Paragon

by Rowan Rook

  Esterline followed her companion. "It doesn't seem promising, but would you keep interrogating the Lyrum once they calm down? If you can't get anything useful while Brillox and I are gone, then go ahead and install speech inhibitors to shut them up. We've already injected Translation inhibitors, of course."

  Gabe watched the children a while longer. "You know I'm more of a doctor than any kind of Lyrum specialist."

  "All we're asking is that you install simple inhibitors. It's this attitude that keeps you from advancing." Esterline shot him a stern glare. "They aren't people, Gabe."

  "What are we going to do with them?" Gabe managed.

  "Take them back to the Academy, of course," Brillox chimed. "Juvenile specimens will be a boon in their own right."

  "But," Gabe finally looked away, "they're children..."

  "A Lyrum is a Lyrum," Esterline concluded. "There are speech inhibitors in the green supply box. We'll be back in an hour or so."

  The first two Humans left the carriage.

  Gabe's gaze returned to the cages.

  Anson managed to meet it, the man's face blurring in his misty vision. Aydel's stifled sobs stopped the hush from settling in.

  Gabe sighed and turned away, going about business that didn't have anything to do with them. It didn't seem he was terribly eager to get to the tasks his companions had assigned him.

  Dread pressed tighter on Anson's chest in the vacancy of voices. "I want to go home..." his own escaped, quiet at first. "I want to go home!"

  "Shut up, Anny..."

  His heart hammered faster. "I just want to go home..."

  Gabe let out another sigh before kneeling in front of the cage. "Where is your home?" he asked, gentle.

  Anson swiped at his eyes with his sleeve, glowering. "I'm not telling you!"

  Gabe only frowned.

  Swallowing shaky breaths, Anson forced himself to study the man staring at him. ...Were these people really Humans?

  His mother was a soldier for Riksharre. She regularly returned home with tales of the evils she'd seen wrought by Human hands and of the demons she'd slain. This was the first time he'd actually seen one. He'd pictured them looking a bit more monstrous—these people didn't look so different from Lyrum, really. In fact, the Humans had mistaken him for one of their own when they'd first found him. They certainly were frightening, though, with their sharp words and strange devices. This one didn't seem quite as scary as the other two. The Human's face was wrinkled with what almost looked like pity.

  ...Could he make use of that?

  Anson scooted closer and wrapped his fingers around the bars. He gazed up at the Human with the most helpless expression he could manage...which wasn't much of a struggle. "What is this Academy place?" he sputtered. "Are you really going to lock us up and use us in your experiments? Mom told us all about what you do! I-I don't want that! I want to go home!"

  The Human held his gaze, not answering. He eventually looked away with a shake of his head.

  Anson stuck his nose through the bars. "Please!" He let his tears fall faster. "Please, s-sir..."

  "Stop talking to it!" Aydel snarled. "It's a stupid Human. It's not going to care. They're monsters who don't really feel anything."

  Gabe laughed, bitter. "I hate how familiar that sounds."

  Anson was quiet, his attention rapt to the man's face.

  Gabe's lips twitched, as if fighting back so many stifled expressions. "The Academy is a school. We do research there." His gaze fell to his shoes. "It's not a good place for people like you, I'm afraid. I'm sorry."

  People. He'd referred to them as people. They had a chance with this man.

  "Then please...please let us go!" Anson's small voice cracked with desperation.

  No response. The Human's gaze didn't leave the ground.

  "Our sister is sick." Anson welcomed the sobs when they came. "We were supposed to get herbs to bring back but we were bad and went too far away. We need to get them home so her fever will go down..." His shaking hands pulled the bag from his belt and held it out. "See?"

  Gabe took it with stiff fingers and looked inside. He sorted through the plucked leaves and blooms, but his gaze seemed to catch on the cookies. His face screwed up.

  "Lyn needs that stuff so she can sleep better. Her fever is so high she can never rest."

  Something flickered in the Human's eyes. "...Lyn. Is that your sister's name?"

  Anson nodded, eager. He needed to up the pressure while that tinge of softness still lingered on the man's face. "My n-name's Anson, and that's my other sister, Delly." He gestured to the cage behind him, where the girl was still stubbornly silent. "Lyn's been sick for a really long time. We need to help her."

  Gabe sighed. "None of this here will do much for any serious illness or injury. It won't be of much help."

  "B-but we have to do something!" Anson frowned, still leaning against the bars. "It's what Mom told us to get..."

  Gabe opened his mouth, but whatever he'd planned to say seemed to wilt in his throat. He met Anson's damp eyes. "I never wanted..." He swallowed. "This isn't what I..."

  Anson only held the stare, his pulse pounding in his skull.

  Gabe let out a long exhale, then grabbed a bottle of small white pills off a shelf and tucked them into the bag. He held it out for Anson. "Have your sister swallow one with water everyday. They'll do a better job of eliminating the fever, at least."

  Anson took his bag back, his fingers clenching around it. "But...how am I supposed to give them to her if I'm—"

  The sound of a clicking lock drew his gaze to the cage door.

  Gabe smiled weakly. "Go on home, all right?" He pulled the door open. "I don't want to see you on my lab table."

  Anson only stared for a moment, before a wide grin burst across his face. His eyes brightened—still watering but with different emotions. "Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you sir!" His shaking legs barely held him as he pushed himself out of the cage.

  Gabe moved to Aydel's prison. "The pills should help for awhile, but they won't treat the cause of the fever. If you're really, really careful, you can bring your sister to me and I'll have a look at her—there might be a long term treatment for whatever is ailing her."

  "Really? You'll help?" Anson gawked up at the Human.

  Gabe nodded. "I'll be here for a few more days. Just make absolutely sure Esterline and Brillox are gone before approaching. They're usually out with the traps in the evenings."

  "Thank you! Thank you so much!" Anson beamed, his previous sorrow all but vanished.

  Aydel eyed the man wearily as he unlocked her cell, but she was out even quicker than her brother once the door swung open.

  "Hurry and go before the others get back," Gabe pressed urgently, "and whatever you do, don't get caught in the snares again!"

  Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ

  Lyn's fever diminished almost immediately after she swallowed the pills.

  It may as well have been a miracle. Even healing Translation had its limits. It couldn't cure illness. It couldn't bring down a fever the way those small white capsules could.

  Anson was more determined than ever to sneak her to the carriage, but Aydel had gone and opened her big mouth. Still sobbing over the loss of her Translation, his sister had told their parents everything as soon as they arrived home safely. Everything.

  Covered with hugs and kisses, the three children had been ordered to remain in the house for the rest of the week, and were under strict watch. Sneaking away would be impossible.

  It was just two days later when his mother returned home with a satisfied grin stretched across her face.

  The scientists had found Riksharre only to be found in turn by soldiers patrolling for them. The Humans were dead. Even Gabe. Even the man who had let them go and offered to help Lyn.

  Had Aydel not said anything, the scientists likely would've been able to catch a glimpse of the colony and sneak away without notice. Gabe letting the two children go had likely cost him and his compan
ions their lives.

  Illya Anwell and a few other soldiers had carefully carted the bodies away from Riksharre, miles to the north, before burning them in an effort to draw away any suspicious eyes.

  Grieving the loss of the greatest hope Lyn had ever had, Anson forced himself to see if the carriage was still there after his parents finally released him from the house.

  It remained exactly where it had been when he'd fled, untouched and unfound. The Elavadin Academy label was still emblazoned proudly on its side.

  Inside, he found much more than pills. There were books that offered knowledge far beyond anything he had ever read, ever thought, before.

  Lyrum were denied the evils of science and medicine. They were not to practice such heresy.

  It had happened slowly, over many evening visits, but as Anson eyed the abandoned tomes with curiosity and desperation, he realized one dreadful, incredible fact:

  He understood them.

  Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ

  "I spent nearly all the free time I had at the carriage," Anson continued. "I started by trying to reproduce more of those anti-inflammatory pills, and then developed other treatments as best I could as a child. It was all working well enough, until..." He closed his eyes. "I knew the carriage was from a place called Elavadin Academy. Everything I'd learned had come from there...so it stood to reason that was where I should go for more knowledge."

  "You willingly went to the same school that tried to take you prisoner?" Jeriko laughed. "You really are one crazy bastard."

  Anson shrugged his shoulders with a bittersweet smile. "There is no gain without risk, and the difference between the possible and the impossible is often only a matter of perception. I simply knew what I wanted to do and did whatever I could to make it happen."

  Striving to meet his goals, striving to make a difference...now, so close to the end, at least he could say that was how he had chosen to live the entirety of his life. It...wasn't as if he'd always succeeded, though. Despite all his days in the Academy's labs, following procedure and checking off task lists, he hadn't finished any of the projects that truly mattered. All he could do now was hope that this final gamble, perhaps the maddest of all, finally found victory.

  "You were young. You must've had natural talent."

  "I suppose I'm lucky I didn't poison Lyn," Anson managed a humorless chuckle. "I had plenty of determination and desperation, anyway. It's a potent combination."

  "Never underestimate the desperate," Jeriko agreed. "Without otherwise hopeless folks like you and me, the Butterfly wouldn't exist."

  "Sometimes..." Anson's gaze sagged toward the floor. "Sometimes I wonder how everything went so wrong, how everything ended up like this." His thoughts replayed the beginning of the prior night's dream—the joy he'd felt growing up with his family, and the simple, good intentions that had led him back to the carriage the scientists had left behind. "I never wanted to be a monster."

  "Well, you did subject other Lyrum to the same fate you almost suffered as a child," Jeriko accused, but his voice wasn't as grim as his words. Somehow, that made it worse—made a shiver tingle along Anson's spine. "That was quite the choice."

  Anson meant to sigh, but let out something like a whimper. "I... Perhaps it's just an excuse, but I think some part of me died with my family. I was blind to everything but how much I hated Auratessa. I'm truly not so different from Shakaya."

  He'd resigned himself to what he'd become—after all, he was the product of his own choices—but that didn't make it any less painful to dwell on or any easier to comprehend. The child he'd been would have been horrified by the adult he'd grown into.

  A void opened wider inside of him as that thought sunk in. That child, Anson, would rather have died. Maybe he had. Maybe Anson was as dead as Amaranth. Maybe 'Anson' wasn't the name he should be using. But then...

  Who am I?

  Jeriko's face hardened sternly. "You have remorse. You aren't a bad person."

  "I am." All of the energy Anson had left drained out of him. "I've tortured my own people. I've killed in cold blood. When I was young, I never would have believed I was capable of any of it. I never..." He swallowed through his tight throat. "I may have taken my old name back, but I'm ending life as a completely different person than the one I began it as."

  Jeriko said something, hardly more than a whisper. It wasn't loud enough to register, particularly on the side facing his missing ear, but Anson's eyes read the motion of the other man's lips. The words he'd formed were clear: "I'm so sorry."

  "What?" Anson blinked, but Jeriko had already looked away. He stared quietly. What else did the Butterfly have left to apologize for? Perhaps it was only sympathy, but those words left him uneasy. Suddenly, he knew why.

  Amaranth's eyes started to mist. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. It could have been simple sympathy. She would never realize the weight buried inside those three words.

  Those words held secrets.

  Anson's eyes narrowed, tension sparkling like static between him and the Butterfly.

  "There you are! We've been waiting at the café for almost an hour!"

  Aydel's voice yanked him from his reverie. He blinked, looking up to see her and Tayla hovering over them, her arms crossed in annoyance.

  "My apologies." Jeriko shot her a painted grin. "We were having an interesting chat and lost track of time. In fact, your brother was just telling me about how your ineptitude at tag nearly got you both killed."

  A glint of recognition crossed Aydel's gaze. She arched an eyebrow. "Oh? Well, I wasn't the one who ran headlong through unfamiliar territory, got caught in a snare trap, and sobbed like an infant the entire time." She found Anson's eyes. "I was also letting you win, of course."

  Anson smiled a bit, in spite of himself. "Sure, sure. You also weren't the one who got us out of there."

  "I was letting you win. I mean it."

  "Of course you were. That's why you seemed so angry."

  "Enough," Aydel huffed. "We need to detail our next course of action. It's quiet. We may as well discuss it here before we leave for food." She sat a few feet away from him while Tayla thumped down next to Jeriko.

  "Oh?" Jeriko eyed a white scarf around the Tayla's that hadn't been there before. "Where'd that come from?"

  Tayla grinned. "Ms. Aydel bought it for me! Isn't it nice?"

  Jeriko nodded with a chuckle.

  Aydel crossed her arms again, scowling. "It's cold here. It's important to dress for the weather." She straightened and looked at Anson. "Speaking of clothes, do you still have your Academy uniform?"

  Anson blinked. "I...suppose so. The bag I packed has survived so far."

  "Good. The Academy has healthy relations with the Monarchy. You'll want to put that on, head over to the castle, and say you need an urgent meeting with the king."

  Anson's eyes widened. "But—"

  "Let me finish," Aydel scolded. "It doesn't matter what reason you give them, but make it something drastic...an emergency we could have witnessed. With the ocean between them, I doubt the Monarchy has spoken with the Academy recently. Since receivers don't reach across the ocean, either, no one at the castle will be able to prove you wrong. They'll likely give you an audience. Tell them I'm also a witness, and I will go with you if I can. If not, head inside yourself, and we'll go from there. We'll set a time for Tayla, Jeriko, and the rest of our Butterflies stationed here in Velvire to cause a distraction and draw away soldiers. If we can find a clear opportunity in the chaos, we'll take the Monarchs down."

  Anson raised a brow. "Why would they give me an audience with the Monarchy at all? I wasn't... I wasn't anyone special at the Academy, just an ordinary scientist."

  His sister smirked. "But you were one of the few survivors of an incredible disaster. They don't have a lot of Academy employees left to choose from."

  Anson got the message, but shook his head. "This plan is completely naive."

  "It is," she admitted. "The benefit is that it's also relatively safe. If w
e don't get a clear opportunity for both an assault and an escape, we simply won't attack. We'll lie our way through the audience and leave. They won't know we deceived them, not right away. We can conjure a second strategy afterward."

  "We may as well give it a try." Jeriko offered his usual optimistic grin. "Naivety has gotten us this far."

  Anson surrendered with a much more pessimistic groan. "Very well, then."

  "Now that that's settled, let's get us some breakfast." Jeriko put a hand on Anson's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "That's an important part of preparation too, you know."

  "I'm starving!" Tayla agreed, beaming. They hadn't exactly eaten well on their journey to the capital.

  Jeriko and Tayla stood in near unison and hurried away, not waiting to see if the Anwells were following.

  Aydel snorted, "Such children."

  Anson laughed. He let his gaze linger on the floor for a while before sparing another glance around the cathedral. The sunlight was brighter now, saturating the stained glass. "It's nice here. It's much bigger, of course, but doesn't it look a bit like the chapel Mom forced us to visit?"

  "It does." Aydel smiled without malice. What a rare sight that was. His sister and Shakaya were alike in that way.

  A strangely comfortable stillness passed between them, warm in the chilled halls, before Aydel stood.

  "Oh, Delly? There's one more thing I've been wondering." Anson looked up at her from his seat. "When did you get your Translation inhibitor removed?"

  "That friend of yours, Ransmae Rickard, removed it shortly after I joined the Butterfly. As she is both a scientist and the Human Overseer, it wasn't hard to arrange. I'm assuming yours was removed much more recently?"

  Hearing Aydel call Rickard his friend after everything Jeriko had said left a bitter taste in his mouth, but it made sense enough. Rickard wouldn't have done the same for him because she'd wanted to keep just how much she knew about her new student a secret.

  Anson nodded. "I removed it myself a couple of years ago."