t like the idea of any of us separating, but I’m too tired to argue, and Trevor looks so keen—I have no clue where he gets the energy from, but I’m impressed.
Moments later, Trevor’s out of sight and we’re on the move again, but thankfully at a much slower pace. It’s probably good that we walk anyway, to warm down our bodies before we sleep, otherwise we won’t be able to move tomorrow.
Tristan and Roc lead the way, while I drop into stride with Tawni, matching her long strides with extra-long strides of my own. An awkward silence squirms its way between us. We’ve come so far together, and yet neither of us seems able to find the words. I know it’s up to me. It’s my fault things are awkward.
“I’m sorry I didn’t back you up earlier,” I say.
She glances at me, her mouth a thin line. This time it will take more than a simple apology to earn her forgiveness. “I’m really sorry?” I say.
“Is that a question?” Tawni asks dryly.
“Look, I—I thought those guys deserved what was coming to them, and if it helped keep us alive, all the better. It’s not like I wanted to kill them. Even now the thought of it makes me sick.”
“Yeah, but they were just lying there completely defenseless!” Her voice is rising and I know this is another of her principles.
“I’m not as strong as you, Tawni, I don’t have the right answer for every situation. I see gray sometimes.”
Pouting her bottom lip out, she blows air up past her nose, pushing a few loose strands of her white-blond hair off her forehead. “You’re the strongest person I know,” she says, compassion in her voice, and just like that, we’re fine again.
I hold up an arm and tighten my bicep, and we both laugh. “I really am sorry,” I say. “I’ve got your back from here on out.”
“I know you do,” Tawni says.
We walk in silence for another ten minutes. With time to think, my mind can hardly make sense of reality. We’re in the Sun Realm, a place I’ve never been, a place I never thought I would go, on an insane mission to assassinate the President of the Tri-Realms. Based on the opposition we’ve faced in only the first subchapter we’ve entered, this isn’t an insane mission, it’s an impossible one. No, not even that’s right. It’s suicidal. That’s the only word for it. My stomach churns.
Finally, I speak, needing a second opinion. “Is this a suicide mission?” I ask Tawni.
Although I glance at her, her gaze remains forward. “It always was,” she says wistfully.
She always knew this and yet she came. To me the mission was two thick bands, one for the good of the Tri-Realms and one to avenge my father’s death, braided together into a tight rope. A rope to form the noose to hang President Nailin with. But for Tawni it was a suicide mission, and yet—
She came.
Those two simple words speak volumes to her character. She’s willing to face death on a mission that she’s not even expected to contribute much to, other than occasionally being the conscience of the group. But she’s here, by my side, a true friend, still trying to make amends for the sins of her parents against my family, or some such rubbish that she had nothing to do with in the first place.
“Thanks for coming with me,” I say.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Tawni says with a slight grin.
So it’s a suicide mission. I don’t know why gaining an understanding of the true nature of our mission has such a profound effect on me; I guess because I always expected to walk away from it alive. But now that I know, it gets me thinking: Did my mother know there’s a close to zero chance I’d survive?
“Tawni, do you think my mom—”
“She knows, Adele,” Tawni says tiredly.
She knows? But then how could she send me on such a mission? Doesn’t she want me to live? Her words from before: This is not a time for fearful mothers to hide away their capable daughters. It’s a time to be bold, to take risks. Your father trusted in your strength, in your abilities, and now it’s time for me to do the same. God knows I don’t want to. I’ve lost a husband already and my other daughter is in bad condition, but I cannot hold you back because I’m scared of losing you. You are a fantastically capable woman and I’m so proud of you, Adele.
She thought I was the one who could do it—that’s why she sent me, even knowing I would probably die. She thought I had the best chance to accomplish the mission before being killed.
That’s when I realize:
My mother sending me on this mission was the bravest act in the world, by the bravest woman in the world.
Chapter SixTristan
“Are you okay?” Roc asks me.
“I should be asking you the same thing,” I say. “Those soldiers were tough.”
Glancing at me, Roc says, “I don’t mean about the soldiers. I mean about Ram.”
I try to cover a twitch with a laugh. “We didn’t even like each other,” I say.
“I know that’s not entirely true,” Roc says. “Give me some credit.”
And I should. Roc’s perceptiveness is uncanny sometimes. Maybe he knows me better than I know myself.
Sighing, I say, “It’s just, I think we were becoming friends. Maybe even good friends, eventually.”
Roc nods. “He did what he felt was right. It was his sacrifice to make. A sacrifice that we all…” His voice trails away down the empty and endless tunnel.
He doesn’t have to finish the statement. That we all might have to make. The image of Ram’s shattered and bloody body pops unbidden into my mind, a hero in life, a hero in death. My friend? I suck in a breath and try to force away the ache in my chest. Another person I’ll never see again. Another person I owe my life to.
A bad feeling fills my gut. We can’t waste Ram’s sacrifice. Nor Ben’s. We can’t linger in this death tunnel, sure to be trapped and killed by the sun dwellers. We need to get out. I’m about to stop and relay my paranoid opinions to the others when sharp footfalls sound from the passage beyond us.
I extract my sword with a metallic screech, instinctively pushing Roc behind me, my flashlight beam disappearing around the shadowy bend in the tunnel.
I ready myself for violence.
A blade flashes before me, reflecting the light back in my eyes, momentarily blinding me.
Clang!
My opponent swipes my sword aside and my stomach drops when a leg sweeps behind my knees. I grunt when I contact the stone floor, but am already twisting to escape my enemy. But he’s quicker, barring my movements with a firm knee on my chest and a forearm on my throat.
Through my star-filled vision, a face begins to emerge. Roc’s laughter fills the silence.
My vision returns, and Trevor’s atop me, grinning from ear to ear, his face glistening with sweat. “Some protector you are,” he says smugly. “Good thing no real baddies attacked while I was away.”
“Get off me,” I growl.
“No problem,” he says, rolling off and to his feet.
Angry, both at myself for my weakness and at Trevor for making me look bad, I push myself up, cutting off Roc’s continued laughter with a sharp glare. I notice Adele stopped nearby, w
atching the scene with something between interest and amusement, her right eyebrow raised. Heat rises in my head and I have to bite back a thousand angry words at Trevor.
I settle on pretending like nothing happened. Classic denial. “Did you find out what’s ahead?” I ask through clenched teeth.
“Of course,” Trevor says. “While you were all merrily strolling through the tunnel, I was reconnoitering a few miles ahead.” He pauses, clearly enjoying the attention.
“And?” I say impatiently.
“And I’ve got good news. Just a couple miles down the road is the next subchapter.”
“Which one?” Roc asks. “Eight?”
“Sorry, I failed Sun Realm geography,” Trevor says. “You tell me.”
Roc looks at me as he answers. “I don’t know this tunnel that well, but I do know it angles northeast in the direction of the lower-numbered subchapters. There are two clusters, one that includes subchapters five through eight, and another for one through four. We’ve likely reached the edge of the first cluster, and therefore, subchapter eight. Does that sound right?”
He knows I don’t have his sense of direction, but with all eyes on me, I say, “Uh, yeah. Makes perfect sense to me.”
“But shouldn’t we continue on so we can get to the second cluster? We’re trying to get to subchapter one, right?” Adele asks. She’s looking at me, her expression thoughtful.
“We can get there on a train from subchapter eight,” I say, glancing at Roc for confirmation.
“We can,” he says. “Plus, if I remember correctly, this shipping tunnel curls back to the west and in the direction of the upper subchapters, so we don’t really have a choice.”
“Do you really think we can just hop on a train without anyone noticing?” Tawni asks.
“It won’t be easy,” I say, “but the celebrations tomorrow will only help us blend in.”
“Not tomorrow,” Trevor says.
I look at him strangely.
“Today,” he explains. “It’s well after midnight. Today is the Sun Festival.”
“We need to sleep,” Adele says. “There’s no way we can do this without sleep.”
I know she’s right, but the tunnel is too dangerous and—
“There’s a partially hidden alcove up ahead,” Trevor says. “I think we’ll be safe there.”
After the way he made me look bad in front of everyone, I’d rather not take his advice, but I don’t have a better option. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”
Without discussing it, we all start running again, knowing every extra second of sleep could make a difference today. My muscles and bones protest with each stride, burning through my nerve endings like a lit fuse, but I ignore them as I have so many times before, like when I used to train in the presidential courtyards.
Pain is nothing. Words my father once spoke to me just after whipping a backhand across my cheek. It was the first time he ever hit me. I was only eight, but remember it as vividly as if it was yesterday. The sting of the blow brought tears to my eyes.
Pain is nothing, he repeated. Tears are weakness.
I blinked away the tears that day and rose to my feet, hatred for my father in my eyes. When my mother asked me how my mentor session was with my father, I wanted to tell her, wanted to ask her why my father would hit me, but instead I answered only Good.
He hit me eight other times in my life, each harder than the last. Until I turned fifteen, I didn’t know that he hit my mother, too, either because I didn’t want to know, or because I was too dumb or naïve to consider the dark truth.
Pain is nothing.
For me, his words are true, and soon the burning in my calves and thighs is nothing more than background noise against the slap of our shoes on the tunnel floor.
Trevor leads, and thirty minutes later he slows to a walk, running his hand along the high wall. “We’re close,” he murmurs. “Yes, here it is.”
To his credit, he was right about the alcove. It is well hidden, just a thin crack in the impenetrable stone tube, barely wide enough for us to squeeze through sideways.
I let the others push through first, Trevor, then Roc, then Tawni, and finally Adele, who reaches out and grabs my hand for just a moment before releasing it. I’m so used to the crackle of electricity that her touch—or even her presence—normally releases down my spine, that I almost don’t notice a few different feelings that arise. Warmth, like the heat from the artificial sun, spreads up my arm and into the rest of my body; flittering excitement bounces around my stomach and in my chest; there’s a numbness in my toes, almost as if I’m floating, or like my feet have disappeared. It’s as though when our connection or magnetism or whatever it was that we had before was severed, it opened my body up to a whole rash of new and wonderful feelings, ones that perhaps were previously overwhelmed by the tingling in my scalp and spine.
Just before Adele slides into the crevice, she smiles back at me, as if she knows what I’m feeling. Grinning, I follow after her, barely noticing the scrape of the textured rock walls on my skin.
The alcove is much larger than I expected, long and rectangular, its ceiling double my height. An old unused fire pit sits ringed by small, white stones and solid stone benches. Above the pit is an opening in the roof, a conduit for the smoke to escape to some unpopulated cavern.
“A shipping rest stop,” Roc says.
“Whatever it is, I’m glad it’s here,” Trevor says. “I’m about to be dead to the world for a long time. Wake me up when something exciting happens.”
We unpack our bedrolls and lay them in a circle around the barren fire pit. Roc, always a gentleman, settles in close to Tawni, but not too close. Trevor collapses a bit further away, his breaths deepening almost immediately. I place my bedding a respectful distance from where Adele is standing, holding her own pack. To my surprise, however, she drops her pad in a heap next to mine, lowering to her knees to smooth it out, avoiding my gaze.
As I lie down facing away from her, she nestles in close to me, tracing my legs with her own. The gentle beat of her heart taps lightly against my back, sending slight vibrations along my skin. The feelings from before reappear: warmth, flittering excitement, floating.
My strength sapped, I close my eyes and feel wakefulness start to slip away.
“My mom said it’s no accident that we met,” Adele whispers in my ear.
“Mmm,” I murmur, unsure of whether I’m awake or in a dream.
Chapter SevenAdele
Despite the warmth in my heart and body as I lie next to Tristan, sleep doesn’t come easy. For a while I can’t turn off my brain, as I think about the conversation I’ll need to have with Tristan now that I’ve told him what my mom said to me. In my mind it goes something like this:
Tristan: So if it’s not an accident that we met, then who caused it?
Me: I dunno.
Tristan: Did you ask your mom?
Me: Nope.
Tristan: So what does this mean for us?
Me: I’ve got no clue.
Yeah, not very productive. I vow to pretend like I never told him.
Eventually, however, I do slip into something of a half-sleep, my mind alternating between awake and asleep. At one point when I open my eyes, a dark figure looms over me, holding something long and sharp. I try to scream as the blade hovers over me like a guillotine, dripping something wet and sticky on my face. I place a hand on my cheek to wipe away the moisture, and when I pull it away, it’s red with blood. In the split-second before the blade slashes downward, my brain sizes up the situation. The intruder, the blood, the blade: at least one other of my friends is dead, maybe all of them.
With the long knife arcing toward my chest, I have no time for grief, no time to grasp the reality of my horror-filled life, no time to be human. Instinctively, my body reacts to the attack, rolling to the side and narrowly avoiding the death blow as it rips into my bedding, tearing straight to the rock floor and shattering into shards of metal that tinkle like b
roken glass as they scatter around me and my attempted murderer.
Pushing hard to my feet, I take a few quick steps back to buy time while I size up my enemy, but it’s unnecessary, because the looming shadow doesn’t advance, just stares at me with invisible eyes.
“You killed my friends,” I state, my words like splinters of metal. My body is empty, like there’s nothing left inside me; no heart, no blood, no tears—I’m just a hollow shell of flesh and bone. I know in that moment I will kill this man, and then I will kill the President.
Silence fills the dark gap between me and the swordsman. “Answer me!” I roar, my face and hands clenched and full of rage.
Instead of responding, the shadow laughs, heavy and arrogant and evil. He takes a step forward but I remain firm, revenge my only motive; there’s death on my fingertips, making them twitch and jerk.
Another step takes him into a beam of light from an unseen source, perhaps a hastily discarded lantern.
I gasp when I see his face.
The attacker is President Nailin.
This is it. This is my moment. The culmination of our mission in a strange fated meeting. My friends dead; me soon to be. But not before him.
Screaming out senseless words, I charge, wrenching my knife from its ankle holster in the same motion. The President keeps laughing even as I approach him, and I hesitate for a moment, wondering why he would let me kill him so easily. And where are his guards? His soldiers?
In the moment of hesitation, I leave myself open. With a speed that seems inhuman, he pulls another sword from behind his back, where I couldn’t see it, and thrusts it forward like a javelin, piercing my gut just above my bellybutton.
I know the pain has to be intense, but I don’t feel it. I feel nothing. No pressure, no agony, nothing.
Leaving the sword—which is bouncing up and down slightly—embedded in me, President Nailin moves forward, leaning his sweaty, red face close to mine, so close I taste his hot, foul-smelling breath on my tongue. “I will kill you,” he breathes.
I don’t understand why he would say that, because he’s already got me on a skewer like a stuck pig; threats aren’t necessary. I look around us and I realize: it’s not real. The cave is gone and we’re surrounded by white pillars, sparkling with diamonds. Huge wooden chairs surround us, each occupied by lavishly adorned men and women, wearing jeweled necklaces and bracelets, brightly colored silk tunics, and gaudy fur hats. Spectators.
