Exile

by S. M. Wilson

  It looked like Lincoln had no choice.

  “Happy birthday, Stormchaser.”

  She jerked her head up at Reban’s words. “What?”

  He was sitting next to the campfire with his legs pulled up, watching the flames crackle and burn. The rest of the camp was sleeping, but she’d spent the last few hours staring up at the dark sky.

  He nodded. “Today is day 274 of this year. It’s your birthday – the day you were born. Happy sixteenth.”

  Words jammed in her throat. “How do you know?”

  He gave her an ironic look. “Well, I didn’t. But you wrote down your day of birth when you applied for the Trials. After you returned from Piloria and won the final Trial, and once I had suspicions – I looked.”

  Storm pushed herself up. She was a little stunned. “So until that point, until the Trials, you had no idea I existed?”

  He sighed but gave a shake of his head. “The first time I saw you was when you delivered that message at the parliament. You gave me chills. You’re just like your mother. I mentioned how similar you were.”

  “To who?”

  Reban licked his lips and gave her a steady stare. It was almost like he was trying to discern if she were ready for the news.

  “You mentioned me to who?” she asked again.

  Reban kept his voice low. His face was lit by the flickering flames. It was the first time she’d seen anything other than a harsh expression on his face. This time there was something else. Against the orange and yellow flames he looked almost…rueful.

  “I spoke to Octavius.” The words were so quiet she thought she hadn’t heard correctly.

  “Octavius?”

  His violet eyes met hers. Something washed over her. A feeling. A realization. A tiny little part of something she knew, but hadn’t quite acknowledged.

  She caught her breath. “Octavius mentioned my mother’s name. But I never told him. At the time, I thought he must just have checked my records.”

  “What records?” said Reban. “Your birth was never recorded. I know because I checked.”

  “It wasn’t?” Storm was stunned. She knew some births weren’t recorded on Earthasia. She’d just never expected one of them was hers. But then again, if her father was actually a Stipulator it was no surprise that her mother hadn’t wanted a birth record.

  Her voice shook. “Why did you speak to Octavius? He’s the Captain Regent. He was the one person who could really get you into trouble.”

  Reban sucked in a deep breath and picked up a stick, poking at the fire with it. “Would he?” He was staring at the fire as if it held the answers to the universe.

  It didn’t sound like a real question. There was something strange in his tone.

  She shifted on the ground. She just couldn’t get her head around any of this. All of it seemed so unreal.

  “Why would you talk to Octavius Arange instead of anyone else?”

  Reban drew his gaze away from the fire. His violet eyes were bright in this light. Almost shining like the moon in the sky above. His voice was steady. “Octavius had a vested interest in things.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Storm was getting angry now. “What ‘things’?”

  Reban gave a sigh. “Octavius was related to Dalia,” he replied, looking a little hesitant. “Your mother.”

  Storm was stunned. She shook her head. “What? No. No. He would have said something. He would have told me.”

  Reban poked at the fire again as he shook his head too. “No, he wouldn’t.” The glance he gave her was one of pity. “Do you really think Octavius requested you as his aide out of nowhere?”

  Storm was still stunned. “But…but if he knew Dalia, he must have known about me. Why didn’t I ever meet him?”

  Reban gave a little shrug. “Dalia was Octavius’s niece. They’d been out of touch for a number of years. Octavius never knew that Dalia had a daughter.”

  “We stayed in Ambulus City and Octavius never knew we were there?”

  Reban rolled his eyes. “I never knew you were there. Remember how many millions of people live in Ambulus City?”

  Storm shook her head. She still couldn’t really understand all this. “Then…how did Octavius find out?”

  “I told you. He found out because of me. He hadn’t made the connection when he first saw you – when you delivered the message to parliament. Remember he hadn’t seen Dalia in years, and” – Reban let out a wry laugh – “and your eyes, obviously, were the same colour as mine, not hers.”

  Reban’s voice got more serious. “But after Piloria. After you nearly got sent to the mines – after the final Trial – I spoke to him about you. But neither of us really knew. We just suspected. After you’d told me your mother was dead – I had to tell Octavius that too.”

  Storm’s skin prickled. “Was he upset?”

  Reban pulled up his legs and ran his fingers through his hair. “Of course he was upset. Things became so complicated. Dalia had told me she was related to Octavius. It made her wary of me. Dalia and Octavius didn’t always see eye to eye. She didn’t like Stipulators. But Octavius was still protective of her, and in a way she seemed to resent it. She was too much of a free spirit.”

  It was the way he said the words. In such a throwaway fashion. As if he really knew her mother. Knew how she functioned. Knew how she thought about things. Something twisted deep inside Storm. She hated that. She hated that someone else had known her mother so well, and yet hadn’t played any part in their life. Jealousy flooded through her.

  “She was right to be wary of Stipulators.”

  Reban nodded and gave her a sideways glance. “I know that. Dalia never told me she was pregnant. She knew the risks. For you, for her and for me.”

  “What would you have done if she had told you?”

  The words were out there and she couldn’t bring them back. She was cringing inside.

  There was silence. Too much silence. Too long a silence.

  “I don’t know,” Reban finally answered.

  It was like something in her curled up and died. Anger flared inside her. “What kind of an answer is that?” She jumped to her feet and started to pace around. “I mean, what kind of a Stipulator were you anyway? You knew you weren’t supposed to get involved. You knew you weren’t supposed to have a family. You put me and my mother at risk.” She threw up her hands. “And Octavius? What did he think of all this? You got his niece pregnant. We could have ended up in the mines. You could have condemned us all to death. In fact, you nearly did! You got me sent here twice. Do I really get to go home? No one’s actually told me that yet. The Stipulators’ families normally disappear for good.” Panic started to sweep over her. She hadn’t really thought about this. She hadn’t thought this through at all. “What if, when I get back to Earthasia, they send me to the mines anyway?” In her head she’d imagined getting home and going straight back to the house with Rune’s and Kronar’s brothers and sisters. All the tiny hairs stood up on her arms. The fact her reality might actually be the mines filled her with dread.

  Reban’s face paled. “Octavius won’t let that happen. He won’t. Never.” He shook his head. “In the chamber he was thinking on his feet. No one expected what Silas did. Octavius hoped that sending you here would give him time to sort things out back home. Put plans in place for an alternative end to all this. Just think, coming back from here twice makes you a double hero – how could they send you to the mines then?”

  Storm put her hands on her hips as she continued to pace. “What about my friends?” she hissed. “They got sent here too. They don’t have my life. What are their guarantees when they get home? Lincoln, Leif, they didn’t deserve this.”

  Reban shook his head. “You’re right, they didn’t. But this was always going to happen. They would always have wanted to test the viruses. It made sense to send you all back.”

  She spun around and bent down, her face right up against his. “Made sense to everyone but us.” She prodde
d a finger into his chest. “You sent me here the first time. You sent me to Piloria, knowing I could be your daughter. And if you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here now.”

  His forehead completely wrinkled. “No, I didn’t. I told you. I didn’t know you could be my daughter till the final Trial, when you told me up on the stage. Up until that point you were just a girl who looked like Dalia. I wondered if you were related to her – a niece, a cousin. Until you told me your mother’s name, and I checked how old you were, it was never even a possibility in my mind.”

  She frowned again. Did she believe him? She wasn’t sure. “But right from the beginning, you were never that nice to me – or to Lincoln.”

  Reban sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Because something seemed off. Maybe I had some kind of intuition.” He glanced over at Lincoln. “He’s more interested in you than you know, by the way.”

  She felt heat rush into her cheeks. “And why is that your business?”

  Reban stayed calm, but he didn’t answer. He held up his hand. “Stop it. You’ll wake the rest of them up.” He looked around. It was dark now; they were surrounded by jungle. He leaned back on his hands, stretching his legs out in front of him. Her flare of anger didn’t seem to faze him.

  He stared out into the darkness. “This place. Piloria. It’s not what I expected.”

  She nearly choked. “What on earth did you think it would be like? It’s the dinosaur continent!”

  He nodded. “I know. But…I’d never really thought about it in detail.” He held up his hands. “It only ever featured in the recesses of my mind. Not in reality. It was all just some faraway place. A place that needed to be conquered.”

  Her footsteps faltered as she stopped pacing. “And now?”

  He met her gaze again. “And now, well, whether I like it or not, it’s going to be home.” He kept his gaze steady. “But not for you. Octavius will ensure your safety once you get back. You’re already the people’s champion for stealing the eggs. If the world finds out that you’ve poisoned the dinosaurs too? Silas won’t be able to touch you. No way. He couldn’t face the wrath of the public if he sent the person who’d found the dinosaur DNA, then returned to the continent to poison them, to the mines. They’d probably kill him.”

  Something pricked in her brain. “There’s a major flaw in your plan,” she said drily.

  “What’s that?”

  She sat back down next to him. “We’re here to test the viruses, but what if they don’t work?”

  Reban held up his hands. “Then I guess I’ll have to get used to dodging raptors and T-rexes.”

  Storm pulled her knees up to her chest. “You won’t ever be able to rest,” she said.

  “I know that. I also imagine that my life expectancy has just plummeted. Probably just by sharing the same continent as Blaine, let alone any of the dinosaurs.”

  Storm glanced back towards the shack. “What is it with him? He unnerved me the last time I was here. It’s like he’s just not good around…people.”

  Reban nodded. “He’s never been good around people. I’m not quite sure how he ended up a Stipulator but he was certainly never going to be a Chief. He used to have flare-ups before. I don’t think this is new. I think he just used to contain it better. Or maybe Kayna helped him contain it. On a continent of dinosaurs, why contain anything? Over the years the reports have always come back from the ship’s crew that he’s mad.”

  “That seems like such a cruel word.”

  Reban gave her a thoughtful stare. “It probably is. Another thing I haven’t thought about much. He’s survived here for nine years. You have to give him credit for that. I’m sure I can manage to find somewhere to hide like he has. It’s a big enough continent. There’s so much to explore. I don’t have to live in his part of the world.”

  Her hands started to shake a little. “Then you’re happy? You’re happy to stay here?”

  He smiled. “I have no choice. I knew that the moment they turned on me in parliament. It was done.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “I never thought you’d give up so easily.”

  He snorted. “Give up? I’m just getting started.” One eyebrow arched and the tone of his voice softened. “Sometimes you sound so like her. She used to do that, you know.”

  Every tiny hair on her arms stood on end. Her voice was shaky. “What?”

  There it was again. That feeling. Her memories of her mother were fading as she grew older. It upset her. Sometimes she would lie in bed at night and try her hardest to remember whatever she could. Flashes and fragments would appear. Her mother in the woods when they still existed. Her mother throwing knives at a target. Her mother spinning around, her long dark hair fanning out as she turned.

  At night her mother used to tell her stories. Mainly about made-up magical creatures, or birds or butterflies. Storm used to love those stories. There had been one about a big blue bird with blue and yellow feathers. Dorba? Zorba? Her mother had told her it over and over again. But the stories? They were fading faster than normal. Like sand slipping through her fingers on the beach of Piloria.

  But now here was Reban, with memories of his own. Ones that she had no part of. Was it so wrong that, even though it made her jealous, she was so desperate to hear them?

  “She used to challenge me,” said Reban. “Every time I saw her. Every time I was with her.” He gave her another glance. “You have her drive. Her determination.” He laughed. “Her obstinate behaviour.” He sighed. “Her intelligence. She hid hers too. She hated being indoors. She would never have worked in the lab or the manufacturing plant.”

  It was the oddest sensation. Part of her was raw but part of her was flooded with emotion. “How did you meet?”

  He stared at her for a few seconds. She didn’t really know where the question had come from. It just seemed to bubble up from inside her.

  “We met in the forest.” He shook his head. His voice had a sad tone, but it was the expression on his face that was mesmerizing. It was almost as if he could see Dalia in his head as he spoke. “A knife whistled past my ear. It barely missed me. Another millisectar and she would have killed me. I shouted. I raged. And when I found her, she was standing in her long black dress, with her brown hair shining in the sun and her hands on her hips. She looked at me as though I shouldn’t be there. As if I were invading her privacy. I’d never met anyone as stubborn as she was.” He gave a soft smile, almost as if the thought had jolted him back to the present day. He looked at Storm again. “At least not until now.”

  Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. He spoke about her mother with such affection. “I still hate you,” she whispered.

  He gave an appreciative nod. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

  Something bubbled inside her. “Why? Why did you stay at the watering hole? Why did you give us all a chance to get away? The raptors are vicious. They hunt in packs. And they’re fast. They could easily have outnumbered you.”

  He took a few moments to answer. She could almost feel her heart swelling in her chest. Part of her was sure that he’d stayed to ensure she got away. At least, that’s what she felt had happened. But maybe she was just imagining it?

  “They could have. But now I know. Now I’ve seen the raptors in action.”

  She felt a prickle of amusement. “That’s not an answer to my question.”

  His gaze was locked with hers. “No. It isn’t.”

  It seemed that both of them had issues acknowledging their feelings for the other. She was almost certain he’d been trying to protect her, but she couldn’t ask him outright. And he didn’t seem to be able to say the words.

  She’d told him straight that she hated him. He’d accepted those words easily.

  But she wasn’t so sure that they were true.

  “Lincoln,” she said bluntly.

  “What about Lincoln?”

  “Right from the first Trials, you didn’t seem to like him. I’m still not sure you do. What is it about h
im?”

  Reban shrugged. “I didn’t trust him. I knew he had some kind of agenda. I just didn’t know what it was.” He sighed and gave her a sideways glance. “Now I know it was his family. It’s not such a bad trait. Is it?”

  The words hung in the air between them.

  “And now?” she asked.

  He licked his lips but didn’t meet her eyes. “Now, he’s a teenage boy, and maybe I don’t like how he looks at a teenage girl.”

  Something washed over her. That whole uncomfortable feeling that teenagers the world over must feel when a parent shows concern. She wasn’t used to it. She didn’t even know how to respond. She could shout and tell him it was none of his business – that’s how she would normally react – but all of this just felt overwhelming. She actually just wanted a little time to process everything. To work out how she felt, without worrying about anyone else.

  “I’m tired,” she lied. “I’m going to sleep. It’s the T-rexes in the morning. We better be ready.”

  Reban gave her a nod. “I guess we better.”

  And he sat there. Staring into the flickering flames as she fell asleep.

  Blaine seemed to wake with a remarkably clear head. Everyone else had slept outside the shack, sheltered by the jungle canopy with a small fire burning. “When do you leave Piloria?” he asked Lincoln.

  Lincoln shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “Tomorrow.”

  Blaine dumped some fruits in a pile before them all as the rest started to wake. “Eat,” he said with unusual motivation. He glanced back at Lincoln. “You should take your biggest supply of plants at the last possible minute. Then they have a better chance of being viable when you reach Earthasia.”

  Lincoln nodded. It made sense. He wanted the specimens to be in as perfect a condition as possible.

  As they trekked to the T-rex watering hole, Blaine managed to engage Jesa in conversation. Lincoln and Leif stayed close by, both watching Jesa carefully. It was strange how they both seemed to feel responsible for her. But Blaine’s conversation was mainly questions, asking about his family’s house, jobs and schooling. Other questions about people he used to know meant nothing to Leif or Lincoln.