by Abby Dewsnup
The boy who had shouted earlier was thoughtful, running a shaking hand through his hair. “How can I be sure that is where you sent my brother?” he asked, his words desperate. “How do I know you sent him anywhere in the first place?”
The Elders ignored his question. They leaned forward in their thrones, their white eyes glazed over from years without the sun. “Give us your word, and we will mark your skin with your mission. Should you refuse, your comrades will continue without you into the world above.”
“You have my word.” I agreed before the Elder was finished with his sentence. I thought of James and his curly hair, how he relied on me. I knew where I needed to go. The rider had been right: this was not my banishment, but my beginning.
I felt a burning sensation across my skin. Engraved across my shoulder were the three dots of a rescuer and a single line for bravery. I gasped, clutching my shoulder in my hands. Another scar to add to my collection.
Others followed suit, some falling to their knees as the mark burned into their skin. The boy next to me cried out, and I noticed that they had marked his skin with three lines in place of one, the symbol of light. He stared at mine as well, tracing his fingers over his own mark. When we made eye contact, his expression begged me to keep silent.
Maybe it was only my imagination, but it seemed as if the Elders were smiling. “Bring the cure for your people, Dwellers. Bring your people back from the Light Kingdom.”
As I stared at the group of people around me, I noticed their scarred faces, the way they hunched their shoulders. I had stolen food many times, it was no secret. But the dangerous looking woman with the gloved hands must be more than a petty thief — and I was certain that the minute we stepped into the light her true nature would reveal itself.
“What is your name?” I asked the guy who was still clutching his shoulder.
“Jay Kurtis,” he responded with a small smile. “And yours?”
“Anya,” I replied. “Just Anya.” I liked his soft expression, despite the scar that crossed his jaw and the way his eyes were persistent, demanding. His name reminded me of the birds I had heard stories of, with their strong wings and dark feathers. He was much like a sparrow, I thought, though I had never seen one before.
The Elders rose from their seats, their thin legs looking as if they could snap at any moment. I wanted to recoil at the sight of them, at the way their long fingers curled against their palms on the armrest of the chairs. “Pier Mortem Vasce Galleum.”
“May you follow the light,” Jay translated next to me.
They nodded. “Go now, and come back to us with the cure. Do not return to your people without it.”
A group of men waited for us outside the throne room. In their arms were backpacks filled with provisions and survival gear, daggers and spears. “Come, we must measure you for your weapons. Who is first?” A man said.
“Me,” I said, surprising myself the second time that night. I suppose James’ absence had rattled me to the core, and I wanted to find him as soon as possible.
He nodded, his balding head glistening in the torchlight. He set down the backpack and unrolled a tape measure from his pocket. I held my arms out, and he began to measure my arms and waist and mutter unintelligible things to himself. “You are left-handed?”
“I am,” I replied.
“Take a step forward for me.”
I did as he asked, aware of how odd it all was. He studied me, had me swing a few swords around. In the end, he pulled a wood staff from the pile behind him. “Your weight distribution and hand movements all point to a staff. I feel that, once you become learned with the staff, this will aid you more than a blade.”
I accepted the staff from him, eyeing the inscriptions upon it. “Can I kill anything with this?”
His smile tightened. “You’ll have a hunting knife if you need to do that. Let us hope you never do.”
Jay got a sword with a leather hilt, and five of the others did as well. The tall women received a spear and an ax. It wasn’t long before the men left and we were alone.
“We don’t even have time to say goodbye,” a small girl said, slinging her backpack over her shoulders.
“We don’t have time to say goodbye,” Jay agreed, motioning to the palace gates ahead of us. “They sent our family members to a fabled kingdom. Who knows what could be happening to them right now?”
I gazed at the palace, the reality of the situation settling on my shoulders. “What a rotten bunch they are,” I commented, pointing to the palace. “If they have enough power to send people to the Kingdom of the Light, they should be able to send them back. What kind of Elders are they?”
“Old ones,” Jay said, the smallest of smiles crossing his lips. “Did you see their fingers?”
Despite myself, I laughed. “They looked like creatures from another world. Do you think they were once human?”
“I hope not—I would’ve hated to be in proximity with a creature like that,” he replied. We both started laughing as we strapped on our packs.
It wasn’t until I had finally controlled my laughter that I noticed the rest of the group stood in silence, their backpacks on and arms folded. The tense atmosphere wiped the smile from my face in an instant.
We walked as one condemned. I could hear the shrieks from the Stygian ghosts echoing off the walls, and I worried that the Elders had forgotten to place their protection over us. When we weren’t mauled as we stepped through the gate, I relaxed in the slightest.
“I’m Lynx,” the small girl spoke up, her voice trembling. She had a lighter complexion than the rest of us. Her eyes were uneasy, shifting between each person in the group as if she would rather take off running in the opposite direction. “Do you guys really think my father is in the Light Kingdom?”
“It doesn’t make sense that the Elders would send them there, and yet expect us to trek to the kingdom on foot,” a woman said, her face concealed beneath a headscarf.
“They said that we must open it from the other side,” I replied
“If we’re all going to be working together, we’ll have to get along,” Jay interrupted, running a hand through his light brown hair. He had blue eyes, but they didn’t stand out in any way — it was his expression that changed his face, the way he scowled as if the world weighed on his shoulders. Despite having laughed earlier, I knew Jay wasn’t someone to trifle with. His clothes hung from a fit, tall frame.
The other four had yet to speak up. The woman I had noticed earlier kept the lower half of her face concealed and her steely eyes focused ahead of us. The second girl had fiery red hair and a smug expression, as if she planned on returning with the cure all on her own. Two boys next to her looked like identical twins, but only one of them wore his hair in a long braid. They were short, but not as short as the redhead.
“I’m Jaren, and this is my brother Lake,” the boy with the long braid said, noticing the way I was staring at them. “The Elders took our little sister, we think. But she went missing long ago.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “My little brother James disappeared only a few hours ago.”
Jay looked uncomfortable. “My little brother went missing, too. Only, he’s been gone for months. I thought he was dead.”
“Something isn’t adding up,” I said.
“No one from my family is missing,” the red-head spoke up. “My name is Ash. And I’m being serious, no one is missing.”
Jay and I exchanged a glance. I knew there were pieces in play behind the scenes that we were not a part of. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Elders were using us as pawns.
All eyes turned to the woman. With her eyes still set on the trail ahead, she said, “My name is Rose, and I’m not here to make friends.”
“Nice to meet you, Rose,” Jay replied sarcastically.
I was glad that Jay was friendly. The rest of the group seemed as if they would much rather snap my neck and be done with it, aside from Lynx. I took back my initial judgment.
Jay had the looks of a brooding, angsty boy, but he possessed a sense of humor. Luckily.
We passed through the sleeping streets, kicking aside stones and trash from the previous day. The Shadows pressed themselves as close as possible, their dark hands curling against some unseen force around us. Their hooded faces seemed to stare through me as if they knew where we were going, and what we were seeking. I wondered if any of these Stygian were people I had once known, once a Cave-Dweller turned dark in the early hours of the night.
“Do you think they remember being human?” Jay asked, creating a stir from the Shadows surrounding us.
“If they did, they wouldn’t act like that,” I whispered, watching their silent forms as they perched on the rooftops. There was something unsettling about the Shadows, the way their eyeless faces seemed to scrutinize our every movement as we passed. They thrived off our fear, I knew that much. As their forms smoked and smoldered, they cackled in the silent night.
We passed Lanke’ cottage, which looked empty and dark. I peered through the window, whispering into the darkness, “Lanke?”
There came no response. A stunned, dreadful feeling worked its way into my head as I stared into his dark dwelling.
“Looks like the Stygian got that one,” Jay remarked.
“Yeah,” I replied in a hollow voice. “Maybe his orb broke.”
Ahead of us, the Ridgeline came into view. It sliced through the cave wall, a thin trail that I had followed every day of my life. The others in the group were growing wary, taking more cautious steps into the shadows.
I found myself at the head of the group next to Jay, letting the others trail behind us. Lynx’s small form huddled behind me, her lip trembling as her eyes traced over the sheer cliff sides. “I’ve never been this close to the ridge,” she said.
Jay turned to her, smiling gently. I liked the way his face brightened when he grinned, and how his scar appeared less threatening. I could almost believe he was here for fun, trekking into the Fringe world like a rogue adventurer.
But then I remembered I had yet to see his hands. I worried that the glaring mark of a murderer was dashed across his palms, or worse. What had Jay done to become expendable?
“Hey, the ridge isn’t the coolest thing you’re going to see for the next few days,” he told Lynx as he helped her over the crumbling rocks on the trail. “Personally, I think the sun is going to be the highlight.”
Lynx’s face brightened at the prospect, and she began to walk with more confidence. Behind us, Ash flipped her hair in indignation. “Have any of you actually been outside of your cave before, even to the northern caves?”
No one answered as the doorway into the Caves appeared. Two columns towered on either side of the ridge, twisting high into the mountain. Iron gates were clamped together, engraved with ancient writing I couldn’t decipher, and drawings depicting the Caves. Lanterns hung from the pillars, lighting the night.
And beyond the gates, they said, was open sky, twinkling with hundreds of stars
3
Boneyard
Ragged, scarlet flags rippled in the breeze at the top of the columns. The stairs were empty except for us, a group of thieves and worse who dared step foot into the light. The silence resembled a ghost town, riddled with memories long since passed. I wondered if the world above our cave was just as this stairwell was — empty, coming apart at the seams.
“I’m scared,” Lynx whispered, shrinking away from the gates as if her skin would burn. “We belong in the Caves, not here.”
I stared past her and into the night sky, letting the cool air wash over me. “Are you sure you belong down there?” I replied in a whisper.
Jay’s shoulders tensed. He turned to me, a smile dancing across his lips. “I heard that the world above has hanging villages and lava boats. And, most important, Windwalkers.”
“Windwalkers?” Lynx breathed.
“Exactly,” Jay said. “Creatures of earth and sky. I heard that they think Cave-Dwellers are a myth.”
“A myth?” I turned to him, grasping the staff in front of me. “If we’re a myth to Windwalkers, who’s to say the Kingdom of Light is a myth? Maybe the Fringe just hasn’t seen it.”
“And that means we get our families back.” Rose stepped forward, untying the scarf from around her head. And then, in a single act of defiance, she ripped the orb from her neck.
The group gasped in unison. My hands immediately went to my own orb, clutching it in shaking fingers. “If we tear this off, we won’t get accepted back into the Caves,” I said. “We have to bring the cure back.”
“I’ll bring the cure, and then I’m leaving with my husband,” Rose said. She shattered her orb with a single motion, letting the glass spill across the rock stairs. A wisp of light trailed up through the wreckage and disappeared into the sky.
Jay followed, his orb smashing against the ground with a deafening crack. “We have a mission, true.” Jay looked over at me. “But also an opportunity. I’m with her. Once we send the cure back, I’m staying in the Fringe.”
He was right. I felt myself grasping at the thin cord that held the orb around my neck, threatening to split it apart. James and I could begin new in the Fringe, alone and without the constant fear of getting thrown into prison. The Elders had given us a second chance at life. Jay would be there, too, and these five other Cave-Dwellers who belonged beneath the sun as well as I did.
But then I thought about my parents, and I wasn’t so sure. For a moment my great secret trembled on the tip of my tongue, threatening to fall and spill across the sand. I had to return to the Caves. They promised me.
I tucked the orb into my shirt with one quick motion. Jay was the only person who had seen, and he made eye contact with me for a brief moment and raised his eyebrows. I ignored him, shouldering through the group to reach the gates.
The iron joints vibrated the entire cliffside when they moved, but they were easy to push open. For a moment I marveled at the open gates. All my life the sun had only been dozens of feet away from the place where I had stolen it from, unguarded and open. Perhaps if the Cave-Dwellers knew the gates were open, they would come and go all the time, free to be beneath the sun and in the Caves.
But then again, maybe they wouldn’t come and go. We were Cave-Dwellers after all; we belonged beneath the stone.
It wasn’t until I had walked past the gates and into the open air that I glanced around. Our mountain rose behind us, the pinnacle disappearing into the night sky. Ahead of me, a huge expanse of desert stretched out past the horizon. I had never seen such an open space before, one without walls and stone and glowing orbs. Rocks jutted from the sand, rising out of the ground like a hollow rib cage. Two moons glittered in the sky.
The sand shifted beneath my feet, and I jumped back as a tiny creature emerged. It shook the sand off its scales and stretched with a grunt, blinking up at each of us in turn with its giant amber eyes. “It’s a tiny dragon,” I said blankly. I hadn’t known dragons existed anymore. Maybe their small size was a result of their near extinction.
“Keep walking,” Jay urged.
The sand slid beneath our feet. The wind that had seemed inviting before now tore at my clothes and caused the sand to sting our skin. I pulled my hood on and covered my face with the scarf, trying in vain to reach the protruding rocks. I remembered the staff that the Elders had gifted me, and I pulled it from my bag loop, using the wood as leverage against the changing sands.
“We should make camp for the night,” Lynx shouted over the wind. “We can’t go on in this storm.”
She was right -- I’d never seen a storm, much less been caught in the center of one. I watched the gathering clouds, blanketed terror gripping me. Despite being in such an open space, I felt more fear than I ever had possessed beneath the Cave roof.
I stared at the surrounding desert in desperation. What if the Fringe was always like this, barren and dusty, without a single promise for life? Perhaps the Caves truly were better than t
he sunlight. I refused to believe that much, though — not yet.
A shriek erupted from the Caves, and I whipped my head around at the sound. Stygian stood at the gates, their shadowed horses kicking at the ground in anxiousness. The riders sat in silence, withering away beneath the moonlight. Jay and I shared a glance. Their presence spoke volumes, but they wouldn’t follow us into the Fringe.
“Yeah, stay there, you rotten cowards,” Lake shouted, chucking a handful of sand behind him. Jaren joined in, jeering at the silent riders.
As we pressed on, the mountain grew smaller behind us. The wind carried the sand around our group, swirling it in quick gusts of shapes and forms before it fell back to the ground. I watched dunes shift over the protruding rocks, making it seem as if the stones rose up and down in the wind. An eerie howling ripped over the valley, and despite the growing storm, it was as if the world was holding its breath, waiting for the explosion of thunder. I didn’t dare look down for fear of missing some great, horrible event.
I was staring ahead of me so intently that I trod on Rose’s shoe. “Sorry,” I murmured.
She fixed her shoe, scowling. “Stay away from me, okay?”
“We’re traveling across the Fringe together,” I replied. “That’s impossible.”
Her scowl deepened. “You heard me.”
“Did you see that?” Ash cried, pointing a thin finger towards the horizon.
I swept my eyes across the dunes. I could faintly make out a white glow on the horizon, like dozens of torches in one place. “It’s a town!” I hollered, clutching my scarf tight around my mouth. “We can stay there for the night.”
