Children of a Broken Sky (Redemption Chronicle Book 1)

by Adam J Nicolai

  "She ain't gonna make it," Ike barked. He hurled the rope against the driving rain, threw it as thunder shattered the air. On his third try, it landed just inside the wagon.

  Mom and Dad screamed at the survivor to grab on. Ike tried to wind his end of the lifeline around his arm, his head still darting back and forth along the shore for anything to anchor it to.

  Syntal's mother seized the lasso just as the bridge behind her gave way completely. Black water devoured her. Wood and stone tumbled away like an avalanche.

  "Grab it!" Ike snapped, trying to brace his feet against the loose mud of the riverbank. Dad jumped ahead of him and seized the rope as it snapped taut. Seth couldn't see its other end.

  "PULL HER UP! UP!" Dad roared, his veins bulging as he fought the river to drag the woman in. He'd slid even further down the bank; the river snapped at his waist like a pack of wild dogs. Mom sloshed down and fumbled at the rope, trying to help.

  "MAE!" Dad screamed. "GET BACK!"

  Lightning flashed like a door banging open in the heavens, flooding a black room with an instant of illumination, and Seth saw them both: buffeted by rain, hair plastered to their faces, teeth bared in snarls of effort.

  Then they disappeared.

  Seth's eyes groped for them—down the bank, into the river—and found only lightning dancing on frenzied waves. Empty rope slithering into blackness.

  He lurched toward the bank, screaming; felt fierce hands seize his arms and jerk him back. He roared, slapped, bit. The grasp only tightened. It spun him, forcing him away from the black river, into a hug like a vise. He thrashed, shrieked threats and pleas, strove after his parents with every ounce of his will, but the arms were too strong. He couldn't escape them.

  ~ ~

  The world was darkness and rage; the heat of Corla's embrace. He resisted her until his anger gave out, plunging him into an ocean of frustration; then he collapsed, sobbing, into her arms. Years passed, limitless eons, as the rain pounded against his scalp and poured in torrents down his face. Distant voices — frantic, compassionate, meaningless — echoed around him like the murmurs of unseen monsters.

  He felt her arm slide beneath him and scoop him up. She cradled him against her shoulder and carried him through the roar of the river and the booming of thunder. Eventually, she brought him to a warm place brimming with firelight.

  "Mom?"

  He looked up to find himself indoors. Lyseira stood nearby, her face fraught with worry. "What happened?"

  "Seth's parents are gone, kitten," Corla whispered. "The river flooded."

  The girl gasped. Her hair was plastered to her skull. "Can we find them? Where are they?"

  "No, sweetheart. They're with Akir now."

  She covered her mouth. "Oh no… oh Seth, I'm so sorry…"

  Seth said nothing. Words were pointless. Impotent. Instead he glanced around him, trying to make sense of the world, and saw a stooped iron stove and a small pantry. The kitchen? He was in the Rulanos' kitchen, while the Narrel river washed away his parents, his house—

  He had just seen them. They couldn't be gone. He had just seen them. He struggled to get down, to run back. They had to be there.

  The sympathy in Corla's eyes arrested him. It was absolute as a tombstone.

  She set him down and he bolted for the pantry, fleeing her pity and Lyseira's dismay. Darkness smothered him as he slammed the door, hiding the house he didn't grow up in and the mother that wasn't his.

  "Seth?" Lyseira's voice. "Mom, is he—?"

  "Leave him be," Corla answered gently. "He's fine where he is. He can stay there as long as he likes."

  The words could have been Bahiran. They meant nothing.

  "What will happen to him?" Lyseira asked. "Where is he going to live?"

  "I don't know, kitten. Akir will provide."

  "But… who will give him dinner? And tuck him in at night?" Somehow, these words pricked him where none of the others had. His eyes welled; his hands shook as if he were freezing. The comfort of the darkness became a crushing expanse of black water and empty rope.

  He latched his eyes to the tremulous line of light that traced the pantry door.

  "Well, sweetheart, we'll have to talk about that with The Abbot. I don't think he has any other family to stay with — Mae never mentioned anyone."

  "He can stay in my room."

  Corla's voice melted. "Oh, sweetheart. That is very kind—"

  "He must be so scared."

  Lyseira's footsteps crossed the room. Seth curled his knees beneath his chin, recoiling from her approach, rocking, staring at the light.

  "You can stay in my room. M'sai?" Her voice was the light at the door's edges: trembling and luminous. "I can sleep on the floor.

  "Don't be scared."

  ~ ~

  Southlight had a little graveyard, a short way up the west road from the village. Seth had sneaked out there to play a few times; once, he and Helix had gone in the middle of the night. They'd darted around the old tombstones in the dark, daring each other to find a zombie or a ghost. The place had been enticing and sinister, resplendent with mystery, and the midnight journey had been worth the paddling it cost him.

  The day of his parents' funeral, the mystery ended.

  The sun was cold; it exposed the cemetery, naked and pale, to the grey sky. Death no longer hid behind the inscrutable stones. It had become a bedfellow, as normal as waking every morning. It gazed from the wilting slats of the wooden fence and perched on every coarse tombstone; it reflected in Syntal's leaden stare as she beheld her mother's casket.

  The ceremony was for her parents as well as his, though the only body they put in the ground was Syntal's mother's. They had never found his own parents' bodies, despite searching for two days. Maybe that means they're still alive, a little voice in his head had whispered, but he knew it was wrong.

  If they were still alive, they would have come back to him.

  The absence of the bodies made the entire ritual an idiotic waste of time. What was the point of putting empty caskets in the ground? His parents were dead. Never returning. He knew that. Why did everyone always have to talk about it? Was he really the only one who understood that talking about them incessantly would not bring them back?

  Abbot Forthin's interminable eulogy only made Seth angrier. The man hadn't even known his parents; Dad couldn't stand him. Seth and his family had gone to temple on Dawndays, like they were supposed to, but they'd always been the last ones in and the first ones home, and none of them went for censure as often as they should've. More than once Dad had said, in the privacy of their home, that the Father probably thought they were all headed to Hel. Now, as the cleric droned on about the sanctity of life and Mom and Dad's many virtues, Seth found himself wanting to punch the old man in the face.

  Then came the litany of empty consolations and shallow sympathy, punctuated occasionally by questions about what people really wanted to know.

  "What will happen to the boy?"

  "Does he have other family?"

  It boggled him that these questions could come up. It boggled him that any question could still come up. His parents were dead. That was the end; there was nothing else.

  But people asked all the same, as if the answers actually meant anything in a world where his parents were gone. They always asked Lyseira's mom, as if she had been granted some authority to answer them, and never him, even though he was standing right there. They only asked, he knew, because they all wanted him gone; everyone thought he was a bad kid, almost as bad as Ellic Baler, and maybe now that he was orphaned they expected he would become even worse.

  Corla told them all the same thing: that she would be speaking with the Abbot after the service about adopting him. At this some of them looked scandalized, some of them praised her generosity and giving heart, and some asked if she was sure that was a good idea, being a widow with one child already. She thanked all of them for their concerns or their kind words, but never changed her mind. Their impli
cations about his worthiness didn't faze her.

  That meant nothing to him. He hadn't asked for her loyalty. She wasn't his mother.

  The next day Abbot Forthin came to the house and blessed the adoption. He and Lyseira's mom talked about Seth's fate as if they were trying to care for a bird with a broken wing. He decided to run away.

  But that night as he lay in Lyseira's bed, he replayed her voice over and over—

  Don't be scared.

  —and it was the only thing that kept him from crying.

  Chapter 7

  i. Angbar

  When he'd heard about Helix's arrest, Angbar had rolled his eyes and grinned. They were all growing up now, sure, but Helix would be the last one to start acting like an adult. From strewing fish guts all over the road to throwing rocks in church, Helix had always been a troublemaker. He'd settled down a little when Seth left, maybe. But getting arrested by the Tribunal...

  It was the kind of thing that always seemed to happen to him. It would get sorted out, they'd realize he wasn't the criminal they thought he was, and in a few weeks they'd all be at Mellerson's talking about how this kind of sehk could only happen to him.

  Angbar had wanted to witness the trial, but when the guards at the door refused Helix's parents, he knew there was no chance they'd let in a Northerner. He should've gone home then, but he was too curious. He was working on a play, and he was still kicking around the idea of having a trial toward the end of it, and getting some idea of how a trial actually worked would make the piece more authentic.

  So instead, he'd gone around to the temple's east side and ensconced himself behind the bushes. He ended up underneath a window which, by some stroke of fortune, sounded as if it were only a few feet away from where Bishop Marcus was presenting his arguments. He pulled out a charcoal pen and a small scroll and waited, ready to take notes for his epic.

  He tried to copy down the judge's opening invocation and prayer—it would be golden in a script! —but he missed most of it when the judge started praying in First Tongue. His page was covered with crude, phonetic half-words by the time Marcus began speaking.

  The arguments went by faster than he'd expected. The word "commune" was new to him in the context Marcus used it as well. He jotted it down with a question mark by it, making a mental note to ask Lyseira more about it later. God has spoken directly to him, Angbar thought as Helix's voice exploded from the chapel, interrupting the bishop. Yeah, right. You tell him, Helix. He grinned wryly, shaking his head... but a nagging fear had started chewing at him.

  As Marcus went on, Angbar's pen kept scribbling. It doesn't sound good for him, he realized. They're not even letting him speak. His writing came to a shocked halt when the bishop called on Lyseira to speak, but when she started defending Helix, he resumed. Cut her off, he wrote. No chance to finish. Threw her out.

  Out, he realized, and glanced around, getting his bearings. He saw two soldiers dicing at the bottom of the hill, but dark was coming on fast. They wouldn't notice him if he was careful.

  He crept around the corner just in time to hear the commotion inside, muted by the stone walls, suddenly burst out. The front door flew open, spewing light onto the dark porch. Two guards emerged, dragging a struggling Lyseira by either arm. They shoved her off the front porch in a mass of hair and flailing limbs. She bounced off the steps and hit the ground.

  "Go home," one of the soldiers said as they turned back inside. "Don't make us carry you there." The light pouring from the church's doorway disappeared, devoured by the deepening twilight as the doors boomed shut. The sound echoed down the street like the sealing of a tomb.

  Angbar glanced around. It looked clear. He hurried to the steps and found Lyseira sitting in the cold mud of the road, her best Dawnday dress torn and filthy from the fall. A small line of blood trickled from a cut on her forehead.

  "Lyseira!" he hissed.

  "Angbar?" Her voice was hoarse from screaming.

  "Are you well?" He offered a hand and she took it, wincing.

  "I think so. But Helix—I think he's in a lot of trouble, they—"

  "I know, I know, I was listening at the window," Angbar whispered, pointing. His heart thrummed. If we get caught out here... "C'mon."

  They sneaked back to the window, where Angbar heard someone—Judge Elmoor? — droning on in a language he'd never heard before. Good, he thought. It's not over yet.

  "The miracle of truth," Lyseira whispered. "Thank Akir."

  As Helix started speaking, Angbar grimaced. The smith's son rushed through his testimony, muddling his words; he sounded desperate, and to Angbar, guilty. Slow down, Helix! He threw a worried glance at Lyseira, but couldn't read her blank stare.

  "What does that miracle do?" he whispered. "Will he be able to tell...?"

  Lyseira shushed him. As he fell quiet, Helix was sentenced to death.

  No. His mouth fell open; he felt like he just looked down to find a sword sticking from his gut. It had happened only moments ago. Surely it wasn't impossible to reverse. How could one moment change everything so completely?

  Helix roared defiance. His voice held the timbre of sermons or prophecy. Then the dark whispers surged, grinding the boy's protests to silence.

  Angbar looked at Lyseira as a general commotion drifted out of the window: chairs being pushed back, people standing, a dull current of chatter. He felt a bizarre urge to smile or laugh. His heart thundered in his chest. "It didn't even sound like him," he said. The absolute irrelevance of the words was almost comical.

  Lyseira stared past him, ashen.

  "Where did they say they were taking him? Keldale?" More irrelevant words; he couldn't seem to stop them. "We should tell his parents. They weren't allowed inside." Something kept forcing his mouth to talk, some ridiculous urge to stand up and declare, Well, that's done with, what's next?

  Lyseira's eyes searched the wall as if she were scrutinizing scripture.

  "Lyseira?" A wild panic reared, threatened to make him scream, and just as quickly dissolved to nothing.

  "The Fatherlord," she said. "He doesn't know." Finally, she met his eyes. "We have to tell him."

  The Fatherlord was the head of the entire Church; he was Akir incarnated in human flesh. Even Angbar knew that much. "Ah... m'sai, but... shouldn't we tell Helix's mom and dad first? Maybe they can get him out of this." Even as he said the words, he knew they weren't true.

  Lyseira shook her head, her jaw tightening. "No. The only one who can get him pardoned is the Fatherlord. He doesn't know Marcus is killing people without a trial."

  "Lyseira," he hissed. People would be leaving the church soon. If they wanted to escape the bushes without being noticed, they had to go now. "That's crazy. They're taking him to Keldale in the morning. He'll be dead in days. The Fatherlord lives in Tal'aden! That's not enough time to get a message out. Tal'aden isn't even in the Valley!"

  "Then we have to get him out of there," Lyseira hissed back. "We can't just let them kill him!"

  "Who, you and me?" He was incredulous. "Against the fifty knights behind this hill?"

  "Seth can fight," Lyseira said flatly.

  Angbar recoiled from this logic. "Seth can't take on fifty knights!"

  "We don't have to fight them all!" Lyseira nearly cried out. Angbar winced and shushed her, glancing up and down the line of bushes. They were still alone. "All we have to do is get him out and…" She faltered.

  "And what?" Angbar pressed. "They'll just get him again, and probably take our heads for good measure!"

  "And run," she finished.

  A grim determination settled into her face. Angbar had seen that look before. He didn't like it.

  "Run where, Lyseira? Are you out of your mind?"

  She shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Out of here." She paused, her grey eyes chewing through the problem. She opened her mouth, halted again, then said: "We're running out of time."

  This is crazy, Angbar thought. Absolutely mad. The reprimands ground through half of his head like
clockwork, but the other half whispered, If we can get into the woods without being seen, they may not know which way we went.

  "I'm going to find Seth. Go to your house, get what you need. Pack everything you can. Meet us…" Her eyes darted through possibilities. "Meet us behind my house as soon as you can."

  Madness. They were just a couple of kids. The clerics could use miracles.

  Who said I was coming with? he thought, but what he said was, "I'm going to stop at the Smiths'."

  "No!" Lyseira snapped.

  "That's his family, Lyseira, they need to know!"

  "They'll find out soon enough! I'm not even telling my mom." The words came quietly, heavy with resolve or shame. "It could put them in danger."

  "M'sai," Angbar said, but shook his head. The noise in the chapel had quieted. People were coming out the front door.

  They peered around the corner to see Galen Wick leaving the temple, hauling a limp shadow that may have been Helix. Marcus came behind him, pausing to invoke a miracle of light. It burst from his staff like a sunrise, but didn't quite reach them. It dispelled every shadow in its reach, but made the darkness beyond even deeper.

  "Go, go!" Lyseira whispered as the men left for the prison tent.

  They ran. It wasn't far from the church to Lyseira's house, but it felt like a thousand miles. The jarring thud of each running step triggered something in Angbar. Suddenly, reality crashed into him like a comet.

  They are going to kill Helix, he thought. And if they knew our plan, they would kill us too. Panic flowered in him, surging through his legs. Burned at the stake for rebellion, or hung in the public square.

  He had never run so fast.

  Suddenly, Lyseira grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop, nearly knocking him from his feet. He stumbled, his arms flailing, and staggered to a halt. He turned back to her, his breath whistling through his lungs in a gale.

  "Go!" Lyseira wheezed, pointing through the village toward his house. "Pack and meet us back here! Be quick!"

  He nodded once and took off again. But as soon as she turned away, he drew up behind a tree and halted. After she went inside, he sprinted across the road to the Smith house.