by S McPherson
It’s dark. A single burst of light casts shadows from somewhere I cannot see. I pause at the bottom of the ramp and listen. Nothing. There’s a tightening in my chest now and my body tingles with the first real prickles of fear, like I’ve stepped out onto a tightrope, only for it to morph into a piece of string. Slowly, I poke my head around the corner to find an ordinary parking lot in which is parked just one large vehicle—a white van. Its back doors are flung open, one hanging off and crumpled. That explains the bang.
Warily, I step into the parking lot, leaving behind the sounds of life and amusement up above. Past the van, I notice two metal doors with narrow glass tops, pale fluorescent light streaking out like the rays of a trapped moon.
I swallow the terror that clogs my throat and my heart pounds. Jagged, shallow breaths stutter from my dry lips as I creep closer to the doors. Pressing my ear to the cold steel, I make out a faint cry tipped with anguish, another doused in fear. And then a roar. I yelp at the sound of a high-pitched wail, like a warrior’s battle cry, as something hard smashes into the door and slams into my side. I leap back, rubbing the ache, and notice a dent has bulged the steel, a slash of red—blood—cutting across the glass top.
I don’t know whether to charge in or race away, so instead, I tiptoe back; cautious, steady steps. My eyes never leave the groaning, quaking metal as something seems to thrash against it again, intent on bursting out. Instruments, perhaps weapons, clatter. Men bellow, deep and booming. Can no one upstairs hear this? Then a flash of pink whips the door like a lashing lizard’s tongue and a gash sizzles through the steel before a fist punches through.
I feel the familiar surge of power swirl inside me and rack my brain for a useful incantation to help fight whatever might barrel towards me. But I stop when I see the raging pale face of a girl, pushing her way through the narrow gap. Her bright wild eyes find mine as she breaks through and charges at me; no, not at me but past me.
‘Run, idiot!’ she yells, and I do, away from the thundering hollers and roars of R.U.O.E. members crashing after us.
Black bodies and the occasional white lab coat swarm out of the room, guns poised but thankfully their wielders reluctant to fire. We bolt past the van, its busted door creaking in an absent wind. I pant, amazed at how swiftly and gracefully the girl moves. The mouth to the ramp leading back to the shop front yawns only metres ahead of us, and I push harder, sure we will make it. Then the snap of a whip sounds seconds before I feel its stinging bite clamp around my neck.
I retch. For a second, my feet touch nothing as I’m yanked back. My head cracks against the ground with a force that makes my teeth ache and vision shatter. I feel myself being hauled towards them, dragged as I blindly squirm, clawing at the leather snake coiled around my throat. The concrete shaves my skin, stinging, a wet warmth telling me I’m bleeding.
Through a hazy veil, I make out the girl, turning, watching, hesitant eyes darting between me and the exit—between me and her escape. I want to call out, to tell her to run, but the whip chokes my words, crushing my windpipe with every violent tug. My eyes water. I may hang before they get me.
Then there’s a flurry of pink and a chorus of cries.
‘Get up!’ the girl seethes, now so close I’m sure she’s crouched over me. The whip is still around my throat, but it’s been cut. Before I can fully register how it came to snap or why the men are now cowering behind a wall of magenta flames, I scramble to my feet and race after the girl bobbing ahead of me.
I gasp in lungsful of air, my head throbbing, a vicious stabbing pang. The red wig’s hanging off, slapping me in the face, and I let it fall away behind me. At last, we round the corner and charge up the ramp to where customers are still watching in awe as Nathaniel holds a fake conversation with his lawyer. Just as we’d hoped, the sellers also known as R.U.O.E. members are clearly not keen to have the police poking about their top-secret facility, and are now taking the blame for faulty wiring.
Jude, ever alert, spies us racing out, haphazard and disoriented. Stealthily, he slinks away, climbs into the car we came in and starts its engine. I glance behind me. No one is following, still trapped behind a wall of flames no doubt, but I can hear the distant commotion of what lies below and what still seeks us out.
‘Don’t move,’ I tell the girl, my voice hoarse, each word smarting like a burst of hot air. She looks at me like I’m mad but stops all the same.
‘You got a plan, idiot?’ she asks, her eyes cautiously searching the sellers. I know if any of them notice us, particularly her, then all will be lost.
‘I’ve got them,’ and I indicate Jude and Nathaniel with a subtle flick of my head.
A screech sounds out as Jude drives straight across the lot, customers leaping out of the way as he comes at us. He halts suddenly, the tyres screaming, and the door is flung open. I leap in, the girl on my heels. Nathaniel isn’t far behind, hurtling away from the confused and instantly furious sellers as they realise we came as three and are leaving as four.
We meet Nathaniel, the open door swinging dangerously as he jumps in, slamming it so hard behind him, two of the windows shatter. I would laugh if it weren’t for the sellers—R.U.O.E. members—surrounding us. Their brutal faces promise an unhurried and excruciating death, then the customers dart away in alarm as the men rip guns from concealed holsters and aim them at us.
Then everything slows, as if time has stretched out. I hear an explosion like cannon fire, see the blitz of orange flames and the clouds of smoke as bullets emerge from the barrels of the guns, twisting with determination and fierce in their aim. Without thinking, I lean out of the window, eyes blazing, stomach tangled in knots and fingers sizzling with unleashed power.
‘Tixtremidral!’ I roar, and the bullets soar upwards, darting towards the sky like shooting stars gone wrong. Before anyone can make sense of what’s happening, shrieks and cries and chaos restart as the bullets come showering down.
Everyone dives for cover.
Rubber burns as Jude slams the car into first and slews out of the lot, me swinging recklessly out of the window as the girl clings onto my hand, hauling me back in as we screech down the road.
WHERE IT WAS FORGED
The sky is cold, no sun to burn away the clouds, no birds to give life to the stretch of concrete grey. Lexovia yawns. She has hardly slept, tormented by Yvane’s vision of the orange moon and what it means for them. She looks around her little hut, not sure how long it’s been since she was last here.
The coffee table by the sofa is still a mess of magazines, vials and discarded jewellery. The door to the kitchen is still scorched from the time she got carried away with her Ochi ability and the old sofa still groans beneath her as she stretches. Through the familiar window, Telathrodon greets her, its same gravel paths and thatched houses plonked between bursts of dry grass and stagnant ponds. Everything looks the same as when she left, but nothing is. The Elenfar made sure of that.
Using her toes, Lexovia nudges Howard and Yvane awake. They stir, blinking up from where they fell asleep on the carpet.
‘We need to make a move whilst the sun is low if we hope to get into Taratesia,’ she murmurs. Rijjleton guards are normally slack right before dawn, beset by sleep and silence. If they hope to seek out the Elutheran plant, then the time to act is now.
Howard’s bones crack as he clambers to his feet. ‘How about a cup of Jugan’s water first?’ he yawns.
‘All right,’ Lexovia agrees. She always did love the earthy burst of Jugan leaves in the morning.
‘And then we leave,’ Yvane states, raking her fingers through her tangle of curls. The puffiness of her eyes and the dark shadows beneath them make Lexovia think her friend slept worse than she did.
Moments later, Howard clamours around in the kitchen, pouring hot cups of Jugan water whilst the girls scoop back their hair and pull on their boots. He returns with three steaming mugs and hands them one each.
They slurp in unison. The heat seeps into Lexovia’s joints
and burns away her worry. She sighs, peaceful, but other than that, no sound taints the silence, not until Howard finally asks, ‘Do you really think we’ll find anything?’
Lexovia leans thoughtfully against the window. ‘According to the stories, the site of Elutheran magic was reduced to nothing but a hole in the ground long ago, shielded by a glut of protection spells.’ She takes a sip of her drink. ‘Supposedly, no one has gone back since.’ She turns to Howard. ‘If Diez has found a way to harness the plant’s power and use it to control the Exlathars then there has to be something there; a disturbance in the earth, a fractured shield.’ She takes another gulp of Jugan water. ‘Something.’
‘And if we find it?’ Yvane asks, her fingers cramped around her mug. ‘Some evidence that Daniel Schawsmith has somehow managed to extend his life and is using the darkest source of magic to control the Exlathars?’
Lexovia’s lips bunch. ‘Then at least we know what we’re up against.’
As hot Jugan simmers in their guts, the three of them step out into the cool breeze where the first glimmers of daylight tint the purple sky. They slip out of Telathrodon, undetected and begin their journey to Taratesia.
‘I know we said no teleporting,’ Yvane murmurs, her voice seeming loud in this deathly quiet, ‘but should we perhaps look for a flookan?’
Lexovia and Howard shake their heads.
‘Too risky,’ Lexovia says. ‘If the Rijjleton Guards don’t notice a flookan drawn carriage this early in the day, the Exlathars will surely hear it coming.’ She takes a sip of water from the flask at her hip then offers it to Yvane who accepts it. ‘Our best bet now is caution and stealth.’
Yvane grimaces but doesn’t press the matter. Howard and Lexovia have been slipping in and out of Taratesia for months now. If they say the best way is by foot, then the best way is by foot.
It isn’t long before beads of sweat bloom along Lexovia’s hairline, her palms clammy, the Taratesia border still nowhere in sight. Melaxous never feels like such a desert until these extensive moments of trekking through its churned sand, dry winds and withered trees. The air warms with each stretching ray of morning sun and rose clouds wisp across the sky.
As they walk, Lexovia’s mind turns to thoughts of Vladimir. She imagines the fury that will lace his russet eyes, the way his square jaw will clench and his fists bunch when he discovers what they’ve done. When he learns she’s headed into Taratesia to discover the home of the darkest source of magic. She wonders if his anger will be a betrayal of how much he cares. And how much of that concern will be for her, for what she is, or her as a weapon… Then she remembers the arena, the way they danced, the way his hands gripped her waist…
‘Almost there,’ Howard breathes and Lexovia flushes as if her thoughts had been out loud.
Looking ahead, she grins at how much closer they are to the lustrous trees and wild grass of Taratesia that shudders in a breeze, as if laughing, as if taunting the bare and crusted land of Melaxous. And she steps over the threshold with a proud grace, revived by her proximity to this land, as if something dormant in her core is prodded awake. Her people lived here once. Their power still swirls in the mist, and for some reason just that thought makes Lexovia feel whole. She scans the violet sky tinged with rose and orange from the rising sun. Thick branches of the forest cut across it, a jumble of leaves and hulking wood, and when she inhales, she soaks in the sweet scent of warm grapes and honeysuckle.
Lexovia leads Howard and Yvane through the trees, their spears drawn and eyes narrowed as they pass between the forest’s flanks. They each know from the stories where the Elutheran plant should be, where they were warned never to go, even before they were exiled to Melaxous. A small area where birds don’t sing and the air doesn’t stir, nestled in a cage of trees near the shore of the Taratesia ocean.
As they walk, they only speak when necessary, which isn’t often, an occasional warning of a crevice deep in the soil or a raised root to avoid. Their movements are slow, wary, each aware that Exlathars, whether young or old—both savage—could be lurking in the labyrinth of trees.
Lexovia tenses as the woods fall unnaturally still, like their party have stepped into a painting. The squawks of Trelions and clicks of Rubus birds no longer sound and no breeze rustles the leaves. Yvane and Howard must sense it too for they both stop, their hands sliding to their satchels in which they have some form of potion.
Wordlessly, they continue, the sound of their steps obsolete: no crunch of leaves or snap of twigs beneath their feet. The ground here is bare, any flower or plant that once existed now dead. But something beats beneath their feet, a rhythmic pulsing as though the very earth is alive.
Just ahead, mist hangs over a gaping hole like cotton wool, where the air seems to shimmer and crackle. Lexovia tilts her head, narrowing her eyes.
‘Is that the shield?’ Yvane asks, her voice barely a whisper.
‘No.’ Lexovia frowns. ‘But someone wants us to think it is.’ Her amber eyes gleam as she reaches out for the mist then hastily swipes her hand through it, as if to wipe it away. The air shudders and the vapour trickles through it like water down a windowpane. Each droplet wriggles and squirms, merging into shapes that soon form letters.
They each step back, watching the message drizzle into place, until hovering in the air are the words ‘You haven’t seen the last of me’.
Lexovia gasps, her skin turned to gooseflesh. ‘That’s what Diez wrote, the night he escaped the Court.’ Her voice is steady but her heart pounds like a jackhammer, her mind swimming, drowning. ‘It’s him.’
Yvane sucks in a shaky breath and Howard steps forward, his toes almost over the edge of the cavernous hole.
‘He’s been using the magic.’
The girls step beside him, to where, below, the Elutheran plant lurks, a waiting beast sending out vicious currents that throb through the earth. Cyan and silver vines stretch up, like the pleading arms of skeletons trapped in a bed of thorns and crisp black petals. Humidity clings to them like a hot gauze, making it hard to breathe, and there’s an overwhelming stench of rot, thinly masked by lavender.
Following Howard’s gaze, Lexovia notices the sharply cut tip of one of the vines, where a bright turquoise sludge seeps from it like blood from a wound. ‘The darkest of all magic,’ she chuckles lowly. Ironically, it looks stunning, an elixir of health and happiness.
‘So now we know what we’re up against.’ Yvane doesn’t take her eyes off the slowly opening emerald and violet buds sprinkled along the shuddering vines. ‘What’s our plan?’
THE GIRL WITH THE DOLLS EYES
The tyres screech as we slide around a corner and I cling to the sides of the car to keep from falling out. Glass from the shattered window presses into my palms, slicing into my skin. At last, Jude slows, certain no one is following, and I carefully duck fully inside the car.
‘That was fantastic!’ the girl enthuses. She’s thin, too thin, and carries scars—inside and out, I’m sure. Her lip is busted and a slit-like gash tattoos her forearm. Her clothes—a shredded piece of cream fabric that looks as if it’s been ripped by claws—is stained with splatters of blood and the unknown, and hangs carelessly off her bony shoulders.
Though her body looks gaunt and lifeless, her eyes are alight and thriving. She grins and I grin back, studying her face that glows with adrenaline. She has doll like eyes, wide and almost innocent—almost—and thin pink lips that match the blush in her cheeks. Her night-black hair has a sharply cut fringe, one that better suits her edge. She’s young, I realise. Definitely younger than me, perhaps no more than fifteen.
She throws an arm out of the broken window, letting it surf the wind, closing her eyes and smiling as the sun kisses her face. I wonder how long it’s been since she’s been outside.
‘So,’ she muses, head tilted back, eyes still closed, ‘who the hell are you?’
I trade looks with Jude in the rear-view mirror. He waggles his eyebrows at me, still on a high as he guns the ac
celerator.
I swallow a smile. ‘I’m Dezaray Storm. The counterpart of Lexovia, the last Elentrice.’
Her eyes snap open, then she turns them to me. ‘Well, slap me sideways.’
I frown at the expression but say nothing as Nathaniel twists from the passenger seat. ‘Nathaniel Rhyte, friend.’
She dips her head and turns her gaze on Jude. ‘And you?’
‘Jude Edwards,’ he calls, ‘son of one of the founders of Feranvil. A place for people like you and people like us.’
She seems to mull this over for a while, her lips pursed as she stares back out through the window, her fringe wafting in its breeze.
‘I’m Sakiya Huang,’ she says at last. ‘A joint-breed: part Ochi and part Fuerté. Yes, I know, quite rare,’ she adds, clearly noting my perplexed expression. ‘Normally, the child inherits one of their parents’ abilities. I got a bit of both. An Ochi who can only create fire,’ and her palm bursts with an orb of swirling pink flames, as if to demonstrate. ‘No ice. And a Fuerté who does not double in size.’
I stare at her thin frame, recalling how she broke through the steel doors of R.U.O.E. She may not double in size but she certainly has the strength.
‘How did you end up here?’ I ask. ‘In Islon.’
