Paragon

by Rowan Rook

  "You scared me, you know. Don't do anything like that again." She took both of his hands in hers. "Promise me."

  There was a second silence, before Amaranth finally nodded. "I just... I wish I were stronger," he admitted, his eyes falling from hers.

  Shakaya pulled two familiar brooches from her coat pocket. Their ancient gold caught the sun. "You are strong," she insisted, as if it were the surest thing in the world. "You're also mad. But then again, so am I." Playful shimmers sparkled in her blue eyes, so much like the light on the ocean behind her.

  The will to fight and kill wasn't the same thing as strength. Not at all. He knew that, but seeing her bright eyes, he couldn't bring himself to speak. Was that what she truly believed?

  "Oh." She put the brooches away and reached again into her pocket. "I meant to return this to you earlier." When her fingers emerged, they clutched an achingly familiar red ribbon.

  Amaranth choked out a stammer. He hadn't allowed much thought to it, but he hadn't seen the keepsake since waking up. When he'd come to, he'd found himself in a ratty old gown, pockets empty.

  "There wasn't much left of the Lyrum clothes when we found you. The Butterflies tossed them, but I remembered seeing you put this in your pocket. I know it's special to you."

  "Thank you." He smiled more widely than he'd remembered he could. A part of him was surprised that she'd even cared about something so subtle. "It...belonged to someone dear to me, once," he told her for the first time.

  Shakaya returned the smile, but when he reached out for the ribbon, she dodged behind him. Her fingers tugged at his hair while she tied it back in its usual place. "Much better," she concluded, apparently satisfied.

  The light was still in her eyes when he turned around to face her.

  It was wrong. He knew it was wrong. It would only make things worse in the end.

  But as the silence settled back over them, he once again found his lips locked with hers.

  Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ

  The Lyrum watched from behind her mask as a scowl stole her face. The scientist and the soldier looked content—maybe even happy. How was it that two people like them could be allowed to find happiness? How was it that Anson could love the Johanne bitch? Her, of all people! It was sick!

  The Butterfly fought the urge to stamp her feet and shout.

  None of it mattered to him. Not who or what Johanne was, and not the awful things she did. He didn't care that he'd kissed a killer. He didn't care that he loved a girl who never should've gotten the chance to grow up. He'd thrown all of who he really was away.

  This person she'd found—this person she'd finally forced herself to approach, after all these years—wasn't Anson. Not anymore.

  She glowered through misting eyes. If she decided so, she could shatter his contentment with a few simple words. It wouldn't take much.

  And it would surely be quite the show.

  The Butterfly grinned just imagining it. Her colleagues might be cross with her if she interfered. Would it be worth it?

  She clenched her fists, making a decision.

  Chapter Fifteen: Secrets

  Amaranth meandered on the way back to his room, retiring after dinner in the mess hall. He'd finished early. Shakaya had still been busy with her meal when he'd left, alongside Jeriko, Tayla, and a few other Butterflies whose names he couldn't remember. The mood hadn't been particularly comfortable. In what would've seemed an impossible event to the average world, Lyrum and Humans sat at the same table. While Shakaya restrained herself as she had in Riksharre, she made no effort to pretend she enjoyed the company of Lyrum. There were civilians there, too, simply going about their day to day lives. Had they any idea of who they were sharing the ship with, they would have been terrified. Yet even within the crowd, the masked woman had never made an appearance.

  Amaranth sighed, stopping to watch the sunset from the deck. At least the rest of the ship was peaceful while its passengers stuffed their mouths in the mess hall. The only sounds belonged to the sea—the pulse of the tide and the cries of coastal birds. It was a relief to have some space to think.

  Footsteps faded in behind him, disturbing the comfortable hush.

  Shakaya? No. A shiver raised the hair on the nape of his neck. He spun around.

  Sure enough, the masked Butterfly stood behind him. She smiled slightly. "Oh, you caught me this time."

  The two of them stared for what felt like a long time, green eyes burning into brown. Despite her casual tone, the woman's gaze was winter.

  Amaranth stepped back. He'd seen those same eyes, with that same wrath, inside the Hazza mines. He held her glare, one wordless moment spilling into another. His heart pounded with the question that plagued him: Who was she?

  The way she knew his old name. The way she seemed to know the past that went along with it. The way she was the only Butterfly to wear a mask. Her apparent age. Her ice Translation. Her black hair. Her green eyes.

  Everything added up to one person. Each time they crossed paths, the answer became harder to deny. Yet there was one contradiction that made it impossible: That person was dead.

  "Who are you?" he asked aloud. The same words formed an entirely different question than they had in front of the crashed train car. This time, they were weighted, bloated with tension that brought back the silence.

  The cold curve of the woman's lips suggested she'd expected as much. "I don't believe you ever introduced yourself to me, Anny. So why should I need to introduce myself to you?"

  He said nothing, holding his ground.

  "I already know who you are," venom dripped from each word, "and you already know who I am, don't you? You certainly should."

  Chills creeped through Amaranth's body, turning his skin to gooseflesh. She was taunting him. He was as close as he was going to get to an answer. She knew what he was thinking—she'd all but confirmed it. But she wasn't going to say it. She wasn't going to do it for him. She was waiting for him to speak.

  The shivers spread, sprawling through him like swarms of insects, like flies buzzing in his ears and whispering secrets he refused to hear. He didn't understand. He didn't know how it was possible. But this woman was...

  "Aydel," he forced the name from his tongue with a slow whisper. It felt foreign on his lips—it hadn't left them in years.

  "At least you still remember." Aydel smiled, but her eyes were as sharp as her ice. "At least you still remember when you used to be someone else."

  Amaranth choked on any words he might have said, long-ago tears prickling behind his eyes. Disbelief coated reality with the detachment of a dream. Aydel...was still alive?

  "So why did you try to forget?" Aydel flicked her wrist.

  An arrow made of ice shot toward him. He flinched, too stunned to react. A metallic clang sent his gun flying from his belt. It thudded against the deck, sliding away from him. He was unarmed.

  Amaranth turned back to her, eyes wide. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could regain control of his tongue, Aydel made another gesture with her palm. Ice crashed into him from behind, reducing his voice to a shout. He fell toward the deck, face down.

  Aydel strode toward him, covering him with her shadow.

  He craned his neck to look at her. "Aydel, why—"

  She rammed her heel into his shoulder and shoved him onto his back.

  He gasped against the pain, staring up at her through misting eyes. His mind was too tangled for his body to fight. What was she...why was Aydel doing this?

  "Ama!" a familiar voice called, accompanied by clattering footsteps. Shakaya raced toward him, a crowd of Butterflies behind her. A few unwitting, curious passengers followed, too, watching with gaping stares. His cry must've reached the mess hall.

  Amaranth looked back at Aydel, and his heart dropped into his stomach when he saw her satisfied grin.

  ...Had she planned this? Had she intended for the crowd to come? Had she assembled an audience? His panicked pulse skipped beats. She wasn't planning to...! She wasn't g
oing to...!

  Was she?

  He tried to push up on his palms, but the Butterfly slammed her boot into his chest and sent him back down. She snatched a dagger from her belt and bent until it touched his neck. His throat bobbed beneath the blade. He'd lost his opportunity to resist.

  "What the Hell is—" Shakaya reached for her chakram, but before her fingers found it, Jeriko grabbed her arms and yanked them back. Two other Butterflies surged forward and helped him hold her. She pulled against them, nostrils flaring, but their grips didn't falter. "Don't touch me!" she screamed. "What do you think you're—" Her voice cut off when Jeriko whispered something in her ear, but it wasn't enough to wipe the rage from her face.

  Jeriko turned to Aydel. "Are you out of your mind? This wasn't—"

  Aydel shot him a defiant glare. "You have no power over me, Human."

  She reached up and removed her mask.

  Amaranth's eyes widened—not with surprise, but with a shivering sort of wonder.

  He saw his own face. The person pinning him to the floor could have been him, if not for her female silhouette. Her fine, narrow features mirrored his with the perfection of a portrait.

  He heard a gasp that wasn't his own. ...Shakaya. His heart thudded hollowly.

  Aydel had planned this. She'd wanted Shakaya to be there. She'd wanted to make a show out of him. This was an act of revenge. Too afraid to look at the soldier, Amaranth glowered at the Butterfly's sick stare. The color of their eyes was the only difference between their two faces. The first tears wet his own.

  "Still, it really is a pleasure to see you again, brother." Aydel grinned, those green eyes glistening like tar.

  "Brother...?" Shakaya echoed from where she stood, as if not quite comprehending what that meant.

  Shit.

  Aydel reached down and coiled her fingers around the cuff on Amaranth's wrist. He couldn't stop her, the knife still waiting at his neck. She fiddled with the Not before finally yanking it off. He hissed. The cuff had been there for so long that it had almost become a part of him. Suddenly having the needles and wires torn away hurt like Hell.

  "Oh, don't act so pathetic," his sister laughed. "We all know that thing never worked, anyway." She tossed the device toward his gun.

  "Aydel, that's enough!" Jeriko ordered. "There's no reason for this!"

  From the edge of his awareness, Amaranth realized that the rest of the Butterflies had let Shakaya go. But the soldier wasn't coming to his aid. She only stood there, her blue eyes stretched wide.

  "Delly, why...?" Amaranth managed as the tears came faster. The knife scraped his throat with each word. His wrist bled where she'd ripped the Not away. Every part of him flushed with shame.

  "Why?" Aydel reddened, her pale cheeks catching fire. "Because you deserve this. Because you asked for this to happen the day you chose your false name. Because seeing you this way sickens me!" Her fingers tightened around the blade. "I'm not going to keep watching you live your lies. I'm not letting you run away anymore!"

  Amaranth didn't have to ask her to elaborate. "I... I'm sorry, Delly! Lord, I'm sorry! I never meant—"

  "Never meant to drag our family's legacy through the mud? Never meant to have our parents and sister burned alive in their own home? Never meant to condemn me to a life of this?"

  "It wasn't my fault! It wasn't..." He swallowed hard to stop from screaming, "All I wanted was to save Lyn! I had the means to do it—I wasn't going to let her die!"

  "Well, you did a fine job of that." Aydel exhaled a humorless chuckle. "She was buried twelve years ago, barely anything left of her but ashes."

  Amaranth closed his eyes. His lips formed words, but no voice left them.

  "What was that?" Aydel jabbed her boot into his ribs.

  He coughed, fighting for his voice, "She would have lived!" He gasped to steady his breath. "She was doing well! The treatments were working! She would have lived, if—"

  His only answer was another kick. He stifled a shout, tasting iron.

  "You really won't ever change, will you? You can pretend to be someone else, but you're still the fucking same! Still a selfish fool!" She snarled, like a predator cornering prey, "I suppose you never meant to drug, dissect, and torture your own kind, either!"

  There it was. A satisfied glint flickered through everything that was Aydel.

  "What the Hell are you talking about?" Shakaya spat, finding her voice for the first time in a while. Amaranth didn't want to see her face. He could already hear the fear beneath her anger. "Ama's not...! He isn't—"

  The Butterfly's grin stretched up toward her ears. "Stupid bitch. It's hard to believe you never figured it out."

  Shakaya leaned forward, but something invisible seemed to hold her in place.

  Aydel looked back at Amaranth. She leaned in so close that a trickle of red escaped from where the edge of her knife met his skin. "Tell her," she ordered. The glow in her eyes betrayed her glee, but her hands shook, as if she were at the same time miserable. "You owe her at least that much, don't you?"

  Amaranth said nothing.

  "Tell her!" Aydel demanded.

  He held his silence until a second voice spoke.

  "...Ama?"

  He shut his eyes, not wanting to watch the sky fall. His entire world, the life he'd built for himself, everything he'd become in the last ten years. It was all slipping through his fingers, while he only laid there, pressed against the wet floor.

  The dream was over. It was time to wake up.

  Amaranth stammered. He could barely breathe, much less speak. "It's true." Those two simple words drained the heat from his body.

  Shakaya said nothing.

  "Tell her your name!" Aydel spat, not finished yet.

  The tears—born between sorrow and shame—were cold against his flushed cheeks. "I... It's..." He stopped. He wanted to apologize. He needed to apologize. But he couldn't find the words. What words were there for something like this? Like Hell any of it would do any good now, anyway. In the end, he couldn't even meet Shakaya's familiar blue eyes. "Anson Anwell. My name is Anson Anwell."

  Aydel stood, pulling away her knife and stepping back. Her smile remained, but she held her arms tightly across her chest. Tears belied her satisfaction.

  He gasped for air, but didn't get to his feet. Something had already died inside of him.

  He didn't know how he'd expected Shakaya to react—despite the many nightmare scenarios he'd played through in his head over the years, despite the restless dreams plaguing his sleep—but it wasn't the emotionless wave that washed over her face. There was no more anger, no sorrow, as if there was nothing at all buried beneath her stoic features. She simply stared down at him, watching the blood drip from his throat and his wrist, watching the water drip down his cheeks.

  She reached into a pocket—opposite the one where she'd hidden the Council brooches—and emerged with something tucked between her fingers. Something small and silver, a butterfly motif engraved in the center.

  He somehow still found enough shock to gasp when he realized what she was holding.

  It was a Butterfly pin.

  "I see," Shakaya finally spoke. "Rickard should have told me a long time ago. She was the one who ordered me to befriend you. You were right."

  He had no strength left to respond.

  "I never wanted to. I never liked you. If I'd wanted a friend, I had much better options to choose from." She could have hidden the quiver in her voice from anyone but him. She paused to force it away. "I've been a Butterfly since I was eight-years-old. You've been in our grip since you first came to the Academy." Her empty hand flexed into a fist that made her muscles press against her skin. "Rickard ordered me to gain your trust. She ordered me to protect you. She ordered me to make sure you followed the path laid out for the Editor. It was a job...that's all." Her blank blue eyes froze over. "Rickard lied to me. Had I known you were... Had I known you were one of them, I never would've put up with it. I'm done." She looked at Aydel. "That'
s what you wanted, isn't it, Anwell?"

  Aydel shrugged, smirking.

  "You were a fool to tell me," Shakaya growled. "When this is over, I'll have my revenge, after all. I'll look forward to it."

  He shivered. Whether her words were meant for him or his sister, he wasn't sure.

  Shakaya turned away, striding past Jeriko and her fellow Butterflies.

  Everything was a blur after that.

  Aydel abandoned him, the crowd parting around her as she marched toward the opposite side of the ship. Nervous whispers followed in her wake as the gawking civilians reclaimed their voices.

  "They're...they're Lyrum, right? There's Lyrum on this ship?"

  "That one is still lying there! Somebody quick, kill it!"

  "We've got to go after the other one!"

  "...Are there more?"

  He laughed, but it tasted bitter. The whispers were more frightened than angry. It was absurd, really. Did they hear themselves? Jeriko's voice came next, trying to calm the crowd.

  But whatever the crowd did... At that moment, the Lyrum himself didn't care. He had no will left to get up.

  Instead, Anson Anwell simply laid there, staring blankly at the bright blue sky.

  Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ

  She should have seen it earlier.

  Shakaya had withdrawn to a lower deck, near the engine room. It was quiet there, the panic above drowned out by the drone of machines. She sat on the damp floor and leaned into the corner of the railing.

  How could she not have seen it?

  She ground her teeth.

  The way he'd lied about how young he was as a boy, yet had looked even older than he'd claimed to be. The way he was so frail, with effeminate features and mannerisms. The way he'd been so secretive and fearful upon first arriving at the Academy. The way he'd been completely confounded by machines during his first year of classes. The way he'd suddenly been able to use Translation, despite the unfinished Not. The way he'd known so much about Lyrum culture. The way he'd acted odd during their infiltration of Riksharre. The way he'd felt so light in her arms when she'd saved him from the fall. The way he'd turned into a gibbering child in front of the Anwell house.