by Nina D'Aleo
She turned and ran with a steady pace, not pushing herself beyond her limits, wanting to reserve strength to fight or sprint when she needed to. She kept a fingertip skimming along the wall, checking ahead of herself the whole way. She wasn’t sure if Lecivion knew the extent of her skills, but she hoped he didn’t. Glancing up, she searched the ceilings for I-eyes and spyers, but didn’t see any glimmers of reflection. It was possible that this realm didn’t have the same technology, but that wasn’t to say they weren’t tracking her through other methods. The thought spurred her on.
At the end of the corridor, the path split into two. She saw through the walls that one way led back to the warehouse facility from where she’d escaped; the other side headed into cave-like tunnels at the heart of the Castle. She took that side and ran into the cave-tunnel, the heat intensifying the further in she went. Silho stifled her first reaction of fear and took deep breaths of the fierce air, reminding herself she wasn’t burning. The echo of Omarian voices spoke from deeper in the caves and Silho pressed into the shadows, following a path down toward the sound. In her mind she was thinking, if she could somehow isolate and incapacitate a soldier, she could steal his portal painting – provided they all actually carried one, not just specific people. If she could get a portal, she could jump back to Aquais. The memory of Lecivion stabbing Copernicus forced itself into her mind and her panic crept back up on her, but she repeated the Illusionist enchant and regained her control. Copernicus was alive. He and the others were searching for her. That was the only thing she’d allow herself to believe.
She slowed her pace as the voices grew louder, until they sounded just beyond the next corner. Silho edged forward and peered around. Two Omarians stood beside a chute in the wall, grabbing things as they slid out and throwing them over the edge of a cliff down to a river of surging lava below. The lava radiated a scorching heat and cast a red-orange glow all around the cavern. Silho squinted through the hazy shadows, trying to see what the men were disposing of. It looked like bags of something. She inched further forward, moving her head to see around the back of one of the soldiers. She focused as another object came through the chute – and then she saw it – a face. Silho’s throat tightened. They weren’t bags, they were women and baby boys – corpses – all the failed attempts to produce another half-Omarian female like her. The sight sickened Silho to the heart of her. At first she felt paralyzed, just like when she’d first gone out with the team into the war zones after her recovery. There were so many horribly injured and screaming people that she’d literally not known who to help first, and had just ended up turning in circles and crying. Copernicus had seen her and said, “Pick a place and start there, that’s all we can do.”
He’d pointed and she’d gone, and begun, and he was right – it was the only thing they could do, when it was so difficult to determine who needed help the most. Remembering Copernicus’ words calmed her again.
The chute rumbled and clanked and another woman came tumbling out. As she thudded to the ground, Silho caught a twitch of movement. She was still alive. The Omarians grabbed the woman up roughly as though she was no more than a pile of garbage. Moving on instinct, Silho seized a rock and rushed out at them before they could throw the girl over. She smashed the closest soldier in the back of the head, instantly dropping him. The other one saw her coming and tried to trap her with light-form. She dropped to a crouch and grabbed him by the legs, dragging them out from under him. He hit down hard and she leaped up, landing a kick to the side of his face, but it wasn’t enough to knock him out and he struggled up with a roar, raising both hands. The Omarian bone blade broke out from one of his wrists. Silho knew that if he got her in light-form, she’d be dead. So she did the first thing that came to her mind. She rushed him, slamming a shoulder into his chest and knocking him off the edge of the cliff. For a moment he looked shocked and then he plummeted out of sight. Breathing hard, Silho knelt down beside the survivor, who had slumped over onto her stomach. She was naked and had the rainbow skin and golden star bloodlines of an Ohini Fen. It made Silho’s mind immediately jump to Diega. She took the woman’s arm and carefully rolled her over onto her back. She was cut open, low down, from one side of her stomach to the other. The wound was grotesque and the colors of her skin had faded out almost to white.
Silho went to rip off her jacket to bind the wound, but found she wasn’t wearing it. All her clothes were gone, replaced with a surgical-type gown with nothing underneath.
“It’s okay. You’re not alone,” she whispered, trying to tear some of the fabric off the gown. “We’ll get you help. Everything will be fine.”
The Fen looked up at her with desperate eyes, gasped out and died.
Silho stared, her hands releasing their grip on her gown. Behind them the chute thudded and another dead woman rolled out, then a baby, then another woman and another and another … Silho watched them pile up, feeling numbed by the horror of it. How many women had Lecivion abducted? How many families were searching for daughters, mothers, sisters, never to see them again, never to know their fate?
The echo of tumbling rocks broke Silho out of her thoughts, and she turned fast toward the sound. She touched the ground and leaped forward in her mind, back upward to the entrance of the caves – to where a troop of Omarian soldiers were entering the tunnels. There was no choice. She had to leave the bodies and run. She jumped up and started to go, but then doubled back fast. She’d forgotten to check the unconscious soldier for a portal. She rolled him over and patted him down rapidly, but found only one small knife. With such powerful skills and inbuilt blades, Omarians didn’t have much need for external weapons, and there was no sign of a portal. Silho took the knife and ran to the other side of the cavern, where she found a narrow ledge jutting from the rock wall. She followed it, blinking down at the fiery molten rock rushing beneath her. She almost lost her footing and forced herself to concentrate ahead, where the path wound around to another tunnel leading up.
As she stepped off the ledge and into the tunnel, a wave of dizziness swept over her and she staggered, slumping against the rocky wall. She felt a sharp pain in her side and touched a hand to it. Her gown felt damp. She looked down and saw in the dim glow that half her dress was red with blood. Her fingers found a wound in her side and she groaned with pain. She hadn’t realized, but during the fight, when she’d rammed the soldier, he must have stabbed her with his bone blade before he’d fallen. Silho cursed and her sight started darkening. She was losing too much blood. Gripping the wound tightly, Silho touched the wall with her other hand, still holding the Omarian’s knife. She searched for where to go and saw in the memories of the rocks another doorway up ahead, leading into a hidden room. It stood empty, but there were marks on the floor that suggested crates had once been stored there. Silho staggered up toward the doorway. She needed to try to stem the blood flow before it was too late.
She stumbled through into the room, its rock floor smoothed out and walls lit with the lava globes. Before she could take a step further, her knees gave way and she dropped to the ground, the weapon clattering down beside her. She had a high pain tolerance, but this was too much even for her. Fighting to keep consciousness, she tried to bunch up the gown to hold against the wound, but it was already drenched and the blood seeped straight through. Gasping, she fell forward on her hands. She’d never thought, after surviving so much, that she would die so easily. Tears stung her eyes and she dug her nails into the rock, trying to force herself up, but her body didn’t have the strength. With heavy eyelids, she looked toward the door, part of her certain that Copernicus would appear and save her.
Moments passed and he didn’t come, and in the numbness of her mind, she realized he never would – she was on her own. No one could save her but herself. Her eyes closed and she slumped down, hands pressed against the floor. Images flickered and flowed behind her eyes as her mind looked into the memories of the walls. Silho drifted, clinging to the last of her strength, while the blood poo
led around her. Suddenly the images stopped on the memory of a girl walking down one of the castle hallways. Silho recognized the wary green eyes and tangle of curly blonde hair, much longer then than Silho had ever seen it in pictures. Her mother, Oren Harvey. Silho immediately noticed that Oren had no bloodline marks on her arms. In the memory, her mother turned through a doorway and stopped, seeing a man standing in the room with his back to her. He glanced over his shoulder and Silho recognized the hollow eyes and angular face, the arrogant expression.
“Oren,” Lecivion said.
Her mother didn’t move, just stood watching as Lecivion stepped toward her – heel-toe, heel-toe with his pointed black boots. He stood staring down at her face and spoke quietly, but there was a danger behind the words. “I hope you understand that everything I’m doing is for your own good. If you’re allowed to continue to visit your land, you won’t ever start to view Omar as your true home.”
“I understand.” Oren replied immediately, but her voice was flat, and Silho could sense her restrained anger.
“Good. Now kiss me. I hate it when we argue.” Lecivion leaned down and pressed his mouth against hers. Oren allowed it and even smiled when he pulled back, but when he put his arms around her and drew her close, her smile hardened and eyes turned to fury over his shoulder. He stepped back again and Oren blanked her expression.
“I must go, but we’ll eat together tonight …” he leaned in close and whispered, “and share my bed.” He kissed her face and stepped around her, leaving the room.
For a moment Oren stood there, fused by her anger, then she grabbed a piece of cloth from the bed in the corner. She wiped it hard across her lips and face where he’d kissed her, then she knelt down beside the bed and reached under, pulling out some loosened rock and lifting a small black chest from a hiding place. She opened it and very carefully removed an object – a framed painting of flames. She looked up at the wall, directly into Silho’s eyes, and whispered, “The flames.”
Silho jolted back to her hidden room, where she lay on the ground bleeding out. Oren’s words echoed in her mind and she heard the truth inside them. She had nothing to bind the wound, but she could cauterize it. She managed to lift her head and looked around the room, spotting one of the lava globes. She tried to crawl toward it, but her legs wouldn’t move. After several attempts she slumped back down, slipping fast toward the darkness of death. She saw a flash of her mother leaving her in the desert with Hammersmith. Oren had been clutching her stomach in the same way Silho was now, with blood seeping from between her fingers. She’d uttered, “… war has fractured my soul, it has stolen my name and purpose. I am an alien to myself and a stranger in my own skin … Don’t become me.”
Silho’s eyes flickered open – the black rock ceiling spun above her. Don’t become me – Oren spoke again. Silho summoned all her remaining strength and rolled onto her stomach. She dragged herself hand over hand until she reached the wall, then she fought until she was kneeling up. It took her many attempts, but she finally raised the Omarian knife high enough to stab into the globe in the wall, smashing it, the lava gushing out. She let the burning stream run over the small blade until it was glowing hot. With shaking hands, she gripped the handle and lowered it toward her wound. As white metal contacted with skin, Silho felt an agonized surge of pain and heard the sizzle of her own flesh, but she pressed the blade harder knowing that this pain was life.
When she finally lifted the knife away, the bleeding had stopped. The skin was burned badly, but she could see it was already starting to heal, sealing the wound as it did. Silho could only assume that being half-Omarian, she was immune to the bone blade poison which Lecivion had spoken about. She slumped against the wall, crouching low. Her heart was racing, cold chills shivered through her and she couldn’t remember ever feeling so thirsty, even after half a lifetime in the desert – but she was alive. She rested her head on her knees and tried to regather some strength.
Her mind strayed back to what she’d just seen in the walls and to Lecivion’s words about her mother … she was the last one … tattooed the marks of a firelighter … princess … Draigar. Silho had never heard of that race before. She raised her head and looked at her arms. She had noticed that after her recovery from the Skreaf, the flames of her bloodline marks, the part she had inherited from her mother, had healed fainter – but she’d assumed the fading was just a side-effect from being burned so badly. She’d never considered that maybe they were faint because they weren’t real – but if they were just surface tattoos, they wouldn’t have healed back at all, unless Oren used a different sort of tattoo – maybe even involving magics. But then why could she heal like a Pyron, unless resistance to fire was also a skill of the Draigar? Maybe that was why Oren had chosen to pretend to be a firelighter?
Silho wanted to access the walls, to find more memories of her mother and to see exactly what had happened, to maybe even find her father here – to see when they’d first met. Who had her father been to Lecivion? Just a soldier? A friend? A brother? She wanted to know everything, but already she’d lost so much time. She had to get out of here. She stretched her legs, testing them, then using the wall, dragged herself up. Her head spun, and she closed her eyes, forcing herself into focus. Through her fingertips she accessed the walls and leaped through the castle, searching for something she could use to escape. At first she was looking for a portal, but soon realized that she didn’t know the words Omarians used to make them open, so she abandoned the idea and searched instead for a doorway out of Scorn. Silho raced through thousands of images until she halted over one picture. Her pulse skipped. Disbelief spread through her.
Chapter 26
Croy
Kullra Fornax
Nÿr-Corum (Saint Mariread Borough)
When she finally reached home, Croy found her front door standing ajar, with the locks intact. Fear spiraled through her. She drew her Firestorm and edged her way inside, pausing in the tiny space of her sitting room. Objects had been disturbed. They were out of place – or rather, rearranged. She recognized the pattern and smelled a familiar perfume wafting in the air. She holstered her weapon just as her ex-boyfriend, Roth, and ex-friend, Angeline, came walking out from her bedroom. Roth was carrying a box of his possessions. They both halted when they saw her. The moment dragged on. Croy wanted to look away from them, but didn’t. Roth’s expression tightened and his eyes demanded her not to make a scene. He moved protectively closer to Angeline, who bit her lip and looked teary. Croy shook her head. How had it come about that even though she was the one they had cheated on, this girl came out looking like the fragile victim and Croy like the menacing maniac?
“We’re here collecting the last of my things,” Roth said, all business.
Croy swallowed back a reply. She went into the corner that served as her kitchen. She opened a cupboard and threw the rest of her package inside. Keeping her back to them, she looked out the window, a cool breeze brushing over her face. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing – perhaps perfecting the art of looking unconcerned while her heart was ripping in two. John L had once said she was silent on the outside but inside she was a storm, and at one time she’d felt like that, but lately she just felt defeated.
Croy glanced back at them. Angeline was watching her with concerned, sad eyes while Roth threw more things into the box. His elbow swept over one of the shelves, knocking something to the floor. It was a fossilized megator egg that John L had given her, from one of his early expeditions. It hit the rock floor and split in two. Roth started to pick it up, and Croy felt her anger exploding. She rushed over and snatched it away from him with more force than was necessary.
Roth made a snorting sound and muttered something.
“If you have something to say, just say it,” Croy said, breaking her own resolve not to speak.
“It’s not worth wasting my words,” he replied.
“Then don’t,” she said. “I already know what your thoughts are anyway.”
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After a moment of silence, he demanded. “How can you live like this?”
“Like what?”
“In this shrine. Every surface is filled with him. You’re obsessed with him. I know he was your carer, but this is unnatural. And the worst thing about it is that he was a bad person – a traitor – why waste your time exulting someone who doesn’t deserve it and never did?”
“Roth, maybe we should just —” Angeline tried to intervene.
“No!” he snapped at her. “I refuse to feel guilty about this when it’s clearly her fault. Admit it,” he demanded from Croy, “you can’t love anyone else because you’re in love with him – you’re obsessed! That’s why you can never make a relationship work.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Croy said.
“I will because it’s the truth.”
“It’s your truth, not the truth. The truth – plain facts? You cheated. I’m not stupid – I know people fall in and out of love all the time. I never expected you to want to stay with me forever, but I did expect honesty. You should have just broken up with me, not gone sneaking around. Maybe it was exciting for you two or something, but don’t try to pin your wrongs on me. I have faults, but I never would have done this – to either of you.”
“Maybe I should go,” Angeline said.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have come,” Croy threw back at her. “You know where the door is. You came in and out enough when I wasn’t here.”