Bisecter

by Stephanie Fazio

  I lie down on my bed, forcing my breathing to slow. I won’t be able to go anywhere until the guards leave. Until then, I know I should rest. But all I can think about is Brice. To keep myself from imagining him at the Halves’ mercy, I force myself to think about him in the way I know him best.

  I think about droplets of water on the bare skin of his arms as we swim in the shaded pool behind the waterfall. The spray of water that arcs over me as he flicks his hair. The way his laugh rumbles deep inside his chest as he holds me in his arms. The way he tells me I’m beautiful, black eyes and all, and I believe him.

  As helplessness settles into my bones, my mind turns to darker memories. I remember when, three years after my mother died, Brice’s parents were killed by Halves during their patrol. Rumors surrounded the specifics of their deaths, but both Brice and the Captain were quiet on the matter. Brice told me the whole story one day when we skipped out on our work assignments to go to our cave.

  Brice told me he had been out with his parents, who were both seasoned scouts. They were tracking a few of the Captain’s guards who had gone missing a few days earlier. When the Halves appeared out of nowhere, his family was overpowered and his parents were killed. Brice managed to get away only because the Halves were distracted by a herd of stags they decided to hunt instead.

  My hand found Brice’s as he talked about his hatred for them, his need to repay them for what they took from him.

  I understood those feelings well.

  All the Dwellers hated and feared the Halves, but I had never before met someone else whose every high day was haunted with dreams of them. Our shared hatred for the beasts brought me close to Brice in a way I had never felt with any of the other Dwellers. It made me realize I could trust him.

  Brice made me a promise that day: that when we were older, we’d leave the Subterrane and hunt the Halves together. He told me I wouldn’t have to face them alone.

  It was after that time that things began to change between Brice and me.

  Without discussing it, Brice and I started meeting in the cave behind the waterfall more often. Sometimes we would talk. Other times, we would sit shoulder to shoulder, and I would silently watch Brice sketch beautiful images onto pieces of script tree bark.

  When Brice told me I was the only person he’d ever shared his drawings with, it made something crack open inside my chest. A flood of feelings I had kept buried since my mother died flowed out.

  And then he kissed me. Even knowing what I was. Before that moment, I hadn’t known what it felt like to truly be alive.

  It was that feeling…the one that stayed with me for days…that made me realize I was falling in love with Brice.

  Two short booms and one long jolt me out of my thoughts. My heart lurches. The drums’ reverberations send the trinkets on a wooden shelf by my bed rattling to the floor. I run to the door before my brain registers what is happening. The door is unlocked and the two guards meant to be watching me are gone.

  The drumbeats come again. Two short, one long. The Subterrane is under attack.

  CHAPTER 7

  By the time I reach the main tunnel, the archers have amassed in the entrance of the Subterrane. Their bows sing as their arrows leave them. I peer between bodies to see what they’re shooting at. Then I see them.

  Halves. The beasts are barreling through the unfinished section of stone wall, straight toward the Subterrane.

  Even from this distance, their bodies are monstrous, hulking. Their rough, weather-stained hides are covered in black scabs. They carry wooden clubs in their scaly fists.

  It’s the closest I have been to a Halve in seven years. Hatred burns in my chest.

  The first Halve to reach the Subterrane seems not to notice it is pierced with six arrows. Thick, brown blood streams down its flesh. The beast bares its rotting teeth as the archers fire arrow after arrow. It doesn’t falter. The Halve swipes its club across the line of men, splintering their bows in a single motion.

  Battle cries erupt as the Halves break through the line of archers and charge the guards.

  In front of me, a Halve pummels a man with its fists. The Dweller pulls a dagger from his belt and plunges it into the Halve’s flesh. I watch in horror as blood from the Halve spatters the man’s bare hand.

  The Dweller tears back the sleeve of his cloak, not caring that he’s dangerously close to stepping into the sunlight. His skin is smoking where the Halve’s blood landed, and there are already red welts that are oozing a foul-smelling fluid. The man shrieks as he claws at his arms, like he’s trying to rip his skin from his body.

  A strangled scream erupts from my own throat. Grabbing the man’s fallen dagger from the ground, I throw it at the beast. The blade misses the center of the Halve’s neck and cuts deep into its scaly shoulder. It lets out a tremendous roar before shoving its way through the panicked Dwellers and back toward the forest. I want to scream, cry, turn around and run back into the safety of the Subterrane. But there’s a wall of panicking Dwellers behind me and Halves pressing us in on all sides.

  Be brave, Hemera.

  My mother would never have run away; she would have tried to help. I fight my way through the crowd to the man whose shrieks have reached a deafening pitch. His forearm is bloody and raw.

  Swallowing the bile in my throat, I tear a strip of my shirt beneath my cloak and try to press it over the welts to keep the poison from spreading, careful not to touch the infected skin myself. The man’s screams grow louder.

  “Come on!” A firm grip tugs me away.

  It’s one of my guards. He drags me to my feet and pushes me back toward the Subterrane.

  “What about him?” I try to shout, but my voice is carried away with the rest.

  Arrows fly from every direction. Through the screams, the boom of the drums carries from the Subterrane.

  A giant shove sends me sprawling on the ground. A man groans and crumples where I had been standing moments before.

  The pointy-chinned guard who had been herding me toward the Subterrane lies motionless on the ground. An arrow from one of our own archers sticks out of his chest. In the commotion, I must have stepped in the path of one of our archer’s arrows. The guard pushed me out of the way to be killed instead.

  My knees tremble as I sink down beside the man. I can’t just leave him lying here where he’ll be trampled. I grab his cloak to drag him out of the path of the stampeding Dwellers, but I’m knocked to the side by a group of the Captain’s personal guards who are fleeing.

  “Hemera, run!”

  My other guard is fighting his way toward me.

  A sickening thought fills my mind. Where’s Destinel?

  I shove my way back through the crowd with renewed vigor. I have to find my friend.

  I see Henri, battling a Halve three times his size. His sword matches the Halve’s club blow for blow, but the Halve is too strong. Henri is weakening. I manage to grasp my sling with trembling hands, but when I try to open my leather pouch full of stones, it overturns and all of my ammunition spills to the ground.

  “If you want to help,” Henri grinds out between sword strokes, “save the elders and children.” Henri goes down on his knees. I move forward to help him, but he shouts, “Save Sirrel!”

  I turn and don’t look back, not even when I hear the sickening thud of a wooden club meeting flesh.

  “Where’s Destinel?” I grab a passing healer, gripping her cloak to keep her from running away.

  The healer has a glazed-over expression, and just stares at me like she has no idea who I am.

  “Where’s Destinel?” This time, I shout it in the woman’s face.

  The healer still doesn’t say anything, but her eyes flick to a pile of bodies stretched out in front of the Subterrane’s entrance. They’re all wearing the green armband of the healers. My heart beats out a fearsome rhythm.

  I don’t remember reaching the pile of corpses. I don’t remember pushing aside their broken bodies as I searched for my friend. I
only remember finding her, with her blood-streaked cloak and petrified expression. I sink to the ground, cradling my friend in my arms.

  It’s the first time Destinel hasn’t returned my embrace. My chest heaves as sobs tear free from my throat.

  The battle rages around me, but I can’t move, can’t even think. Fear hangs over everything like a dense haze. The coppery smell of blood hangs in the air.

  I can’t stay here.

  As gently as I can, I lower Destinel’s body to the ground. I kiss her temple, and then force myself to my feet.

  Another man’s scream is cut off by a Halve’s club a few paces from me. I stare at the carnage surrounding me. What should I do? Where should I run? Everyone is sprinting in different directions, shouting the names of their family as they trample the ones on the ground crying out for help.

  In the midst of the fallen bodies is a dense cluster of Halves. They surround a man who wields a sword, but every moment the circle of Halves closes more tightly around him.

  Even at this distance, I recognize my father in the center of the Halves.

  No! Not him, too.

  There are too many of them for my father to fight alone. I mutter a prayer to the Dark God as I draw my sling from beneath my cloak. I push my way against the tide of the crowd. Pausing just long enough to choose a jagged stone from the ground, I wind my sling and take aim. Someone grabs my arm just before I release the ropes.

  “Let go of me!”

  “Come with me,” the guard pants, his face shining with sweat.

  “No, the Captain—”

  “His orders were to keep you safe,” he yells.

  The guard drags me away from the Subterrane, where the Dwellers battle Halves near the entrance, toward the stone wall.

  “No!” I turn back to the Captain.

  No matter what my feelings are for him right now, I can’t just abandon him. He’s my father.

  “The Captain’s order was to keep you safe,” the guard says again, pulling on my arm.

  My breathing is fast and shallow. Even when I cover my ears with my hands, I still hear the screams. The ground is stained red from Dwellers’ blood.

  “I’m not leaving him.” But even as I say the words, more Halves fill the space between us. I would have to fight my way through all of them. I can’t even see my father anymore.

  “We have to go,” the guard pants. “Now.”

  A sob rips free from my throat as he pulls me out of the path of flying arrows, past the broken stone wall, and into the barren land between the Subterrane and the forest.

  As soon as we pass into the undergrowth, a wooden club swings at me. I barely have time to duck before the club crashes into the tree behind me. There are six, seven, eight of them, maybe more. I scream.

  A Halve grabs my cloak. Its rotten teeth are bared as it wraps a hand around my neck.

  Dark spots explode at the corner of my vision. Desperate to lessen the pressure against my throat, I push against the Halve’s thick forearm.

  Crack.

  The Halve lets out a deafening screech as its tree trunk-thick arm goes limp.

  I gasp. The Halves are stronger than any creature alive, and I just broke its bone with my bare hands.

  “Run!”

  I turn back to the sound of the guard’s sword crashing against a wooden club.

  He is far behind me, trading blows with a Halve. The Halve swings its club again, and then the guard is on his knees. His sword gives a violent jerk as he blocks another swing.

  “Watch out!” I yell as the Halve draws back its bare, misshapen foot.

  There is a sickening crunch of bone.

  The guard’s screams fill the forest. Before I can take another step, the Halve brings its club down over the guard. His cries are cut off.

  “No!”

  The guard is dead, killed by the beasts whose poisonous blood pumps through my veins.

  The Halve’s black eyes lock on me.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Halve’s heavy footsteps are right behind me.

  Keep running. Don’t look back.

  Branches slice across my cheeks as I tear through the forest. I run until I’m surrounded by dense trees and the only sound is the pounding of my heart.

  I have only been running for a few minutes, but I’m deep into the forest. The Halves are nowhere in sight. The realization stops me cold.

  No Dweller could outrun a Halve. I really am like one of them.

  Sinking to the base of a tall script tree, I bury my face in my hands. But I don’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for myself now. I listen for the sound of heavy feet trampling the brush, for the sight of their hideous bodies, for their snarls.

  Everything is quiet. I’m alone.

  I should have stayed to make those monsters pay for what they did to Destinel and Henri and all the other Dwellers. Did Sirrel survive, or was her small body added to the pile with the others? I hadn’t even seen her in the chaos.

  I should have stayed to defend the only home I’ve ever known. The image of my father surrounded by Halves is burned into the backs of my eyelids. I want to go back, but reason tells me it’s too late. There were too many of them, and they were too strong.

  Self-loathing curls around my heart and squeezes.

  How could I have left my father so easily? He has protected me for my entire life. And I just abandoned him to the Halves. Shame heats my face. If my mother were alive….

  Anger begins to gather inside me. It’s an easier emotion than grief, and I cling to it with all I’m worth. Destinel was my best friend, and my father was the only family I had left. And now, because of the Halves, they’re both gone.

  Clenching my hand into a fist, I drive it into the first thing it meets. My fist plows straight through the trunk of an old script tree, the wood splintering as it breaks apart. The tree shudders, its leaves raining down from the canopy above. The wood groans as it begins to topple over.

  I have to leap to the side to avoid being crushed underneath the fallen tree.

  I stand, dumbfounded, as the forest settles back into silence. Knowing I just took down an enormous tree should scare me. I should look down at my gloved hands and curse their strength. I wait for the familiar self-disgust, but it doesn’t come.

  I curl my hands into fists. Revenge. My heart beats in time with the word as it passes through my lips.

  I will kill every last Halve at Tanguro. I won’t stop until they’re all dead, or I am. A shiver of anticipation passes through me. My mind starts to clear, and my thinking sharpens.

  I take stock of the few possessions I have on me. There’s my sling, two full waterskins, a roll of script tree bark, a stub of a blackwood pencil, and the two Sustum bricks we are given for the high day meal. Seeing the Sustum brick rations makes a pang go through my chest.

  My father concocted the recipe for Sustum bricks back when he was a healer, before he became Captain Harkibel, to keep the scouts alive during long missions. The bricks are held together with a strange-smelling, sticky substance. They have an unpleasant gritty feel on the tongue and are nearly tasteless, but they serve their purpose. Learn to see the world upside down, inside out, and backwards, my father always used to say. Only then can the true discoveries be made.

  With an effort, I push my father’s voice and the guilt tearing at my insides from my mind as I repack my meager supplies in my cloak’s deep pockets. He’s gone, I tell myself. Destinel and all the other Dwellers of Subterrane Harkibel are gone. All I have left is revenge. And Brice.

  I need a plan.

  Looking around, nothing seems familiar, and I have the sinking feeling I’m already lost. But then I see the two lines of crooked trees I’ve seen a thousand times. I let out a deep breath. I’m a short way from the cave behind the waterfall. I must have run in this direction out of habit.

  ✽✽✽

  It seems impossible that the gentle rush of water and smell of wild flowers could still exist after everything that has happe
ned. Even as I make my way through the clearing, I keep waiting for Brice to jump out from behind a bush, to tell me with laughing green eyes that it was all just a joke, to wrap me in his arms and kiss me.

  He doesn’t appear.

  I slump to my knees in the clearing, unable to support the weight of my body. He’s gone. Brice is gone. The words crush me from the inside out until I can’t breathe.

  A howl in the distance jolts me out of my stupor. High day is coming.

  I pull myself up from the ground and follow the path around the side of the waterfall. I duck through the opening of the cave—our cave—and close myself into darkness.

  I’m alone.

  As I settle into the folds of the blanket, the last conversation I had with my father comes back to me. If he knew your differences were more than just your eyes….

  “You’re wrong,” I say into the darkness.

  Brice would still love me even if he knew I’m as strong and fast as the Halves. He would understand.

  I clench my fists at my sides. Why didn’t I tell Brice everything when I had the chance? I knew him too well, trusted him too much, to keep something so enormous from him.

  As I stare into the darkness, my wandering gaze finds the black circle on the far side of the cave. I leap to my feet. How could I forget the section of wall Brice hollowed out to store his weapons?

  Standing on my toes, I reach into the hole. My searching hand grasps a cloth-wrapped bundle and a thick roll of script tree bark that is almost too far back to reach. My pulse pounds in my ears.

  It’s too dark in the cave to read the scrawls on the bark, so I put it in the pocket of my cloak while I concentrate on the bundle. Inside the cloth are two sharp daggers, an extra waterskin, and three Sustum bricks.

  “Thank you, Brice,” I say into the too-quiet cave.

  As soon as it’s low day, I’ll head north. I’ll find the North Road. It used to be the major thoroughfare between the territories before the Duskers banned unapproved travel outside of the Subterranes. I know from my father’s maps of the territories that the road starts at the narrow point of the river and runs all the way from the Subterrane territory through the Banished Lands and to the mountains. If I can find it, the North Road will be the straightest path to the Wild Lands and Tanguro.