Halve Human

by Stephanie Fazio

  I don’t bother to wipe away the tears leaking from my black eyes.

  One of the Zeroes sniffs the air and moves a step closer to me. A shudder runs through my body. The tug of energy I feel toward it is both repulsive and irresistible.

  “I’m a monster,” I whisper.

  “She was a Dusker child,” my father says. “She may have been cut down before you could see her grow into a cold-blooded killer, but that’s what she would have been.” He swallows, looking almost as nauseated as I feel. “It is cruel, I know.”

  We walk in silence until we reach the riverbank.

  “But the test was successful,” he says.

  “Successful?” I bark out a bitter laugh.

  My father nods. “The Zeroes followed your every order.”

  My order. There’s no one to blame for the death of that girl except me.

  “You should not hesitate to bring them back to Solis now,” he continues. “Show the Banished leaders what they can do.”

  I just shake my head, unable to speak. Every time I blink, I see Wokee’s face plastered on the body of the dead girl.

  “Hemera,” my father sighs. “Crowe will not give you time to mourn. As soon as she figures out her recruits aren’t returning, what do you think her next move will be?”

  His question jolts me out of my stupor.

  “They’ll have no reason to wait any longer. They’ll attack Solis.”

  My father nods. “I expect within a day or two the Dusker Supreme will know about the massacre, if not its cause. It will only take a few more days for them to mobilize and reach Solis.”

  I measure the angle of my shadow. “We leave at low day,” I hear myself say. I turn to the others without really seeing them. “Gather your things.”

  ✽✽✽

  An hour later, we sit around an untouched pile of Sustum bricks. My father’s invention, one he came up with for the scouts of Subterrane Harkibel, contains enough nutrients to keep a person going for a long stretch. But their gritty consistency and bitter taste make them anything but satisfying. Ry picks up one of the greenish squares, takes a small bite, and grimaces.

  The scraping sound as Dayne pulls the steel of his blade against a stone sets my nerves on edge.

  Ever since he had to leave his lute in the clearing outside Malarusk, he hasn’t seemed to know what to do with his hands. More than once, I’ve seen his fingers stray to the spot where the instrument used to hang around his neck. And now, after everything that’s happened, he seems even more jittery and unsure of how to occupy himself.

  Jarosh picks up one of the Sustum bricks and shoves the entire thing into his mouth. He chews once, twice, and then promptly spits the contents of his mouth onto the ground. “What in the hell is that? River cabbage and dead fish?”

  “Yes,” Dayne and I say in unison.

  My brother quirks his lip at me in the smallest of smiles.

  Jarosh wipes his mouth on the sleeve of his cloak. “And people say Halve food is disgusting.”

  “Raw stag is disgusting,” Ry points out.

  “Mmm, stag.” Jarosh licks his lips.

  Camike gives Jarosh a disapproving cluck before picking up a Sustum brick. “Don’t waste.” She takes a delicate bite, before spitting it out herself. Jarosh grins.

  For some reason, an intense loneliness washes over me at the sight of Jarosh and Camike.

  In the end, Brogut and Ekil devour them all. Brogut even licks the crumbs.

  “We have to take my father with us,” I say, nodding in the direction of the door. “We can’t leave him here.”

  I don’t know what to think of my father anymore, but I know we can’t leave him here to do who-knows-what.

  Ry wrinkles her nose. “He’s not riding on Vlaz behind me, that’s for sure. Probably stab me right in the back.”

  Dayne sighs. “You’re probably right about bringing him with us. At least until we decide what to do with him, we shouldn’t let him out of our sight.”

  “What are we going to do?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. Hopelessness threatens to close in around me.

  Dayne’s face softens. He reaches out a hand and touches Sal’s rebel sun hanging from my neck, and then he gestures to the curling rays of the sun marking both of our hands. “We’re Solguards. We fight for a better future; that’s what we do.”

  I swallow hard.

  Dayne gives my shoulder a squeeze. “I’m here with you, little sis.”

  “And me.” Ry drapes an arm over my shoulders.

  “Us too.” Jarosh holds up his and Camike’s interlocking hands.

  Ekil and Brogut take a step closer and hold their hands out to me.

  I’m unprepared for the rush of emotion that floods me at the sight of our little group. You don’t deserve their loyalty, a voice whispers in the back of my mind. But the trust in their eyes as they stare into mine is unwavering.

  ✽✽✽

  I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. But as soon as I lie back on my bedroll, my eyes close.

  My dreams are filled with images of Aunt Jadem’s fortress. Soft linens and plush feather mattresses. Kynthia birds flitting in and out of every chamber. Sunlight reflected in Wade’s golden eyes….

  But all of those images fade as enormous beasts come clomping down the stone tunnels of the fortress, scattering the sunlight and the birds. Zeroes, hundreds of them, wave their scythes back and forth across the men and women who are trying to flee. Wade tries to stand in front of me, and he’s cut down with all the rest. Blood sprays through the air, wetting my face and clinging to my hair.

  “Stop!” I scream, but it’s too late.

  Wade, Wokee, and countless others lie stretched out on the ground at my feet. Every one of them is dead.

  My eyes fly open. I scramble for some kind of weapon to kill the Zeroes.

  My surroundings come into focus. Panting, I look around the dimly-lit room. Ry is lying on her back next to me. My thin blanket lies in a heap on the far side of the cave; I must have thrown it while fighting my imaginary foes.

  Have I made a huge mistake? The Zeroes are too strong, too wild. What if Dayne was right?

  But then I think about Wokee and Wade and all the rest of the rebels. Not as they appeared in my dream, but as they actually are. They are the reason why I created the Zeroes.

  I swipe a hand across my eyes. You will save us all.

  CHAPTER 34

  I expected my father to resist coming with us. But he relents after only a brief argument. I suspect it’s because he doesn’t want the Zeroes to be far from his sight. Inwardly, I’m relieved. He’s the only other person who really understands the Zeroes. If we’re going to mount any kind of reasonable defense against the Duskers, I have a feeling I’m going to need his help.

  I had feared my father wouldn’t want to give up control of the ten Zeroes he made before bringing me to the Lair, but for some reason I don’t dare question, he seems content to observe them, even if he isn’t the one commanding them anymore.

  After much grumbling from Ry and Jarosh, and a quiet sort of angry resignation from Dayne, it’s agreed that Zeidan will ride Vlaz with them.

  The Halves, Zeroes, and I will cover the distance on foot. Jarosh doesn’t want to let Camike out of his sight, but Vlaz is still recovering from his injury, and Camike is strong and fast enough to make the run. It’s only when she murmurs to him and places a soft kiss on his forehead that Jarosh relents.

  I take off with the Zeroes first to get them away from Vlaz. Every time the hyenair gets a whiff of them, he becomes wild, snapping his fangs and lunging like a beast possessed.

  The Halves follow, although they aren’t as fast as the Zeroes.

  It feels good to run, especially now that we’re running to the fortress rather than away from Malarusk. It feels good to be doing something.

  We keep to the trees for as long as we can, going out of our way to avoid Malarusk. I look up when Vlaz’s shadow crosses overhead, a
nd then pick up my pace until I’m weaving around boulders and tree stumps, feeling almost like I’m flying myself.

  Even though the air is stifling, my energy doesn’t wane as I cross the distance on what feels like weightless feet. The clumsiness that’s plagued me my whole life, the way my two legs never seemed to quite understand what the other was going to do, has disappeared. Rocks and roots littering my path don’t get in my way. Every part of me just feels better…more fluid. Like I make sense now in a way I hadn’t before.

  My pace flags only when I crest a steep rise. The distance is growing between the Zeroes and Halves and me, so I stop to give them time to catch up. From where I’m standing, I can see the lines of Zeroes approaching, and the three Halves far behind them.

  I wait, admiring the fluid movements of the Zeroes. Their legs pump across the uneven ground; their taut muscles flex with every step. They don’t stumble on the rocks or slow when they reach the hill. They aren’t even breathing hard, in spite of all the extra weight their armor adds. As they come closer, their energy surrounds me like a hundred small suns.

  I turn back in the direction we’re headed. But before I can reorient myself, my attention catches on something else.

  To the north, where I can just make out the iron gate marking the entrance to Malarusk, smoke is rising. For a second, my heart leaps. Maybe the citadel is on fire. Maybe the Duskers are under attack. But a prickling, sinking feeling tells me the smoke means something else. The smoke is too dense, too black, and I know instinctively that it means something far worse for us than for the Duskers.

  There must be hundreds of fires burning to create so much smoke, even though I can’t see any flames from here. As the billowing clouds meet with the sky overhead, the clear blue transforms to black. It looks like someone took a giant blackwood pencil and scratched out the normal color of the sky.

  Could this smoke have something to do with the weapon the Banished leaders said the Duskers were building?

  The wind shifts, and I catch a familiar, acrid scent. I shield my face inside the collar of my shirt and blink the gritty feel from my eyes. It takes only a moment to place the smell. It’s the same scent that hovered over the dying Solguards in the healing cave. I remember Wade saying every Solguard who ventured near Malarusk came back, burned from the inside out, with that foul-smelling black substance.

  It’s the same smell, I’m sure of it.

  But whatever was covering those men wasn’t smoke. It was something solid, sticky and tar-like.

  I blink as the haze settles like a blanket between the hillock and the citadel. My lungs feel like weights in my chest. When the wind shifts, pulling the smoke away, I inhale a breath of clean air. The ache in my lungs starts to recede.

  When I squint in the direction of Malarusk, I notice the empty land the smoke had just been overlaying looks different. The ground is no longer a sandy brown, but black as pitch. The smoke stained the ground black, just like it did to the men in Solis.

  I once saw a place in the forest outside Subterrane Harkibel that had been ravaged by a cook fire that wasn’t extinguished. The leaves were burned off the trees and everything was covered with gray ashes for days. But the ground never turned black.

  A strange, eerie silence has blanketed the land, as though the smoke swept all life away with it.

  I make a mental note to talk to Wade about it when I’m back at the fortress. Maybe his scouts have discovered something more about what the Duskers are planning that will make all of this make sense. With a last shudder, I turn my back on the smoke.

  I don’t slow again until the trees thicken and I have to follow a winding path through the underbrush. The Zeroes are behind me; even though I can’t see them through the dense foliage, I can feel their presence. The invisible tethers connecting me to each of them give me comfort. I know they feel it too, and are unwilling to test the limits of the bond between us.

  I’m so lost in my thoughts I don’t process the sound of twigs snapping. I step past the trunk of an enormous script tree and run straight into someone. Stumbling from the force of the collision, I distantly register the sound of metal scraping. Before I can regain my feet, hard steel crashes into the bare skin at my neck.

  CHAPTER 35

  Crack.

  A sliver of pain darts across my neck just as two shards of metal fall to the ground on either side of me. I look down, too stunned and confused to do anything else. A sword’s blade…broke…on me.

  “Hemera!”

  What’s left of the sword’s hilt clatters onto the stone ground as arms fold me into an embrace that robs me of breath. His voice, his smell, the familiar shelter of his arms, enfold me. Wade.

  “I could have killed you.” He pulls back to look at me, sheer amazement reflected in his eyes. “I should have killed you—” his voice hitches. He lets go of me and presses a hand to the trunk of a tree, steadying himself.

  Wade’s honey-colored eyes, boring into me and making me feel stripped bare, make my heart lurch into my throat.

  “I think I did more damage to your sword than it did to me,” I point out, making an attempt at levity.

  “But that doesn’t make any sense.” Wade stares at the shards of steel on the ground. “Even you’re not that strong.”

  I shrug, even though I know the explanation lies in my link with the Zeroes. What had my father called it? Blood bond.

  “Tell me Zeidan hasn’t been…doing experiments on you.” Wade looks me up and down, his face darkening with rage. “Has he hurt you?”

  “Wade, no one can hurt me.” I gesture at the broken sword for emphasis.

  “But,” Wade shakes his head. “How is this possible?”

  I let out a shaky breath. There’s nothing I want more than to bury my face in his chest and breathe him in. I want to stare at his beautiful face and forget about everything else. “It’s complicated,” I say. And then, after a pause, “What are you doing out here by yourself?”

  “I was coming to get you.”

  “Me?” A thousand questions rush to the surface, but Wade anticipates them.

  “The Duskers haven’t come yet. My scouts report they haven’t left the citadel.”

  “Oh.” I swallow. “Then, why—”

  “The Banished leaders,” Wade says. “They said you had your week to return with Hendrix, and they refuse to wait any longer. They’ve sent messengers ahead to their settlements. Hemera, they’re surrendering.”

  “When?”

  “They leave next low day.”

  “They can’t.” I’m already striding ahead.

  “What happened in Malarusk?” Wade practically has to jog to keep up with me.

  When I don’t answer, he puts a hand on my shoulder and spins me around to face him. “What happened with Hendrix?”

  While I try to find a way to explain what’s happened, his next question knocks the breath from me.

  “Hemera, is Jadem really dead?”

  I look at Wade and let him read the answer in my expression.

  He hangs his head.

  When Wade meets my gaze, I notice the hollowed-out look to his cheeks, the shadows darkening the planes of his face. The grief in his eyes as they meet mine is so complete it’s like watching Crowe kill Aunt Jadem all over again.

  “Hemera, I—”

  The pounding of many sets of heavy boots makes the ground tremble. Wade looks down at his fallen sword, before seeming to remember why it’s in pieces, and then draws a dagger from his belt. As the Zeroes come into view, the sound of their sniffing fills the air. They stop a short way from me.

  Wade snarls like a cornered beast. He pushes me behind him, shielding me, even though he must know there’s nothing he or his dagger could do to cause the Zeroes even the slightest bit of harm. The Zeroes’ black eyes are trained on me.

  “We couldn’t get Hendrix,” I say, putting my hand on Wade’s hand and lowering the dagger. “But I have something else.” I swallow. “Something better.”

>   I don’t know where to begin, so I just start talking. Wade stands completely still as I tell him about the Dusker prisoners, using my blood and the Halves’ to change them, and about using the Zeroes to defeat the Duskers.

  I stop just short of the battle with the Dusker recruits. My throat is dry from talking, and my memory of the little Dusker girl is still too raw.

  After a pause I’m afraid will stretch into forever, Wade rakes a hand through his hair. “So, these Zeroes…you control them?”

  I nod, grateful he hasn’t turned around and run from me. At least, not yet.

  He’s quiet as he regards the Zeroes, with their metal clothes and scythes. “Okay. I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” Wade spreads his hands out in front of him, “but this might just work.” His eyes sweep over the Zeroes.

  “Really?”

  He nods. “There are thousands of soldiers in Malarusk already, and more Banished join them every day.” Wade wipes sweat from his forehead with the back of his glove. “We just don’t have the numbers. I have no idea what else to do to keep everyone alive.”

  I can see on Wade’s face what this admission has cost him.

  He looks so vulnerable just standing there. I wind my arms around him and lean my head against his chest. I feel, rather than hear, his sigh as he pulls me closer.

  “If you can convince the Banished to fight with us, and these Zeroes are as strong as you say, we might have a chance.” Wade kisses the top of my head. “Not that I won’t still strangle your father the first chance I get.” He laughs without humor.

  I drop my arms and step back, unable to meet the intensity of his gaze.

  “I did something.” I swallow. “Something horrible.”

  Before I can say anything else, a ground-shuddering thump announces the arrival of Vlaz.

  “Wade!” Ry slides off Vlaz’s sweat-lathered back and throws herself at him.

  A confusing wave of emotions flashes through me.

  Don’t be stupid, I tell myself. After all that’s happened…after all that is going to happen…there are far more important things to be worrying about. Like how to save the entire Solguard fortress.