by Loren Walker
Still, her curiosity was there. Kings was so long ago, it felt like another life, or maybe even a dream. But here was Kuri, and she was fourteen again, afraid, in wonder, and full of dread.
“Is it an Eko trait?” she inquired. “Is it about altering my perception?”
“Both Eko and Nadi.”
“I didn’t realize you were a Nadi.”
“I’ve evolved. I thought you would have as well.”
She ignored the insult. “How did you find us in the first place?”
Kuri smiled. “Well, you haven’t changed your names, for starters. Didn’t take much effort.” His dark eyes fixed on hers. “Interesting that the two of you got together. I wouldn’t have guessed that you like them younger.”
CaLarca took her Lissome out of her pocket and waggled it in front of his face. “And what would I discover if I looked you up?”
His smirk faded. “I’ve made mistakes, I admit it. But anything you might find out? I did it all for Shantou. That’s all you need to know.”
“Oh, aren’t you the sweetheart,” CaLarca cooed. “You actually care about someone, not just sucking out memories and living vicariously through them?”
Kuri clenched the railing so tight that the veins stuck out.
“What?” CaLarca challenged. “What did you expect? Reminiscing about old times? I remember everything, Kuri. Nothing has changed.”
“Then why did you come?”
“It wasn’t for you,” CaLarca said. “You’re a distraction. I’m going for Sydel, and to ensure my family is safe. I don’t care what you do afterwards, you or Shantou. In fact, never come anywhere near my property again. Are we clear?”
Kuri glared at her, as if to pin her to the railing. She stared back at him, refusing to break away, even as a worm of anxiety writhed in her stomach, wondering what they might encounter, wondering what form that baby had taken, and how much hatred Sydel harbored.
*
They took an overnight train, working their way into the center of the continent. When the engines pulsed, and the carriages were underway, Kuri pulled CaLarca into his assigned bunk. Her core flared at the intimate touch, his sharp, metallic smell, but in the darkness, he let go of her arm and handed her a Lissome, already lit up.
“Look,” he said grimly. “It’s already starting.”
CaLarca scanned the information. Just rumors on the network, but something was happening. People had gone missing without a trace. The Savas were absent from their usual places of intimidation in the East. A string of bombings throughout the North were connected, so went several theories. And stories were leaking: encounters with people who possessed strange, undefinable powers, memory loss, the loss of free will…
In her tiny third-class bunk, curtains drawn against the hall light, she called Ganasan via Lissome. She did her best to keep the call short, as Bennet was growing upset in the background. The boy’s whine was a stab of guilt in the chest.
“One week,” she promised. “And nothing will stop me from leaving. Even if it’s bad, if I have to leave Kuri behind, so be it. Then we will decide what to do.”
She had spare rana, tucked into a hidden packet at her hip. She could travel, she could hitchhike. She’d cut off all her hair, she’d change all their names, if needed. Really, they should have done it earlier. Why were they so careless?
The sun rose, and the train pulled into Ivo, that same, old, sleepy town. It looked the same as it did twenty-five years ago. Stepping down from the train, shielding her eyes from the sun, CaLarca could hardly breathe with the flush of memories. She balled her other hand into a fist, remembering the cool smoothness of the parasol handle, her fear mixed with excitement.
“Ready?” she heard Kuri’s voice behind her.
They walked for hours. When Kings Canyon shimmered into sight, they took the long way around, so to observe the familiar cliff-face from afar. As they hiked through brush, CaLarca focused on conserving her Nadi. It prickled in her stomach, longing to be released, but she might need it. She had to hold onto it for as long as possible.
When they finally reached the opposite edge of the Canyon, puffing from exertion, they took in the sight of the cliff-face, jutting one hundred feet high, red and rocky, and unmistakable. The old base was in there. It should have been shut down, boarded up, collapsed, but it looked just the same. There was something strange in the air, though. CaLarca squinted.
“What is it?” Kuri said under his breath.
When she let her mind open, she saw it: the shimmer of a barrier, like a patchwork quilt, different energies seamed together and covering the cliff-face.
“Is that… Eko?” she wondered outloud. “They have Ekos in there, protecting them?”
Kuri shrugged. “Makes sense, if you think about it. Use like to attract like. We were never the only NINE.”
There was movement on the canyon floor. CaLarca’s heart leapt as that secret door swung open, a black hole at the base of the cliff, where four bodies emerged. One shadow loomed over another, their words inaudible. Then the four stumbled down the rocky incline. A clicking sound reverberated. Staring at the group, CaLarca zeroed in on the single girl, with copper hair and bronze skin, prodded by a lean, dark man, who glowed a faint red.
“That’s her,” Kuri said, excitement in his voice. “Sydel. It has to be her.”
But the girl was next to that dark man, who waved a firearm in her face. One of the Savas?
“He’s the leader,” Kuri hissed. “I’ve read about him. Keller Sava.”
“And the others?” One was a young man, thick and tall with a shaved head, who remained close to Sydel; the other an older woman with a white cloak and short silver hair.
“Mercenaries, most likely,” Kuri surmised. “They aren’t important. Sydel’s the key to everything.”
“Then we need to protect her.” As soon as she spoke the words, she knew it was right. It was her responsibility to make first contact, to ensure this girl was kept safe. Her redemption, twenty-five years in the making. “I’ll go. You stay here.”
“Go?” Kuri sputtered. “And do what? Introduce yourself to the enemy?”
“Let’s see what happens.”
“Have you forgotten that everyone here in Kings is bent on killing us?”
“I’m not staying here,” CaLarca shot back. “I need to know if it’s really Sydel.”
She didn’t give him a chance to respond, moving swiftly through the brush, gathering her skirts to slide down rocky paths, past disintegrating bushes. The landscape opened, and flattened. The sun beat down, but she didn’t notice. As an afterthought, she tossed her shoes aside.
When CaLarca slowed, finally touching the canyon floor, she saw the aura of a consciousness arching through the air like a lazy bird, searching. CaLarca remained still as the rolling energy came to her, passed over her, and circled back. Inside, she could see the faintest outline of brown eyes, beckoning.
CaLarca kept her mind sealed. Then the consciousness disappeared.
CaLarca walked faster to the light that marked the entrance into the canyon. Her feet swept through the sand, making little arcs. She could smell sweat, and metal.
The foursome came into view, one hundred feet away. The dark one with a firearm, surrounded by red. The stocky teenage boy, vibrating with orange. The old woman, weakly lit in yellow, like a forest blocking out the sun. And the girl: small and bronzed and thin, copper braids twisted up on top of her head. For a moment, CaLarca couldn’t catch a breath; all she could see were Tehmi’s eyes, half rolled back into her head, her hand flopped over the edge of the bed, the sound of a baby whimpering…
A voice broke through her thoughts. Get away from here. These people mean to kill you and your kind in vengeance.
Surprised, CaLarca looked to the group again. The older woman looked enthralled. The man aimed his firearm at her, but for some reason, CaLarca felt no real threat. Sydel was looking at Sydel.
The voice, soft and girlish, came down the Ek
o channel again. They want to torture and use you to track down the rest.
We know, CaLarca sent back. These people have not been subtle, Sydel. We came for you, regardless.
We? You know me?
CaLarca stared across the canyon floor at the girl. So young and afraid, so much like CaLarca when she was first in Kings. I knew your parents. A long time ago.
Suddenly, the man with the weapon grabbed hold of Sydel’s arm, jerking her to his side. Consumed with anger, CaLarca’s hands burned, ready to manifest a knife and stab that man under the ribs.
Sydel’s voice flooded into her head again: Please, just go! She cannot be trusted. No one can.
Then CaLarca’s own arm was grabbed. The Eko channel broke, and she was hauled back into the shadows, the woods and rocks, Kuri’s voice in her ear: “Not yet. Not yet.”
“Get your hands off me!” she hissed.
“They won’t kill her. They’ll never get the chance.” She could feel his heartbeat, raging against her back.
She wrenched her arm free, just long enough to hear a cry. Sydel was being dragged into the hidden entrance at the base of the cliff. And when the door closed, there was no sign of the girl’s consciousness. The rocks shimmered: the Eko barrier, reinstated.
“No,” CaLarca whispered. She crouched into a ball on the sand, her hands in her hair, trying to catch her breath. Nadi burned through every pore, and her organs threatened to explode.
“Focus on expelling the Nadi,” she heard Kuri’s voice. “I know what to do.”
So CaLarca put her hands in the sand and let go. The Nadi bled through her fingertips, pooling around her legs like a suffocating blanket, whipping at her hair, squeezing her tighter and tighter, until she thought she might pass out. The ground trembled underneath her, a tiny earthquake.
Then, mercifully, the Nadi began to disappate, as more sounds emerged from the canyon. Blurry-eyed and shivering, CaLarca craned her neck to see. People were pouring out of that same black entrance: large men and women, flashing metal, armor, whooping and slapping each other on the back. A brilliant figure in white suddenly appeared on the cliff-face, halfway between the ground and the top. There was more movement up there, a face emerging from the rocky depths her copper hair rippling in the wind. Sydel!
But then everything happened so fast. An exchange of gunfire, the sudden, silent appearance of a huge blue vessel, descending into the canyon. A mercenary crumbled, and blood shone red, visible even from a distance. One man turned his rifle on the crowd in the canyon. Throats were slashed, the top of heads blown off, a chaotic flurry of death. They were fighting each other.
Next to her, Kuri’s hand opened and closed in a slow pattern.
Dust billowed through the canyon, followed by a shockwave. CaLarca covered her head with her hands. And then the world went dark.
How much time passed, she couldn’t say. Shadows passed over her, grey, then black, voices, and then nothingness. Then the sun was bright, and the cold wind was whipping over her body, broken and bleeding, and all she could do was cry out for Ganasan, for Sydel, and plead for forgiveness before blackness took over again.
*
“And nothing more?” Phaira prodded.
“No,” CaLarca said. “I don’t know what happened between that day, and when Sydel found me.” Just saying the words made her furious. “But by Kuri’s word,” she continued. “I set this whole scenario up, to injure myrself, to draw Sydel into finding me. But I can’t believe I chose to do that. I can’t believe - ”
But as she spoke, her heart sank. Who knew what had been done to her in those two weeks? What she had agreed to do? Kuri was a master manipulator. He was the one who turned all those mercenaries against each other. Maybe he did the same to her. But Marette’s presence in all of this was jarring. Why would she get involved with Kuri’s plans? Was she doing this on behalf of her sister, Shantou? Was Kuri holding the sisters ransom? Or was it something worse?
Question after question swirled through her head as the train slowed. They were at the base of the Toomba mountain range. Looking up, CaLarca saw no peaks, only clouds.
“Are you coming?” came Phaira’s prompt.
“What if I’m a danger to you all?” CaLarca asked. “If I’m wrong about everything?”
“We already know you’re wrong about everything,” Phaira said, getting to her feet and pushing back her hood, exposing her jagged blue hair. “Here’s your chance to change your reputation.”
III.
There was no way that CaLarca could walk the steep mountain path to Toomba. So, the green-haired woman settled into the tiny train shelter, promising to wait there for further instruction.
Phaira didn’t quite believe her. Even with her recent confessions, she still didn’t trust CaLarca. But the most important thing was making contact with her family. She had no choice but to leave CaLarca behind and forge on.
Hiking through the rocks and mossy growth, it felt good to use her muscles for something other than a fight, to climb and balance and catch edges with her boots. On occasion, Phaira heard the rustle of footsteps. Did Ozias follow her here? Anything was possible, now that she’d agreed to work for her. But no one emerged from the trees.
She trudged upwards for two hours before she caught sight of steps. The woods broke open at the top of the stone stairs, exposing the purple-blue mountains on either side, and just how high Phaira was.
A flicker of movement, just behind the edge of the stone. Someone was up there.
On reaching the final steps, one hand flexed to graze the knife concealed at her thigh, Phaira eyed the old woman who stood at the town entrance, her heavy knitwear, her clean-cut grey bob and lined face. No sign of anyone else. Just a series of winding dirt paths, and great caverns in the background.
“You’re Phaira,” the woman called over.
Phaira’s skin tensed. But she kept her stride, until she loomed over the woman. “I am,” she announced.
Suddenly, the woman grasped Phaira’s face between two lined, knobby hands, her fingers cold and dry. Her icy-blue eyes flicked up and down, examining every corner of Phaira’s face.
Phaira jerked away. “What is this?” she barked.
The woman didn’t seem to hear. “You look like Lora,” she was murmuring. “How strange.”
Phaira’s heart jerked. “Who are you?”
The woman smiled thinly. “I’m your grandmother, child. Vyoma.”
“You’re not,” Phaira said automatically.
A wry smile came over the woman’s face. “I’d be reacting the same way as you,” Vyoma said in her odd, creaky voice. “Just as suspicious.”
Then she put her hands behind her back, like a soldier standing at attention. “Your brothers are in my house. Just around the path, second cavern. The dark red one.”
Caught up in her shock, Phaira managed one word, the first ‘s’ drawn out: “Sydel?”
“Over there,” Vyoma nodded over her left shoulder. Phaira caught a glimmer of blue in the distance “In the Arazura.”
“Why is she in there?”
“I cannot say,” Vyoma said with clear disapproval. “She won’t come out. Your brothers have tried several times. So have I, and the town physician. She refuses to be seen by anyone. We don’t know if she is eating, or going mad.”
Her voice dropped in volume. “That green-haired one caused a lot of trouble, by the sounds of it.”
“So I hear,” Phaira said wearily. For a moment, she wondered if CaLarca would suddenly appear. But when she scanned the horizon, there was nothing but clouds.
“Will you tell Ren and Cohen that I’m here?” she asked Vyoma.
“Shouldn’t you tell them yourself? They’ve waited a long time. And I’d like to - ” Here, the woman faltered. “Well, have a chance to introduce myself. Explain myself.”
“I don’t need an explanation,” Phaira said curtly. Her mind reeled with a thousand different emotions, none of which were useful in that moment. She could pr
ocess them later. “Right now, I need to see Sydel.”
“Are you close with that girl?”
“Not really,” Phaira said as she brushed past Vyoma. “Barely know her.”
Toomba held cavern after cavern, and within lay huts and houses, made of wood, something that Phaira hadn’t seen before. Some smaller openings held broken-down transports, heavy with rust. Her boots crunched against the gravel on the ground. How many people lived here? Why would they choose a life so far removed?
Inside the fourth hollow, the Arazura stood, cold and silent. Phaira crept closer, slipping through the entry door. Her steps made small tinny echoes up the stairs.
Then her feet hit piles of trash, thrown clothes, wires snaking along the hall. The rooms had been ransacked: Sydel’s alcove, Cohen’s and Renzo’s cabin, the common room upturned, the contents of the kitchen dumped on the floor. And inside her own cabin, Phaira could hear muttering, and movement, like a skittering rat.
Bracing herself, she hit the release. The door slid open.
The room was dark, and smelled of dust. Sydel was in the corner, riffling through Phaira’s clothes.
“Sydel!” Phaira burst out. “What are you - ?” Then her voice caught in her throat, taking in the girl’s hair, her red eyes, her flushed, waxy skin.
“Go away,” Sydel hissed, a haunted, drawn-out exhalation.
“No,” Phaira snapped. “Get up and tell me what’s going on.”
Sydel rose to her feet, wavering in place, like she might keel over. Her dress was heavily wrinkled, with visible stains. Her collarbones jutted out. Then, with slow, shuffling steps, Sydel drew closer. A wave of heat went through the room. Phaira’s skin broke out in goosebumps. She pressed her back to the doorframe and held her breath, resisting the urge to lash out, to stop the girl from getting any closer.
Suddenly, Sydel lurched forward, grabbing Phaira’s hands. “I just want to try it.” she whispered, her voice feverish and low. “I just want to forget for a while. I know you have it somewhere, I’m sorry I made such a mess, but - will you show me where the mekaline is?”