A World To Lose

by Frances Ellen

  Sky looked further around the town. It was deadly silent. There were no lights on anywhere, except for… Sky narrowed his eyes as he looked over to his right. One house had a light on. No, two lights even. Sky remembered that house better than any other in the whole town. That was Gayle Mendosa’s house. And there was a shadow moving around inside.

  Without even thinking to tell his brothers, Sky stopped hovering and flew across town to see what was going on.

  It was the middle of the night and Matu was getting tired. He didn’t know how many times he’d recited the spell now, but he’d lost track at around thirty. He forced himself not to think about what the strength of the Dark veil said about the power of the South American King; that it needed so much Aster magic to counteract it. Now once again, he placed his hand against the veil. It felt just as cold as all the times before, and it swayed slightly under his touch. Matu closed his eyes and started whispering the spell. The Band on his wrist started prickling as his magic started to work.

  He was about halfway through the spell when his phone started ringing. As fast as he could, Matu finished the spell. He knew what stopping in the middle of a spell could do; the explosion in the Mendosa crypt was a prime example. Once he’d finished, he grabbed his phone quickly and picked up just in time before the caller was sent to voicemail.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Felix.”

  Matu could sense tension in the Spymaster’s voice. He didn’t know why Felix was calling instead of Axel, but he didn’t question it. “We’re almost done with the veil. When Nathan’s done with the street we’ll be coming back.”

  “Stop with the veil,” Felix said.

  “What?”

  “Get to the Mendosa’s house, now! Sky is already on his way. It’s Disciples.”

  Matu swore and ended the call. Of course Sky was already on his way. Why Matu expected time and time again that his reckless brother would act responsibly for a change, and get the other Asters first before heading straight into danger, he would never know. Maybe Matu just hoped that one day Sky would be smarter than this.

  As Matu ran back into town he dialled a number on his phone.

  “Matu? What’s going on?” Lian asked.

  “Saluverus’ sensors detected Disciples at the Mendosa’s house. Sky’s going in alone!”

  Lian didn’t even answer him. The phone line had gone dead. Matu swore in Swahili, the most obvious sign that his emotions were running high.

  As he dialled once again to reach Nathan, Matu turned another corner and ran towards the house. He couldn’t imagine what Disciples were doing here now, but he just hoped they weren’t in the King’s higher ranks. If so, Sky would have quite the battle on his hands until the other boys got there.

  As Sky flew closer, he could tell that there was more than one Disciple present. For starters, there were two guarding the replaced front door, which was now standing open. Apparently, the protective spell was strong enough to deter humans, but not Disciples. Sky used his super-human speed to fly closer still. He gripped his short spear tighter. He was ready for a fight. He’d wanted one ever since Gayle’s death. And now he’d get one, in the town where she died. His magic hummed through his veins and he shot forward.

  The guards saw him coming from the sky. Both of them turned their heads and barked something to inside the house. One of them fell silent a second later; Sky was already there, and his spear had gone right through the Disciple’s abdomen. The other Disciple was on top of him a second later. Only thanks to his magic of Speed did Sky evade him in time. With his spear still stuck in the first guard, Sky dodged the second guard. He reached for his waist, only to realise that he wasn’t wearing a weapons belt.

  Sky swore inwardly as he avoided the slashing sword of the second guard. The Asters and the Small Council hadn’t expected any Disciples to be in the town. The Asters had carried their signature weapons just in case, but the bag with more weapons was far away in the town gym right now.

  Sky darted backwards. The second guard was in between him and his spear. He had no other weapons on him. He balled his fists. The guard wasn’t carrying a double-bladed axe, which gave Sky some relief.

  The guard came at him again. Sky used his shimmer to vanish momentarily, and appear right behind the Disciple. From there he used his fist to punch him across the side of his face. He lifted his leg and kicked the Disciple in the back, making him stumble forward. It was enough of a break to give Sky the time to turn around and yank his spear out of the first guard’s body.

  As he retrieved his spear, Sky was shocked to hear multiple footsteps clattering down the staircase. When Sky turned around, he saw two more Disciples appear in the hallway from the living room, and another three coming down the stairs. They looked just as shocked to see him as he was to see them. Sky didn’t have time to take them all in, for the guard came at him once again. The guard wasn’t a bad fighter. He wasn’t good enough to stand a chance against Sky, but rarely any Disciple was. The guard was, however, good enough to buy his friends some time. Because the other Disciples were not armed, and were not planning to fight at all. Instead, they headed for two windows to the left of the front door. During his one-on-one battle against the guard, Sky caught glimpses of the other Disciples opening the windows and jumping outside.

  Sky couldn’t believe his eyes. Why weren’t they fighting back? Sky was almost completely unarmed and he was alone. Why weren’t the Disciples taking their chance?

  Anger flared up inside of him. He dug into his magic and moved faster than the guard could possibly handle. Within seconds the guard was impaled and lying on the ground. Sky stomped on the man’s hand so that he lost the grip on his sword. Then he leapt on top of the Disciple and clasped his hand around the man’s throat.

  “What are you doing here?” Sky spat.

  The Disciple glared at Sky but said nothing. Sky tightened his grip around the Disciple’s throat.

  “Answer me!”

  With a strength Sky hadn’t expected the Disciple to have, he was thrown backwards. The Disciple sat up and pulled a dagger from a sheath at his hip. Sky braced himself, with spear in hand, for a final attack from the already heavily bleeding Disciple. But instead, the guard brought the knife up to his face, and cut his own throat.

  “No!” Sky shouted. He darted forward, but it was too late. The Disciple had already toppled backwards, blood spraying out in an arc, soaking his clothes and the floor, and splashing over Sky. He was dead seconds later. Sky swore and kicked the knife the man had dropped. He wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve, and turned around to see if he could catch up with one of the other Disciples that had run for the hills. As he did so, he was taken completely unaware by a fist that was heading right for his chest. Sky couldn’t put his magic to work fast enough, and the punch threw him backwards, into the house.

  “What the hell was that for?” Sky exclaimed, recognising immediately the only person who could rally strength in a single punch like that.

  Matu appeared in the doorway, glaring. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Sky scrambled to his feet. “We don’t have time for this! We need to catch up with one of them and question them on why they’re here!”

  “Can’t,” Lian said, appearing next to Matu. “Those we did catch cut their own throats before we could. Even if we could catch up with the others, they’d do the same before we even come close.”

  Sky looked past Lian and Matu. Nathan was standing a few feet further away, in between two dead Disciples. Both of them had blood pooling around their neck and throat.

  “What the hell, Sky!” Matu thundered again. “You were unarmed and alone!”

  “I had my spear,” Sky said indignantly.

  “Don’t make me throw you on your arse again,” Matu warned. “If they were all soldiers you would’ve been screwed, and you know it.”

  “If they were all soldiers, I would’ve shimmered out before things got too bad.”

  “Wo
uld you though?” Matu questioned.

  Sky growled at Matu, but said nothing. No, probably he wouldn’t have. He would’ve fought to the end no matter what.

  “You don’t go charging in when you don’t know what you’re facing. There were seven in there, Sky! We’re a team for a reason. You don’t have to prove you can do everything alone. That could’ve gone very wrong!”

  “He’s right,” Lian agreed.

  Sky looked past Lian and found Nathan’s eyes. They showed him no emotion. All Nathan did was shake his head. He agreed with his brothers, too.

  “For once, can you be responsible?” Matu said with exasperation.

  Sky looked at his older brother. He suddenly wished Sophie was there. She would probably have had the same opinion, but at least she’d temper Matu’s anger slightly. There was no need to react this strongly to him going in on his own. Especially since he was unhurt.

  “Let’s just drop it, all right?” Sky said. “It’s over now.”

  Matu gave Sky one last long look, but said nothing. He muttered something unintelligible under his breath, still furious with Sky, and turned to Nathan. “How’s the main street?”

  “Like nothing happened.”

  Matu nodded. “Good. Can you clear this up, too?” He gestured to the two Disciple bodies lying not too far away from them.

  Nathan pointed at the two guards Sky had killed. “Bring those out here, too.”

  Sky and Lian each took a guard by the ankles and dragged them towards the other two Disciples. When the four dead Disciples were lying closely next to each other, Sky and Lian stepped back. Nathan raised his right hand. The Band on his wrist started glowing and the ground started to tremble. The earth underneath the bodies started to give way, lowering them slowly down into the ground. When they had vanished just under the surface, new earth appeared above them. When Nathan lowered his hand, nothing indicated the ground had ever been touched. It was like the Disciples had never been there at all.

  Sky leaned on his spear. He couldn’t believe how quickly the second guard had chosen to take his own life. He had known something… Something he didn’t want the Asters to know about. Aside from the two guards, none of the Disciples in the house were soldiers. So, what type of Disciples were they? And what had they been doing here?

  “They were looking for something,” Sky said, speaking his thoughts aloud. “You guys have any idea for what?”

  Matu and Lian shook their heads. Nathan had a distant look in his eyes that Sky couldn’t read.

  “It’s not up to us to figure that out,” Matu said.

  “Of course it’s not,” Sky muttered.

  Lian shot him a glance. Sky rolled his eyes, but knew that he really needed to watch what he said. Matu was done with his reckless behaviour, and it showed. One more snarky comment from Sky and the Aster of Strength would probably explode.

  “Let’s just finish what we came here to do so we can go home,” was all that Matu said. He sounded extremely tired.

  Without saying anything else, Matu headed down the street towards the eastern side of the town; the only side of the veil that they hadn’t tackled yet. The other three Asters followed silently. When they reached the veil, they each placed a hand against it and spoke the words that should take it down.

  There was a slight tingle in Sky’s hand as he finished the spell. But the veil hadn’t vanished yet. The four Asters moved up along the eastern side of town. Matu and Lian went into the opposite direction to Nathan and Sky. On the other side of the veil Sky could see the Amazon Rainforest. It was a surreal thing, having something so impressive rise up in front of him like that. Sky looked to his left towards Nathan. He had placed his hand against the veil again, but he was whispering the spell quite absently. His eyes were fixed on the Rainforest on the other side.

  “What is it about that jungle?” Sky asked him.

  Nathan turned to him. “There is no jungle like it in the world.”

  “So?”

  The two of them moved along, placing their hands against the veil again and reciting the spell. When they were finished and the veil remained, they moved up again.

  “It’s like it’s alive,” Nathan told him.

  “You say that about every jungle we go into,” Sky pointed out.

  Nathan shook his head. “Not like this one.”

  “What makes this one so different?”

  Nathan thought for a moment, staring out towards the darkened jungle that was so incredibly close to them.

  “It’s just the immensity of it. My magic is stronger when the nature is stronger. And no place is stronger than this Rainforest.”

  “No wonder you feel drawn to it,” Sky murmured.

  “Yeah, no wonder,” Nathan said softly.

  The two of them placed their hands against the veil again. They whispered the spell once again. This time, when Sky finished, there wasn’t the same prickling in his hand like before. Suddenly the cold of the veil swept all the way through him, chilling his bones and making him snatch his hand back instinctively. Next to him, Nathan did exactly the same. Sky stared at the veil. The darkened sheet started moving now, and not just in the breeze. And it was changing colour; instead of a dark blue, the veil was getting brighter. The blue started turning to purple, and then lighter still.

  All of a sudden there was a bright flash. Sky protected his eyes with his hand and turned away from the sudden light.

  When he took his hand away and opened his eyes, the veil had vanished. There was no dark sheet; there was nothing swaying in the wind. He looked around. It was gone; there was nothing surrounding the entire town anymore.

  “Sophie was right,” Sky muttered. “A bright flash but no explosion.”

  Lian and Matu came and joined them.

  “All right, nice work,” Matu said.

  “So, we’re done here?” Lian asked.

  Matu nodded. “We’re done.”

  Sky stared at the town behind them. There was nothing more they could do here. Or were supposed to do here. All they had to do was get their belongings from the gym and shimmer back to Saluverus. And then they’d probably never come back here again. They were now one step closer to leaving Gayle behind them.

  Maybe one day the world would forget that the second Queen had been born in their generation. Maybe it was better that they all forgot. To act as though she’d never existed at all. And focus on the future.

  Chapter 6

  Even though the boys arrived back on Saluverus around five o’clock in the morning, local time, and just wanted to go to bed, they first had to explain in a lot of detail to Axel about what had happened in Brazil. Sky didn’t think his decision to go into the Mendosa’s house alone was such a big deal, but to Sky’s annoyance, the Ambassador did think so, and took his sweet time in telling Sky off. Even more to Sky’s annoyance, Matu backed Axel up completely. Lian did his best to mediate the situation, but couldn’t quite hide the fact that he thought Sky should have alerted the others as well. Nathan was still in his silent, cold mission-state, and was no help at all to either side.

  After they had completed their recap of the mission, with Sky taking a last opportunity to mention that they were successful in what they had been sent there to do, Axel updated them on everything that the Asters had missed on Saluverus.

  The Memorial was tomorrow. What they also already knew was that the Memorial wouldn’t be the traditional burning pyres on the courtyard in front of the castle, but without pyres in the Throne Room instead. Sky didn’t particularly care about this piece of information, but he did care about what came next.

  The decision on what to do with Gayle’s magic no longer mattered. A final spell cast had made it very clear that neither Gayle nor her magic existed in this world anymore. Not even her bones could be found. So the Queen’s Case would focus exclusively on determining the exact way the King had killed Gayle. The team would search the area around the town, each week splitting in half as they ventured further into the Amazon Ra
inforest in search of clues. When they reached teams of four, more researchers and soldiers would be sent in with the help of Madeleine’s shimmer so they could go further into the Rainforest if necessary and split off again, to cover the most ground. Sky doubted the Asters would hear much about the investigation. Axel made it clear the Asters were on stand-by for the possible uprising in North America and therefore would have nothing more to do with South America.

  Affinites had also been returning to their homes on the continents. Now that Gayle was dead and Disciples no longer had a reason to go after Affinites, the Small Council considered the Surface safe to return to. Many families, however, still remained, wanting to pay their respects at the Memorial. A few Affinites and their families weren’t staying specifically for the Memorial. They were still on the island because certain members were to be part of the Queen’s Case or Bone Recovery. Sky happened to know that one of those families was the Amsel family, consisting of Nadine Amsel and her five children.

  Which brought Axel to the last piece of information. Supposedly there had been no further developments on the Disciples roaming around in North America, which meant that the Asters were grounded on Saluverus for the time being. Sky didn’t mind it for now. He’d had a good, if short, fight, back in Brazil. The itch under his skin to do something had disappeared. He knew it would be back, but he could relax a little for now.

  Sky slept long and deep that night. It was almost noon before he got out of his bed to get dressed. He was still half-pulling the blue sweater over his head as he pushed open his bedroom door. When he stepped onto the narrow balcony, Sophie’s bedroom door opened up on the floor below. Sky watched and, not believing his eyes, saw Jacob bloody Henderson step out of Sophie’s bedroom. The English boy with wet blonde hair turned his head back to Sophie’s room and said something that Sky couldn’t quite catch, before turning to the door that led out of the Asters’ common room and into the castle beyond.