Unlit

by Keri Arthur

  But what the hell did Saska intend by coming here? I doubted one lone air witch could draw a strong enough storm to destroy the structure—not when it had been built to withstand whatever the elements threw at it during the wild weather years immediately after the war.

  As the wind dropped me closer, I spotted Saska. She was standing close to the edge, where the gentle curve of the roof abruptly dropped away. She didn’t look up as I approached, though she surely had to be aware of my arrival.

  The last fragments of the cloud disintegrated and the wind deposited me gently on the metal roof. Saska didn’t turn around, didn’t react. Didn’t acknowledge me in any way. She just stood on that edge, her arms crossed, her wrists hidden by the heavy sleeves of her gown, and her hair streaming behind her as she stared out over the wildly churning seas far below.

  Weakness washed through me, and it was an effort to keep my knees locked, to keep upright. I swallowed heavily and said, my voice slightly hoarse, “Saska? Are you okay?”

  “No,” she said softly. “I’m not, and never will be.”

  I took a few, rather wobbly steps closer. She didn’t move, didn’t look at me, but the sudden tightening across her shoulders warned me to be careful.

  “You need to come down from here—”

  “You went away, sister,” she continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “You went away, and you took my strength with you. I couldn’t fight the queen’s will; she’s too strong for me alone. She’s always been too strong for me.”

  “Not always,” I countered. “You escaped from her, remember.”

  “But the price I paid for that foolishness was a heavy one.” Her voice was little more than a whisper, carried to me on the wind. But her pain was something I felt deep inside, and it was so sharp and real it might have been my own. “And in the end, it was all for naught.”

  Again, the wind warned me to be gentle, but I had to know if what I suspected was the truth or not. “And what was that price, Saska?”

  She closed her eyes, but it didn’t stop the tears. Didn’t stop the agony that stabbed through me. “I killed her you know. I stole her breath and watched the life leak from her eyes.”

  Pain grew. Whether it was hers or mine, I couldn’t say, because they were so entwined. “Why? Did you fear the queen would use her to stop your escape?”

  “She couldn’t. The child wasn’t wearing the bracelets, and without them, distance communication is somewhat fragmented,” Saska said. “There is only a finite number of those bracelets, and they are generally kept for when the stained go beyond the apiary or for those of us with a will of our own—which those born into that place do not have. Their only desire is to fulfill the queen’s wishes.”

  Which explained why the children were wearing bracelets at Blacklake—the queen was communicating with them.

  “Where are the bracelets kept when the children aren’t wearing them?”

  “They are stored in the same place as the children.”

  Stored. Treated as nothing more than items to be used and discarded however the queen might wish. Anger stirred, and this time it was all mine.

  “Then why take the child?” I somehow managed to keep the anger from my voice. “And why would she even go with you in the first place?”

  Saska’s lips twisted, though I wasn’t sure if it was bitterness or regret. “She had no choice. I was her mother, and that is a bond hard to break, even in that place.” She paused, the flow of tears getting stronger. “I needed her earth abilities to escape, but there was never any escape for her. She is better off dead. They’re all better off dead.”

  “You can’t believe that,” I said softly. “Surely if they were rescued—”

  “No.” She shivered. “They are the queen’s. They will always be hers. Those who show any sort of independence are immediately killed.”

  I closed my eyes against the sting of tears. I was no mother, but I didn’t think you had to be to imagine the sheer and utter horror of having to watch children—be they yours or another’s—being murdered time and time again. And while she might have been teetering on the edge of insanity before she’d escaped, being personally responsible for the death of one of her own had surely sent her over it.

  “Why was her hand severed if she wasn’t wearing a bracelet?”

  “The Irkallan sent after us was aiming for me. He got the child instead.”

  “So the queen intended to kill you both?”

  “Originally, but she is nothing if not adaptable.” The smile that touched her lips held no warmth. “It felt good to kill him, even if the queen cares little about the life of one soldier. Not when there are so many more of them.”

  “How many more?”

  “Thousands and thousands more.” Her voice was bleak. “They’ve ramped up their breeding over the last two hundred years.”

  That was not good news, but also not unexpected, given this plot had obviously been in development for many, many years. “How was the soldier buried, then? And how did you get out of the tunnel?”

  Saska’s expression was bleak. “The rock fall was the earth’s response to me stealing the breath of the child.”

  “Then how did you get back to the surface?”

  “I directed the air to dig a shaft; once I had been pulled up onto the surface, the wind covered any trace of it.”

  “An air witch can’t interact with the earth, Saska—”

  “No, under normal circumstances, we certainly can’t.” She finally glanced at me. Her silvery gaze was haunted with pain, horror, and the shadows of death, but there was something else there, something I did not expect.

  Kinship.

  “Have you not guessed our secret yet?” she added.

  A weird mix of uncertainty and elation raced through me. It felt like I was standing on that precipice, and any sense of security I might have had about my life was about to be pulled out from underneath me. “I know that we seemed to have formed some sort of connection, but I don’t understand the reason for it.”

  “Nor did I, not initially. But it is the reason they fear you, and the reason they want you dead.”

  I rubbed my arms, even though I wasn’t cold. “What’s that reason, Saska?”

  “We’re twins, Neve. You were stained and unlit, and sent into state care, and therefore kept safe from them. I was raised by a mother whose allegiance already lay with the Irkallan queen, and who betrayed me by handing me over to the apiary once I’d come fully into my powers.”

  I stared at her, unable to take it in but feeling the truth of it reverberating deep inside. She wasn’t only my sister, but my twin. And Hedra… I’d killed my own mother. Horror swirled, even if I couldn’t regret that action.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. The truth some small part of me had always wanted was now laid bare before me, and it was one that would bring more pain before this day was over. Because the shadows of death were drawing ever closer in Saska’s eyes and a sick feeling of helpless inevitability washed over me.

  “It was the Adlin who attacked your train as it was coming back from the West Range outpost,” I said. “Not the Irkallan.”

  “Those Adlin were under the control of one who is stained and in thrall to the queen. Destroy him, and you kill their allegiance to the queen.”

  That was obviously the stained Adlin I’d seen but failed to kill. I scrubbed a hand across my aching eyes, but she wasn’t finished yet.

  “Our kinship is the reason you’ve been able to control the air. My knowledge leaks through our connection to you, just as the stain on your skin allows us both to use the air in ways that shouldn’t be possible.”

  Meaning she didn’t know about my ability to use earth? I opened my mouth to ask, and then closed it again. Right now, despite the information she was giving me, she somehow remained in thrall of the queen. Maybe it was her madness, and maybe it wasn’t, but either way, I wasn’t about to give them such information if they weren’t already aware of i
t.

  “The fact we share strength and talents explains why they want me dead,” I said. “Is that also why they fear me?”

  She was silent for a moment, her gaze on the distant horizon and her arm muscles flexing. She was fighting the queen—or whatever the queen wanted her to do. But how were those orders being relayed? The Adlin had retrieved one of her bracelets, and Trey still had the other. Hedra’s were buried deep along with her body, and Pyra’s set had been thrown deep into the ocean. Had the wind been ordered to retrieve them from the sea? Was that even possible?

  No, the wind said.

  “No,” Saska echoed, leaving me briefly wondering which question she was answering.

  “Then why?”

  “Because of me—because of our shared DNA—you can find her. Kill her.”

  The queen? “Not without a damn army at my back, Saska.”

  “With an army at your back, you will fail.”

  “Not if we blast the shit out of the mountain.”

  “It won’t help you. They don’t live in the mountain, but deep under it. Even if the entire range was flattened, you won’t stop them.”

  “So an army won’t get near her, but one person going in alone can? Saska, that’s insane.” And surely it was something she was being forced to say. Maybe the Irkallan queen didn’t just want me dead; maybe she merely wanted to lure me into her web so she could watch me die. Or, worse yet, use me.

  “Oh, I’m well aware it’s insanity itself.” Her gaze came to mine again. “But it’s nevertheless a truth you should not ignore if you wish to end this madness.”

  “But how can you or anyone else be absolutely certain a mass attack wouldn’t bring them down? The earth witches never took the war to the Irkallan’s doorstep, Saska.”

  “But they did—three times, according to the queen. And each time they failed, because all life was drained out of the Blacksaw Mountains by some unknown force long ago. Earth witches cannot command such soil, and air witches, unless they are stained, cannot interact with it.” She paused. “Life does beat deep under the mountain, in the heart of hive where the queen and the breeders reside, but the deadness above prevents Winterborne’s witches from using it.”

  “So if I were to escort a small group inside—”

  “You will die, as they will die,” she cut in. “They will sense their presence long before any of you got close enough to do them damage. Even a fully armed force would have little hope—the tunnels are too tight and too numerous. Your soldiers would be dead before they were even aware the Irkallan were close.”

  “But wouldn’t that also apply to me going in solo?”

  “No, because we are two halves of a whole and both born of Hedra. That is what will protect you as you enter that place.”

  Not only born of Hedra, I realized, but also of the Irkallan. Bile rose up my throat and I swallowed heavily. As much as I had railed against Winterborne’s treatment of the unlit and the stained, the fact was, I was only standing here today because of it.

  “So if I go in alone, you’re saying I have a chance of getting deep enough into the apiary to cause them damage? Maybe even destroy their queen??

  “Yes. And you can retrieve the remaining bracelets and drop them into the black mirror, where no Irkallan would dare enter, and from which they will never be retrieved.”

  I frowned. “Is this mirror magic?”

  “Once you kill her,” she continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, “they will be in complete disarray.”

  It was madness. Utter madness. And yet it made an odd sort of sense. Freedom, help me….

  “So if I were to make such an attempt, would you come with me?”

  The smile that touched her lips was tinged with sadness. “No. I dare not. I can fight the queen’s pull and ignore her demands with some success here in Winterborne, but I would very easily betray you if I ever got near the apiary again. It’s far safer that I remain here.”

  There was something in her voice, something in her expression, that had fear rising. I wanted to reach for her, hold her, tell her that everything would be okay, that she was safe and that I’d protect her with everything I had. But the wind was telling me none of it was possible, that she’d passed the point of being kept safe long ago, that she no longer even wanted to be kept safe. The tears that were tracking down Saska’s cheeks were now also falling on mine.

  Damn it, surely she’d suffered enough? Surely she was due some—if not happiness, then at least some peace?

  Peace will only come with death, the wind said.

  Meaning she would be welcome into collective consciousness when neither Hedra nor Pyra were?

  No, and for similar reasons. We cannot afford to have their madness infect the collective consciousness.

  But she wasn’t like them—she was at least fighting….

  It does not matter, the voices said. She only fights because you are here. Your absence set her back, and Kiro’s actions further weakened her mind. What she has done here will yet cause much grief.

  As fear rose anew, I finally asked the question I should have asked first. “Saska, why are you up here? What did the queen wish you to do?”

  “What she wanted has nothing to do with this tank, but rather the pump rooms far below.”

  My heart began to beat a whole lot faster, the fear so strong I could taste it in the back of my throat. “And what did she bid you do in those pump rooms?”

  “She had me inject a toxin into the water being pumped up to this tower.”

  Freedom, help us…. This tower supplied a good half of the water to the Upper Reaches households. “And that toxin? What was it?”

  A strange smile touched her lips. One that was almost alien. “One that is fast acting, does not need to be drunk to be effective, and for which there is no known cure.”

  “Saska, you need to come down from this place. We need to warn—”

  “No,” she said softly. “We do not. That task falls to you, not me.”

  “Which doesn’t alter the fact we need to get down from this place.”

  For a second, she didn’t answer, but her arm muscles were flexing again and the death I’d seen in her eyes now surrounded her like a pall.

  “Be ready, Neve. They’re coming.”

  And with that, she threw herself over the edge.

  11

  “No,” I screamed, and lunged for her. But it was too late—far too late, to either stop or save her. “Air, please, you must help her! She doesn’t deserve to die this way. Not for her mother’s sins, and certainly not for anything she may have been forced to do since.”

  It is her wish and her command that we do not save her, the wind said. It is the only way she can help you. The only way she can make amends for everything she has done.

  “Damn it, no!” I dropped to my knees and watched her fall. Tears coursed down my cheeks and splashed to the metal underneath me, glimmering as brightly as the silver on Saska’s wrist.

  Hedra’s bracelets, I presumed. I wondered how she’d retrieved them, but almost immediately scratched the thought. The wind had witnessed Hedra’s burial, and it wouldn’t have been too hard for someone of Saska’s standing to convince a lower house earth witch to help her when everyone else was otherwise occupied in restoring Winterborne’s defenses. Although I did have to wonder if that earth witch had subsequently survived the retrieval.

  No, the wind whispered.

  I watched her fall for what seemed an interminably long time. Despite the distance growing between us, there was a clarity to the air that allowed me to see her expression. There was no fear there, just serenity and acceptance. As she drew close enough to the waves that their foam splashed across her body, she raised a hand and blew me a kiss. And then she was gone, swept into the fierce grip of the ocean, her body drawn down, deep down, by the currents and her desire to never resurface.

  Something within me broke. I wrapped my arms around my body and screamed in denial and pain. It was a sound the air ec
hoed fiercely. As the skies opened up and rain pelted down, all I wanted to do was sit there and cry for the twin I’d barely known.

  But I couldn’t. Not if I wanted any hope of honoring her final wish and stopping the Irkallan’s insidious plans.

  I pushed to my feet and looked around. The skies might be weeping for a sister lost, but it was also making it damn hard to find a way off the tower’s roof.

  Leap, the wind said. We will deliver you safely to the ground.

  This time, there was no hesitation. I ran toward the edge that overlooked Winterborne and leapt high. The wind caught me, wrapping me tightly in her cold fingers as I plummeted toward the ground. There were two figures down there standing in front of a carriage, and though it was hard to see their features through the gray curtain of rain, I had no doubt it was Kiro and Trey.

  The wind checked my speed and deposited me safely on the ground, but I’d barely had a chance to drag in a relieved breath when Trey pulled me into his arms, his hug as fierce and as welcome as anything I’d ever experienced.

  “Freedom, help me,” he murmured. “I think I just lost ten years of my life watching you fall like that.”

  “I wasn’t falling.” I closed my eyes, briefly allowing myself to relax in the warm comfort and strength of his embrace, then gently pulled away. “The Irkallan are coming and Saska’s placed a toxin of some kind in the tank’s water, one that doesn’t need to be ingested to work.”