by K. N. Lee
“Get down!” Ian said, his voice sounding gruffer and more intense than I had ever heard it before, even in the woods during hunting.
Instantly, I did as he said.
The rovers blasted at us, hitting the blue shield Ian constructed out of thin air and causing him to grunt and stumble backward a little.
“When I tell you to run, you run!” Ian yelled, his teeth gritted as he continued to slide backward, a victim of the force of the rovers’ blasts.
“That seems like a bit of preamble I didn’t need, but okay,” I answered, tensing and readying to go. My hair whipped around my face, and I pulled the straight strands that caught caught between my lips.
I wasn’t made for this type of thing, but, here I was, ready for whatever was to come.
Lifting his hand, Ian pressed the button on his sleeve again. The blue shield pulsated, sending a wave of energy out toward the rovers. It struck them, bypassing their own blasts and causing them to stop as the machines shuddered.
“That’ll only keep them out of commission for an instant or two at most,” Ian yelled. “So run!”
Needing no other instruction, I turned tail and headed toward the line of trees in the distance. If we could get there fast enough, it would prove helpful in our attempts to shake the rovers. Though they could follow us either through or over the woods, trees dotted the place in thickly placed clumps.
The rovers wouldn’t be able to scan through them from above, and the amount of obstacles would cause them to have to slow down. It was our best bet.
Of course, we’d have to get there first.
“Faster!” Ian’s voice boomed from behind me. “They’re booting back up.”
Well, that didn’t take long.
I ran quicker, my legs pumping every bit as hard and desperate as they had the day my brother died, a day Ian just assured me didn’t happen the way I thought it did. A hitch caught in my throat as the memory of that fateful day with Eden flooded me again.
It was sunny, like now. Eden took me out hunting. I begged him not to. With him around, there was no need for me to learn that stuff. Besides, I had friends to laugh with and hope for a better future. He insisted, though, putting his foot down. And, when Eden put his foot down, the world seemed to shake under me.
The day winded around itself uneventfully until it reached its near end. The last hunt of the day, a boar that we followed for hours, was where everything went wrong. I stepped on a branch—a foolish mistake—alerting not only the boar we were hunting, but its mother as well.
With glowing red eyes, and the stature of a beast from legends, the beast took off after us. It was twice as big as Eden and three times as big as me. Though we tried to shake it, the stupid thing just kept coming. Finally, when it became clear we weren’t going to rid ourselves of the beast, something flashed in Eden’s eyes that made my blood run cold.
He did the stupidest and most noble thing he could have.
Running the other way, he sacrificed himself and sent the monster in his direction.
In horror, I stood by as the beast trampled him, as his bones broke, as the life fell from his eyes. I watched my brother, my best friend, and my entire future disappear from this world in one horrible moment.
But I wouldn’t do that again. Eden died for me, and I wouldn’t let that death be for nothing. I was going to run faster than I ran that day. I was going to be better than I had ever been before.
As the idea solidified in my mind, I watched as a line of soldiers poured from the woods, blasters raised and pointed at Ian and me, causing us to pull to a stop.
Chapter 9
“We’re in trouble,” I said breathlessly, as sweat beaded and trailed down my face.
“You don’t say,” Ian muttered, similarly panting beside me.
“That’s not a very reverent way to talk to your princess,” I answered, trying to inject a little humor into what had to be the most dire situation of my life.
“Let’s just say you and I never had the most conventional of relationships,” Ian said, a hitch in his voice that-even if everything he told me was true and I didn’t have complete control over my memory or faculties- I recognized as his ‘scared tone’.
The thing was, Ian stood a head over me. He outweighed me by more than I cared to admit. If he was afraid of something-and it looked like he was- it meant I should be heading for the hills right about now.
Except, I already did that. These were the hills, and the kingdom followed me to them.
“I need you to listen to me very carefully,” Ian said as low as he could while still being sure I could hear him. “They’re going to take us. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
“Nope. Let’s get a new plan. I really hate that one,” I answered quickly, my eyes plastered on the men.
Thankfully, the rovers pulled up, their red eyes going dark as they settled over our heads. That meant two things; that they weren’t going to turn us into charred corpses—at least for the moment—and that someone or something was watching through their eyes right about now.
Someone or something knew where I was and that I was running. This is where it ended, though that didn’t mean it needed to end without a fight.
“There is no other plan,” Ian said. “Not anymore. Not at this point.” Ian turned to me, his eyes wide and clear. “Do you trust me, Moira?”
“Of course not,” I responded quickly.
“What?” Ian balked, his face jerking back a little in genuine surprise.
“This surprises you?” I answered as they soldiers grew ever closer, their guns trained on us. “You just told me everything about my life as I know it is a lie. That means that, either you’re lying to me, which makes you a liar. Or it means that you’re right, in which case, I don’t know anything about you. Either way, it would be stupid of me to trust you.” I looked back at the soldiers, so close I could see the crests on their armor. “Then again, it’s not like I have much in the way of choices. So, I’m willing to hear you out.”
“How heartwarming,” Ian muttered, throwing his hands into the air and clasping them above his head as a sign of surrender. “We’re going to get taken. I need you to keep your mouth shut about everything I told you.”
“You didn’t tell me anything,” I replied, not putting my hands over my head myself. I still didn’t fully believe Ian. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of all my memories being lies, of my family not actually being my family. I sure as Under wasn’t ready to surrender yet. I could tell you that much. “You told me pieces of things. None of it means anything.”
“Doesn’t mean anything to you,” he said, bowing forward and submitting further to the kingsmen. “Trust me when I tell you it would mean everything to them. Now promise me you’ll keep your mouth shut, and for the sake of the kingdom, put your hands up.”
A wave of something ran through me. I couldn’t quite place it at first, but it made me feel powerful. It made me feel different. I quickly recognized the sensation as power, the same power that ran through me before I transported us here. It rushed through me, lighting up my body and sending sparks down deep inside of me, where the spirit is said to live. It made me feel invulnerable. It made me feel immortal. It made me foolish.
“I’m not doing that,” I said, my jaw tightening and my teeth gritting together. “I’m fighting this, and you should too. If you help me harness this power, we can win this. We won’t have to surrender. We can-”
I felt another rush, a much more painful one. As opposed to the other, which ran throughout the whole of my body, this one was localized to my face, the right side of it, more specifically.
I had been punched a couple of times in my life, so I knew what the sensation felt like. Still, when Ian’s hand pummeled into my face, it took me by surprise. I stumbled backward at first before falling to the ground, looking up at the still rising suns.
“You-you hit me,” I said, realizing I was about to pass out again.
“I did,” Ian said, his tone
almost loving as he looked down at me. “Trust me. It’s better than what they’d have done to you to get you to submit.” He shook his head. “It’s for your own good. Like I said, you always did have a head like a rock.”
And, with that, I drifted off to a troubled, difficult sleep.
Chapter 10
“Moira, what do you keep looking at?” A man’s voice spoke to me in a fog.
I opened my eyes, though pretty instantly, I realized they weren’t my real eyes. I wasn’t here, wherever this was. This wasn’t even real. At least, it wasn’t real in the way most things were. My body still lay there on the ground, punched out by Ian.
My mind was somewhere else, though. It was in another place, perhaps another time.
“You need to focus. Otherwise, all of this will have been for nothing,” the man’s voice repeated.
Blinking hard, I took a look at my surroundings. I stood in a stone room, a lantern in my hand that flickered with blue light. It illuminated everything, including a statue I stood next too, a statue of the very man speaking to me now. I didn’t recognize him, even though he seemed to know me. That shouldn’t have come as a surprise, though. I didn’t recognize this place either. Wherever I was, whenever I was, it was all a mystery to me.
“Moira, are you even listening to me?”
“I-I’m sorry,” I said, though the words weren’t my own. In fact, as I stood here, I realized none of the movements this body made belonged to me. Catching a glimpse of my reflection in the glass of my lantern, I saw that I was still myself. My hair was longer and my cheeks were fuller, but I was me. “You know how much this place troubles me.” My voice came out shaky and wavering as I spoke words I never willed myself to. “I don’t do well with death, Ruston.”
“None of us do well with death, Moira,” the man-Ruston- said, leveling a gaze at me that would have torn down a building if I’d have pointed it in the right direction. “It doesn’t stop it from coming for us, all the same. Besides, if what you’ve told me is true-and I have every reason to believe it is- then this might be our only chance at salvation.”
I swallowed hard, feeling my heart speed up and dread fill my chest, though I had no idea why.
“It seeps into my spirit, Ruston,” I said, shaking my head hard and glancing over at the blue light. “I try to keep it out. I try to keep it away from me, but the Darkness always finds a way.”
“He is insidious, Moira,” Ruston answered. His bearded chin seemed to shore up at his continued, his face tightening. “It was the same with your grandfather. His spirit was heavy with the knowledge of what was to come right up until his death. He was gifted in many things, as well. That’s why he built these tunnels here. It wasn’t for these statues or fixtures. It was for this.”
The man pointed at a far door. It was dusty and black.
“He knew it was here, Moira. He saw it, and he knew what he had to do,” Ruston answered. “So come, open the door.”
I looked at the door again as my feet moved toward it unaided by my thoughts. My heart sped even more. It was beating so fast I was afraid it might send me flying off toward the suns. As I neared the door, though, I saw it had no handle or lock. My thoughts moved to how I was going to open the stupid thing.
Of course, I wasn’t able to vocalize those thoughts. Instead, I watched impotently as I pressed my palm against the door, muttering words I didn’t quite understand. I felt the rush of power move through me again like a tide, though it was more refined than I had ever felt it before. It was directed.
It was purposeful.
The door swung open, and all I could see was light; bright, blinding light.
“There it is,” Ruston said from behind me. “The source of all things in the world!”
Chapter 11
I woke slowly, my head pounding and a haze over my thoughts.
It took a long moment for me to remember what happened, and a longer moment to admit to myself that the cot in a cell I now lay on was every bit as comfortable—if not moreso—than my bed at home.
My eyes flickered open, blinking away dots of sleep. The room was a lingering shadow, broken only by the light of a few lanterns on a far wall. A cold breeze, likely coming in through a crack in the aged, stone walls, licked at my face and bare feet.
Where are my shoes?
The chill in the air made my bones ache, and as I glanced down at my body, I realized I was wearing completely different clothing altogether. Gone were rags I came here in, replaced by a long white gown that resembled what one would wear in the hospital. More disconcerting was the fact that cold, metallic cages were strapped across my hands, forbidding me from being able to use them.
Panic rose in my throat, my eyes widening and my body jerking. The racing of my heart made it hard to breathe. Sitting up straight in this cot, the truth of everything that had come before crashed into the forefront of my mind like a wave hitting a shore.
I had been taken.
I was a prisoner.
“Ian,” I whispered, afraid to speak too loudly. “Where are you?”
Fear made my stomach churn as I realized that I would likely be executed along with my best friend—who had also either lost his mind or had a point when he told me my entire life as I knew it was a lie.
“They’re to stop you from using your magic,” a voice, deep and confident, said from somewhere in the dark.
I jerked again, afraid by the proximity—if not the tone—of the voice. Standing, feeling the cold stone underfoot, and walking toward the cell bars, I realized I couldn’t see whoever was speaking to me. Still, there was something in the voice that pulled at my insides. It wafted along through my ears and into my brain, in a sweet way that did much to set off the nerves exploding in my chest right now.
“I-I don’t know how to use my magic,” I admitted with a shaky voice.
I wasn’t sure why I said that.
I just spent the last little bit trying to convince people I could blow their heads off with a snap of my fingers. Now, because I liked the sound of some strange man’s voice in the dark, I decided to come clean about how utterly useless I was.
“I know,” the voice said. “Otherwise, it would take a lot more than those cages to stop you. Lucky for you, I convinced them that you had no idea what was going on.”
I looked down at the cages again, and my heart sank.
Great.
Not only were these things set up to turn off the only offensive weapon I had at my disposal, but they were also embarrassingly primitive, reminders that I had failed to live up to my potential in some way.
None of that mattered now, though. I didn’t care about my ego or about the fact that I should have been ashamed of myself for wasting something Ian repeatedly called ‘sacred’. All I cared about was getting out of here, getting back to my family, and trying to make the best of whatever portion of a life I would have after this.
“That should be reason enough to let me go then, right?” I asked, resting the cages around my hands on the bars.
Even through the cages, I felt a rush of some sort of energy. It burned, casing me to leap backward and yelp just a little. If I’d had the chance, I would have rubbed my arms as the hairs now stood on end.
“I’d keep my distance from those if I were you,” the still unseen voice said. “They’re maximum security bars, and they’ll kill you if that’s what it takes to keep you inside.”
“Maximum security?” I balked. “Surely you people know I’m not a ‘maximum security kind of person. My mother still has to make my soup. If you think I’m capable of breaking out of wherever we are right now, I’m afraid you and yours have greatly exaggerated my potential.”
“Your mother never made soup a day in her life,” the voice said from the darkness. “And you’re in this cell because of that mark on your face. It makes you a threat whether you know how to use it or not. As for your potential, that’s why I’m here.”
That may have been a pep talk. It might have been j
ust a dramatic re-reading of the situation. I couldn’t tell because all I could think about was one frightening piece of what the man said.
“You talked about my mother in the past tense,” I said, thinking of the woman who gave birth me to, of the woman who fed me, of the woman who loved me more than I deserved or ever could have repaid. Then I thought about her being dead, and my stomach dropped. “Is she...Is she...”
“Gone?” the voice asked from the dark. “I’m afraid so, Moira. She has been for years now.”
“Years?” I asked, my voice lilting up with the absurdity of the idea. “There's no way. I just saw her—wait—how long was I unconscious?”
“Oh, come on,” the voice shouted. He sounded closer now, but I still couldn’t see him. “Ian was supposed to tell you this. You were supposed to know the truth by now.”
“The truth?” I muttered. “You mean that nonsense he was spouting about my entire life being a lie?”
“That wasn’t nonsense,” he said. “That was a carefully crafted spell, a master spell, in fact. And, if I knew where in the Under you put Jasper I’d be able to lift it from you.”
“Jasper?” I murmured, remembering my dream and the old man from it.
“Yes. Jasper,” he said. “Though, it doesn’t surprise me that you don’t remember him. You don’t seem to remember much of anything.”
“Is he-is he the man who put this spell on me?” I asked.
Though I still wasn’t sure I believed any of this, I was here and the least I could do was listen, especially if it might make the weird dream I had make some sense.
“Of course not,” he said. “He doesn’t have the power to do that. Only one person in the entire kingdom has enough power to enact a spell like the one on you, a spell strong enough to change and shape the memories of-not only you- but the rest of the kingdom as well.”
“And who would that be?” I asked. “Who did this to me?”
“You, Moira,” he voice said, and I could hear his footsteps as he came closer. “You did it to yourself.” He walked out into the light, and I saw his face.