by Amanda Churi
The depth of their travel wasn’t what made the air that Griffin took in cold—it was the brutal assault behind Flye’s words, and worst of all, the truth that coated each bullet from her mouth.
Defeated, Griffin slumped down, hanging his head without further objection. They were right… Kevin was brave. Eero was brave. Mabel was brave. Pinion, Seek, Flye, Kaitlyn—Laelia… They were all brave. But him? He was sneaky: a thief snatching crumpets and fruit as a child to fill his starving belly; one who, had it not been for Eero during the Noble war, would have chosen to die; a mere boy who didn’t have the courage to tell Laelia how he felt and let her die from a broken heart instead.
Everyone around him, they were all brave—so selflessly giving up their lives for the greater good while he retreated behind others and only struck when it was do or die, never taking the extra step, going the extra length to ensure victory. Even after all these years, he was still just a shadow—a shadow frightened of itself.
The tracker gradually slowed down until it was crawling. Griffin lifted his head curiously as they finally halted, signifying the end of such a horrific escape. There was nothing to be seen by his fractured eyes—just more darkness.
The glass overhead parted, a wave of frigid, life-stealing air smacking the Encryptors in the face. Their immunization did almost nothing for them at that moment; the temperatures were far too low for their bodies to fend off, bringing foreign shivers upon them once more.
“Get out,” Flye ordered.
Griffin eyed her skeptically, tilting his head over the side and peering into the chasm. “You want me dead that bad?”
“Maybe. Now scram.”
Sighing grievously, Griffin submitted and took the first step, carefully lifting his leg over the wall of the tracker and feeling for unseen ground. The disks in his back caught fire, pushing a miserable groan through his teeth when his spine stood straight.
“We don’t have all day!” Flye yapped. “Move it, Scourge!”
Hissing with resentment, Griffin successfully got out, stumbling forward when he reached solid ground. He fell to his knees and gripped the cold soil, panting and groaning as a cold sweat poured down his face.
Seek cautiously climbed out after him, straining her emaciated body as she struggled to drag Kaitlyn with her. One by one, trackers parked behind Flye, and slowly, the caverns began to resemble a runway—the only path that signified life and hope for their tattered forces lit aglow by uncountable busted headlights.
Heaving, the ghoulish child heftily placed Kaitlyn down beside Griffin, turning to watch the survivors pull themselves out of their coffins and aimlessly stumble toward the head of the fleet. The sight of their tattered souls awakened something that the raid had buried deep within Seek; her ragged, overwhelmed breathing stopped, and she pushed herself to stand tall and proud, ordering her souls to illuminate her skin so that she stood in the darkness as a holy flare, bringing the distraught soldiers to her like moths to a flame.
Griffin stared at her in bewilderment as Flye and the others entrusted to manning the trackers powered down their machinery and joined up with the rest of those gathering. Seek was hardly even a teenager, yet she held herself as though she was a million bucks, discarding anything and everything that would not help them. How and where did she find such courage? The will to fight for her and everyone else?
These people… They weren’t people! No human could ever have a drive even slightly comparable to the ruffians around him.
After several ungodly minutes, no more trackers pulled in, and Seek was the only source of light left in such a desolate land. No one dared to speak; they just stared at her anxiously, wondering what would possibly be their next move.
“Where is Pinion?” Seek announced from deep within her chest, projecting her voice over the heads of the drained soldiers.
Heads turned to and fro, chatter lightly dusting the air, but nothing appeared to be achieved.
“Pinion?” Seek tried again, perching her head higher and looking out on her tippy toes.
“She’s not here,” a hoarse voice echoed.
A figure pushed through the crowd, hunched forward with blood oozing from their lips. He almost appeared to be invisible, his hardened, beautiful black skin blending in with the surroundings as he lumbered forward—a floating set of shredded armor wrapped in a trench coat. In his cupped hands, two wide, frightened purple eyes peeked out from the cracks of his fingers, darting back and forth to examine the dangerous environment.
“Virgil,” Seek noted as the head strategian came forward.
“Prelude,” he corrected firmly. “Code names, especially now.” He lifted his dark red eyes, scanning the stone ceiling. “I wouldn’t doubt it if this place has got some traps set up, given that it’s been a hundred years plus since Pikë’s fall. Those bastards have had ample time to make this a playground.” Limping, he came to stand beside Seek, momentarily overlooking the crowd before shifting his attention back to his hands as they began shaking. He scoffed, peeling his fingers away from his chest to release Sybil, who immediately scampered up his arm and took a seat on Prelude’s shoulder, gripping his neck in fright.
Griffin made sure to divert his eyes; he didn’t know how he could look Sybil in the eye after all of the grief he had caused her.
Virgil tried to hold himself high, but his injured leg kept his large figure down a noticeable amount. Still, he did not let such infringe upon the responsibilities that plummeted down on his shoulders, speaking with a loud, clear, unwavering voice. “We may not see the queen anywhere… But I do not want any of you to assume the worst! Not yet. It is far too early to draw assumptions. We all know Pinion, and we all know how hardheaded she is. Now…” His sharp red eyes scanned the crowd. “Is the head medic with us?”
“Yes!” someone replied, quickly scuttling to the front to stand at attention before Virgil.
“Peace, do you happen to have the registry of Encryptors with you?”
“Yes, sir!” she shouted, holding her head high and whipping her right arm out in front of her as she smashed it to her breastplate, flashing the gold cufflink on her long silver sleeve. “It is always with me, sir!”
“Good. Roll call. Let’s see how bad the damage is…”
“On it, sir!”
She clicked her cufflink and began immediately, rolling the names off her tongue as fast as they could come while Virgil impatiently waited for the results. Name after name she said—minutes passed and drudgingly mounted to what was surely over an hour.
Griffin sat, listening in a daze to the names of those who were left, but, more importantly, to the large gaps of silence gone unanswered that seemed to happen far too frequently. It wasn’t a roll call anymore; it was an obituary.
“Flame!” the medic called out.
No answer.
A stiffness more rigid than any before it overcame the crowd. The medic hesitated. “Flame of Hope!” she tried again, this time louder.
Griffin shot back into reality; his hand cringed, scraping ice. W-what? he thought, pushing himself off the ground and looking around for himself when silence continued to answer the medic’s call. He had to have heard wrong. That’s impossible! There’s no way that—!
The medic moved on despite the arising string of anxious gossip. “Sin!”
Griffin’s breath pinched his lungs. Please… Please, please, please…
“…Judicator of Sin!”
And yet no response from the voice he knew so well.
Queasiness overcame him, and Griffin staggered back, bumping into one of his allies who roughly pushed him forward, though their complaints did not even make it to his eardrums. The world sped up; everything was almost passing by in a blur, but he was dragging, his vision fogging and head throbbing as he struggled to move his heavy, weighted body. N-no… How? How is that…? BOTH OF THEM?!
He was unable to restrain himself—he spun around, sight swaying and ears ringing, desperately seeking out their familiar faces.
“Where are you guys?! Eero! Mabel!”
A metallic hand flew over his mouth. “Scourge, silence thyself!”
Griffin grunted with shock as the voice seized him and yanked him into their chest. Mumbling with protest, Griffin looked up, gazing into Embry’s sparkling purple eyes. She smiled innocently, cocking her head and fluttering her silver lashes. “Everything shall be alright; it is unnecessary to fret.”
She slowly released Griffin, but all that he could do was gawk. His brain nearly spit fumes when he deciphered just what Embry’s presence meant.
“Ey, he quit his whining yet?”
Griffin whipped his head back to the front, his heart thundering in his chest. He kept his gaze glued to the medic not too far away, oblivious to the frustration she directed at him. Don’t look back, don’t look back.
The medic sighed and glanced down at the cufflink on her silver robe. “The last to be inaugurated was Scourge, and he is obviously present. He marks the end of the registry.”
Virgil drew a strained breath, running his hand over his short hair and spraying small beads of ice into the air. “…How many?”
The head medic appeared worried. “Um…”
“Numbers, Peace! Give it to me straight!”
She lowered her head, twirling the frayed strands of the red scarf around her neck. “We have an MIA rate of approximately 78.1%, Prelude…”
The remaining rebel force did not breathe but rather wheezed. Several Encryptors nearly fainted, unable to stay steady as they faced the large number of casualties and friends lost.
Virgil’s usually stern face twitched, and he inhaled deeply, trying to suppress the swelling vein in his neck. “How many?” he repeated.
The medic winced, turning her head away. “Over 4,500—”
“4,500?!” Virgil exploded. His rage was so great that Sybil shrieked and flew off his shoulder, blindly crashing into Griffin’s chest. Instinctively, Griffin caught her, holding the fragile lerial in his palms as she rolled onto her knees and looked up. She said nothing, slowly blinking and staring on with the blankest expression in the world.
Griffin swallowed and turned his attention back to Virgil, who looked as though he was about to rupture every vein and artery in his body. The tactician clenched his fists tight, holding both in front of his face as they shook, his fingers about to snap one another. “4,500… Just a bit over 1,000 Encryptors left with hardly a speck of hardened warriors to lead them…”
Seek sighed from off scene, reclaiming the distance between them. “You’re second in command, Prelude. With Pinion gone, it’s up to you to lead us.”
Virgil suppressed a shiver, flimsily touching the silver club hanging at his waist. “I’ve never been on this side of Devil’s Divide… I don’t know what’s out here besides Pikë, and we clearly can’t stick our heads above ground; we’re liable to get obliterated the moment we do.”
The ground rumbled as soon as he finished, heads spinning and hearts pounding as granules of dust and rock fell from the realm above. “We mustn’t stay,” Embry noted as small hunks of gravel bounced off her solid frame. “Where we dwell, they have rough knowledge of; lie in wait, they will, until either we come out or become victims of starvation.”
“Well, at least we have a chance if we go up!” one Encryptor exclaimed. “Perhaps that’s the better option!”
“You idiot!” another cried. “Is that how you were trained?! To give up when it gets tough?!”
“No, but I don’t want to die down here! Starving in darkness with no one to find my body… It’s such a dishonorable death! I’d rather be kidnapped and enslaved than go in such a despicable manner!”
“Are you—?!”
“No one is getting captured!” Virgil bellowed, silencing them in a snap. “There is no telling how many of those missing are either lost, dead, or yes, captured, but we will lose no one else, or else we will not stand a chance against the Proxez!”
Sybil looked over her shoulder, breaking her staring contest with Griffin. “Um… Prelude?”
Virgil whirled around, snorting loudly. “What do you want, runt?”
Whimpering, Sybil raised her puny hand, requesting permission to speak. “Um, well, there is something beyond Pikë, but I dunno if you want to do it…”
Intrigued, Virgil’s hostility retreated. “What are you talking about?”
She stood, pushing her tiny shoulders back “My old home. We can go there.”
“To a pack of blood-sucking demons?” Virgil exclaimed in disbelief. “How much hemoglobin have you been drinking?!”
“Pot calling the kettle black!” Sybil snapped.
“Calm, peace, serenity…” Embry cooed, stepping forward and tracing an unseen rainbow with her dazzling fingers. “Prelude, hear the child out, would you? Did you bother to muse and consider her words?”
Virgil snarled. “Could you have made a more annoying robot, Steel?”
Justus shrugged, adjusting his glasses. “Dunno. Want me to try?”
Scoffing, Virgil looked back down at the miniature soldier standing at attention on Griffin’s palms. “Where does your suggestion stem from? What in the world could benefit us there? We would only be food to your clan.”
Sybil shook her head. “No, I don’t think so! I saw what Eero and the others did! Four against an army, and they did a pretty good job at kicking our booties!” She motioned about with the swish of her arm. “If you bring the whole Encryption… Believe me, I know that my family won’t attack. We only fight if we have a big advantage with numbers.” She dipped her head. “Besides, they’re probably still butthurt about getting squished by four Glitches anyway… They wouldn’t be quick to attack again, especially an army like us.”
“But there’s no guarantee,” Virgil clarified.
Sybil’s ears twitched. “Huh?”
“Maybe you’ve been reworked, but don’t think that I have faith in you—I’ve never trusted demons, and I’m not about to.”
“B-but, you trust Eero!”
Virgil snickered sinisterly, turning away from the lerial. “Do I?”
Sybil groaned in frustration, puffing out her cheeks and stretching her claws. “Lemme at least have a chance! Just one! Besides, what better option do you have?! Head up to Pikë, and you’ll just be another skelly!”
“So naive…” he grumbled.
“Am not! If you spoke to Merritt, you would know that too!”
Virgil stiffened, his thinned eyes stumbling back across Sybil. “Who is Merritt?”
Sybil released a built-up sigh, thankful to have regained his interest. “She is the oldest lerial in the forest… A bit of a bat who nobody listens to, but…”
“Then how is she helpful?”
“…Because she knew the secrets that we didn’t… She’s hundreds of years old and has seen all… She always warned lerials about the Revere Lords, how they are not saviors but enemies, but… No one ever listened to her. To us, she was just a kooky lerial far past her due date, but now that I look back…
“She was right all along: we’re from a place far beyond the forest; we were the servants of a Lord far better than the ones we worshiped. We are worth more than what we are used for, and we’re so lost that we don’t even remember our roots… After I was reworked, I started realizing that she wasn’t just making stuff up. I didn’t want to believe it, but once I went into the palace with Laelia… Seeing all those chained demons that I had never seen or learned about but somehow knew their names… I knew Merritt was right.
“She knows the truths—truths and secrets that maybe the Encryption doesn’t even know. Please, if there would be anyone out there willing to listen to you, to help, it would be her.” Sybil bowed, respectfully drawing a hand across her flat chest. “Please trust me…”
Virgil’s previous hostility drastically lessened, especially as he continued to stare at his youngest soldier, who would not break from her current position. Griffin stared as well, keeping his palms flat for the small
combatant. He couldn’t believe his eyes. This petite lerial, once so small and flighty now taking a stand against her leader without the slightest bit of fear and devoting herself to fighting her own people for the sake of not just what was simply right, but for justice—
Specifically for Laelia.
“…Say we went through with your plan,” Virgil began, Sybil’s head whipping up and ears going erect beside her. “How could we possibly get there? Like you said, we can’t cross into the open.”
The edges of her confidence began to whittle away. “Um… I don’t know…”
“The rails don’t go any farther,” Flye spoke up. “We can’t close any more distance with the trackers.”
“Ey, this is as far as Pinion permitted me to run them,” Justus added. “Any farther and the Proxez would have most definitely caught on.”
Virgil pressed a hand to his face, groaning as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fabulous… Embry, does your body have any capabilities of, I don’t know, shapeshifting or creating—”
“Nay,” she answered swiftly. “I was not constructed as a contortionist, only an exquisite aide. My body cannot bend to the likes of which you need.”
“Besides, even she could not withstand a bomb,” Justus fiercely reminded Virgil. “She is not to be used as a shield.” He raised an eye, looking to his semi-petrified apprentice. “But… There most certainly may be another way.”
Griffin caught a glimpse of Justus’ pressing stare. “Huh?”
Justus advanced on the fractured boy, grabbing the limb he forged. “You jumped on me so quickly for such a little thing—I never even got to explain just what I made you to be.”
Sybil scampered away from Griffin as Justus grabbed Griffin’s metal wrist, giving it a quick squeeze. “Boy, this is you—a being in repair, who yes, has a weak heart, but on the outside…”
He gave the cuff on his wrist a sharp jerk, turning it several clicks. Griffin gasped, rooted as he watched the rods and wires in his arm magically shift, streams of lively electricity rerouted and halted as his arm changed forms. Specific beams fell, and others grew from what appeared to be nothing, his flat bronze fingers locking together before titanium plates surged over them. They bent, expanded, and morphed so gently, beautifully, that Griffin could not even tell if what he was bearing witness to was actually there.
