by J D Morganne
“Hey,” Jaxon called. He’d finally caught up to her and still couldn’t get to her.
“What’s wrong?” she said, breathlessly. “Can’t climb?”
Jaxon pitched fiery beams through the branches.
Beck couldn’t stop laughing, even as she flung her body against the trunk. She nested in the highest and sturdiest fork, leaves flopping against her forehead. She ducked beneath them to stick her tongue out at Jaxon.
Jaxon smirked. He’d never seen her act like that—free and childlike.
He examined the girthy trunk. She was tiny. It shouldn’t take him long. He aimed and heaved three fire balls in her direction. They sent thick branches hurdling to the ground.
“Hey!” Beck grunted, her face turning grim. She stomped the heel of her foot against the tree. It creaked and moaned as it rumbled to life.
Jaxon stepped back.
“You hurt my babies?”
He pressed his fingers to snap and Beck tapped her foot again. Cold branches wrapped around his legs, pulled taut, and whipped him upside down into the air. In no time, he was hanging in front of her.
“Oiya, rrobota.” She rubbed the heel of her foot against the tree before tapping it again. The branches wrapped through and around Jaxon’s arms. They wound between his fingers, pulling them apart.
Jaxon grunted and tried to flick at least one finger, but they wouldn’t budge. Cool wind plunged into his chest as he tried to catch his breath. He coughed. “Oi.”
Beck manipulated with firm durability. Not a single branch cracked. They were moist and tight and crushing his already swollen fingers.
“This hurts.”
She walked along the bough and knelt in front of him. “Good.” She pinched the strip of curly hairs on his stomach.
He tried to squirm out of her reach. “You’re evil. And right. Can you put me down now? Feel like my brain’s boiling.”
She flipped him over and placed him on his feet on the ground. She set herself down, a satisfied grin playing on her lips. She jogged up beside him, while he unbound himself from the tangled branches. He checked above and around him to make sure there were no more branches sneaking up on him.
“You couldn’t even get close,” Beck said, even though she was standing right beside him. “You couldn’t beat me hand-to-hand.”
Jaxon swept his foot under her as soon as she said it. She slammed to the ground.
“Does that count?”
“Nope.” She lunged at him and pounded her foot at his side.
Jaxon blocked, but Beck was faster, too. She grounded herself, swung her hips and plowed her foot into his chin. He stumbled, disoriented, the sun setting and rising in his vision. He blinked himself back into existence and spat the copper-tasting blood from his tongue. Beck twisted again and his whole head went flying in another direction. How was it possible she was faster than Nano?
He caught his balance. She hadn’t made him bleed again, but his face was throbbing.
Fifty rusies to touch her and he was chasing a rabbit on a treadmill. She was a tricky one, wouldn’t stay still. He reached for her, but veiny roots curled from the dirt and lassoed his ankles. His tongue crushed between his teeth. He winced.
Lions started to gather at the opening of the Den, but Jaxon couldn’t pause. Beck danced with the wind, controlling the trees and the roots with every move. She held her hand out for Jaxon. “Wanna dance?”
Jaxon kicked out of the roots. “I don’t dance.”
She gasped, making a show of being offended. She bent down and lifted.
An Old-World red pine moved in to take her place. Towering over Jaxon, it shadowed her movements. Its bristles slashed at him, sharp enough to cut. He rolled away, somehow dodging them. The thing was too big to look like it wasn’t blindly lashing out. And Jaxon found it more comical than serious.
He tried to duck around it, but its long limbs flung him into the air. The entire Den had gathered and were cheering. Nano was back, laughing from where Beck danced. Aria hugged her cardigan to her, looking like she might throw up.
Panting, Jaxon climbed to his feet. He didn’t have time for this. Nano hadn’t bet him to fight a tree. He’d bet him to lay a finger on his sister. The tree was in his way.
He took a deep breath and found its pulsating heat, a warm heartbeat. He tapped his foot.
A serpent of fire wriggled from the ground at his toes and flared toward the evergreen, intensifying in heat and size as it got closer. Beck might’ve thought he was slow, but his flames weren’t. The serpent squirmed into the tree, planted itself and exploded.
The blast drowned out even the howl of the wind. Immense splinters went flying across the forest. Shards of wood dusted Jaxon’s hair and hands. Time slowed, before the dust cleared and red bristles stopped falling.
He hadn’t expected a blast that big. He hadn’t expected to damage the tree at all. Everything rushed. The world, his heart, his breath. He couldn’t be sure his mind was playing tricks on him, and it wasn’t the time to think about it, but he could’ve sworn his flames were black.
When he finally lifted his head, everyone else was rising, too.
Beck had never moved. She swiped blood from a cut on her cheek. “That tree was here for thousands of years,” she said, absently.
“Beck,” Jaxon started. Swelling air in his chest made him feel clogged. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
She lifted her hand, and Jaxon thought it was to silence him, but something far greater had stirred from the gesture.
A thunderous crackling in the distance sent birds screeching from the canopy. Lions and half of the forest cleared a path. The ground shook like hell itself was opening, and all Jaxon could think about was how angry Beck looked.
He wanted to explain himself, but the trembling earth locked his words in his head. What he saw next kept him frozen to the ground. He didn’t know what kind of tree this was, but it was unlike any of the Old-World oaks, pines or anything else Aria had taught him. This thing had branches as extensive as those trees and a trunk like a woman’s body. Its weeping ocher leaves resembled hair.
And Jaxon, numb all over, was the dumb ant that hadn’t run away like the others. He didn’t move even when it leaned over him, and from a hole in its trunk came a powerful wind. Hot, sappy breath. Jaxon shielded himself with his arm, but the tree had already turned back from where it had come.
He moved his arm when Beck loomed over him. She was ten times scarier than her manipulation, as incredible as it was.
“I didn’t mean to do that.” A sticky-clay like feeling on his tongue made speaking difficult.
“I don’t care what you meant,” Beck said.
“Well, I told you what would happen.” His heart kicked. What she had done… moved that tree… as massive as it was… She was the strongest woman he’d ever met, even now as her tears welled.
She stomped off.
Nano walked over and held his hand out to help Jaxon.
Discomfited by his defeat, Jaxon slapped Nano’s hand away. Huffing, he tried and failed to stand on his own but his legs were limp as shoestrings and his head was still spinning. He’d used up all his energy with that explosion.
But it wasn’t his loss of energy, or the adrenaline that spawned the achy throbbing in his chest. It was Beck, small and nimble, over-populating his thoughts.
“She ain’t Emiir for nothin’,” Nano said.
If Jaxon had doubted that before, he wouldn’t anymore.
25
Scarlet and golden-toned leaves died with the last days of warmth. A plague of cold swept over nature.
Beck had gotten into the habit of neglecting her duties to watch Nano and Jaxon work. Today, she watched them, practicing her Ulai routine, while Aria picked winter blueberries.
Jaxon was on his sixty-ninth chin-up when Nano pushed for one more. How Nano had managed to form a diamond in only months was a puzzle. Jaxon’s sweaty shirt clung to newly formed muscles. His vibrations bursts with an ener
gy like the sun, enough to make Beck sweat without being near him.
“Hello,” Aria said, for the second time. She waited for Beck to take the steaming cocoa she held for her.
She did. “Saint Ria.” Beck looked forward to Aria’s rich, thick cocoa every Cold Season. “Thank all the forests for you.”
“Oh whatever.” Aria gave a little kick to Beck’s legs to get by. She propped her basket of blueberries on her lap. “You look like you wanna eat Jax.”
“Not at all.” Beck admired his innate focus and reverence though.
“Yeah. Not your type.” Aria snorted, sipping her cocoa. She shot her hand in the air and waved animatedly at Nano.
He mimicked her, before getting back to business.
Beck gyrated. “Got. Me. There.” He wasn’t aggressive like the people she had dated.
“Ask him to be your partner for Ulai.”
It was Cold Season. She would be twenty-four soon. It was an important number in Knowledge—a representation of all the strength she had gained, and the heartache she had to release. It was an iconic tradition Beck had a duty to maintain. She would ascend to a higher power and understanding.
She had no allies, only meaningless treaties. Already broken. Her Lions made an army, albeit a small one, but an army, nonetheless. Jerus was an extension of her and she was… alone. She had succeeded her mother, been Emiir eight years without society changing. She had hopeless dreams of changing a world that had always been the same.
“For my earthday?” she asked, pausing her dance to sip her cocoa.
“Yeah,” Aria said. “Better’an going into town and interviewing a ‘worthy’ candidate.”
“I wouldn’t waste time doing that. I’m fine watching you pick Winter Blues.”
“Winter blueberries ain’t gonna save you from a humiliating earthday.”
“Is that your clever way of saying I should’ve found a man by now?”
“No, it’s my clever way of saying they’re all scared’a you. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Mm.” Beck nodded, her lips pressed to her cup. She swallowed the hot liquid. Did she sound like she was begging?
Aria used her free hand to pick, while trying not to burn her tongue on her cocoa. “No one’s good for you anyway.”
“You are.” Beck kissed her forehead. “Plus, he’ll say no. Ti’sa rrobota we’re talkin’ about.” The number of cruel things she had done to him was a record for someone she hadn’t known long. She had shoved him off a cliff. She had scared him half to death with one of her Old-World Sherman trees. She couldn’t recall many friendly exchanges between them.
“If he says no, he’ll say it politely.”
Beck stifled her laugh again. “You gonna leave my brother?” Aria sat up straight and shot Beck a look of evil so adorable she had to laugh. “You and the robot make”—
“Don’t talk to me like that,” Aria said to Beck’s dismay, and retreated a few inches. “Don’t ever suggest”—
“That you deserve to be happy?” Beck sat back. She didn’t and never would regret a word she said to her. She had to squint to see Aria’s face in the gleam of sunlight. “Nobody here is blind.”
Aria nodded, a timid smile crossing her face. “Ask Jax to be your partner and I can live vicariously through you. Ten rusies to yes.”
“Twenty.” Beck thought about exposing her fears. A few months ago, when Jaxon had challenged her, he’d manipulated black flames. Was she the only one who had noticed? They had ruptured her tree like a bolt of lightning would. That was the danger, the “quick-thinking”, Cayman had yammered about. If Jaxon had noticed anything different in his flames, he’d put it out of his head. He hadn’t used them since. Beck couldn’t bring herself to mention anything to him either.
“Twenty and a veggie souffle,” she said.
“Deal.”
Beck jumped up and headed in Nano’s and Jaxon’s direction.
“What? Now?” Aria called.
It was as good a time as any. The sooner she got it over with, the sooner her heart could stop kicking her insides. Without her cocoa she had nothing to hide her shaking hands. She wanted to do it for Aria, but she wasn’t the ‘asking men for favors’ type, and she had played matchmaker for Aria once already with Nano. She stuffed her hands in her pockets.
“No closer, sis.” Nano stopped her. “A god is workin’.”
Beck shoved his arm aside. “Hiya, Robot, let’s talk.”
Grunting, Jaxon pulled his body up until his chin touched the earth-made bar. He held himself there before jumping down. “Okay.”
“You’re interrupting his trainin’.” Nano grabbed a pear from the basket at his feet.
“And I thank you for it.” Jaxon smiled, but stopped short like they had caught him doing something illegal.
Beck picked up a pear and offered it to him. “You ever been to a fair?”
“A what?” Jaxon took the pear, offering her a smile in return.
“There’s a fair every year in Tiyeert at the start of the Cold Season. It’s supposed to be fun. Would you like to go?”
“You hate those things,” Nano said, turning up his lip. “You never go because of the holo”—
Beck elbowed him in his side and pretended she didn’t hear his pained groan. “I’m talking to Robot,” she said, teeth clenched. She faced Jaxon again. “Well?”
“Okay,” Jaxon said.
Beck clasped her hands and nodded. She hadn’t spoken to him in months, since he’d burned her tree. Only a terrible leader would miss all the chances Jaxon had given to gain information. She would take Aria’s second-hand flirting as an opportunity to do just that.
26
In the skyrail car, Jaxon devised a better transportation system in his head. In Obedience, he’d done a lot of walking, but that had been by choice. Here, after the skyrail took them up or down the mountains, it was up to their feet to get them where they needed. He was tired of walking.
Glowstick bracelets left neon light trails in their path. A jubilant crowd clapped and chanted something in Terramulken, dancing through a narrow valley, leading out of Tiyeert.
Over their heads, Jaxon glimpsed more neon lights in the trees. “Why does Beck allow this if she doesn’t like it?” he said to Nano.
“She can’t stop people from havin’ fun. This the only night she lifts the tech ban. Well, semi lifts.”
“When’s she coming?”
Nano shrugged hard and darted off through the crowd, jumping into the rhythm of their clapping.
Jaxon moved with them, but alone. Once everyone had passed all the houses, they entered a field barren of trees and full of large wooden mechanisms. He had a vague idea of what they could be, like a distant lesson he’d learned in grade school. The crowd dispersed, racing to booths with strange names like Nano’s obstacle course. Behind the Bottle Toss was a wall of stuffed animals, same as Water-gun Bullseye.
A small girl with an afro too big for her head ignored a long line of customers at her popcorn stand, while she whispered something to a boy at a funnel cake booth.
Jaxon rubbed his arm, not understanding the point of this. They mingled like they all belonged to the same family, filling the air with a strange calm.
Jaxon froze at holographic signs floating above a giant, spinning wheel. Holograms he understood. He tipped his neck to find more floating signs. The ground in Obedience was equipped with needle-and-thread sized holes for celecomb to spray out of the ground, making projections possible anywhere. He wondered where these were coming from?
A foggy memory of Nano mentioning grids played on the edge of Jaxon’s mind. Were those grids powering these strange machines? He had to find out if he had access to his rings, if he could find a way to talk to his mom or someone he trusted in Obedience.
He turned to find a quiet space, but collided with Aria.
“There you are.” Aria held a giant stick of pink cotton. “Want some?”
Jaxon tucked his hands behind hi
m. “You’re eating a flower?”
“It’s candy.” She pulled a sticky piece free and held it in front of his face. “Taste it.”
Jaxon closed his mouth around it and Aria let her finger go with it. The raspberry on her fingertip blended with dissolving cotton candy on his tongue. She pulled it free and wiped his lips. Jaxon swallowed hard, wondering what that mesmerizing look in Aria’s eyes meant. They cut right through him, like she knew his every thought.
“Good?” she said, licking her own fingers.
Jaxon nodded. Aria had a way of making the whole world feel like it was free-falling. Jaxon’s knees sank.
“Dope,” she said. “You can have this. I’ll go get another one.” She handed him the stick candy and skipped off.
Jaxon watched her shrink into the mix. He went off to find somewhere quiet, tugging the rings he’d found at Nano’s tech graveyard from his pocket. The carnival burst with excitement everywhere he turned. He knelt behind a ticket exchange booth, away from the horde, and tapped his celrings. “Aicis?”
No response.
He didn’t bother trying again. He pulled his rings off and adjusted the new rings. He tapped. “Control?”
Still no response. What if he did get a response? What would it mean? He still wouldn’t have a way home. He still didn’t know Farah and Dasher’s intent. What if he led them to Beck and the others?
“Control?” he tried again, more timidly. “Con”— His celbuds popped, making him smack his ears. When three long beeps succeeded, he thought he’d made progress. His own celrings lit up in his pockets, but the rings from Nano’s graveyard were as useless as any old rock.
He removed them and replaced his own. “Aicis,” he said, “if you can hear me…”
The blinking white light on the side stilled. For a moment, Jaxon tricked his mind into thinking his mom’s voice, full of tears, would blare into his celbuds. But there was only their normal useless hum, and his drumming heart. “If you can hear me, send a message to my mom.” Pointless. His chances of reaching anyone beyond Knowledge were zero. “Mom… It’s Jacky… I’m still here… I’m alive… and… I’m sorry.”