by Sacha Black
“Here is transient,” he says.
“Don’t be evasive,” I say, and raise one of my fists.
He gives me a warm smile before lifting his hands up, "I apologize for the manner in which you were taken. I assure you that your guards are unharmed, merely sleeping on the job. And no harm will come to you while you're here."
His voice is calming, sincere. I change my mind, wondering if he's a Siren instead of a Shifter. Whatever he is, there's no malice in his eyes, just curiosity. I believe him.
“Fine,” I say, extinguishing my fist, “next time use the CogTracker, that’s what they’re for. What do you want from me?”
"Walk with me," he says, gesturing for us to leave the tent. I approach the flapping door with suspicion, poking my hand out first. When I'm not flung backward, I step out.
I have to stop my mouth from dropping as I take in the tented city I'm standing in. Above me is a blanket of creams and browns. Thick tarpaulins that stretch as far as I can see, with rods and polls piercing the ground and skewering the fabrics to hold them up. It looks just like Sheridan's dream. We're standing in a spacious communal area, with stalls and woks cooking food, and in the far corner are a set of three cave mouths. Although lanterns hang from the cave ceiling, from this distance, I can't see where they go. Castor must clock me looking at the cave mouths because he says, "Don't try and work out where you are. Our network is extensive, and as I mentioned, we move every few weeks. For you, it's the middle of the night, but for us, we work in shifts to ensure our base is always protected. But for the most part, what you see now is temporary. Like I said, transient."
"How is this temporary?" I ask, trying to keep my mouth from hanging open. "It looks like a Bedouin city."
Castor smiles, pride beaming in his eyes, “Thank you, it’s taken many centuries for us to perfect our system. We use the tents so that we can move and relocate when necessary. But I’m sure by now you’ve figured out where you are?”
“Rebel headquarters?”
He nods.
"And the caves?" I say as we pass them and move deeper into the communal area. Scanning the Keepers, my eyes are wide like spotlights. There's so many of them and all from different States.
Castor watches me, his silvery-green eyes glittering at me, but he doesn’t answer.
“You understand,” Castor says, “that I’ve taken a great risk by bringing you here. We’ve bought you into our headquarters because we believe our interests are aligned. But you’ve seen where we are, how our system works. You are a risk to our safety.”
My stomach knots. Is he threatening me?
“We’ve lived in isolation for thousands of years,” he continues, “I hope that the risk I’ve taken is worth it.”
“I pose no threat to you,” I say, and I mean it. Something solidifies in my mind – the burning questions I’ve had, the uncertainty of whether to swear an oath to the Libra Legion. Deep down, I wanted this. I wanted to see the rebels for myself, to know what they were doing. Then I remember Rita.
“There’s a girl, a friend of mine, she would have arrived in the last twelve hours or so.”
“Rita?”
“Yes,” I say, my eyes brightening, “so she did make it. Is she okay?”
“She’s in the hospital wing. Mild dehydration and exhaustion, and they’re treating her wounds. But she should be fine.”
I smile to myself; finally, someone with a happy ending.
“What do you want from me?” I ask, genuine curiosity in my tone.
“For now, we seek to understand what you want,” he says.
“What I want doesn’t seem to matter.”
“Because of the prophecy, you mean?” he looks down at me as we exit the communal area and move through a carpeted walkway.
“You know about the prophecy?” I ask, surprised.
“We know about a lot of things. You haven’t answered my question.”
I fall silent. Choosing instead to stare into each tented room we pass; Keepers smile and nod at us as they cook and laugh and play games, as if this weren’t a temporary city full of rebels but like any normal city in Trutinor. I stop short, looking at one family in particular. This time, my mouth does fall slack. The parents bear no Binding scar.
“How?” I ask, “how is that possible?”
Castor doesn’t answer me and guides me away from the door to continue through the walkway so I play back his question. What do I want?
“Honestly,” I say, looking up at him, “I’m not sure I know.”
“I have intelligence that says you are part of the Libra Legion.”
“I have attended a meeting. But I haven’t taken the oath yet.”
“Yet?” his eyes narrow, “but are you invested in their cause to end the First Fallon’s reign?”
I fall silent. Again. Is that what I want? Or do I want something more? I rub my hands over my face trying to clear my mind. I keep being told there are only two sides to this war. Balance or Imbalance, but part of me thinks that, just maybe, that’s the problem. My heart tells me to finish the job my parents started: side with the Libras and Arden. Plot the chest pieces, and strike only when we’re guaranteed to take the Queen. But my head says use the Last Fallon, join her so I can harness her power and take the First Fallon’s corrupt reign down while we can. Head or heart; Balance or Imbalance. But what if I listen to my gut, which is screaming that there has to be another way, that I should hear Castor out?
“To some extent, yes,” I say, which is the truth. “I do want her reign to end. Am I happy with the way the Libras are trying to achieve that? Not so much.”
Castor stops and gestures for me to enter a room. The floor is made of the same patterned rugs as the room I woke up in. There's a raised platform in the center, a square shape with low cushions and a coffee table burning incense with two steaming mugs.
“Please,” he says, and steps onto the square and sits cross-legged on the furthest side of the table. He picks up the mug and takes a sip. So I sit opposite him and do the same.
It's herbal tea; a fruity aroma hits my nose as soon as I pick up the cup, and when I swallow the liquid, it's warm, hot almost as it slides down my throat.
“Why did you bring me here?” I ask, putting the mug down.
“To give you a choice.”
“A choice?” I laugh. “what choice can you give me?”
“The Libras or the rebels.”
“That’s not a choice. I don’t even know who you are.”
He smiles, sips his tea, and pushes a blank coin across the table.
“What’s that?” I pick it up and take another sip of my tea.
“It’s what we represent.”
“Which is?”
He leans back, staring at me as I examine the circular coin. It’s made of silver, a smooth disc no larger than the coin in my pocket that Father gave me, and it's completely blank. When he doesn't answer, I look up, "What do you represent?"
He takes a long slow breath, then leans forward, his face tense and serious, “Choice. Freedom. The end of oppression. The end of the entire Balance system… The end of fate itself.”
I laugh. I can’t help myself, I’ve never heard anything more absurd in my life. The end of fate? He’s insane, or maybe I am because even though every word he’s said is ridiculous, I haven’t left; I’m still sat here holding the coin, staring at him.
His expression is serious; he believes every word of what he's saying, and as much as I want to tell him he's lost his mind, part of me believes there might be something to what he's saying. I have to know, "Is that even possible?"
As soon as the words are out, the coin slips through my fingers and drops onto the table. I look at it, confused as to how it’s on the table, and my fingers are still wiggling in the air. All of a sudden my head is groggy. The room spins as if I’ve drunk too much of that blue stuff Arden and Kato like.
I glance at the tea, shove it across the table. “You drugged me,” I growl, stumb
ling to my feet. I slip down the side of the square platform crashing to the floor for the second time.
Castor stands, and shrugs, nonchalant. I don't like this side of him. "I might have brought you here, but I don't trust you yet," he says, taking my hand to help me up. "We haven't survived for thousands of years by giving out trust that hasn't been earned."
"You kidnapped me, remember? And drugged me. Twice no less. How do you expect me to trust you?" I mumble. As my eyelids get heavy, his face blurs, and he reminds me of someone, but I can't think who. There's a scuffle, and a girl appears in the room. She's tall and skinny, dressed in black, her hair a rainbow of colors, and beneath her eye, is a black bruise.
“I don’t. You’re just supposed to choose.”
A sleep-filled laugh bubbles up as the girl’s face blurs in and out of focus. “Why is everyone so familiar here? You look like Renzo,” I giggle.
“You said she’d be asleep,” the girl spits.
Then I fall limp in Castor's arms, and the dark hug of sleep takes over me.
Twenty-Four
‘Instructions on killing the dead – Lost soul demons are notoriously difficult to kill. They are, after all, already dead. However, to dispatch a Lost soul demon back to Obex, simply burn it.’
From the History of Forbidden and Lost Magic
I sit bolt upright in bed and glance at my fist; it's curled shut. I open my fingers and find a silver coin in the middle. So I didn't dream the rebel kidnapping. I throw clothes on and jump out of bed, unzipping my tent and climbing into Trey's next door. I slide into his covers and stroke his cheek.
“Wake up, handsome,” I say, and kiss him.
His nose twitches as his eyes peel open. "Now that's a view I could get used to waking up next to," he grins, kissing me back, and for an instant I get lost inside the moment, but then the coin presses into my hand, and I remember why I'm in his tent.
“I was kidnapped,” I say, pulling away.
“What?” His eyes skitter across my face.
“I’m fine. Promise. But last night, I was taken by the rebels.”
“Did they hurt you? What did they want? Why didn’t The Six stop them?” He’s sitting up now.
“Trey, I swear I’m fine. Their leader wanted to talk to me. So they dosed The Six with sleeping drugs and took me to their base.”
"They did WHAT? Drugging The Six? What if they'd been caught? What if they'd drugged you?"
I open my mouth to tell him they did but shut it again. His eyes are all fiery blue and flashing maroon.
"You need to calm down, or I'm not telling you the rest."
He glares at me, then closes his eyes. He takes four deep breaths, and when they reopen, his baby blues are staring at me.
“They gave me this,” I say, flicking the coin at him.
“What is it?”
“A symbol for what they represent.”
“Which is?”
"A fresh start, I suppose. But choice. Freedom. The end of oppression. The end of the entire Balance system. The end of fate itself,” I say, echoing Castor's words.
“That’s not possible.”
"That's what I thought. But, Trey, I saw them: adult Keepers with no Binding scars. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why. But I want to find out… Castor asked me where my loyalties lie.”
“Castor?”
“Their leader,” I say.
Trey stiffens, “Oh. And where do they lie?”
I glance at him. Really? He chooses now to get all butt hurt, “Not like that, he’s old enough to be my dad.”
Trey's shoulders relax, and I have to fight myself not to roll my eyes at him. "Honestly?" I say, "at this point, I'm not sure."
My essence pokes me. It's wandering off on its own, like a defiant child trying to get my attention with gentle nudges and sniffs of the air. My eyes widen.
I snatch the coin back and scramble out of the tent scanning the air around me. Then I stick my head back in and grab Trey’s hand. “Get up,” I shout.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
But I don’t stop to answer: I’m already out and ambling toward the edge of the heated dome. I brush through the silky perimeter and sprint across the plateau, scrabbling over rocks and our crew’s debris until I reach a small peak. I close my eyes, setting my essence free to run through the breeze, hunting for anomalies, tasting the air molecules, searching for the oddity that caught my attention. There's an Imbalance. I've been feeling it for days. The strange void I told Sheridan about, only now it's bigger than before. But those times it faded, like whatever it was couldn't quite catch its breath. But this time it's different. It's solid. And it's not disappearing.
The first streaks of sunrise emerge in the distance, spraying the horizon with mustard yellows and fruity oranges. Then it appears, a sliver of maroon slicing through the sky, crisp and dark, like a bloody wound in the horizon: Imbalance. My hand clasps my mouth. The voids, the anomalies, they were all tiny growths in the fabric of Trutinor, too small to notice. But now they're bulging and ballooning like scabs, and the tiny Imbalanced bacteria have silently multiplied into a virus. Trutinor is sick.
Arms wrap around my shoulders. Trey’s head slips into the space between my jaw and my shoulder. “What was all that about?” he asks, inhaling the scent of my skin and peppering me with kisses. I wriggle out from under his grasp.
“Trey, LOOK.” I pull him off me and point his head at the sky.
He stiffens, blinking at the maroon.
"Trutinor is sick," I say.
“It could be Victor,” he says, a tremor in his voice.
“Yeah, it could. Or Trutinor could be sick. Maybe they’re linked, I don’t know, but what I do know is that we need to stop whatever is going on before it destroys the whole of Trutinor.”
He slides his hand into mine, gripping it tight. My heart pounds in my chest, fear prickling the back of my neck.
“How long?” Trey asks, “how long is it in your dreams before Trutinor crumbles?”
“It changes. Sometimes it’s months; other times, it’s years of slow deterioration. But once it starts,” I say, and look up at him, “it doesn’t stop.”
He pulls me around to face him; his face is tight with worry, lines drawn around his eyes. He sinks his soft lips onto mine. For a brief second, I forget about the sky and about Victor and lose myself in the perfection of us, alone, standing on a mountain peak, kissing as the sun rises.
Then he lets go, his expression serious, “Eden, listen…”
“No,” I say, shaking my head, my eyes instantly stinging. “Don’t you dare. Sheridan said she thought the prophetic part of my dreams was about Trutinor. Not about you. I can’t even… I won’t…” I fall silent, my throat so thick the words stop forming.
He strokes my hair; his eyes are soft. I shake my head, trying to make words and sounds with my mouth, but tears spill out instead of sentences.
"We all die eventually," he says, "we have to confront the possibility that if your dreams of a broken Trutinor are manifesting, there's a chance…"
“No,” I snap, anger helping me find my voice. “No. There isn’t.”
We’re both silent again for a moment, then Trey sighs.
"Just say I do. Don't spend your life like Hermia, in a futile search. Live your life, be happy." He brings my chin up so I'm looking at him.
“Promise me?”
My lips press shut as tears spill down my cheeks and I shake my head no.
“Eden, you need to promise me. It’s what I want.” He places his palm against my chest and lowers his barrier; a wave of his emotions flows into my body: hot lust, a yearn that reaches my bones, then the soft silk of love that touches my soul, and the knowledge that he loves me enough to let me go.
It makes my heart ache so much I gasp for breath.
“I…” I start as he takes his hand away, “I pr…”
A flash of something over his left shoulder catches my eye. I scramble away and drop to th
e floor, squinting in the direction I saw movement.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“I thought I saw something. But I’m not sure wh…” It moves again, a black dot, barely visible about half a mile away on another ridge.
“Get down,” I say, pulling Trey to the floor. We lie prone, squinting at the ridge.
"I could be wrong. It could be a wild mountain wolf or goat. But…"
“You think it’s Victor?”
“I looked at Kato’s projections last night. I’m convinced it’s him.”
"Keep watch; I'll get the Trackers and Arden."
Trey scrabbles backward retreating down toward the camp. I shut my eyes and let my senses drift out through the air. It must be half a mile or more to the ridge he's walking across. It's a stretch, but if I concentrate I should be able to reach him. I take a breath and send my essence out. Pushing, feeling my way as I jump through wind pockets like hopscotch. I stretch further and further until a bead of sweat trickles down my back. The change in the air is just out of reach. I can almost taste it, I know it's there, I just need to push a little harder. There's a void, dark, blistering with determination, making the breeze feel rigid and bumpy. My eyes open. Standing on the ridge is a figure, staring in my direction, and it makes my back ripple with gooseflesh. I know without needing binoculars that it's Victor. And now he knows I’m watching him.
Trey returns with Arden in tow and hands me my CogTracker.
“You found Victor?” Arden asks, crawling over the rocks next to me. Then he goes rigid. “What in Trutinor’s name is that?”
“We don’t know,” I say, looking up at the wound in the sky, “but given the plants…”
His skin drains of color as he blinks at me. His hands race over his CogTracker firing out CogMails faster than even I can, “We can’t contain it if it’s in the sky. Everyone will see. This is going to cause widespread panic.”
As he’s typing, his screen cuts out and flicks to a CogTV channel. Then mine beeps and changes to the same channel. So does Trey’s. I glance up at the mountain Victor was standing on half expecting him to have a CogTV crew there messing with the network like he did last time. But it’s the First Fallon’s face that appears.
