by Kevin George
Edmond broke eye contact and sighed, the only image from inside the master bedroom of The Fifth’s mansion now a black, blank spot. Camera coverage was already scarce in The Fifth and he didn’t like the idea of losing footage from the prince’s apparent base of operations. Edmond did, however, appreciate his son’s sudden display of moxie, especially having watched the boy make bad decision for years, showing his utter lack of ability to be an effective leader.
A part of him had hoped the Thirders would rip Oliver apart in the Main Tunnel. Such a rebellion would’ve been easily squashed while drastically reducing the number of people that required the city’s precious resources. His son had proven to be a disappointment time and time again, and with a new child on the way and a wife that despised the current prince, so many of Edmond’s troubles could’ve been solved had the Thirders shown the slightest sign of bravery.
But the Weller girl had interceded on Oliver’s behalf, for which the prince had rewarded her by handing over complete power of The Third. Edmond had planned to send an army of guards to finally destroy the girl and her section, but he’d been distracted while watching Oliver meander the Main Tunnel, talking to Thirders as if he were as lowly as they were. He’d watched him travel the tunnel without guards to protect him, he’d watched him tear up the workers’ list at The Fifth’s entrance, he’d watched him assert his rule and proclaim his orders were as important as the Lord and Jonas’s, orders that the weak-minded One guards had actually followed.
That’s what happens when we send our biggest fools to the far reaches of the city, the king had thought.
But Oliver’s strange combination of weakness and strength had kept the king’s attention, and had kept the king from sending out his army. After watching the prince enter The Fifth, make his way through the Peters mansion, locate the micro-camera and make his demands, the king was impressed enough to give his son another chance to lead. In the grand scheme of things, Oliver’s ‘demands’ were inconsequential, and a battle destroying an entire section of workers would put a serious damper on expansion efforts in The Fifth. Edmond didn’t have a surplus of time, so as long as Oliver kept the digging on schedule, he saw no reason to create a problem where one didn’t exist. He wasn’t so certain he liked the idea of sending Paige there. . .
Paige! King Edmond turned away from images of The Fifth and spun toward the holograms of the QZ’s white hallways. Usually devoid of people or serious action—except when the elderly or those with the ‘illness’ were gathered to travel Beyond the Light—the king immediately spotted movement from the cameras closest to the elevator.
He spotted Paige first, rushing down the hallway, waving her arms wildly as she was held back by several guards, Zander Blake’s men and the dark-skinned guards alike. He glanced from hologram to hologram, seeing most of the guards farther along the QZ hallway, a group of them huddled around the downed form of a large man with—
No, Edmond thought, shaking his head over and over, so much that he couldn’t focus on the image long enough for it to enlarge. This can’t be. . . not one of them. . .
But he realized it was one of them, that the man wasn’t large at all, that his wings stretching from one side of the hallway to the other made him appear larger than he really was. He squirmed on the ground but was quickly subdued under a mass of guards, his wings retracting into his back, leaving smears of blood streaking the white floor. Zander took his daughter by the arm while his guards dragged the Sky Person’s unconscious form down the hallway. Ryo and his men—only a fraction of whom had made it back—marched in front of them all, keeping a close watch on Paige.
Coming to claim their reward, the king knew, feeling slightly annoyed that their mission hadn’t failed. The only solace he took was that the Peters boy was nowhere to be found, the final vestiges of a once-famed leadership family now gone with nobody left to seek vengeance on the Jonases. After speaking the words to close the holograms, King Edmond crossed the Lord’s room, only stopping momentarily to stretch, hours spent standing in one spot sucking the life out of his legs, making him feel his age. And now to deal with another potential problem. . .
He emerged into the palace’s throne room, a cavernous space glowing bright orange from the maze of lava lines meandering through the floor and many columns stretching up to the ceiling. King Edmond glanced to the side, looking up at his glowing throne atop the royal platform, behind which bubbled the lava pool and the magma chamber beyond. Steam billowed out from the chamber and the sulfuric stench hit him as intensely as the rising temperatures.
The scientists knew something I didn’t, Edmond thought, thinking himself a damn fool for not realizing the problem with the volcano sooner. Sure, he’d expected the scientists living on the other side of the Lord’s room to inform him if there was immediate danger, but they were a strange group and their disappearance spoke volumes.
“All of you, come with me,” the king snapped at the line of royal guardsmen standing at attention in front of the Lord’s room.
They followed him across the throne room and into the palace hallway, where plenty of eyes stared out at them from the shadows of darkened corners. Edmond did not give the palace guards a second glance, nor did he say a word to the men behind him. Sweat drenched his robes by the time he reached the most familiar door in the palace. Aytyn stood guard in front of the royal bedroom and held his spear at the ready, lowering it once he saw the king approach. He hurried to Edmond’s side.
“Is everything okay, Your Illustriousness?”
King Edmond held up a hand to the other guardsmen, who stayed back as the king took Aytyn’s arm and led him farther down the hallway. He snapped his fingers at a nearby palace guard, who scurried out of the shadows and rushed away. Edmond stood in front of the cutouts in the palace hallway overlooking the rest of One. He quickly explained how Ryo and his guards—at least some of them—had returned from their dangerous mission Above. Aytyn frowned, as if anticipating the bad news to come.
“Before Ryo and his men left, I promised them all new positions—important positions—if they returned successfully,” Edmond said.
“Royal guardsmen?” Aytyn asked. “I’m not sure where I’ll be able to use them or if Ryo and I could get along well enough to—”
The king shook his head. “They won’t be joining your group.”
Aytyn’s brow furrowed as he glanced at his men down the hallway. He eventually nodded, his eyes narrowing. “They’ll be taking over for my group,” he said.
“Yes, but it’s not what you think,” Edmond said. “Ryo’s group will be the new guardsmen of One. I have a vital task in The Fifth for you and your men. With the destruction of the Peters family, I’ve sent Prince Oliver to lead expansion efforts for the time being. I want you and your men to protect him, to do as he says in the name of the Lord and Jonas.”
Aytyn clenched his jaw but nodded, turning to his men and announcing where they’d be relocating. Edmond watched the royal guardsmen’s faces upon hearing the news. Their reactions ranged from shock to anger, though not a single man spoke or voiced his displeasure.
“Big plans are currently in the works, none of which would be possible without your continued loyalty to the Jonas family,” the king told them, not that it seemed to impress any of the guardsmen. “When you reach The Third and Fifth, you’ll see that Prince Oliver is making sweeping changes, but the Lord’s plan is even bigger. This move may not seem like a promotion for you now, but you must continue to trust in the Lord and Jonas, and Our vision for the city.”
The royal guardsmen turned to their leader to speak for them. Aytyn stared at the door to the royal bedroom before stepping forward, nodding.
“We will always serve, as the Lord and Jonas commands,” Aytyn said. “Even when those other guards are the ones trusted to be by our king’s side.”
Aytyn began to march down the hallway—the other guardsmen falling in step behind him—when the king stopped them, asking for two final favors before they left
One.
“I need you to bring two more people with you to The Fifth,” Edmond said. “One is currently in the Quarantined Zone, and the other lives farther down the steppes, a young guard in training.”
Aytyn nodded. King Edmond gave a final command before they left, this one being to tell Ryo and the new royal guardsmen to quietly escort the city’s unexpected ‘guest’ to the palace’s lower level cell.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Julietta Heron stood just beyond the bend in the tunnel, glancing around the corner until she was certain the invaders from Below had entered the elevator and were gone. She hurried back to the elevator, pushing the down button to no avail, not having the keycard to access it, wondering if she’d made the biggest mistake in her life by staying Above. She’d had options for how to continue her life—not good options, but still options—but now those were gone. She looked to the far end of the tunnel, expecting a teenage killer, or a revenge-minded One guard, or a bloodthirsty beast, to show up at any moment.
She thought the same about Isaac. After hearing that the love of her life was still alive—that he’d taken part in the assault at the Dome, their paths possibly crossing in the darkness of battle—Julietta wanted nothing more than to sprint down the tunnel and find Isaac wherever he may have ended up. But she’d already rushed into too many dangerous situations and knew her luck—if you’d call what’s happened to me luck, she thought with a snort—wouldn’t last forever. She started forward slowly, ready to turn and flee at the first sign of danger, not sure where she’d run or hide if she did encounter an enemy.
Bright light shone from the end of the tunnel and she emerged into the connecting glass hallway, where the early morning sunlight showed the bloodbath from the earlier battle. She looked at the outside world, at the beasts’ broken fences, at the large hole in the side of the Dome, at the dead bodies strewn about everywhere. She didn’t know if she wanted to look closely at the corpses for fear of finding Isaac among them. She proceeded down the hall, stepping carefully over bodies, keeping her eyes away from their faces.
As she got closer to the Dome and its open airlock, movement outside caught her attention. She looked toward the Dome’s hole again, this time noticing that the hole wasn’t empty. A person—Julietta squinted and saw it was one of the guards from Below—stood in the hole, his arms and legs stretched wide, bound to the frame of the Dome just beyond the broken glass. The guard wiggled at first, shaking his head over and over, before his writhing intensified. Julietta couldn’t hear much within the hallway, but she heard the distant echo of screaming from the open airlock door and had no doubt the cries were from the guard.
Julietta didn’t know why the guard was being tortured, but she hoped Henry Jonas and his followers were distracted enough so she could enter the Dome and search for Isaac without being caught. She whispered an apology to the guard—ashamed that she planned to profit from his pain—and started toward the open airlock when the tied-up guard’s scream became louder and higher-pitched, a single word—“please”—screeching from within the Dome.
Julietta looked out in time to see the guard explode out of the Dome, tackled by a blur of white. The guard’s bounds snapped and he slid down the snowbank beyond the hole, a massive beast atop him, both of them skidding to a stop near the broken section of fence. The guard’s screams came to a sudden halt. Julietta couldn’t turn quickly enough to avoid seeing the beast chomp down on the guard’s skull. Julietta swallowed hard, forcing down the bile rising at the back of her throat, and rushed through the airlock, no longer concerned for her own safety.
The Dome was quieter than the last time she’d been inside, no longer filled with the grunts of fighting, the cries of anguish, or the roars of hungry beasts. Still, the signs of battle were everywhere, the wood of the walkway barely visible through the bodies and blood on the floor. She pushed herself against the railing, tiptoeing along the way, trying to avoid stepping on bodies or looking at them, unable to shake the panic that Isaac was among them. She finally glanced at the nearest corpse, a spear sticking out of its chest. She knew right away that it wasn’t Isaac—the body was too large—but she never would’ve been able to tell from looking at the face.
Or the lack thereof, Julietta thought, seeing teeth marks and scratch marks among the bloodied mess but not a single actual facial feature.
Julietta turned away and closed her eyes. She focused on breathing and calming her racing nerves, though she experienced a moment of focus on her distant surroundings. She heard rustling in the nearby jungle. She heard the distant howl of wind from the Dome’s hole. She heard Henry’s teens calling out to one another. Each noise could undoubtedly lead to something disastrous for Julietta, but when she opened her eyes, she no longer felt fear, nor did she feel sickness or disgust at the sight of so much death.
She proceeded from one body to the next, no longer affected by the varying degrees to which they’d been thrashed, studying each one for any sign of Isaac. She found no sign of him. Instead of feeling relief with each body that wasn’t his, Julietta became more and more certain she would never see him again. By the time she’d searched every corpse in the epicenter of the battle, she started to call Isaac’s name, no longer afraid for her own well-being, no longer wanting to live Below or Above if Isaac was truly gone.
Her screams were met by a beast’s distant roar; she wasn’t sure if it had come from inside or outside the Dome, but the rustling in the jungle seemed to head in her direction. She considered running farther down the walkway—continuing her search in the other environments or the upper level living quarters—but exhaustion overwhelmed her and she no longer had the strength to fight. She fell to her knees, knowing in her soul that Isaac was gone from the Dome forever. The rustling grew louder, approaching, but Julietta closed her eyes and tilted her head back.
A ray of early morning sunlight filtered through the Dome’s glass and the canopy of overhanging trees, finding Julietta’s face, allowing her a final moment of warmth. The rustling stopped just on the other side of the walkway’s railing. She took a final deep breath, assuming it would be her last, hoping that wherever the afterlife took her would be easier than this. . .
“She’s perfect.”
Julietta opened her eyes to a pair of wild-eyed teens, their clothes torn and spattered with as much blood as painted their faces. They leapt the railing with weapons in hand, aiming them at Julietta’s face. She remained on her knees, silent, refusing to plead for her life. She expected to have a spear shoved through her heart at any moment, but the teens dragged her to her feet instead, pulling her over the side of the railing and into the jungle. Julietta tripped several times as she was shoved along, but she was yanked to her feet each time.
“Please, I was only looking for my boyfriend,” she finally said. “He used to be a Herder.”
One of the teens laughed, but the other clubbed Julietta in the back with the hilt of his spear. Julietta collapsed into a tangle of roots, her knee exploding in pain as all breath was ripped out of her lungs.
“All the old Herders are dead for what they did to our families,” the teen said. “And for trying to take over our Dome.”
“No, not him,” Julietta wheezed. She hugged the nearest tree and used it to pull herself up, an explosion of pain in her back nearly causing her to fall again. Only the need to defend Isaac kept her strong. “He wasn’t with them. He’s the one that helped the One guards break into the Dome to take it back.”
The teen who’d struck her stepped closer, casually tossing his spear from one hand to the other. Expecting him to lash out at any moment, Julietta braced herself, turning her head. But the teen leaned in close, his breath hot against her ear.
“Why you seem to know so much?” he whispered.
“I was Rayce’s prisoner,” she said. “I escaped during the fighting.”
The teen backed away and looked at his partner, whose eyebrows seemed to lower in sympathy. The first teen shook his head.
“Can’t worry about sob stories,” he said. “She’s not one of us.”
“Please, I haven’t made any trouble for you. I even tried to tell Rayce to let you kids back into the Dome, but he wouldn’t listen to me,” she said, hoping they wouldn’t call her bluff. “I could’ve gone back Below, but I didn’t. I just wanted to find the love of my life. Rayce told me he was dead, but Isaac wasn’t. . . he came back for me.”
The teen grabbed Julietta’s arm, his grip tighter than it needed to be. He gave her a firm shove deeper into the jungle.
“If your boyfriend is like the rest of the invaders that damaged the Dome, then he’s already dead,” the teen said. “But don’t worry, you’ll be with him soon enough.”
Julietta tripped through the rest of the jungle, the wind growing stronger and colder as they went, shaking the branches and leaves of surrounding trees. They emerged into a small clearing at the concrete base of the Dome, where a series of wooden planks had already been constructed leading up to the hole in the Dome.
“Wow,” said the other teen. “Henry gets things done fast.”
“His father was in charge,” said the one still pushing Julietta forward. “He knows where everything is. They must be getting the replacement glass now. Let’s tie her up and lure out the last one.”
The other teen frowned but nodded. From the moment Julietta had chosen to stay Above, she’d known death wasn’t just possible but probable. Still, witnessing how the One guard had been used as live bait lit a fire of survival within her. As she was dragged toward the planks, she pulled her arm from the teen’s grip and turned to run. She sprinted toward the tree line—hoping to lose them among the jungle—but didn’t make it far before slipping on a patch of snow that had blown in from outside. Julietta scrambled back to her feet but didn’t take another step before being clubbed in the back again.
