by Daryl Banner
“I’m not an Outlier. My Legacy is a simple Mentalist one,” Wick declares in a tone that suggests Rone is the biggest idiot for jumping to such a dramatic conclusion. “My mind lets me sleep, Rone. That’s it.”
Rone seems confused. “Wait a minute. You think your Legacy is … is the ability to sleep?”
Now it’s Wick’s turn to be confused. “Uh, yeah. Obviously. What the hell else would it be?”
Rone’s expression softens, and he stares at him curiously for a moment. “Hmm. Wick, I think you’re seeing it all wrong.”
“How do you mean?”
“Maybe … Maybe sleeping isn’t your Legacy. Maybe it’s … it’s a side effect of it. Whatever your Legacy actually is, it causes you to sleep. It makes you immune to the thing that keeps us all awake. I think … I think your Legacy is something else entirely.”
Wick can’t make any sense of that. Something else? No, his Legacy has been the same since he was a boy of three. Sleeping. A boy of four. Dreaming. A boy of five, six, seven. Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.
“That isn’t true.” These are the only words Wick can make, his mind overwhelmed with possibilities he does not have the will to consider. “That’s … That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever …” He covers his mouth and stares down the hole, silent.
“I … could be wrong,” Rone admits quietly.
He had always slept, always dreamed. Just like the people of the past, the Ancients, he sleeps and dreams every night. But it has always struck him as strange that he has no control over it. Sleep is not an act he can simply make happen; it is a thing of necessity, like air, like food. And what is a Legacy, if not something that acts? Some spend their lives ignoring their Legacy. Link might spend his days never turning another thing pink. Lionis could choose not to burn another meal with his palms. Ellena could refuse to absorb another paper cut and yet … and yet …
I can’t not sleep. The realization stirs in his belly like an unwelcome friend. Something he’d thought all along, now turned over and spun around and kicked in the ribs. I can’t not sleep. Surely there are others whose Legacies have a mind, unable to be switched off, forever haunting and plaguing and torturing. I can’t be the only one. No, he can’t. The thought makes his stomach twist worse than calling himself an Outlier. There have to be others like me. Because if there aren’t …
And if sleeping is not his Legacy … then what is?
“Are we going or not?”
The voice is Victra’s, waiting at the stair and glaring down at the pair of them on the ledge. Something has changed in her face. It doesn’t wrinkle with its usual bitter contempt, but seems somehow strained, curious … wary. Is it Wick she’s wary of? Does he inspire fear in others now?
Rone puts a calming hand on his shoulder, gives it a little rub. Suddenly Wick finds himself appreciating that very much. “You got yourself back together, Wick?”
“Sure.” He wipes a bit of sleep out his left eye. “Not getting us any closer to home sitting here.”
Victra steps further into the room, sighing heavily. “We need to think on a solution to that fat kid-boy of yours. He’s been hit thrice in the back, in the neck, in his shoulders, in his ass. He’s glowing like the fucking sun.”
Wick peers at the Guardian down below, the cats making a lunch of the dead man’s ears. “Let him glow.”
When they’ve all regrouped at the base of the empty building, the cats have scattered from the corpse and Victra is using her sight to figure the safest, quickest way to the subterranean rail that will take them closest to home. Rone confers with her on buildings he could phase them through, provided he flexes his Legacy enough. Tide lights up the corner of the room like a chandelier and he’s staring at a dead bird his own body’s glow illuminates in the bleak ruin of the concrete floor.
Athan comes from behind, gently hugging him at the waist. Wick doesn’t object, letting in the Sanctum boy’s aroma. He smells so clean even when he’s dirty.
“No way. Not through the ground,” Rone is telling Victra, raising his voice.
She huffs. “That’s where our destination is. The subterranean rail is—surprise—below the ground. Not far off, I might add. If you’d just phase us through the floor—”
“And risk getting us all trapped a hundred feet in the earth? I’ve never phased downward and I never will. Scares the fuck out of me, to be honest.”
“You need your chemical.” She grabs his crotch for one quick instant to shove him at the wall, then rolls her huge blue-lidded eyes. “You’re limp as a worm without it, see? You turn into a boy, running away from glow guns, hiding from challenges, trembling and worrying … Look at you.”
“Sorry you find me less exciting when I actually think things through—sober—and when I refrain from reckless use of my Legacy. Real ironic advice, coming from you.” He gives a wave at the dead Guardian in the adjoining room. “How about you give us a show, Miss Brave, and have a go through a dead man’s eyes. Tell us all what you see.”
She slaps him harshly right there. The blow is strong enough to pop blood onto Rone’s chin, and too unexpected for him to phase the hand harmlessly through his face. After a cold silence, she raises one finger at him and, in a voice so low it’s animal, says, “If you ever disrespect the memory of my sister again—” He tries to apologize, the speck of blood playing on his chin, but it comes out in a gurgling cough followed by more blood.
Victra doesn’t finish her sentence, leaving the room in a frosty haste. A thickness of emotion settles in the room, and Wick has to turn away, embarrassed to continue looking at Rone. He wonders if they’ll even survive the trip home, with all the drama.
As if to address a load of unasked questions, Rone just lifts a hand at Wick and the others, finally managing to say, “Nothing … It’s nothing. Never mind it. We’re okay.”
Rone sits down, taking a moment to nurse his chin. Tide still lurks sulking in the corner, offering nothing but the slow yet inevitable conversion of oxygen to carbon dioxide.
Wick feels Athan’s arms strengthen around his waist, feels the boy’s breath on his neck. And then Athan whispers into his ear: “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I wish I remembered what it’s like to dream. It’s wasted on two-year-olds who won’t ever remember the joy of it … I miss it, I think.”
“You wouldn’t if you did it every day.”
Athan snuggles into Wick’s neck, like he’s making a nest of it. “I could kiss you every day. Every single day, and still know how badly I’d miss it.”
“You mean when you’re back home?” Wick can’t keep the cold from his voice. All that sits in his chest is the all-sobering, all-knowing, stubborn-as-death coldness. “When you’re returned home to a big palace in the sky, you’ll miss my kiss?”
“I … No, what I meant was …” But he doesn’t seem able to find an explanation for what he meant.
So Wick supplies it for him. “That I’m just a dream to you. A dream that you’ll someday wake up from. And my kisses will just be another pretty flower to think on in your Lord’s Garden. Oh, look at how it blooms, withers, and dies.” Wick wills himself to shut up before he says anything worse. He closes his eyes because even the sight of Rone nursing a broken lip or tooth or whatever is too much. We’re all falling apart. We’ll never make it home.
But Athan doesn’t move away. Athan seems never hurt, never offended. Always bright, hopeful … and there. He gives a squeeze, in fact. His arms flex with affection and understanding. Like he knows every one of Wick’s pains without words needing to explain them. Wick feels instantly sorry for lashing out, but really, he knows all about the nature of how dreams end.
Maybe Athan is the dream.
His lips still intimately close to Wick’s ear, Athan whispers, “For what it’s worth, your secret’s only been revealed to us. Just your friends. Not yet to the world.”
Maybe he’s right. Wick knows Athan means well, giving him such well-needed reassurance at a time like this �
�� but his ears can’t help but obsess on those two deadly words. Not. Yet.
0046 Ellena
She’s the only one home. Lonely, it is.
A son here and there. A husband somewhere else. And where is she? She’s lying on the couch in the warm, thick silence of an empty house. Not even the bugs stir, not even the air. She moves a wicked hand down her breasts, down her belly, puts it somewhere warmer than the room. She closes her eyes and wonders.
A breath here and there. A finger somewhere else.
What the hell is wrong with me?
She isn’t thinking about her missing sons. She isn’t doing the math of days they’ve all been gone … Wick, Link, Forge. Math is his Legacy, not hers. She isn’t counting the days Halves and Aleks have been gone, nor the amount of days it’s been since she heard from them or seen their faces on the broadcast, doing their duty.
Her finger is gone and something else takes its place. Another guilty finger? What the hell is wrong with me? And really, what’s a dirty ninth doing dreaming of flowers and wanting to be like that lofty woman of the sky? She puts a finger in her mouth, brings it down to join the party. He’s gone, they’re all gone. She bites her lip so hard she tastes blood. A breath here. A breath there.
She stops. Enough. She lifts herself off the couch.
In the kitchen, she tries to cook herself breakfast. She does this alone because Lionis is at the library and a person ought to be able to make their own fucking breakfast. She slams a pot onto the stove—then immediately feels ashamed for it. Why aren’t you here, Forge? Is he even going to work? Have they marked him missing, too? Fired him? Where in all the Last City of Atlas does he hope to find their boys? If Forge loses his job, they will have no way to pay for their lives. This box in the ninth ward they call home will be forfeit. Ellena imagines them on the streets, fending day to day for scraps the rats haven’t yet touched. Where are you? Reaching for a plate in the high cupboard, she shudders at the thought.
Ellena cuts her hand. No, not even on a knife. She cuts it on the edge of that plate … that stupid, simple, nothing plate. Who’s gonna take my aches away?
The front door shakes with activity, then opens. Her heart leaps for two seconds, until she realizes it is Lionis returning from the library. Their eyes catch, Ellena gripping her nicked palm.
His face drops. “Not the one you were hoping to see?” He carries his books to the den.
The words make her feel so guilty. “No, no,” she insists, reaching for him. “I’m happy to see you. Lionis, I’m trying to cook … to cook your breakfast.”
Her breakfast suddenly becomes his in one flick of a thought. Lionis peers at her from across the den, unsmiling, then sets his books down heavily. “Better not let you burn it, then. Leave the burning to me.”
As he approaches the kitchen, she’s relieved to see the humor in his face. He takes over, and in the space of three minutes, a tasty breakfast sits on a plate. Lionis takes one fork of it, then turns a questioning eye on his mom. “Have a bite?” She smiles, takes out another fork and lets herself enjoy a mouth of mashed, peppered egg. “Yep,” she says with a giggle, “that’s how they’re done.”
“Don’t worry, they’ll come home.” Lionis shakes his head, puts in another forkful of breakfast. The utensil scrapes teeth on its way out. “I’ve always said it. Link and Wick, they’re a pair of trouble. But they’ll come back and take whatever punishment awaits them, if the school calls and marks them truant. I’m shocked they haven’t. Someone must be looking out for them.”
Ellena suddenly finds her arms wrapped around her son, interrupting him mid-bite and squeezing him in her arms like she’ll never let go. “Sometimes, you’re all I have.” The words are half a choke. She realizes she’s trying not to cry. “My sweet Lionis.”
Once he swallows the bite, his face turns, something occurring to him. “Sorry, mom. I just realized …” He breaks from her arms, crosses back to the den and thumbs through the books he’d brought home. “Damn. Yeah. I have to go back. I left my book on Empaths at the library.”
You just got home. Why is everyone always leaving me? “But … Wait, Lionis …”
“Sorry.” He makes for the door.
“Fine,” she snaps, slamming her fork down on the counter. “Fine, then. Go. This whole house is cold and silent. Everyone’s lost in the city, no mind at all. Go get lost with them.” She turns around and runs the faucet hard, blasting her hands.
She hears his quiet voice. “They’ll be home soon enough, mom. And so will I.” She keeps her back turned so as not to watch him leave. The door opens, she hears it, and then she hears it quietly close. She shuts off the faucet with a sigh. The silence becomes once again her only company. The unrelenting, ear-pressing sound of no other breath besides her own.
The breakfast grows cold, and her heart colder.
On the train to work, she’s asked for her seat so that an old woman may place down a heavy sack of groceries. “Of course,” says Ellena, rising at once. Sliding between other passengers, she keeps feeling like she’s in someone else’s way, edging around clothes and tired stares and irritated faces. After another stop’s torrent of new occupants, she finds herself pressed to the end of the train, staring at everyone’s backs. I’m ever so tired of staring at the backs of people’s heads, she thinks, of so many days of her sons leaving for school, of her husband leaving …
Who’s gonna take my aches away?
Nine hours later when her shift is over in the Greens, and when there is no coworker in sight, and when her boss is not looking through his smudgy office window, and when not a soul is near to dare question her, she takes her hands to one of the giant seed bins—full to the ugly brim—and shoves it over, just because she wants to. The thing seems to tip in slow-motion, and the andragora seeds that took her and the other mudders months to gather spill in a steady rain to the earth. And when Ellena heads for the trains home, all she feels is satisfaction.
0047 Ruena
She permits herself access to the hall of cells on the thirty-second sub floor. Her escort, a soldier assigned directly by King Greymyn himself, learns how brave he’s not as the cold and the dark swallow them. “I will be here when you’re through,” he tells her, taking a position at the elevator door and refusing to advance further. She strolls down the hall, uncaring. Let him quiver.
She passes forty cells that carry forty criminals, men and women who await their final sentencing. A thin, endless ribbon of neon runs down the center of the hall, its only light, terminating at the base of each door. Within the cells, the criminals are nude as babies, but don’t have the sweet comfort of Baby Dreams, as they are far older than two years, and instead enjoy the chilly agony of metal-plated walls, the uncompromising dampness and cold, and the occasional rasps of people sobbing, shivering, or dying.
None of it scares Ruena. Each of them made choices that led them to one of these cells. In their choices, they disrespect the efforts of the King, who gave them good lives. And the great work of Janlord, Marshal of Peace. And the force of the young Taylon and his ever-expanding Guardian. These very same people will someday disrespect Ruena, when she is made Queen.
She arrives at his cell, peering through the one-square-foot window. Unlike every other criminal in the King’s Keep, Dran is practically lounging on the cold unforgiving floor, just as naked as the rest. He looks up, his black eyes finding hers in the dim, eerie light. He makes no effort even to cover up his privates, out there for anyone to see.
“Hey, pretty,” he says.
She lifts her pointy chin. She chose a robe of bright lime to combat the monochromatic gloom of the Keep and cared not to wrap her hair in any matter of scarves or hats today. In the cool breeze of the afternoon, she let her hair fly—but it only made the ugly scar cutting down her scalp and left ear all the more noticeable. His word of endearment hits her sideways, and she resents instantly that this fool criminal would, in his circumstance, have the gall to taunt a woman for the scar on he
r face. “My name is Ruena Netheris.”
“And what brings you to my humble new abode?” He smiles wide. His eyes seem shadowed, evidence of the heavy black makeup that used to cake them. Like the eyes of a raccoon, brightening the whites. It either makes him look like a thing to be feared, or a thing afraid.
Ruena studies his long shape. Boys from the slums are dirty, she thinks, even though he has all his skin out in the open, nowhere to hide a smudge of ash. He looks freshly bathed, in fact. The worst dirt can’t be seen, the dirt of the mind, she reminds herself. “I’m not entirely convinced of your innocence. Or your guilt.”
“You’ve come for convincing?” He smiles wider.
“You are the leader of The Wrath, a little thorn in the side of Guardian in the ninth and tenth wards for the better part of a year. Nothing more.” Ruena cocks her head, makes wide her own eyes to show all the white of wisdom in them. I’ve done my research on you, dirt of the slums. “But there are plenty more of you. The Wrath did not only consist of you and your younger brother, Fylan.”
Dran shrugs. “You’re the one with all the answers. Whether I live. Whether I die. If you have a question for me, don’t you also have its answer, pretty?”
“Call me that again,” she responds, “and in addition to an answer, I’ll also have your tongue.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “But the question is, where are you wanting my tongue once you have it?”
His quip throws her. She can pretend that his cocky behavior and frisky little words don’t affect her, but she can’t ignore how her breath quickened. The Wrath, she muses, regaining her foothold. What have you to be so wrathful about?
“It is a curious thing that, for all the black in your attire, you made the words blue,” she points out. “I believe, for the sake of consistency, your words would’ve been black as well.”
