A young boy is held captive by the City Elders, perpetually suffering because of magic and technology. As Skyla and Aiden resolve to save him, they face temptation of a perfect life—one they would share together, if the boy keeps suffering. Can they still fight, despite the cost?
The Ones Who Fight
I did not know how much time had passed while Aidan dragged me through the streets. He was kind enough to make sure no one saw me as I tried to stop crying.
I was grateful for Aidan’s kindness and his thoughtfulness. My tears were dissolving as they escaped me, but I was sure I looked awful. All I could see as we walked was the boy and all the horror surrounding him.
No. This can’t be true.
In my perfect life, living in the City by the Sea, there was a tower that gleamed with sunlight, its bricks white and bright, a pinnacle of brilliance striking out in the world. It was the tower where we gathered to celebrate throughout the year; it was the place that housed the Learning Ceremony, the Community’s formal initiation into adulthood—
It’s not a “perfect” life. Stop calling it that.
I’d been excited to go there, and even more happy to have Aidan by my side as he sneaked me into the tower.
But then I went inside.
Inside the tower was a young boy—a boy who was constantly tortured. A boy who was subjected to bear all my life’s pains, everything from smaller inconveniences to larger agonies. He had, like all of the Community members, a shard in the middle of his forehead, one that glowed with constant suffering. As I had watched him through a layer of tears, he called out to me.
“Can you walk?” Aidan asked beside me.
I didn’t answer him. How could I? He might have just rescued me from the tower, but the scene I’d witnessed relentlessly repeated itself in my mind. Sickened, I relived that moment of tragic discovery over and over and over again, and I had to steel myself against the oncoming ocean of inner torment.
Forcing myself to stop feeling was the only way I could stop the boy from taking my pain away from me. All of my life had been perfect, up until that moment, and it was all because of that boy.
There was another sudden surge of pain in my forehead, just below the jewel that rested in the middle of my brow. My fingers pressed into my temples, as I forced myself to breathe; as much as it pained me even more, I held onto the memories of the terror I’d seen, determined to see the small, frail boy before me, the one who bore the marks of my life’s imperfection.
“Skyla.”
Aidan’s voice seemed to come from far away, and the world spun as my head snapped up, looking at him.
“Skyla, hold still. I can help,” he said.
“No, no you can’t,” I whispered. “I saw what was happening in there. That boy. He’s taking everything from us. He’s suffering for us.”
My eyes squeezed shut as another twinge of pain lanced through my forehead, this time more urgent and demanding than before.
“I need you to hold still,” Aidan hissed, taking my cheeks between his hands. He stepped up next to me, letting the shard on his forehead scrape against mine. The pain terrorizing me—the one demanding I give up my memory—began to fade, lessened by the friction between Aidan’s shard and mine.
“What are you doing?” I asked him quietly, opening my eyes to see his icy blue ones staring into mine.
“How are you feeling?” His voice was deceptively calm; his eyes were wild as I watched him. He was likely regretting his actions, or he was unsure that showing me the tower had been the right thing to do.
He seemed to realize there was no going back, though. A moment later, he pulled back and pressed into my shard, before twisting it.
“Ouch,” I muttered, but a second later, I was surprised to see he’d managed to pull part of it out of my forehead.
“What is—what did you … ?” My mouth dropped open as I stared at the top of my shard, watching as it faded from the blue to a deep obsidian.
“At the Learning Ceremony, the Elders surrounded us, thanked us, and then one of them, Lady Sula, reached forward and touched the shard, pressing into it, almost as if she was adjusting it. Some of the other kids’ shards came out, just like yours,” Aidan explained. “After that, I wasn’t able to forget things anymore, or at least, not as easily.”
“That’s so strange,” I said. “What do you think it’s made out of?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I especially wasn’t able to forget about the boy. But I wasn’t able to speak about it, either. Not freely.”
“So the shard is controlling us?” I asked. I took the small jewel from Aidan. I’d always loved my shard. As I turned it over in my hand, I saw there were two small metal rods sticking out from the bottom, no doubt where they connected to the small divot in my forehead.
I touched my forehead, tenderly feeling the shard’s setting; it felt round and smooth, but there was a humming quality to it, almost like a magnet. I did not have any further idea of what it truly was, or what kind of power it housed.
“I don’t know if it controls us,” Aidan admitted. “But it makes sense to me. I know, from working, that the Community Elders have access to some highly advanced technology. Let me see if I can adjust yours like they did mine.”
With Aidan’s help, I put the shard back in my forehead; for a moment, I took a quick inventory of myself, feeling only a queasy blend of fear and freedom at the loss of my ignorance. When it did not disappear, I grimaced; I did not like this, even if it was better knowing the boy did not suffer with my pain.
“How are you?” Aidan asked.
“Terrible,” I admitted with a half-smile. “But I have to say, I don’t know if this is technology. There’s something about it that still has an unreal quality to it.”
I pressed my finger down onto the shard again, surprised to feel a sense of overwhelming contentment drip onto me. It didn’t seem quite right to me, the idea of technology transferring all my pain to someone else for their full experience. And for me to feel something else instead? It all seemed too preposterous for words.
But there were things I did know for sure now, including the suffering boy in the tower by the sea.
“Your guess is as good as mine as to what it is, exactly.”
I gave Aidan a trembling smile. “We don’t have the luxury of guesses anymore, do we?”
“We always have time to remain complacent,” Aidan said, his voice resigned.
I scowled. “Well, now we have to do something about this, Aidan. It’s not right what they’re doing in there. They’re making a small, innocent boy take on all our pain and suffering.”
“I know,” Aidan said, his voice edged with regret and impatience. “I’ve known for a year now.”
“Why haven’t you done anything before this?” I asked, suddenly curious. Why would Aidan—someone I trusted more than I’d realized—allow someone to suffer wrongly for so long?
“Skyla … ” He sighed. “It’s very hard to leave the City by the Sea.”
“After seeing what they do?” I frowned this time, indignation settling inside my heart. I wanted to leave right at that moment and never look back. My eyes welled up with tears at the mere thought of that lonely boy, the one surrounded by terror, the one who took all my trouble away. “How could you stay?”
“You know why, Skyla. My whole life is here,” Aidan whispered. “And so is yours. You have your House Mother, your House Father, River, and all of your friends, just as I have mine. They’re here, and all of the people who are here have chosen to stay here.”
That was true.
“Our lives are happy, even if we know that it’s because of something that’s beyond terrible,” Aidan said.
Some part of my memory chimed at Aidan’s familiar words, and I was ashamed to recall that I’d had similar thoughts. Aidan had stayed for the very reasons I’d thought leaving was impossible.
But …
“But that doesn’t make it right!” I yelped, and A
idan put a finger to my lips.
“What good would it do, for me to walk away?” he asked, his voice a low whisper between us. “The boy would still suffer if I left, and I would suffer, too. Many people stay because this place is part of who we are, and we don’t want to leave the people we love.”
His eyes softened as he looked at me again. The clear blue of his irises pierced into my soul, and I realized why he wanted to stay. A raging fire burned within me all of a sudden, the flame hot and urgent as it sent tingles through my whole body before the heart of it settled, curling around inside of my belly.
“I love you,” Aidan whispered. “There are a lot of moments of my life where I feel as though I am waking up from a dream, as though I am forgetting something important and I need to lose myself again if I am going to find it. But when I see you, I know I am home.”
He stepped even closer to me and took hold of my hands. “I am not going to leave my home, Skyla.”
I squeezed his hands back. If I was his anchor to reality, he was my reason for hope. He might have stayed behind in the City by the Sea, with all its hidden darkness, but he did not agree with it.
And that meant it was possible we could do something about it.
I took a step closer to Aidan, pressing my shard up against his. Even though I could not see it, I knew it was burning bright pink; I could feel the rush of affection for him. The deep roots of my love, perhaps lost in all the memories I’d had wiped away or altered, were firm, and I could feel the flower of my love for him blossom.
The sublime beauty of that moment was contrasted sharply with the reality we now faced.
“We have to fight this,” I said quietly.
“I know.” Aidan’s voice, this close to me, reverberated against my skin. I shivered at the sensation, even though I was warmed by his certainty.
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Aidan sighed. “But we’ll think of something. If nothing else, I am glad you know. For now, you need to get ready for the Learning Ceremony. I know I am supposed to be helping there, too.”
He backed away from me, letting his hands slide from mine as slowly as possible. Affection between friends was encouraged in the City by the Sea, but I had a feeling a number of people would be disconcerted by the blazing passion I saw in Aidan’s eyes as we finally let each other go.
“Promise me you won’t forget this.”
I blinked, appalled he would even suggest it, but, as I recalled how I’d forgotten so much of his kindness and attention before, I clenched my fist, feeling more determined than ever. My nails dug into my palms, and at the pain, I paused as my shard seemed to hum softly.
“I won’t forget this,” I said, uncurling my fists.
I did not want to hurt the boy anymore. I didn’t feel my pain leaving me, but I was not sure if he would receive it or not. I did know that I would remember the boy, just as I would remember Aidan’s love—no matter the cost.
I made my silent vow as Aidan and I faced our street, where our two houses were in line with all the others.
“Aidan.”
“What is it?”
“When I was thirteen, and I asked you about the shadows in the morning, what did you tell me?”
He looked over at me. “I don’t remember it all, to be honest. It’s one of the first things I remember on my own, without it being taken from me. But I remember telling you not to tell anyone else, and that they would see it as an overactive imagination.”
I nodded slowly. “I thought that myself. That’s why I never told anyone but you, I think.”
“That’s the first day I decided I liked you,” Aidan said.
I reveled in that feeling of bedazzlement, before the shard in my forehead began to buzz; I could hear it this time; I could feel it changing colors as I looked at Aidan.
A sudden thought struck me as we approached our houses.
“Do you think people would remember their pain and their other memories better if we freed the boy?”
“Where would we take him?” Aidan asked. “The Community Elders might be away today, but there aren’t a lot of openings for breaking him free. I might have tried that myself, if I thought it would work.”
Aidan told me all about his moments of planning, about the pitfalls of each of his plans. As he escorted me to the door of my house, his voice fell into silence, as if he was aware that mourning over his failure would be frowned upon by others.
“I love you even more for all of this, you know,” I told him, as I knocked on the door and waited for my House Mother or Father to open it. “You’re a good person, Aidan, for telling me and helping me. And wanting to do something.”
“It doesn’t matter what I thought,” Aidan said, shaking his head. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You helped me.” I took his hand again, unwilling to let him go.
Before he could say anything else, the door opened up, and we were immediately surrounded by our families.
“There they are!”
Aidan and I jumped in surprise at Aidan’s sister, Stella, as she announced our arrival. Our collective house members—Mother Annika and Mother Erika, our House Fathers, Stella and even Storm—all of them stood in the door before us.
Uneasiness crept into me, before it slipped away into uncertain happiness.
“You should have told everyone you were going to ask Skyla to be your House Mother,” Stella said, bouncing a cheery Storm on her hip. “We could have had more time to prepare something for you!”
“Prepare?” Aidan asked.
“For your Joining Ceremony. Come in, and we can celebrate until it is time to go to the Summer Festival.”
We were pulled inside and pushed around, everyone alternatively offered me advice and congratulations; I vaguely recalled Aidan had told Stella he was going to take me as his House Mother, and that meant there was a lot that went with it. Before we were separated by the different parties, Aidan and I exchanged a knowing glance.
It was almost as if I could hear his thoughts.
They don’t know. They won’t help.
Before I knew it, I was telling them of how Aidan and I planned to move closer to the tower, how we wanted to start a family of our own, how we would apply for Child Rearing as soon as we were able. And when Mother Annika said there was a waiting time of at least four years for a new baby, I assured her that it was the perfect amount of time to wait for such a joy.
Stella handed me a piece of cake, and Mother Erika gave me a kiss on the cheek, welcoming me to her House Son’s family. Aidan’s House Father, Robert, shook my hand and began to sing a song of joy and celebration.
It was while he began to sing that I somehow heard River’s voice through the crowd.
“You’re just asking for trouble, joining with her,” he sneered.
The singing faded into the background, and my eyes shifted over just in time to see Aidan’s gaze frost over, and he hit River across the face.
River doubled over, nearly falling to the ground before he was righted, and the blood on his lip was replaced by a wholesome smile.
I almost forgot the charade for the second, wanting to yell at both River and Aidan, but I stopped myself—though only barely.
Thankfully, no one else noticed what happened.
And that’s when the idea began to form inside my mind.
“I’m so happy for you both,” Mother Annika said, brushing a lock of hair from my face. “You will make an excellent House Mother for Aidan, Skyla.”
“Yes, Storm is always happy to see you,” Mother Erika agreed.
“I would love to have a child,” I said, suddenly thinking of all the daydreams I was now allowed to have, since I was supposedly a House Mother. I could see Aidan and me as we worked together, keeping house and attending to our jobs. We would have two children to start, and then when they were older, if we had fulfilled our task well enough, we would be given another one or two. All House Parents had children for as long as
possible, until the youngest from each family took care of us in our later years, until we were sixty.
The smile fled from my face at the thought.
Sixty years of torturing that boy. All for a perfect life.
I shook my head.
If Aidan and I were going to fight, the first thing we would have to do was free him.
“What is it, Skyla?” Mother Annika asked. “You are not smiling.”
I cleared my throat carefully, after feeling the sharp spike behind the shard on my forehead. “I am well.” I forced myself to smile. “I am … thinking of where we will live now.”
“Oh, do not even think about that,” Erika said. “The Community will decide what is best for you, just like they do for everyone else.”
I felt my teeth grind against each other as I nodded, all while the image of the boy, being tortured with all the pain of the Community members, raced through my mind.
A bell chimed in the distance, marking the opening call for the Summer Festival, and both relief and sadness coursed through me. For now, I would have to lay my dreams of a life with Aidan aside. Perhaps I would have to do it forever, and that thought made my heart ache even more than the shard in my forehead did.
Aidan tugged on me, pulling me out from my oncoming despair.
“Come on, Sky,” he said. “Let’s go to the Festival.”
“Yes,” Mother Annika said. “Skyla might be your choice for a House Mother, but she still has to complete the Learning Ceremony.”
Time did not seem to pass at all while we walked towards the tower. There were more stations set up since I had been there last, or maybe I just noticed them more, taking them in with a bland eye.
It was when I caught the sight of the oceanfront that the rest of my plan came together in my mind, and I squeezed Aidan’s hand at once.
“What is it?” he asked.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he was looking at me, letting his gaze take in my dress and the twisted flowers in my hair. Another wave of warmth, one that had nothing to do with the weather, washed through me. I almost forgot what I was going to say when he asked me, “Is something bothering you?”
Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4) Page 113