Flare: The Sunless World Book Two

by Rabia Gale

  “They used an amplifier that magnifies the effects of the ka pulses. Get it in place, wait for Selene, God, or nature to provide a flare—and this happens.” He swept his arm to indicate the general destruction around them.

  Isabella said nothing, but the bitter taste of her bleak anger matched the one in his own mouth.

  The silence of New Hope was a striking contrast to what Rafe’s ka senses relayed to him. Ka hummed and buzzed at the edge of his hearing, but there were no sounds in the city itself. The clatter of machinery, the whine of power tools, the hiss and whistle of trains, the staccato of footsteps, the rush and murmur of human voices—all were gone. Every now and again, debris shifted: a house roof giving away, a dirt slope caving in. Isabella led Rafe through rubble-filled streets, detouring around blockages, kicking aside rock, making for what was left of the Tors Lumena.

  Neither of them stopped to look at the bodies of the dead. Neither of them was ready to face that just yet.

  “The Blackstone aircraft are just bobbing there,” said Isabella. “I can make out no fighting. Karzov just wants access to the underdisc. Not unexpected.”

  Rafe nodded. Houses shifted and groaned nearby. He considered shoring them up with his magic. But no, he needed to save his strength. The ka here was bewildered and angry and wild. It would fight his efforts anyway.

  “Something’s going on,” said Isabella. A moment later, Rafe heard it too—the rat-a-tat of bullets shot in quick succession and a bass rumble underneath it all. It came from within the hill that had once sheltered and hidden the Tower.

  They ran towards the sounds. Rafe thought he was too numb for grief, but a fresh pang tore through him as he saw the ka-edged tears in the hill. So much of the rock had been blasted out by the force of the explosion. Only the steel beams that Ironheart had put up to reinforce the place had kept it from collapsing into itself entirely.

  For what, though? thought Rafe bitterly. The Tors Lumena is gone.

  It was hard to believe that vast reservoir of ka had been emptied in one explosion. There was ka in the air, ka in puddles on the ground, ka in waves across the Barrens, reaching as far as Oakhaven, Blackstone, occupied Shimmer, and watchful Ironheart. It gushed out of the Tors in all directions.

  They splashed in watery mud, sending it splattering. Ka made the ooze cling to them; Rafe tore at the snaky, slippery tendrils of it. It was muscular in his mental grip, burning through his senses.

  No time to stop and purify it completely. Rafe overrode the ka’s will with his own, ripped it into strands, and wound them around his hands like gloves.

  His walking stick was long gone. He had to do this without the aid of props.

  They were out of the mud and onto ground that had been fused and sanded to a smooth, glassy finish. Rafe’s feet slipped, Isabella steadied him. He twined green and yellow together to keep them both moving—and fast. They skated across, Rafe focused on his balance, while Isabella steered them both. She was faster and surer, and their arms stretched between them, fingers twined.

  He nearly fell over at the other side, and bumped into Isabella. “Sorry.”

  She had stopped and was standing tense and still. He saw how her kyra moved to brace her feet against the ground and hold her upright. “No, it’s my fault. I just… never mind.”

  “Can I see?” he asked. “For only a moment.”

  They faced what was left of the Tors Lumena, a Tower of Light no more. Its top had shattered into a series of jagged peaks. Great fracture lines crossed over its surface.

  It was completely dark. No light blazed, no heat radiated from it. Rafe felt the drop in temperature on his skin, so rapidly did the cavern, now open to the air of the Barrens, cool.

  It was still an impressive crystal formation, but that’s all it was now.

  All it would ever be.

  An ache gnawed his insides. “That’s enough,” said Rafe roughly. The insides of his mouth felt like sandpaper.

  Darkness fell over his vision again, a more welcome sight than the Tors had been. As they went further down the slope into the cavity, Rafe stepped on a plant. Its bitter green smell rose up to his nose.

  It reminded him again what Ironheart had lost.

  “Come on,” Isabella urged. “There’s movement that way. Ironheart soldiers facing Blackstonians. There’s a… giant drill thing behind the Blackstone line.” A whine rent the air. “What a scorched noise!”

  “Let’s go get him,” Rafe said. They ran, holding hands, Rafe trusting Isabella’s lead. Pebbles turned and rolled under his feet. A reckless urgency drove him on, and he flung caution to the winds.

  The Ironheart soldiers were disposed to point rifles at them when Rafe and Isabella charged up to their position. Rafe let his kyra sight do the seeing for him, though his vision was overlaid with thick nets of ka. “We’re friends,” he called to them, wondering how he’d prove it. After all, neither of them carried papers proclaiming them to be The Good Guys with an official seal of Ironheart Council approval.

  Where was Coop? Was he still alive? He had to be.

  And Wil, who had done this thing? Sel! He must’ve been closest to the explosion. Rafe wanted desperately for Wil to be alive so he could smack him.

  “The kayan,” said one of the soldiers, and the whisper was taken up in tones of relief and awe.

  “Let us through, please,” said Isabella. “We will take care of the Blackstonians.”

  The soldiers gave way before her, like people usually did. She had a habit of making that happen.

  “How can we help?” the leader asked. Rafe could make out no rank stripes with his diminished senses, but the other soldiers deferred to the man.

  “Just make sure no one crosses this boundary from either side.” The soldiers had entrenched themselves behind a bank, crouched in what had once been a small irrigation channel. Mud squelched under Rafe’s boots, and a viny tangle covered the earth.

  There’s only about half a dozen of them, Isabella reported as the drill’s screech filled the cavern. Karzov isn’t here to occupy New Hope. And he has another new invention with him. Disgust colored her mental voice and the image she sent him was a hulking treaded vehicle with its nose half-sunk in the ground. The drill in front of it was a half-hidden blur, throwing up fountains of dirt.

  So that’s what he’s using to get to the underside of the disc.

  Not if I can help it. Let’s go.

  Right. As he scrambled up the bank behind Isabella, Rafe’s fingernails sank into the waxy peel and firm flesh of what he thought were cucumbers. What a waste.

  Isabella was focused on the soldiers between her and Karzov’s drill. Hold them still while I take care of them?

  Go for it. It didn’t take much to destroy the quartz chips in the Blackstone soldiers’ rifles, then jam the barrels with ka-propelled debris. For the fun of it, Rafe whipped some already irritated yellow and red strands around one man’s rifle. The Blackstonian yelped as the stock heated unbearably and dropped his weapon.

  It took the other soldiers only seconds to realize their weapons wouldn’t work. They reached for their backups—handguns and assorted blades—but the whirlwind of Isabella was already upon them. Her kyra flowed and gathered, hardened and liquefied, all over her body as she punched one, spun and kicked another, felled two with jabs to the throat and stomach, and faced the fifth.

  The sixth, the one with the burned hands, squeaked and retreated behind something large and lumpy that Rafe couldn’t make out.

  The fifth attempted to put up a fight, but Isabella took his blows unflinchingly and responded with strong ones of her own. The speed and force she put into her punch was unthinkable for someone of her size and mass.

  The man went down like a felled pack beast.

  Well done, Rafe sent.

  We—Isabella stopped. Everything about her snapped to full alert. Rafe strained his own senses.

  A net of dark, dingy ka appeared above Isabella. It dropped over her, sticky strands clinging. T
hen it yanked her.

  She disappeared.

  “Isabella!” Rafe shouted her name, both aloud and through their shared bond. He couldn’t sense her at all. The kyra bond just stopped at the place she’d vanished from, as if cut cleanly with a knife stroke.

  He sent his own kyra questing, showing him prone bodies and rubble and the squat shape of the drill in the gloom.

  She was gone.

  There were shocked cries from the soldiers behind him. One called, “Come back, sir!” but Rafe strode ahead. He had to see the place where the bond sliced off for himself.

  Dirty ka rose up from the rubble, showering dirt. It coiled around his ankles. Rafe slashed it with razor-sharp ka blades of his own. He recognized the clammy feel of this sluggish ka. It was the magic the twin children had used.

  He wove kyra and ka into a sensory sphere around himself. Probing at its edges, he approached the place where the kyra bond hung mid-air, like a silver bridge to nowhere.

  Isabella seemed to have been pulled elsewhere through a slit in the very air. Rafe’s skin prickled. The shahkayan had scrolls about worlds sliding behind each other. He had never felt it right to tax his volunteer readers and translators to satisfy his own curiosity about them.

  But ka took her there, so ka can bring her back. He’d pry open that narrow tear.

  A magical alarm sounded at the periphery of his globe. A matrix of blue and purple burned in icy colors, activating dormant green. Walls of emerald and ruby slammed into Rafe from all sides. He would’ve staggered, save that the force was all around him. It kept him upright as ka draped itself all over his body, armoring him.

  It was his own spell and he already felt bruised from it.

  The next instant ka projectiles, bleeding rainbows, screamed into him. The impact forced him to his knees.

  His outer layers vaporized instantly. The next set shredded fast as Rafe frantically pushed the foreign ka away. It was intent, focused, obedient. It had its orders and it would carry them out to the fullest extent. His attempts to divert it were too little, too late.

  Rafe cleared an escape route at his back. He opened a gap in his armor, slipped out. He balled up all of the ka that had made up his complex spell and hurled it at the rainbow arrow-head.

  The two met with an explosion. Ka strands fought and struggled with each other, ka motes fountained and spiraled in the air.

  Rafe turned away from the psychedelic display and looked for the kayan who’d attacked him.

  “There you are,” he said to the figure that had emerged from the Blackstone vehicle.

  “You survived,” observed Aliki, showing neither surprise nor displeasure.

  The drill roared and the ground shook. Clumps of earth went flying and lights came on. The vehicle dropped into the ground.

  Rafe stepped forward, fists balled. Scorch it! Isabella gone, Karzov getting away.

  And now this child in front of him.

  “You will not follow and interfere,” said Aliki. “I will make sure of that.”

  Coop trudged in the dark, light-headed, ears still ringing. His throat was scraped raw and his voice hoarse from shouting the same names over and over again.

  Bloody hell.

  It was dark, he hurt all over, and he couldn’t find anyone at all.

  Burn it! What happened? Who did this? Blackstone? Scorch them, they’ll pay for this. Dark, murderous thoughts muttered a litany in his skull. The anger that never seemed far from him these days clenched its fists in his guts. He wanted to scream, howl, lash out, punch and pound, feel bone break and glass shatter and…

  Deep breaths. Coop inhaled, then hissed as the movement sent stabs of pain all over him. He leaned against a nearby wall for support, gingerly lifted his shirt, and felt his side. Fresh agony blossomed, and his hand came away wet and sticky with blood. There was something hard and sharp in his side.

  Unable to leave the wound alone, Coop probed it once more. It felt like a shard. The realization struck him with black humor.

  A piece of quartz in his side. A piece of quartz from the Tors itself.

  The bloody useless darkened Tors.

  Now Coop did laugh, a bitter sound more like bark, ending on a sob. He clenched his hand and pounded on the surface. A packed-earth wall, probably what had once been the edge of a terrace. Loose soil gave way under his fist. He scratched at it, breaking fingernails on rock and driving grit deep beneath them. His fingers tangled in a root system. Panting, frenetic, Coop dug out the soil all around it. He grasped the root ball of the inoffensive plant and tugged it from its bed. He hurled the plant out into the darkness, towards where he thought the Tower lay.

  “Take that,” he screamed. “Take that and that… and that.” He punctuated every that with a handful of dirt thrown in the direction of the Tors. As if he could bury the Tower of Light, as if he could pretend it had never been found and dug up and nourished, as if it had never elevated the hopes of Ironheart to such heights, only to send them plummeting and crashing and shattering against its crystalline sides.

  “Argh!” By the Hidden God, it hurts! Coop clutched his side and sank to the ground. He huddled at the base of the wall, in the dirt, and wept.

  Sometime later, Coop lifted his too-heavy head and found that he had drained himself to the semblance of composure.

  He remembered he wasn’t quite helpless after all.

  Coop unbuttoned the side pockets of his pants and came up with a small slender flashlight, another one of Mirados’ contributions to Ironheart magic technology. It didn’t rattle as he moved it, a good sign that its insides had survived. Mirados had been rather offended when Coop derided his prototype for being delicate and nigh on useless, but he’d come through with a survival version the Ironheart military had approved.

  Coop clicked it on. A thin stream of light illuminated the ground at his feet. He moved the flashlight in an arc, probing the gloom. It picked out a boulder here, twisted steel there, and a black shape that looked like…

  A body.

  Coop pulled himself to his feet. He lurched forward, stumbling in his haste. He barely noticed the pain in side as he fell to his knees beside the prone figure.

  Please, please be alive…

  The body was sprawled on its side. Even as he turned it over, he knew that no human should be in that awkward angle, even before he saw the blank staring eyes and bloody mess at the back of the skull, smelled blood tang and fetid stink.

  But he did it anyway, peering at the face, dreading that it would be someone he recognized.

  It wasn’t.

  The light from his flashlight wavered as he sagged in relief. It slipped down the man’s face and on to his chest, leaving his head in shadow.

  Coop froze

  The man wore all black, with a holstered gun at his hip. There was an insignia on his chest, above his heart.

  A machine stitched in front of a full-branched tree.

  An Oakhaven uniform.

  Coop’s head reeled.

  Oakhaven… did this? The familiar darkness, tinged with red, mixed with acid, surged up. He pushed it down, pushing away from the corpse as he did so. No. It must be a mistake… a trick to make us think that, so we would fight.

  Not even Oakhaven would do such a thing.

  Would they?

  A scuffle and a small cough caught his attention.

  “Who’s there?” Coop swung the flashlight in that direction. Its beam cut across another black-clad figure, flinching away from the glare. The figure didn’t respond, but Coop saw it fumbling at something on the bandolier across its chest.

  Coop flung the flashlight away. With a wordless yell, half-war cry, half-lamentation, he launched himself at the man.

  They both went down. The other was smaller, but strong and lithe like a snake. When Coop tried to hold him, he slithered out of reach. Coop lunged for the man’s bandolier. He ripped out the grenades from their pockets and tossed them away. They rattled in the dark.

  “Don’t… you…
dare!” Coop pinned his opponent down and punched blindly. He missed, his fist smacking the ground. The other, panting but otherwise silent, grabbed Coop’s arm and twisted. It was on Coop’s hurt side and all his breath went out of him in one pained gasp. He fell back, sprawling.

  The other was on him, arm pressed against Coop’s neck, choking him. Coop clawed futilely at the iron grip, then flailed with his good hand, groping for a rock, an iron rod, anything.

  His fingers found the slender flashlight.

  Good enough. Coop shone the light full in his opponent’s face.

  The man flinched away, covering his eyes with a hand, easing the pressure off Coop’s neck.

  It was Wil.

  Coop gave a hoarse, strangled cry. The murderous rage rose like bile up his throat, scouring his insides raw.

  He let it.

  “Bastard!” He lunged for his former friend. Wil tried to fend him off, but all of Coop’s strength had broken free of its restraints. He welcomed its bitter force into himself, let it swell into his bones and muscles, washing away the pain in his side.

  He clenched his hands around Wil’s neck. “Die,” he choked out, squeezing. “Die!”

  Wil kneed him in the gut, pushed his hand into Coop’s wounded side. Coop laughed, because it didn’t hurt. He was rock, he was steel, he was beyond pain, and now the Oakhavenite’s struggles grew weaker, like a singed moth fluttering around a candle…

  Hands grabbed Coop’s and pried his fingers from Wil’s neck. Coop growled savagely, but someone thrust themselves in between him and his prey. An armored shoulder shoved him back. Coop lunged for Wil again, but the Oakhavenite had slumped on the ground and his fingers grasped empty air.

  The newcomer pushed Coop back further with a gauntleted hand on his chest and another gripping his shoulder.

  For the first time, Coop realized the newcomer was yelling, had been yelling ever since he’d come on the scene. “… for Sel’s sake, Coop, you want to hang as a murderer! Think, man…”