by Ciara Knight
“You were already doomed. Now you have a chance,” I said.
“When the guards don’t return, more soldiers will come,” another woman with salt and pepper hair cried out.
I looked at Ryder. “You okay?”
“Yes, I-I—”
“Did what needed to be done or all of you would’ve been executed on the spot. You’ve bought us some time,” I said.
Yes, he’d just annihilated ten people in seconds. Stories my mother use to tell, to scare me into hating the parasites that murdered crowds of innocent people, had turned into reality in front of my eyes. The decaying corpses sprawled on the floor proved the truth of their power.
Too bad the general wasn’t one of them.
I fought to control my powers—keeping my fear under control, while calming everyone else. If I didn’t, they all would perish, and I’d be returned into the hard, cold arms of the general.
I shook off the burning disgust that rolled over me.
As I moved toward the stairs, Raeth skipped toward me, humming, oblivious to what was going on around her. I shook my head. Yesterday, I was lost in naïve ignorance. Now I knew the truth. Slag, human, Neumarian, they all could and did cause death and were capable of betrayal.
I looked around at the carnage fear had left in its wake. In that moment, I made my choice. Yet, I was left to wonder what kind of child joined a rebellion that wanted her own mother dead?
Ryder leaned against a support beam. “There is a resistance beyond this town that is building strength.”
“You speak treachery. You’ll bring Her wrath on—”
“Her wrath is already here.” He glared at the cowering crowd. “If she would kill her own daughter because she suspected that she possesses Neumarian powers, she will slaughter all of you to keep it a secret.”
He was right. I didn’t choose to betray my mother. It was a necessity to survive. I wanted to crawl beneath the nearest table, curl into a fetal ball, and make the world go away. But I was no longer a child, I had to face the truth. Mother wanted me dead, or worse, married to the general whom she controlled.
Squeezing the banister, my nails dug into the paint before meeting the resistance of hard wood. I needed to ground myself somewhere in this world. Somewhere far from Mother and the fate that awaited me. I wanted to scream at the people before me that at least they had each other. Who did I—a Slag with Neumarian abilities, a freak of nature—have?
I inhaled then exhaled slowly, taking in the thirty or so faces etched with panic. They’d lived under Mother’s tyranny so long they didn’t know how to survive without her rule. Something I could understand more than they knew. They needed hope and direction, but how could I give it to them?
Mother may have been right that Neumarians could murder whomever they wanted, but one look at Ryder told me that was only half the story. If he could take life, then he could give it.
“Do you have enough energy to help the wounded?” I asked. I knew the answer. Of course he did, he’d just absorbed the life force of eleven people.
Ashen-faced, Ryder nodded and went to his uncle and the five people crouched by the couch. Silver threads of energy flowed from his hands. Tan and peachy colors washed the grey from their faces.
“Fallon.” I squatted by his side. “If I make it appear as if all perished in this boarding house, is there a place your people could hide until my mother leaves?”
He gave her a reassuring smile. “Yes.”
I looked around the room and caught Raeth’s gaze. She deserved better, as did the rest of them. Now was the time I made amends for past mistakes. I’d protect Raeth, but how? The building was wood, not metal. How could I make it look like they all had died in a tragic accident?
I ran my hand along the wood panels. Coughing at the smell of singed hair, I peered through the lace curtains. Whatever I planned, I had to work quickly. The guards outside the door were signaling the general back over. They must have heard the commotion inside. My skin crawled at the sight of my betrothed approaching on his speeder. Running a shaking finger down a flower pattern in the curtain, a dull burn blanketed my body and I feverishly scanned the room, grasping for an idea.
“Raeth!” I swallowed hard and hoped she would be coherent enough to help. I glanced back out the window. No time left. I had to act immediately.
“Put a field over these people.” I spun toward the others. “Everyone go to the cellar. Hurry!”
Ryder kept working on one old lady near the cellar door. Fallon, pink and fit, pulled two others toward the back. Everyone descended the steps.
I grabbed Raeth and we moved by the cellar doors as Ryder and the rest of the people disappeared. We’d have one chance at escape. It was an insane idea that could get us killed, but I had to try.
The engine of the speeder stilled in front of the hotel. The general’s boots thudded against the wooden porch, echoing the finality of my future.
I glanced at Raeth. “You ready?” At her nod, I closed my eyes and reached out. Heat surged through my body and down my arms. My fingertips tingled. The walls creaked. “Now,” I said as I pictured the large, cut nails holding the structure together and the roof shimmied. Crouching on the first step, I watched with satisfaction as the support beams crashed, filling the ground floor. Walls caved on top of the second floor. The roof collapsed.
Raeth tugged me down next to her, but I continued to pull the nails from the entire building. The door flew open and everything tumbled down around us at once.
“I can’t hold—”
Raeth grabbed the back of my vest and tugged me backward. Together we tumbled down the stairs and slammed against the hard cellar floor. Looking up, I saw a wood spear impaled through the top step. A shiver ripped through me. If Raeth hadn’t jerked me to safety, it would have speared my body. Again, Raeth saved me.
“Thank you,” I whispered, but Raeth had already checked out.
Ryder ran to us. “Seal the tunnel.”
“I’m not sure Raeth can manage anymore.”
“She’ll be fine. Come on.” Ryder pulled us both to our feet.
“We sealed all the tunnels they discovered earlier. We might have a chance.” He led us to where people sat whimpering and holding onto each other.
Fallon greeted us. “That was magnificent, dear.” He rubbed my shoulder and took Raeth’s hand. A—father’s touch. I wanted to fall into his arms and feel the warmth and security my father always provided, but I couldn’t. He was a stranger, in spite of his apparent open heart to Raeth.
Ryder moved close to me. “You okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” I shuffled away from him and picked up a doll, brushed it off, and handed it to a whimpering child.
The little girl clutched my hand and melted my heart with pleading eyes. “Mom?”
“We’ll find her,” I said, brushing her bangs from her red, swollen eyes.
“If this works, we can only hope the others will be spared. They need someone to do their mining,” Ryder said.
Fallon nodded. “We’ve sent scouts to check. If not, we’ll try to sneak as many as we can to safety.”
“I’m sorry. I—” I choked at the thought of all the others being lined up in the street and shot in the back of the head.
Fallon clutched Ryder’s arm. “You three must leave as soon as possible. Even if we all perish, you’re the ones who could change the course of all Neumarian enslavement.”
Ryder leveled a hard glare at the man. “What’re you talking about?”
“Don’t you know?” Raeth smiled. “Powers of three will merge, one earth, one fire, one ice, and free our people from the great price.”
“That is just a children’s story told to give us hope,” Ryder said.
Fallon shook his head. “I always thought it was a myth, but watching you three together. Well, it gives the rest of us hope.”
My stomach churned. No. This couldn’t be true. Yesterday, I was a Slag princess, today a Neumarian, and tomorrow a savior?
Too much. Way too much.
The smell of body odor filled the small space. Cries echoed in my head.
Fallon clasped his hands to my shoulders. “You are brave and strong. You possess the mind of a Kantian, the talents of a Neumarian, and the heart of a human, all the best qualities of each. You were meant to lead all to freedom. There are many Neumarians and humans who support the cause, but most are overseas. We communicate through two Neumarians with the ability to relay messages great distances.”
I sucked in a shuttered breath. “How did you know this about me? What if I’m none of these things, but a freak of nature?”
“I knew your father and mother a long time ago, before and during the war.”
My stomach flopped. My vision must have been true. A man stood before me that knew both my parents before they separated.
Fallon glanced back at Raeth and Ryder standing close by.
Breath hitched in my throat. “How’d you know them?”
“I was a great friend to your father.” Fallon wrapped his arm around my shoulder and led me down a hall. “Come, we must speak in private.”
I glanced around. Even in their misery, ears and eyes were firmly planted on the four of us. Raeth hummed at the rhythm of each step. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end at her eerie cadence. Dust stirred up in the halls making the air thick and clouded. I wrapped my arms around my middle as the cold damp feeling climbed back over my soul.
We reached a room similar to the one I’d woken in the day of my escape. A table, chairs, and a few luminaries lined the room. Vents in the ceiling allowed air to flow from above. Would the guards spot them and realize there were more tunnels, as I had when Bendar popped in and out of sight along the street? Though they appeared to be drains, not air vents. If they wised-up, the guards would know drains were irrelevant in the Mining Territory. All the water had to be dug from below ground. No rain had blessed this area of the world since the war.
“Come, sit.” Fallon pulled out a chair for me. Ryder sat to my side, and Raeth squatted in a nearby corner playing with her red ball.
I shifted, unable to control the excessive energy flowing through my body. After all these years, I finally had a chance to talk to an old friend of Father’s.
I glanced down at Raeth.
Fallon tapped a warm hand on mine. “It’s okay. She still hears us. It’s just, her brain shuts down when overloaded by emotion. But she’ll store the information and use it when needed.” Fallon sighed and leaned back. “At least that’s what we believe.”
“Semara? You all right?” Ryder went to grab my hand but I shied away. Not sure why, except it just seemed wrong to find comfort when so many suffered around me from the misery I’d brought down on them.
“I’m fine.” I forced my best princess blank face and turned to Fallon. “How did you know my father?”
“We fought side-by-side during the war. Even after, he remained part of a hidden underground resistance against the queen.”
After? That would mean he was in the active resistance while raising me in the Resort Territory? Father lied to me?
“No. My father couldn’t have. I was there, with him, always.” Was my time of a perfect life, before I was forced to live on a ship, a lie?
“It’s true.” Fallon grasped my hand.
I shot up, knocking down the chair behind me. All this touching. After four years of solitude, it was uncomfortable, awkward…wrong.
Stale, dirty air caught in my lungs. I coughed and wheezed but couldn’t catch my breath. Ryder appeared at my side. Hands pressed to my back.
“No.” I shoved him away.
“I know this is a lot to comprehend. But if you will hear me out, you’ll understand and it might help you figure out exactly who you are.”
I stood under one of the vents and tried to imagine fresh air entering my lungs.
Was this the hiding place I’d always dreamed of?
Lights popped but nothing melted. I forced the anxiety down, but still refused Ryder’s help.
How could I trust these people? They wanted a war. That they wanted me to be the leader of a resistance was bad enough, but to think I could lead them against my mother and win was beyond foolish.
Yet how could I not?
“Before the war your father was a researcher, a leader in the robotics engineering department at a top facility. He fell in love and married a brilliant woman with a heart of gold.” His eyes stared off in the distance, clenching his jaw tight. “Your father kept a secret, as did everyone else who possessed gifts. History passed down from generation to generation warns of the hatred and fear of our kind.”
“If my mother was so great, how did she become so…hateful?”
Fallon pressed his lips together and lowered his head. “The queen lost her arm and leg during the war and was left to die. She thought the man she loved had betrayed her. The general pulled her from a burning building, and he’s been her second in command ever since. Semara, she despises Neumarians because she believes they turned her husband against her.”
“I don’t understand. The war started because Neumarians attacked and murdered people. Why would my father side with them?”
“They didn’t. The war started because of fear, power and money. Government against government, pinned against each other by a new race that called themselves Kantians and preached of saving the people from blood-sucking parasites.”
I stared at him in shock. Who did I believe? My mother who wanted me dead, or a man who I barely knew? My head swirled with conflicting thoughts. I didn’t know who to believe anymore.
A winded man burst into the room. Deep, red blood stained his light brown shirt. “Must hurry. All executed,” he panted. “Evacuating city.”
Fallon jumped to his feet. “There’s no time. Listen Semara and know, your father was one of us. He blessed you with the gifts of a Neumarian. You must choose what to do with it.”
No, he had to tell me more. That couldn’t be it. “But I’m also half Kantian,” I blurted as Ryder retrieved Raeth and raced through the corridors after the man.
Fallon paused at the door. “Yes, you have the brain of a Kantian.”
Chapter Ten
We reached a group being herded into a small shaft. Ryder nodded back the way we’d come. “Raeth, you know what to do.”
I looked behind us. Dozens of people merged with our group and they all raced for the opening and crawled in. Shots were fired. Explosions shook the underground. Fissures shot through the ceiling.
Raeth stopped at the edge of the opening and held her hands above her head. “Semara, g-go.”
I jumped into the small tunnel—so small the walls closed in on me. Gasping for air, I looked back at the illuminated area behind me and met Ryder’s eyes.
“Sealing off this tunnel. Get a move on.”
My hands shook as Ryder pressed me forward. “Sealing it?”
“Yes, so they don’t know of the other area.”
Raeth charged in as the tunnel behind us collapsed. Screams of terror echoed as darkness fell around us.
Then Silence.
No one spoke for a moment. I lay on my belly and closed my eyes trying to imagine myself in a large open field in the Resort Territory. But my mind kept returning to my confinement hole. The small box I’d been forced to crouch in for hours, if not days, when I disobeyed an order, or when Mother was in a bad mood. Bendar used to massage my muscles as he unfolded each seizing limb. At least here, I could stretch out flat. Still, my heart thundered in my chest and my eyes tried to focus on an escape route.
A white glow came from ahead. Everyone began to shuffle forward. But each time I scooted ahead, the light moved.
I glanced over my shoulder at Ryder.
His face was barely visible in the muted light. “It’s Billy’s gift. Bet he’s glad he finally saved the day. Always thought his power was useless. Billy always says no use in being branded a parasite if there was no purpose for your gift.”
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br /> What was my father’s gift? Was he really a Neumarian? That made no sense. Mother hated parasites. She said they murdered him, they told lies. But then, Fallon said Mother had a heart of gold.
Biting my lower lip, I admitted to myself my gifts started before I landed in the Mining Territory. Perhaps my father was Neumarian, but why would my father keep his identity a secret from me?
A loud thump sounded ahead and the tunnel walls shuddered. Dislodged pebbles fell around us. “Sermechtapedes are attacking!” a woman screeched.
“Stay calm and keep moving. Try to remain silent. They hone in on noise,” Ryder called out.
Praise the gods, that shut the woman up.
Ryder touched my calf. Even through the boots, his comfort penetrated the skin and calmed my over-heated emotions.
“The sermechtapedes won’t break through the metal supports, don’t worry.”
Despite my elbows and shoulders aching, I pressed on. Every few meters, whatever lived outside the tunnel would ram it. I passed several bulges. Fear tensed my muscles, readying them for a fight should fleeing prove unsuccessful. But when I looked around, I realized I’d be useless. The only way I’d get the energy to fight would be to use the metal supports in the tunnels. That would be suicide. Without them, we’d be crushed or suffocated by the sand around us.
Twenty minutes later, a light finally shone in the distance. How far outside of town had we gone? Would we be safe once we reached the end of the tunnel, or did it dump into the middle of the sand dunes?
My nails raked against the metal ladder. Arms fatigued, I rested for a moment as others climbed out into the white blur ahead.
“You all right?” Ryder asked from behind.
“Fine.” Everything happened so fast, I never had a choice, but once out of the tunnel I’d take a breath and find out the truth about my father.
If only he were still alive.
I scooted to the edge. Two hands grabbed mine and pulled me from the tunnel. The light shone so bright I couldn’t see.
“You okay, miss?” a strangled voice asked from my side.
“Yes, thank you.” Polite, even in my lie. I was so far from okay I doubted I’d ever reach it again. I blinked and shuffled forward until I found a solid wood object to hold onto. I drew in several deep breaths. Warm humid air carried the smell of foliage and citrus.