by Daryl Banner
“So you do doubt my involvement?” He lifts his brows curiously, his voice full of innocence and wonder. “Guess there is hope for Dran after all.”
“Doesn’t make you any less of a criminal.” She makes to lean toward him as if to get a better look, but her eyes keep to his face, not daring to give him the satisfaction of wandering lower. “It is your crimes with The Wrath that you are answering for.”
“Ah.” He crosses his legs the other way, his privates making a stir of themselves. Ruena rolls her eyes to the ceiling to avoid an accidental look. It is ever so distracting. “So I have to ask, sweet Lady Netheris, to whom does the King answer for his own crimes?”
“Should the King answer for any, he answers to his Council, who make certain he is adequately just.” She stares at the ceiling as she talks, not giving him the courtesy of eye contact. “You may be slumborn, but you know as well as I that there have been no Tyrants in all the history of Atlas.”
“Except the last Queen.”
“I will not be that sort, when I am crowned. And she was not a Tyrant. The only ones with the potential to be such a thing are Outliers and we are diligent in our effort to apprehend them.”
“Apprehend? Hmm, interesting. I thought Outliers were celebrated for their extraordinary and rare Legacies, brought up to the Lifted City and showered with gold.”
“Well, with any person of such power, there is room always for concern.” She dares a peek at him, then looks away quickly. He’s staring right at me. Ugh, the gall. His pitch-dark irises pierce like black lightning, stealing her resolve. “You aren’t one, so I’d—”
“How do you know I’m not an Outlier?”
“You think me a fool?” She turns her burning eyes back on his naked form. When I’m Queen, I’d allow them at least the dignity of a pair of underwear. “What do we have a Royal Legacist for, if not to know and survey any who come before the King? We know every single thing about you. Your Legacy is mundane.”
At that, he squints hard, and where a moment ago his eyes were without their black, suddenly the black returns in a sprout of inky tears. He oozes the grease from his eyes. The whites in them glow.
“As you so demonstrate. A mundane Legacy. Your power’s only in your knife and your tongue. One which you’ve lost, the other likely to follow.” Ruena lets a lazy gaze run down his figure, observing the dust of hair down his legs, on his privates, up his stomach and tickling on his chest. “But not in your Legacy.”
“I prefer it that way. People who depend on their Legacies are weak. Hey, pretty, my face is up here.” Ruena snaps her eyes back to his. “There you go.”
“I told you, the next time you called me that—”
“So tell me where you want it.” He licks his lips slowly, unsmiling.
Suddenly she’s not sure at all why she came down here. What was she hoping to find? A scared boy begging for his life? Deep, bleeding remorse? An apology? Maybe she doesn’t even know the real force that drove her to put on a wash of lime silk, to don her glass heels … even her best pearls dangle from each ear, her Aunt Kael’s. Why all the fuss? Her fingers tingle with the threat of electric discharge, and that’s what tells her that she’s spent enough time here in the Combs.
“I want it behind your teeth where it belongs.” His eyes look hungry, the black around them bleeding. He is playing with you, she tells herself. He’s playing with your desires. He’s making a fool of you. “I must’ve been a fool.”
“To come and pay me a visit? No.” Lithely, he rises to his feet, his slender shape proving careless of its exposure, his posture straight as a line, his eyes sharp as needles and smiling without a smile. “You were genius to do such a thing.” Ruena squints at him, doesn’t dare ask what he means. So he lets her know: “Now, when the King changes his mind, I can die in peace.”
“What peace have I brought you?” She can’t help herself, staring at his wide, unsmiling lips. I could’ve had your tongue. With one cry, I’d have it in my palm or elsewhere.
“The peace of knowing someone cares.”
Ruena takes two shallow breaths. She lifts her chin once more. “You have a fiancée. Mercy is her name, if you remember it. I do. Does she not care?”
“Not likely. Never did.” The lie is difficult to hide from his eyes, bared as they are. He is lying to protect her … Playing his fiancée off as nothing so that we will not pursue her. Something about his cockiness seems noble. “The rest of The Wrath are likely disbanded now too. Given up, gone home. Without me, they’re just … boys with bad tempers.”
She studies his face good and hard. A Queen doesn’t show a speck of softness, not to a slumborn. “You’d like me to believe that, wouldn’t you, Dran?”
“What I’d like you to believe,” he says, taking away all her smarts, his dark eyes somehow growing darker, “is that I’m innocent. Because I am. And since I am innocent, it begs answer to one critical question: who did bring down the Lord’s Garden?”
Ruena studies his face. Is she looking for a wink of falsehood? Is she finding herself seduced by his claim?—by his dark eyes?
“Because,” he goes on, serious and even of tone, “I can assure you, no matter what comes of me, your mind will not be eased, and your problem will remain unsolved, until you find out who—or what—caused that mighty explosion to happen. I promise you, whatever it is, it’s still out there. And it’s a threat to both of us.”
“There is no threat to me,” Ruena arrogantly pushes on, knowing full well she’s wrong, feeling the doubt clutch at her throat and threaten to take away her breath. “I am the most protected woman in all of Atlas, too soon to be its next Queen.”
“Too soon, indeed,” he agrees.
That’s not what I meant. She doesn’t show a bit of her irritation with the ever-smart-mouthed—and alluring—Dran. He will say and do anything, she reminds herself. He is a slum rat, and slum rats would bite through their own ankles if it freed them from a chain.
“Maybe I ought to remind you,” she says, calm as ever, daring herself to say goodbye to his enticing, cruel eyes forever, “that while you take residence here, your life is not your own. At any moment, judgment can change, and the last thing you hear may be my grandfather’s scream.”
He only smiles. “And if I’m lucky, the last thing I hear will be yours … while I’m fucking you.”
Ruena turns, fist-balled, and makes her way down the long hall before daring to show that slum rat her anger. He’ll see it soon enough. She finds the trembling guard right where she’d left him. He asks her if she’s alright and she slaps him so hard, a spray of sparks fly from his cheek. The elevator makes a gentle hum as the doors close behind them.
0048 Athan
When they pass through the darkened stockroom of the armory, Athan has another one of his urges. The armor. What about the armor? We won’t make it to the subterranean with Tide glowing like that. They need a brilliant disguise. Athan finds himself running hands along the smooth chests of platemail. The idea is slow to form, but when it does, it sets his eyes on fire. “Tide!”
Wick and Tide turn at Athan’s outburst. Victra and Rone pay no mind, having stopped at the other end of the room to discuss their next move for phasing.
“Here.” Athan tugs on the platemail. “Put this on.”
Tide scoffs, making a sneer of his face. “You dumb? That’s not hiding my glow.”
“Exactly. Why cover the glow? Embrace it.”
It takes a bit more convincing, but with Rone and his lady bickering and Wick tiredly watching, Athan coaxes Tide into a chest of shiny plate armor, as most of the glow is on his torso. The mail shimmers even in the pale light coming from the horizontal slits of windows at the top of the walls. Tide’s movement is now noisy and his footfalls as subtle as a brick to the head, granted, but what the suit of armor does to his glow is nothing short of genius. Athan is certain his idea will work.
“How’s it fit?” he asks.
“Like a fucking bra.” He pull
s on it, squirming and grunting, but the plate holds firm. The glow on his upper and lower back seem to become a part of the armor, a blend of light and sheen. “It’s uncomfortable.”
“Fuck your comfort,” says Wick, giving the bottom of the chest piece a tug. “He’ll need plate for his bottom half. They got him in the ass, too.”
“What??” Tide twists in a sad attempt to look for himself, but he’s too big and there’s no mirror. He makes an attempt on the shiny surface of another hanging bit of armor. “What the—?? Huh? Where??”
“It really works.” Athan grins. He’s found the perfect solution for Tide. They can advance in a better peace now … provided that Guardian isn’t keen enough to recognize Athan Broadmore of Broadmore Manor, even with his hair changed blue. “You look strong in it. Proud and strong.” Athan turns to Wick, feeling proud and strong himself. “Doesn’t he?”
Tide’s eyes narrow. “I know how I look. Armor doesn’t suit me.” He gives his chest another tug and a grunt. “Take it off. Unbuckle it.”
“It doesn’t buckle,” Athan corrects him. “It’s tied, like your name. Tide. Hah. Hey, you don’t need to wear those extra clothes now. That ought to give you more comfort.”
“Trying to get my clothes off me?” Tide gives a snort, turns his dark eyes on Wick. “You heard it. Your man’s trying to get me out of my clothes.”
Wick breaks a smile, shakes his head. “Big, whiny, and mean isn’t Athan’s type of guy, I should hope I know.”
Athan beams, looking on Wick’s face, studying his lips as he speaks. I just can’t control myself, he decides, imagining how good it’d feel to shut out everything that’s going on, tear off their clothes, and throw themselves into the piles of plate and metal and reintroduce their tongues to one another, as if for the first time. Whenever we pull apart, I’m always seconds later forgetting how you taste and wanting a hundred more reminders. Just with the thought, he feels himself stiffening in his pants. Wick seems to notice the attention because suddenly they’re looking at each other, and the tiniest of a smile tickles their faces.
But an armory is not the best place for climbing one another’s bodies, especially with present company considered. The desire makes the urgency of getting back to the Rain headquarters all the more pressing. A mission for Wick’s lips, that’s what this becomes.
Tide returns to his makeshift reflective surface, the smooth backplate of another armor, and fusses with his own while Athan looks for more mail to cover the length of Tide’s giant thighs. Athan makes a laugh, returning to fix the mail to the big, whiny, mean boy, when he notices Wick sitting on the floor opposite him, his eyes strained and tired. The look in Wick’s eyes puts an end to Athan’s laughter, and he’s reminded once more that this is not a fun-filled adventure meant to entertain him. This isn’t the Lifted City. Consequences here are not a stern look from mother, or laughter at a party; it is imminent death.
As he stares at Wick, he remembers a conversation they had before leaving the last location. “What do you expect to come of us?” his slum boy had asked him. “If we are being honest, when you are finally found, what’s going to happen to us?” Athan couldn’t stand to hear another second of it—instantly, his heart was choked by thoughts of his ice queen mother, of his droopy-eyed sister, of his stone-jawed father—and he gripped his slum boy by both shoulders and responded, “I hope I’m never found.” He pushed his face into Wick’s, their mouths opening on each other. The warmth rushed up his body, met him at his mouth and his throat and his eyes. Tears in them, he let go to say, “I’ll be lost here with you. Please, I beg it. Lost down here for the rest of my life.” Their faces crashed together again at that point, and Athan considered that, in truth, his heart had been lost already to the slums for years, even from his Lifted City home. I’d dreamed this and now I am that dream.
Thinking of himself as a dream draws him back into the moment when he came into the building Tide and Wick were held up in, Victra leading the way with her sight—namely, Tide staring dumbfounded at Wick—and Rone phasing them through walls. When they saw Wick on that high-up floor, sleeping, Athan found his chest locked up with so many emotions all at once, he could not breathe. Perhaps that was the others’ reactions too, because it felt like all the breath in the room was held. Rone was convinced that Wick was dead, but Tide pointed out his breathing. Nothing seemed to stir him, and that’s when Victra plunged into his eyes for a clue. Athan only stood there, choked up and scared.
He’s a dreamer, he thought later when Wick was finally made awake again. He’s the real sort of dreamer. Not the kind who stare out bathroom windows in the Lifted City, contemplating the purpose of life and the nature of contentment. Not the kind who hang over the balconies of Lifted City Gardens, dropping coin into the slums below … I thought I knew plenty of dreams and of dreaming and of escaping my life. He never realized how so very little he knew, staring at Wick and his closed eyes. He never looked so strange …
He never looked so beautiful.
When Rone and Victra rejoin the three of them, Rone looks Tide up and down. “Now that’s an idea. I didn’t know you had it in you, wind-pusher.”
Wick slaps a hand on Athan’s shoulder. “Sanctum boy’s idea, actually.” Athan feels a rush of pride. He loves the contact of hand, even to his shoulder. He dares his arm around Wick’s waist, pulls him in with a broad smile, flashing his teeth. “The armor’s a bit purple now. But it could be mirror-mail. Or fit with electrodes.”
“Yeah, okay.” Tide grunts, giving his legs a lift one at a time. “I can deal with that. Fuck it. Let Guardian mess with me. If they so much as touch my shoulder plate, my wind will choke them.” Just at that word, the air in the room seems to shift for a second.
“We have an opening, turns out. But it’ll require a quickness.” Rone gives them each a lift of his brow. “Better we get ourselves down the back alleys and on the way now. The subterranean isn’t far off and home not much more.”
Tide moves ahead, complaining how heavy the leg plates are, while Wick moves on to taunt him, Rone phasing them through the wall one at a time. When only Victra and Athan remain, she turns back to him and destroys his smile by saying, “Have all your fun with little Wicky now, because in the end, what you are is what you are, and that is not one of us.”
Athan frowns. “But … what do you mean? I am one of you. I’ve cooperated. I’ve contributed. I’ve even—”
“You’re a Lifted. You’re a Privileged. You’re a rich boy, a spoiled boy, smeared with means and riches and happiness beyond any of our wildest dreams.” Rone’s hand reaches through the wall, searching for hers. “You might fool little Wicky, but you don’t fool me. I trust nothing from the sky, not since my sister, not since Rone’s dad, not since the hundreds of atrocities you people commit that go unpunished.” The hand reaches and reaches, beckoning. “I am, have been, and will always watch you with more than just my other vision. If you dare do anything to compromise the safety of my friends, horny boy-driven Wicky included, I will end your little Lifted life. I promise you that. And I have to this day kept every one of my promises.” Her eyes quiver something deadly. “Have we an understanding?”
Athan nods.
Victra takes hold of the hand, her body shimmering transparently, and then she’s through the wall like a mist, gone. Only Athan remains in the dark of the storeroom, her last words sitting heavy in his chest. I don’t belong, he tells himself. He already knew it. He’s always known it. I don’t belong here. These people don’t love me. Except for Wick, maybe, but perhaps it is because Wick doesn’t know better. He is an innocent party. In much the same way that Athan so innocently loved and reached for and longed for the slums … When at last he’s become a part of it, he realized instantly it was a mistake. The slums bore little love for him, trying at every turn to send him back. Even on his first day, he knew it. They don’t love me.
Rone’s long bronze hand comes through the wall once more. Athan considers for one wild second no
t taking it. I could go upstairs, let myself out of this storeroom and find the manager of this armory. I could turn myself in, send myself home right now. It is so easy. It could be so, so easy. But can he really do that to Wick? I might be doing him more harm by staying. Victra said it. And for as cruel as she can sometimes seem, it doesn’t make her any less right. Still …
Athan grips the hand.
0049 Cintha
She shouldn’t be down here, but she is. The cellar is cold as a walk-in fridge and the only sound is a gentle hum from the water heater, or the breaker boxes, or some beast living in the walls.
Cintha turns her eyes to the thick, ugly metal door.
He’s not a beast, she thinks, so afraid she can’t stop shaking. Or shivering, it’s all the same. He’s only a boy, just like my brother. Just like Wick or Athan. And they are not scary. He’s only a boy with a Legacy.
He’s only an Outlier.
With a bowl in one hand, she reaches for the door. The handle is too cold to touch without wincing in pain. She yanks the heavy thing open anyway, giving a little grunt.
Her eyes find him instantly, as though he were the only thing in the room. His oily forever-eyes, emotionless, harsh, dead. His skin so pale it’s not there. She pretends there is no cage holding him. Neither is there a door to that cage. Nor the thickest chains she’s ever seen binding his hands to his chest and his neck to the wall and his legs to the floor, chains thick enough to hold down a beast ten times his size. He’s not a beast.
She balances the bowl in her hand—the bowl she’d brought down from the kitchens—and coaxes herself into the room. Thank the Sisters for this bowl, it’s the only warm thing down here. Letting the door stay open, she steps toward the cage. He watches her with every step. She dares to let herself into the cage, ignoring the mist that hovers in front of her face, the mist of her own lung’s breath.
He still watches her. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t blink. It’s possible he doesn’t even breathe.
