In Dawn and Darkness

by Kate Avery Ellison

  Valus didn’t respond.

  “I was just telling her about my plans,” Nautilus said. He turned back to me. “You accuse me of being a monster, but I am not without feeling. I will spare your friends as long as you are working with me.”

  “No torture?”

  “No torture,” Nautilus promised. “You have my word, and I am a man of my word.”

  Somehow, I didn’t doubt him. He seemed the kind of man to strictly adhere to the letter of whatever he’d promised.

  “Send them to Magmus, Father,” Valus said.

  Nautilus looked at him. “No,” he said. “I think perhaps I’d better keep them here.” He held up a finger, and a servant came forward.

  “Send word that the other prisoners are to be kept in my personal holding cells, rather than the Pit,” he said.

  Valus made a sound like a sigh.

  The rest of the dinner passed in silence before the guards took me back to my room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  VALUS ACCOMPANIED ME in silence, dismissing the guards with a flick of his fingers once we’d reached the chamber. As soon as we were alone, I whirled on him.

  “What are you doing?”

  He gazed at me, his face expressionless now instead of displaying the anger he’d shown at dinner. He was calm, controlled. “What?”

  “Lying to your father and creating schemes without telling me anything. Acting furious in there, and...” I let out a breath as I studied him. “You aren’t angry anymore.”

  “He acted exactly as I hoped he would,” he said, smiling tightly. “It’s part of my plan. My father doesn’t like me. He also thinks I’m stupid. I knew exactly what to say to make him think he’d won.”

  “And what exactly is your plan? I think it’s time you brought me in on your scheming, Valus.”

  He shifted. “I know what I’m doing. Trust me.”

  “You keep saying that, but you of all people should understand what I think about that. Why are you keeping me in the dark?” I waited a moment. “You think I’m going to disagree.”

  He went to the door as if he meant to leave, and I blocked him.

  “Valus!”

  He tapped my chin with his forefinger. “I know you’re going to.”

  “Tell me.”

  His eyebrows lifted, and he studied me as if trying to discern what I would say in response to the words he was composing. “We’re going to be married,” he said. “It’s the only way I know to save you. After that—”

  “Married? That’s your plan? Just do exactly what you’ve said all along? I thought we were acting!”

  He frowned. “It’s the best plan.”

  “No, it’s not. What about the war? What about Perilous?”

  “I don’t care about those things.” He paused. “I like you. I don’t want you to be used by my father, and I don’t want to stay here either. I want to get out from under his thumb, and I’ll do what I can to save you while I do so. The rest... the rest I don’t care about. I don’t care about the war. I don’t care about Itlantis.”

  But his eye twitched as he spoke.

  “You’re lying,” I said.

  He didn’t answer.

  “I thought we understood each other.”

  Still, he was silent. Anger built in my bones, gathering strength. I wanted to shake him. “Don’t you make me your pawn.”

  “I saw to it that the others were kept here in Volcanus instead of being sent below. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “How generous of you.”

  “The Pit would have been a death sentence. Most only make it a day, perhaps two. I was generous, considering how I care nothing about them. They’ve never done anything but bully and harass me.”

  I had no response for that.

  He went out the door, leaving me alone. I paced to the bed and back again.

  We were running out of time.

  I tried to take off the ring Nautilus had forced on me—it made me feel like a slave with a mark—but the band was too tight, and it wouldn’t pass over my knuckle. I gave up after I’d turned my finger swollen and red from trying.

  Even my hand was prisoner to his whims.

  I stripped out of my fancy tunic and searched the wardrobe for a plain black bodysuit. I found one with thick, waterproof material, black as the walls of Volcanus, and a cloak to match. I put them on. I kept the combs in my hair.

  When I opened the door, the guards stepped forward to block my way.

  “I would like to be taken to see the ones who were captured with me,” I said, trying to speak boldly.

  I expected them to deny my request, but to my astonishment, they merely bowed and led me down the corridor.

  Our footsteps echoed. Decorative windows of stained glass emitted a reddish glow across my path. My lungs were tight, and I struggled to draw every breath. The hall took us across another vast space, us enclosed by glass, the room below open as wide and deep as a cave. This space held the city of Volcanus, with layer upon layer of square, stone and metal dwellings crisscrossed with walkways and platforms to access them. Men and women dressed in plain grays and blacks crowded the walkways and climbed up and down ladders on the walls. The whole scene was dark and cave-like, lit by lights set in the stone. From so far away, the people looked like ants. Were they workers?

  I stopped and pressed my fingers to the glass. It was warm.

  We took a lift down, and my stomach tumbled at the swift descent. The air grew hotter. When the lift stopped and the doors opened, I staggered at the blast of heat that poured over me.

  The guards waited for me to exit the lift before leading me down another corridor, this one smaller and tighter than the last. The heat made my face ache. Sweat dripped between my shoulder blades and made my forehead slick.

  “It’s so hot,” I said.

  “The volcano makes it so.”

  The voice startled me. I looked up—Valus?

  He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, wearing a dark gray cloak over his silk tunic. “I knew you would come. You took a little longer than I expected.” He nodded to the guards, and they withdrew.

  I just gazed at him, waiting for him to say something. Despite the familiar smirk of confidence on his face, his eyebrows were drawn together in an angry slash, and the muscles around his jaw flexed.

  He was angry.

  Had he come here to catch me, or had I discovered him in the middle of his own scheme?

  “You’re going to cause problems if you insist on this,” he hissed.

  “I need to see them.”

  His jaw clenched, but he stepped back, allowing me to pass him before he fell into step behind me.

  “Why are you here?” The words tore themselves from me, although I’d intended to be silent.

  “For the same reason you are, I suppose. Speaking to our comrades.” He stopped before the final door and pressed a button.

  “Don’t call them that. You intend to leave them here.” My whisper was for his ears alone, but he winced as if I’d shouted the words. He pressed a finger to my lips and leaned in close, his breath brushing my ear. I winced but didn’t draw back.

  “Do you want the guards to hear? Keep your censure for me between us.” His eyes were dark and unreadable.

  I lowered my voice even further. “Why are you here?”

  “Why don’t you accompany me and find out?”

  The door opened, and he straightened and masked his features with a smirking expression before stepping inside.

  I followed.

  They were all there, chained to the wall by their arms and legs, patches of sweat staining their shirts. No, I was wrong—Kit was missing. And my mother. My stomach jumped. Was Kit being tortured somewhere, as a deserter?

  And where was my mother?

  Nol was the first on his feet. “Aemi.”

  His chains rattled as he moved. Sweat streamed down his face and darkened the rim of his shirt, and he had a dark welt on his neck where it appeared he
had been struck. He walked as far as his chains would allow, his muscles taut. I crossed to stand in front of him, scanning him for any other signs of injury.

  “Are you well?” I whispered. I reached out to touch him, but my hand wavered. He looked at it, and then me.

  “Well enough.” His face was haggard. “And you?”

  “Of course she is well,” Valus interjected angrily. “She is in my care, and I will see to her better than any of you ever saw to me.”

  “Why are you here, Valus?” Tallyn said wearily.

  Garren lifted his head and focused on Valus as if noticing him for the first time. His mouth curled. “The traitor dares to show his face?”

  Valus stopped just out of reach of them. He crossed his arms. “You should be thanking me. If it wasn’t for my kindness, you’d have been transferred to the Pit by now.”

  “Thank you,” Garren drawled, sarcastic. “For betraying us and then showing such mercy.”

  “I didn’t betray you, you worthless creature,” Valus snapped. “I didn’t signal my father.”

  “You expect us to believe that?” Garren shot back.

  “Hey—” I began.

  They ignored me. Only Nol continued to look at me, as if he was afraid he’d lose sight of me if he blinked.

  “Listen,” I tried again.

  “Why did you separate Aemi from the rest of us?” Nol asked Valus.

  “Why? Don’t you want her to be comfortable during her captivity?” Valus stepped closer to Nol and sneered at him.

  A vein throbbed across Nol’s forehead. He didn’t draw away. “I’d rather know she was safe.”

  “You’ll be happy to know that I have a plan to rescue her,” Valus continued. “I’ve told my father that I want to marry Aemi.”

  Nol stiffened. “What?”

  “Calm yourself. It’s a ruse, of course,” Valus continued. “With impending nuptials come social obligations. Parties, galas. I’ll insist on having the ceremony on Primus. It is tradition for our family. My mother and father were married there. I’ll also insist on a quick wedding, because we’re so madly in love.” He threw me a glance. “We’ll take a ship there and I’ll arrange for us to slip away during the journey.”

  Nol’s jaw flexed.

  “Seems like a lot of steps for what amounts to running away,” Garren said.

  “That isn’t what I’m going to do,” I said.

  “Yes, it is,” Valus said. “What do any of you know about my father, about this city?” He crossed his arms, making the gleaming folds of his tunic rasp. “You know nothing.”

  “I know plenty about Magmus,” Keli muttered.

  “Then you know escape is only a fever dream without my help,” Valus countered.

  She was silent.

  “Can’t we simply steal onto a ship and pilot it away?” Tallyn asked. “It worked with the Dron.”

  “And we had superb surveillance,” Garren added.

  “You can’t just run away from Volcanus,” Keli said from her corner, her voice raspy with discouragement.

  “And why not?” Garren twisted to look at her. Her hair beads jingled as she shook her head.

  “Volcanus is buried deep in the rock, hollowed out from a dead volcano,” Valus answered for her. “There’s only one way out, and it’s heavily guarded. All the ships are accounted for and kept under guard. Only authorized captains may take them out. We can’t just run. And any kind of deception would take weeks, perhaps months, of planning.”

  They all glared at him, but no one could argue with that.

  “We should go.” Valus took my arm, a gesture that Nol didn’t miss. I put space between us. I was not his pet or his betrothed, regardless of what he might be planning.

  “So kind of you to come all the way down here to simply inform us of your plans,” Myo said. It was the first time he’d spoken since I’d stepped into the cell.

  Valus smiled thinly. “No. I came to give you instructions. When they interrogate you—and they will—tell them about Perilous.”

  “Give away our secret?” Garren shook his head. “What sort of terrible advice is this?”

  “Do you want to be considered valuable or not?” Valus demanded. “My father is not in the habit of keeping useless prisoners. If you want to stay alive and nearby until I can get us all out, then you’ll prove yourselves worth keeping.”

  With that, he turned and hammered on the door.

  Nol and I gazed at each other. I wasn’t ready to leave him. Not yet. His pulse hammered in his throat, and I was flush with the heat of the room and the fire in my veins. I stepped forward and put both hands on his jaw, and he shut his eyes as I kissed him.

  “I will get us all out,” I promised, pressing my forehead to his.

  The others watched silently as we drew apart. I nodded to them and then left.

  Outside, I faced Valus.

  “I want to see my mother.” The words came out before I could analyze them, and they startled me.

  He pointed at a second door. “She’s there. My father thought she deserved to be separate from the rabble.”

  “What about Kit?”

  He shook his head. “I know nothing about that, but he is a deserter.”

  Fear lanced through me. “Please,” I said. “What can be done for him?”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Valus said. “But I make no promises.”

  I stepped into the cell and saw her sitting like a queen, head up and shoulders back despite her chains. She stilled when she saw me.

  “Aemiana.”

  “Mother. I need your help if we’re to escape.”

  She laughed, low and bitter. “You have never needed my help. It has always been you and Annah.”

  “I need your help now.”

  She raised her head, and her eyes pierced me with their sharpness, their sorrow. “Why now, and not before?”

  “Annah believes you killed my father.”

  It came out so suddenly. I clamped my lips together, but the words, now spoken, could not be undone.

  My mother sat there. The weight of the words she wasn’t speaking pressed against me, and I counted my heartbeats and held my breath for her reply.

  “When I learned you were missing all those years ago,” she said, “I was at a senator function. A dinner. The servant came in and whispered in my ear, and ... and my heart fell and fell. It was the nightmare I couldn’t wake from.”

  What did this have to do with my father?

  She was silent a moment, considering a memory. “The house was so empty without you running through it. You’d gone on trips without me before, but it was different after you were gone. The silences were haunted. Trips in the city were the most painful. I used to imagine I’d heard you talking just around the corner, and I would rush to find you, and it would be another child with her mother.”

  Her words crashed against me like raindrops. I was speechless in the wake of this confession.

  She drew in a short breath. “Laughter stabbed me to the heart whenever I heard it. It was a mockery to my pain. I never knew how much I’d loved you until you were torn away, and I was left with emptiness in your place.”

  Still, I didn’t speak.

  My mother gave me a tired smile. “When I thought you were dead, I felt all those emotions again. All of them and more, because I’d had you back, and I’d refused to trust it. I’d feared the worst—that you were one of them, that you were a trick, a hoax. That you would never be my little girl. You’d grown up away from us, and you didn’t want to be a Graywater. I pushed you away and tried to be stern, even cruel at times. I didn’t want to feel. And then I lost you again, and I realized how wrong I’d been.”

  When she stopped speaking, the silence was the hollow space left after everything I thought I’d known had drained away. I wanted her to say she hadn’t killed him. I wanted her to say Annah was wrong. My throat scratched as I spoke.

  “Mother—”

  She waved a hand, her face slipp
ing into a mask once more. “It’s getting late. You should go. I only wanted to tell you that in case...” She inclined her head. We both knew.

  I took a deep breath. “Here’s what I need you to do.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Valus rejoined me as I left the cell, and together we walked back to my cell of a room.

  Weariness tugged at my eyes and made my limbs feel heavy. “Is it day or night?” I asked.

  Valus laughed under his breath. “That has no meaning here. There are those who have never seen ‘day.’ But to answer your question, it is time for sleeping. Most are in their beds at this hour.”

  “How do you keep track of the days?”

  Valus pointed above our heads, and I looked to see a massive clock set in the ceiling, its cogs and gears naked. “Volcanus runs on strict schedules,” he said. “Being a military city.”

  Before he left me at my door, Valus said, “Wear your best tomorrow. We have a party to attend.”

  He turned on his heel and vanished down the hall before I could ask any more questions.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  DREAMS HAUNTED MY sleep—nightmares filled with dark, hot water and ticking, faceless clocks. I ran down an endless corridor, chased by a dog that made sounds like a dolphin, my heart pounding in my chest so hard I thought it would burst. I woke drenched in sweat, the blankets of the lavish bed tangled around me like ropes.

  Dreams or memories? I could never tell anymore.

  The two women returned with food when a chime had sounded from the timepiece on the wall. I supposed it was morning. Nona set a tray of steaming food on the bed while Tallia rummaged through the wardrobe.

  I studied the food. A bowl of cooked worms. A fleshy white cut of meat wrapped in greens and sprinkled with something orange. Nothing appeared familiar.

  “Let’s choose your clothing for the engagement gala, my lady,” Tallia said briskly.

  This must be the party Valus had mentioned.

  Tallia produced a black bodysuit that turned red when the light hit it and held it out, studying it with a critical eye. “This may be suitable beneath a dress of red.”