The Defiance (Brilliant Darkness)

by A. G. Henley

  Then I don't hear or smell or feel anything. I walk until I'm lost in a vast labyrinth, silent and dark. I wander from passage to dead-end to passage.

  I don't really care to find my way out.

  Young one.

  Go away, Nerang, I whisper. I don't want you.

  Perhaps, young one, but you need me.

  No, I don't. Needing people means you care about them. The people I care about die. And I don't want to lose you, too.

  He doesn't speak.

  It hurts so much, Nerang.

  I know, young one. I know.

  I wait for some other pearl of wisdom. That's it? You know?

  Yes, I know. It does hurt. There's nothing I can say that will make that not true.

  At least Nerang won't go on about how time will make it better. That I have to carry on. That Eland would want me to. How does anyone know what Eland would want? I don't even know what he would want.

  I force myself to think the words: Eland is dead.

  The shrieking starts up again, like a thousand fleshies crowding inside my head.

  I can't have lost Eland, too.

  If he's not with me, all of this will have been for nothing.

  I keep putting one foot in front of the other. But I don't let myself think anymore. And I definitely don't let myself feel. Feeling is deadly.

  We spend the first night in a cavern.

  I can't eat, and I barely drink. The few sips of water Peree cajoles me into taking taste stale and make me sick. I can almost smell his concern, like the breath of a sick person. If he smells sick, I must smell dead.

  I don't speak to him or anyone else. I lie with my back to the group, before the fire even goes out. Peree lays a blanket over me.

  But I can't sleep.

  Before I became the Water Bearer, things weren't perfect. Not by a long shot. But I had Eland and Aloe. Calli and Bear and Fox and Acacia. I had people I cared for and people who cared for me. Now, I have only Peree.

  And what does Eland have? An eternity of nothing.

  My breath halts its tortured march in and out of my lungs and my heart convulses. I was wrong before, when I thought I was being selfish; I wasn't going to Koolkuna only for myself. I didn't even realize how much I was doing this for Eland. What's the point without him? Why go on?

  Don't take that dark path, young one. There is always a reason to go on.

  I ignore Nerang's gentle, insistent voice, listening instead to the fire mutter and hiss.

  Moray curses. "Leave me alone, woman."

  "Let me help you," a female voice says. Frost. "We need to change the bandages."

  "I'm fine. You just focus on growing my baby."

  "Is that all you care about?" Her voice is glum.

  "Yeah, pretty much," Moray says.

  "She's only trying to help," a quiet male voice says. It sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.

  "Butt out, Conda," Moray growls. That's why I don't quite recognize the voice. It belongs to the brother I can't ever remember.

  "She's not a receptacle for your child, Moray. She's a person," Conda hisses, almost whispering. Whispering . . .

  "I said shut it, brother." Moray's voice is a knife at his throat.

  I bolt up. Peree touches my back.

  "It was you. You set the fire." I'm accusing Moray’s brother of trying to kill me, but my voice is anything but indignant. It's frayed and worn, like fabric beyond its useful life.

  "I wouldn't have hurt you," Conda says. He actually manages to sound remorseful.

  "Why did you do it?" I ask.

  "My mother and Frost's father, Osprey, planned it. He set the fire in the trees to confuse things and agitate their people, and we did the same in the caves," Conda says. "They blamed you for the Reckoning. And they didn't like the idea of us all mixing. It was the one thing they agreed on."

  "Osprey is Frost's father?" I'm too worn out to be shocked.

  "He found out about Moray and our baby," Frost says. "He was furious."

  So Thistle and Osprey formed an alliance. Osprey set the fire in the trees, then blamed me for it, while Conda set the fire in the caves. Moray, or one of his brothers, must have killed those poor animals, too. And of course he poisoned me.

  But I don't hate Moray for any of that. I hate him for keeping his word and saving my life.

  My fingers unfurl one by one. It doesn't matter now. Nothing matters now. I lie back down.

  Peree rubs my back. "You okay?"

  "I didn't know Osprey was Frost's father."

  "I didn't think it was important," he says, regret strong in his voice. "He always hated Groundlings, and she didn't tell me he knew she was pregnant. I'm sorry."

  I shrug.

  "Why do we have to sleep in the caves?" An older-sounding man—a Lofty—complains. "It's bitter cold in here. And I don't want to sleep with a bunch of stinking Groundlings."

  "Get used to it," Peree says in the voice he uses when he's frustrated. Maybe I missed something between them. That wouldn't be a stretch. I don't remember much about the day.

  "You don't smell that great yourself, bird man," Cuda says.

  "Okay, okay, none of us smell good," Bear says, his voice coming from the other side of the fire. He's alive, too. The thought drifts away as soon as it enters my mind. Doesn't matter. "Now the lot of you shut up and go to sleep."

  "Hear, hear," Vole says, sounding thoroughly annoyed.

  "When we get to the new place, will we have to sleep with the Lofties?" Dahlia asks her mother loudly. Ivy shushes her.

  I tune out their voices, but sleep won't come.

  I never imagined my life in Koolkuna without Eland. Never. He was always there, in my dreams of what it would be like. Peree and I would have built a little house for us and for Eland. On the ground, or in the trees, if I could've overcome my tree sickness. Nerang might have taken an interest in him. Eland would have had a whole group of people to show him how to be strong, compassionate, kind, generous.

  Peree is my Keeper. He watched over me, tended me. After we lost Aloe, I wanted to be that for Eland, until he became a man. But our people, Peree’s and mine, took that chance from both of us.

  And we were all complicit. For generations, we carefully nurtured our feelings of superiority, protected our obsolete traditions, and held close our conviction that the Scourge was evil.

  We’ve all been the Keepers of hate, of prejudice, of violence. We’ve all been the Keepers of the dead.

  I clutch myself as the rising tide of darkness builds again, a great destroyer wave. I want to release it. But if I do, I might split apart, leaving only a terrible, gaping hole.

  I gasp. The pressure is too much. I can't hold it in. I can't breathe; I'm drowning in sorrow.

  I don't know when the wave breaks, but I feel Peree's arms wrap securely around me as it does. He anchors my body against his, holding me in place, as the grief rushes out of the bloody gash in my chest where my heart used to be.

  We get moving early the next morning. My body feels heavy and sluggish, like I've jumped into the water hole wearing all my winter clothes. I'm sinking, but I don't have the will to fight to the surface.

  I can't eat, even when Peree begs me to take a few bites. I know he's worried, but if I didn't care much last night, I care even less this morning.

  Nightmares punctured my sleep. I woke well before the others, sick to my stomach and sweating despite the frosty air in the caves.

  Eland sat beside me. I smelled his scent: sweet like a boy and sharp like a man. I almost cried out with joy as I reached for him.

  "Eland," I said. "Eland, I love you. I'm sorry."

  He didn't speak. He's angry with me, I thought. There was no sound. None except the slow trickle of blood from his wounds.

  I didn't sleep after that. I don't ever want to sleep again.

  We pack up and plod on through the endless passages. Peree leads the group, following the crampberries. I stay in the back with Moon, Petrel, and Thrush. They
try to draw me into their conversation with little questions about Koolkuna, but they give up when I don't respond. I know they mean well, but my head aches and my heart is sick.

  We take a short rest in one of the many smaller caves we will pass through. I collapse on the ground, not bothering to take off my pack. Petrel and Moon sit nearby. Thrush talks, but I don't listen.

  He tugs on my dress. "Fennel?"

  I lift my head a little.

  "I said I'm sorry."

  "For what?" I ask.

  "It was my fault." He stops.

  "Go on, Thrush," Moon urges.

  "I told her . . . Breeze. I told her I saw you and Eland in the trees that night. She thought you set the fire. I'm sorry I told her. I didn't mean to get you in trouble."

  I want to be angry, but what’s the point? He’s a child. Anger and accusations won’t bring Eland back. I take a deep breath. "It's okay, Thrush.”

  He doesn't say anything for a moment. "I wish he wasn't dead."

  My throat closes, the swell of sadness washing over and through me once more.

  I keep moving along with the others. I'm shaky and dizzy from not eating or drinking. My chafed fingers bleed through the cloth Peree wrapped around them. I press them together now, taking a grim comfort from the stinging pain. At least I can feel something.

  I hold myself together as long as I can, but Thrush's boyish conversation is too heartbreakingly familiar. I scramble backward a few feet before my stomach empties.

  Moon follows me. She pats my back, making soothing sounds.

  She'll make a good mother, I think fuzzily.

  And then I faint.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I come to, groaning as I grip my pounding head. A flame flickers near where I lie on the freezing rock, and someone shifts their weight nearby. I don't hear much else. The rest of the group must have moved on. Good.

  "Drink," Bear says. He puts what feels like a sack of water to my lips, but I let the water dribble over my mouth. "C'mon, now. You have to drink."

  I turn my face away from his voice.

  "I know you're hurting, Fenn. Believe me. But you need to eat and drink and keep walking. That's the minimum."

  His words bounce around us before they fade out to silence. I hear them without understanding their meaning, like listening to birds calling to each other from one tree branch to another.

  "What do you want me to do here?" Bear asks. "Force you to drink? Because I will."

  I tuck my arms against my chest. The poisonous moat inside me has filled up again. "Leave me alone."

  "Well, now, that's the one thing I can't do."

  "Why not?" I whisper.

  "Because I care about you."

  "You shouldn't."

  "Yeah, tell me about it. Now drink. I mean it, Fenn. I want to see you swallow." He puts the sack to my lips again. I fight him, but his other hand is on the back of my neck, and it's not taking no for an answer.

  "That's it. Drink some more . . . good girl." He releases my head and settles back. "You're probably wondering why I'm here instead of your Lofty."

  Actually, I wasn't, but I don't say it. I can't seem to find the energy to care.

  "We needed him to guide. The Lofties aren't about to follow a Groundling, of course, and since he's the only one who's been this far into the caves before . . . the only functioning one, I mean . . ."

  Something flashes to life inside me. "Sorry I can't function for everyone right now," I hiss.

  He pats my arm. "That's my girl. Fight. Fight it."

  I slump back down, already exhausted from the short fit of anger. "Tired of fighting. Doesn't do any good."

  He puffs out a breath. I can almost feel it, warm against the frigid air in the caves. It billows away. "I don't like seeing you like this, Fenn. You've never been one to give in to self-pity. You're a fighter. Don't give up now."

  I may have been a fighter, but that's only because I always had someone to fight for. Now I don't.

  He makes me drink again. I've only taken in a few swallows of water, but I feel more focused already. I hate it. Oblivion is better; safer.

  "You remember when my parents died in the fever?" he says after a while.

  I do. Bear was a mess. He was either fighting or stewing in silence. Calli and I did our best, but we weren't sure how to help. He mostly bit our heads off. We ended up tiptoeing around him or avoiding him all together.

  He goes on. "Aloe talked to me one day. Gave me a piece of her mind. I bet I didn't tell you that, did I?" He doesn't wait for me to answer, but he's right. He didn't tell me. "She found me hacking a downed tree trunk into tiny pieces. I was supposed to be chopping it for firewood, but I got carried away. She was probably glad it wasn't a person, all things considered. Anyway, she sat there for a while with a little frown on her face, listening to me maul that tree. Totally calm, like always. I ignored her. I finally collapsed after the tree was practically in chips, and she still didn't say anything. After a while I asked her what she wanted. 'I want you to stop feeling sorry for yourself,' she said.

  "Aloe wasn't one for the touchy-feely stuff, was she?" Bear asks me.

  My lips twitch. "No."

  "'You have a responsibility, now, Bear,' she said. I asked her what that might be—and not very politely. 'To live,' she said. 'What? For them?' I asked. I'd heard that one a few times already. 'No,' she said. 'For us. The community. We need you.'

  "I think I laughed at her and said something rude, so she grabbed my arm. Damn, that woman had a strong grip; I had finger-shaped bruises for a week. But who could blame her? I was being an ass. Anyway, she said, ‘It’s a gift that you're still alive, Bear. A gift your family wasn't given. Don't squander it.'"

  He pauses, probably hoping his story is sinking in. And to my dismay, it is—a little. I can hear Aloe's steely voice and feel her even steelier grip. The whole story is so her: the insistence that the community is more important than any of us as individuals; that we must accept what happens and make the best of it.

  "I can't say her words made me turn the corner," Bear says, "but I haven't forgotten them, either. I thought you'd want to hear what she told me."

  Tears drip down the bridge of my nose, across my cheek, into my hair.

  Bear puts his arms around me. "Is this too weird?"

  I shake my head.

  "I'll miss Eland," he says. "Him and Aloe. I guess I always sort of thought they'd be my family eventually." He clears his throat as my tears flow faster. He fishes something from his pocket to mop my face with. “I'm glad I can still be your friend. I wasn't sure there for a while. Peree—he's not a bad guy. Now that I've been around him more, I . . . I see what you see in him. Not literally see in him, of course, but . . . I mean I might actually like him. Eventually. Like in five or ten years."

  I cry harder.

  Bear holds me closer, almost strangling me in his anxiety. "C’mon, don't cry, Fenn. I'm sorry, you know I'm not great with this stuff—"

  I squeeze his arms and try to control my watery voice. "I love you, Bear."

  He snorts. "About time."

  And I smile again. Just a little.

  Peree is my future. I know that; I feel it in every part of me, despite my suffering. But if Bear weren’t here, I would have almost no connection to my past, to my life with Eland and Aloe. And I definitely can't face that.

  My old friend cradles me as I cry for my family and for the people and places I'm leaving behind. Crying for them doesn't take the pain away; it only dilutes it for a little while. But that's something.

  Bear gets me on my feet sometime later, after I take a little more water and a few bites of dried meat. My stomach wants to reject the nourishment, but I keep at it until the food stays down.

  The labyrinth still surrounds me, refusing to let me go. I wish I could stay here and sleep. Or drink some of the plum wine we had at the Feast of Deliverance in Koolkuna. A few cups of that would do the job.

  I lean on Bear as we make our wa
y through the passages. I don't usually let myself do that, but I can't seem to walk straight without help. The stink of the crampberries is overpowering in my nose. I can almost taste them, which doesn't help me fight my gag reflex.

  "Did he . . . do you think he . . . suffered?" I can't help asking, as much as it hurts. I need to know, but I hope Bear lies to me if the answer is yes.

  He puts his arm around me. "The arrow hit Eland pretty square on. It was quick."

  I can't get enough air to speak. I grasp my stomach. I’ve washed my hands, but they still feel caked with his blood.

  "Don't run away from the pain, Fenn. Feel it, respect it, and move on, like Aloe told me to do. Burying it only makes you sick inside. Trust me."

  I swipe at the tears that flow silently again. I didn't know I had so many tears. I never used to cry often, but it seems like that's all I've done lately. I ask him another question to distract myself.

  "Why did you want to come, Bear?" I know I'm part of the answer, but I'd gotten the sense from things he said that I'm not the entire answer.

  "After my parents died, the one thing I really wanted to do was run away. I thought seriously about it. I've seen parts of the forest other people haven't, thanks to the hunting trips. Signs of life before the Fall—ruins of shelters, plots of land that looked like they could've been gardens, stuff like that. Never anything that made me believe anyone else was out there, but still."

  I frown. "You never told us that."

  "The Three always . . . encouraged . . . us to keep it to ourselves. Didn't want to give people ideas, I think." He shifted the pack on his back. "When you came home saying you'd found another community, it didn't surprise me that much. What did surprise me was how much I wanted to see it for myself."

  "I think you'll like it," I croak. "And they'll be lucky to have you."

  "Sure. Another strong back never hurts."

  "That's not what I meant. You're smart, you're an amazing friend, and you care about people. Plus, you'll make some girl in Koolkuna really, really happy."