Without thinking, she reached over and touched his knee. Haebi gasped, then looked up at her, his white eyes jittering in their sockets. “Sen… Senzo.”
“Yes,” she said, surprised when he grabbed at her hand and pulled it close.
“You’re real?”
“Yes.”
“They told me Lyn never came by, that she didn’t bring you to see me the day after you were born.”
Curious delight filled her heart. “You saw me when I was a baby?”
“I-I thought so. But the doctors here told me my radiant little niece was all in my head. Then they did something to my eyes; they said they were tricking me, that they could not be trusted.”
Still caught in Haebi’s grasp, Sen could only look away as he pulled down the scarred lid to one of his blanched eyes. “But I know what I just saw; I saw everything—when you were shining.”
“Uncle, no, I can’t—”
“I saw everything,” he insisted, tightening his hand around hers. “These ugly walls, the dead nurses and patients, your friends. For the first time in fourteen years, I could see. You did that, Sen.” His voice reduced to a whisper: “Do you know what that means?”
“It’s Akoto,” she said, deflecting his inference. “He’s special. He’s doing all this.”
Haebi’s tone sharpened. “Don’t listen to the people that limit you, Sen, especially that cursed father of yours. Embrace all that you are, believe in what you can become. Lucente.”
“Lucente?”
“Shine.”
Grunting, snarls; behind the closed door, Akoto stirred. Part of her wanted her friend to rush to her rescue, but another part, transfixed by Haebi’s blind gaze, needed something in her uncle’s bizarre words.
“The Nezra are attacking; we have to go,” she said, tugging on her hand. “Come with me. We’ll be safe in the outlands.”
“No, I’m no good—not anymore,” he said with a bittersweet smile as he withdrew his hand from hers. “But I can help you, little star.”
Reaching inside his shirt, he pulled out a necklace. Sen recognized the blue spherical bud of the Scylan twig tied to a hemp string. “Now’s your chance. Do what I couldn’t. Follow your own light.”
Does he think it’s glowing? Sen didn’t know if she should accept the necklace dangling from his hand. Syclan buds only lit up when charged by a lightning strike—and certainly not when broken off from the tree.
“Take it,” he said shaking it in his hand.
“But it’s not…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, not when his tenuous smile hinged on her acceptance.
“Not glowing? Of course not. That’s up to you.”
“Huh?”
An explosion rumbled through the building, rattling the walls and straining the bioluminescent lights. Though the violent reminder of the war raging on in the Gardens spiked Sen’s anxiety, it didn’t seem to effect Haebi one bit.
“The Scylan trees are very special, Sen—more special than those stuffy Lightning Guild elders understand. The trees react to all kinds of energy, not just lightning.”
“Like what?”
Another explosion rocked the building. Sen yelped, but Haebi grabbed on to her arm again to keep her attention.
“When I was very quiet, when I listened to the deepest parts of myself, the bulbs would light up, even when I held a twig broken off from the tree.”
Uncomfortable by the thought, Sen didn’t know what to say. It’s not possible, she kept telling herself, taking in his disheveled appearance and station in the asylum as proof of his fallibility.
“But that was a long time ago… when I was young like you, before this place.”
“Uncle Haebi, I don’t—”
“Keep this close to you,” he said, pushing the necklace into her face until she guided it to go around her neck. “Don’t lose sight of yourself. Don’t end up like me.”
A third explosion, this one much closer than before, shook dust and debris from the ceiling. Sen covered her head as plant material and metal fittings rained down from above.
“Please, uncle—you have to go with me,” she said, freeing him from the rubble and taking his hand. “Akoto and Sulo will protect us!”
“Sulo?!” Haebi retched his hand away from hers. “Stay away from that mutt!”
“What?”
“Sulo nearly killed your mother—and you—when he found out she had Kajar’s child.”
Sen didn’t understand. In the short time they’d been together, Sulo had never aggressed her, and even helped her find her uncle.
Maybe he is crazy, she thought. But her father hated bully bears, enough to banish them from the Guild. And she remembered Sulo’s odd inflection when they met up in the Gardens: “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
Her confusion deepened as she thought of the scars on her mother’s neck, arms and chest. Father always said mother was attacked by a coguar, not a bully bear…
(Did Father lie to me?)
Another explosion slammed through the building, knocking Sen off her feet. Smoke and debris filled the air, making it nearly impossible to see or breath.
“Uncle!” she cried between coughs, spreading out her arms to sense her surroundings and steady herself on the debris-covered floor. Light trickled in from the hole blown out of the side of the exterior wall. As some of the particulates settled, she could make out a long and skinny figure peering through the damaged section. Petrified, she tried to call out to Akoto, but the breath left her lungs.
“Sen?”
Joy fizzled through her fear at the sound of the young warrior’s voice. “Sahib!” she said, tripping and scrambling her way to him. He greeted her with a big, goofy smile and an awkward hug.
“We gotta go. We found Sho, but he’s blowing the place up.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll explain later. Where are Sulo and Akoto?”
“Wait,” she said, as he pulled open the door leading back to the hallway. “My uncle—where’d he go?”
“Wake up,” Sahib said, shouldering the bully bear. The giant Shifter groaned, then shook his head, still groggy from the tranquilizers. Sahib moved to Akoto, shaking him until he popped open his eyes and growled.
Sen kicked over broken tiles and wedged herself under fallen bookshelves, desperate to find Haebi.
“Anything?” Sahib asked, returning to her side as the beasts got to their feet.
Sen bit her lip and looked back to the gaping hole in the exterior wall. “Did you see anyone running from here?”
“There’s a lot of people running around outside; it’s chaos.”
Sen ran into the hallway, searching the dead bodies for any remnants of her uncle. When she found the nurses, she gasped. Under the flickering light of the bioluminescent bulbs, she saw no disfigurements, no black veins streaking up their necks and down their arms. Terrified but curious, she crouched down and turned one of their shoulders, enough to get a look at one of their faces. She looks…
The rest of her thought finished out deep in her subconscious, where her own prejudices could not impede the observation. (…At peace.)
Sahib pulled her up by the arm. “Hey—Sho’s going to blow this place up, whether we’re in it or not.”
“But my uncle—”
“He’s not here, and we’ve gotta go!”
Bewildered, she followed Sahib through the hole in Haebi’s room that led out to the side yard. As soon as they set foot outside, a new nightmare unfolded. The ground, scorched from death and fire, cracked open to swallow up entire trees. People ran in every which direction, in and out of the smoke and fallen buildings, away from the screeching creatures that sought them out.
“Stay close!” Sahib said, pulling her away from the East Wing. Sen did her best, her feet catching on dead vines and broken ground. Still fighting the lingering effects of the darts, Akoto and Sulo followed behind as they made their way toward the hedges.
Sen clutched to Akoto as Sahib armed his bow and
shot at anything that neared. Ground quaking, she held up her hands over her eyes as a white-hot column of fire blazed up toward the sky from a building up ahead.
“Where’s Nya? Where are the others?” Sen shouted against the fray.
If Sahib heard her, he didn’t answer. Brow furrowed, the young warrior looked less confident with each passing second.
“Sahib!” she cried as a vine lashed around his shin. Before he could react, the vine retracted, dragging him off.
Roaring, Sulo charged after him, disappearing into the smoke.
“No!”
Still holding on to Akoto, she looked every which way, her mind unmooring in the havoc.
Run away,
but
Uncle Haebi—
Sahib
—Nya.
A vine shot past her face, trying to grasp onto Akoto, but the midnight beast bit down and yanked. The Virid soldier flew past them, whipping into the side of the demolished fountain.
Run!
Sen mounted Akoto and spurred him toward the only path not blazing with fire. Vines shot out at them from every direction, but she batted them away and kept low, pressing herself as close as she could to Akoto.
A break in the smoke allowed her a clear sight of the edge of the Maze wall, but as she redirected him toward the opening, a hoarse howl, followed by a blast wave, threw her from Akoto’s back. Tumbling through a gooey mass of plant debris, she landed hard against someone or something.
Thrashing about, cold, waxy skin rubbed against hers, and she caught glimpses of bloodshot eyes and a gaunt face. The putrid smell of death overpowered her nose, making her gag.
Nezra—
Sen screamed. As the Nezran grasped her neck with its blackened fingers, her entire body turned to ice. It hissed, bringing its hideous face closer to hers, exposing her with malice and digging into the marrow of her bones with disease-ridden intent. Raked open by invisible fingers, she felt her body crumbling, seconds away from death.
Akoto howled, jarring her senses. In some remote corner of her mind she was aware of him charging toward her, but in the brief time it would take him to reach her, she’d already be putrefied.
The knife at her belt. She felt it hot against her skin, a beacon shining out to her as the world fizzled away.
“Fight back!”
Nya’s words, though she couldn’t be certain if real or imagined, rose above the chaos. In the clutches of death she reacted, survival instinct guiding her hands to grab the knife and thrust upwards, into the Nezran’s gut.
Oh God, I’m so sorry—
Only a sucking sound escaped the Nezran’s lips at it stumbled back from her. Regaining enough feeling in her limbs, Sen scrambled away just as Akoto swept up around her, roaring at the death-dealer.
—I didn’t mean to hurt you—
“Sen—”
Sen snapped to the right. Surrounded by Virid soldiers and a bird-eater, Nya tried to fend off her attackers while protecting the unconscious man at her feet. At first the Virid uniform confused her, but by the fierceness and desperation of Nya’s defense, and seeing no greenish tint to his skin, Sen guessed his identity: Sho.
Shrieking, the bird-eater dove its heads at Sho. The woman warrior spun to the left, managing to slash and hack off spiny protrusions. But as she dodged its sharp rows of teeth, a spray of thistle spikes snagged her leg. When she tried to compensate, she rolled onto her injured ankle with a sickening crunch and fell forward. Combat vines snapped around her arms, pulling her taut. As she tried to free herself, other soldiers concentrated their attack on Sho. Vines snaked around his chest while infected Virids shot each other with forearm-mounted thistle cannons.
“Sen—help him!” Nya screamed as she kicked up and fought against her tethers.
Before she could climb atop Akoto, her friend took off, barreling after the injured Nezra slinking off into the smoke. “No, come back!”
The bird-eater, serum seeping down its stalk from open gashes, reared back around, this time angling toward Nya. Distracted by the vines slapping her face, Nya grabbed onto Sho’s foot and tried to keep the Virids from stealing him way. “Sen!”
Nya—
No Akoto, no knife. No way to protect herself, let alone help anyone else.
I can’t do anything—
(Run—)
One of the bird-eater heads bit into Nya’s side. Fresh blood peppered the air, sending all the infected into a frenzy.
“Nya!” she screamed, running straight to the warrior. One of the bird-eater heads turned to her, spraying her with a face-full of nectar. Coughing and spitting, she dove on top of Nya, kicking the bird-eater latched onto her side until it let go.
“Sho…” Nya gasped, trying to hold on to Sho’s boot as the Virids’ combat vines heaved and jerked his flaccid body.
“Let go!” Sen pulled her off as the bird-eater sliced down with its bladed leaf, nearly chopping off Nya’s head.
“Let me go!” Nya said, wrestling against Sen to get to Sho as the Virids continued to thrash each other to get at their prize.
Nya’s hot blood soaked into Sen’s shirt as the warrior bucked and rolled. Pushing her away, Nya crawled on her hands and knees toward Sho.
In the confusion, one of the Virids attacked the bird-eater, shooting one of its faces full of thistle spikes. As the mobile flora wailed and redirected its fury, Sen caught sight of bloodshot eyes emerging from the smoke. Not one pair, but two. Then three. Four.
Death-dealers—
Sen’s heart leapt into her throat. Scrambling back over to Nya, she grabbed her by the shoulders and yelled. “Run, we have to r—”
Words stripped from her mouth, a familiar chill seized her intestines and ground down into her bones, this time with tenfold force.
Akoto, help us!
Aware of the burgeoning emptiness inside her, Sen crawled back on top of Nya as the woman warrior rolled over, desperate to protect her from the attack.
“Sen…” Nya said, her voice choked by the same invisible force. Blue eyes expressed pain that awoke the deepest parts of her as the surrounding flowers, plants, Virid soldiers—even the bird-eater—collapsed. “What’s happening?”
Something bright caught her eye. A soft glow buried under her shirt, small and round.
Haebi’s necklace—
Shining.
Like—
No, not me. Not without Akoto. He’s the one—
As death firmed its grasp, Sen clung to Nya, abandoning all thought, all hope, and cried out.
Chapter 18
As the death-dealers tore her apart, Nya held on to her pain, clinging to the only thing that ever kept her grounded. Ice hooks dragged down her spine, splaying her open, exposing her to frigid hands that reached in and pulled her insides out. The temptation to let go, to release into the encroaching black numbness, crossed her mind.
(So much easier…)
No. I must save Sho.
Her anger returned; she remembered the attack from behind, Kaden getting swept up by a tree-walker, Sho getting knocked out by one of the flying vines. With the effects of the flowers she’d eaten waning, the pain of her ankle returned with a vengeance, and she couldn’t go after Kaden, let alone bear Sho’s weight to haul him away from the infected Virids. She had stood her ground and fought off greater hordes before—
—But not against Nezra.
The black numbness inched its way down her fingers and toes, into the distal parts of her limbs. The absence of feeling frightened her more than pain. Pain meant she was alive, could still put up a fight.
Sho…
Pinned on her back by the girl and stricken by the Nezra’s dark touch, she could do nothing but watch as the death-dealers slunk toward them, blackened fingers outstretched, whispering in their moribund tongue. “Ennari…”
Do something, she willed herself, but the pain icing her veins kept her trapped.
Sen’s face pressed against hers, the girl’s hot tears wetting Nya’s che
eks. Sen…
As annoying as she was, the girl didn’t deserve such a grisly death.
Nya closed her eyes, terrified of the void washing away her pain and eating at the mortal coils tethering her to the world. Anger and hatred paled; strength, skill and ferocity dissipated. Stripped away, she faced the bleakness of her own heart, and all that she had sacrificed in fear.
My clan—
My family.
Myself.
“Lucente!”
Sen’s cry erupted across her fraying nerves, sending a shockwave of light and energy coursing through her body. Inhaling sharply, Nya filled her lungs with more than just air, but vibrating coruscations that illuminated the farthest reaches of her soul. In that moment she could no longer distinguish Sen’s face, or any other living being around her, as each person, every blade of grass, turned into shimmering points of light.
No, she thought, fighting against the vision. The light frightened her, made her feel more vulnerable than ever before. Never in her life had she seen herself, or those around her, with such unabashed clarity. Sen, no longer weak and wimpy, shone brighter than a star. Even her own light, a burning orb beaming from within, surprised her. What’s this?
As she took in another breath, the corporeal barriers between herself and Sen vanished. Bodies pressed together, Nya felt each pulsation of girl’s heart as if it beat in her own chest.
No! She tried to push away, break Sen’s hold.
This is a trick, she convinced herself, unwilling to accept what she saw or felt. The implications threatened the world she had created for herself, the warrior that could endure the severest pain, stave off love and attachment. She couldn’t survive in this place, not as she was.
As the light exploded across the battlefield, the Nezra shielded their faces with their cloaks. Mewling like injured sheepkins, they retreated, scattering across the yard. Foreign grief and pain pressed up against her mind but dissolved like a dying echo before she could turn her full attention to them.
“Nya!” No longer enshrouded in light, Sen’s face reappeared over her, hazel eyes wide with concern. “Hey, are you okay?”
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