by Daryl Banner
ACT 2
0162 Rone
It isn’t easy hiding in a maddened sky.
Rone, Ruena, and Erana had tried many times to escape the clutches of the Lifted City as it slowly spun out of control at the hands of the Mad King and his madder Posse, but found every option problematic. Each path to the slums—even secret ones known by only Ruena Netheris—had been destroyed or utterly obstructed by fallen walls, collapsed buildings, or debris.
“If we stay up here, then we are just meat waiting for that evil Legacist to play with,” protested Ruena one hot Sunday afternoon just after the falling apart of Sanctum, her silken gown half missing, the rest of it glued to her body by sweat.
“We can’t get through this way,” Rone spat back, kicking at the enormous slab of cement that crushed the passage through which they were hoping to escape. “Not unless I leave you two behind.”
“Oh, so you’re considering it? Of course. How expected.”
“I didn’t say I’m considering it. Are you always this irritable?” he asked with a cocky lift of an eyebrow.
Ruena took a lot of offense to that. “Do you know who you are speaking to?”
The remembers-everything girl from the Windstone Academy, Erana, was standing by the busted-open door through which they’d come, her arms folded and her long drab hair gracelessly pouring down her bony shoulders in knots. She seemed entirely uninterested in the fight, biting her lip and watching for anyone through the door.
Ruena and Rone got into a new argument every hour, and every argument was the same. Ruena was the To-Be-Queen of Atlas who deserved all the respect in the world, and Rone was just a dirty boy from the slums who knew nothing.
Regardless of the fights they had, they were wise enough to keep together; numbers meant power, as was clearly demonstrated by the taking of the throne by Mad Impis Lockfyre and his countless hand-picked minions.
Erana was with them everywhere, recording every single step with her mind. “No, we’ve been down that way,” she told them once. “Already tried that route,” she said the next path they chose. “The way is blocked that way, and that way, and that way …”
It was blocked every way. There was no path they could take to get out of the Lifted City, each one obstructed or inaccessible. Of course, none of those hindrances mattered one bit to Rone himself. The problem was that he wasn’t on his own. He couldn’t figure out a safe way to bring Erana and Ruena with him, even if he used his Legacy of phasing through solid objects. There was too much of a risk of falling through the floor, or getting himself—or one of them—stuck inside something in the process. The obstacles were too thick.
Chasing the setting sun of one unassuming Tuesday evening, they found a great Lifted City mansion that had half its structure crushed in by debris. It was in a large spare room in the back of that mansion that the three of them decided to stay to wait out the rest of the Mad King’s reign. The room had become otherwise inaccessible from the outside due to a fallen part of the Sky Rail. Unlike the collapsed paths down to the slums, this obstacle was an easy one to take Ruena and Erana through.
And the part of the mansion that still stood was stocked with food that could last them for half a year, if it came to that. Of course, none of them hoped it would. “My people will gather,” Ruena kept stating, “and I will be ready to fight that good-for-nothing Legacist and take back my rightful throne.” But with each passing day, she seemed less confident, and soon, she stopped saying it at all.
By the middle of the first month together in that room, Ruena did not seem to have any fight left in her. In fact, she deflated entirely, keeping to herself and staring out the back windows in despair. Rone was relieved, not having been particularly fond of their arguments. Part of him resented the way Ruena Netheris looked down on him. The rest of him—particularly a certain part below his belt—was turned on by her beautiful figure, her long white hair, and her rigid, regal demeanor. Ruena was completely exotic to him, unlike any woman he’d ever met before, which meant that he was inexplicably drawn to her.
There was a lavish bathing pool in one of the chambers they still had access to, which Ruena regarded as one of the tiniest ones she’d ever seen. To Rone, it was twenty times the size of any slummer’s bathtub, and he welcomed the clean feeling he got when he washed in its waters. The glasses-wearing dark-haired Erana always seemed to be lurking around the corner when he took off his clothes to slip into the pool, but he didn’t mind; he knew she hungered for him and, to be fair, he did half-fuck her once. It was the night Ruena caught them in the same hiding place they’d found right after the crashed coronation—a store too close to the Crystal Court for comfort. The To-Be-Queen caught Rone with his pants down and his cock out. He often wonders if Erana resents Ruena for interrupting their fun, as they hadn’t since had a chance to finish it.
At the end of the first month, Rone found Ruena in the half-collapsed room, which may have been an indoor garden of sorts that had long been neglected, its plants overgrown, unpruned, and some dying. Ruena stood by the tall bushy plant in the corner, a single yellowed branch of which she had nestled in her palm, staring at it with glassy, faraway eyes.
When she noticed Rone, she looked up with a start, alarmed. Her eyes drifted to his chest, and then she sighed, shook her head, and returned her attention to the thirsty, neglected plant.
“Sorry if I startled you,” muttered Rone, who was shirtless and wore only a loose pair of silken pants he found in a closet. They were a size too big and hung a bit low on his hips. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Becoming a botanist in your spare time?”
“A what?” She seemed greatly annoyed by his presence.
Rone knew there was something on her mind, and it’d been on her mind for weeks. Was she mourning the loss of her Queendom? Surely. Was she angry at the abrupt change in her life? Of course; they all were. But Rone was good at reading people, and he felt there was something else happening within her. It pulled at his heart, for certainly he had other interests other than their situation at hand that warred within him, too.
“I’m …” Rone looked up at the ceiling, curious how to phrase what it was that he wished to say. “I’m sorry for … pissing you off all the time.”
Ruena lifted her chin, slowly turning her head to him with her steely eyes locked onto his sapphire ones. It was like she suddenly refused to observe his shirtless figure.
“You didn’t anger me.” She tossed her long white hair, drawing it across her left side. The act almost seemed self-conscious to Rone, as if she was making sure to hide the long scar he already knew was there. “In fact, I should rather say … I should rather say that I’m quite indebted to you. This is a safer place than Marllan’s Shoppe. And if it weren’t for you, we’d all three of us be at the whim of a madman and his mad men.”
Rone grinned cockily. “That a Queen’s version of a thank-you?”
Her grey eyes narrowed. She was about to respond, then her face changed. She looked down at the wimpy plant, her eyes misting over. “I’d hardly call me … or anything that comes from my mouth … a Queenly anything.”
Rone’s grin faded. He took a few steps across the room, drawing near the plant that had her attention. “Impis will be betrayed by one of his Posse peeps. It’s inevitable. You can’t keep that many crazies all in one place and not expect one to backstab the other. His whole joke of a Kingship will crumble in days …”
“It’s already been a month, nearly. Or more, has it? I’ve stopped counting the sunrises.”
“It’ll crumble,” Rone said anyway, stubbornly insisting. “And then, maybe in the order that’s reestablished, I will find my sister.”
Ruena’s eyes went to his arm, as if noticing something there. She squinted. “Your sister?”
He had mentioned it once before, but it was a passing comment and she was too distracted with fearing for her life and keeping up all her emotional guards. “Before all this, my sister was … arrested. Falsely. Well,
somewhat falsely. She was taken by Sanctum, I think. Put onto some unnamed Peacemaker list, or a database. I don’t really understand it. Erana was able to look it up in one of your Lifted tech computers.”
“One of my Lifted tech computers?” echoed Ruena. After taking precisely one second to decide not to be offended by the wording, her eyes softened. “A Peacemaker list … Janlord? What would he … What interest would he have had in a Lower City girl? That makes no sense to me.”
“Likewise. Especially since that girl is my sister. And I miss her. And I want to know she’s safe and …” Rone bit his lip, feeling a pang of anger. “And I want to bring her home.”
Rone felt Ruena studying his face. When he let himself meet her eyes, she looked away quickly. He wondered if he’d caught her in a moment of finally admiring the view of his lean, muscled torso. Of course he came into the room shirtless on purpose; if he couldn’t work her up, then what good was all his charm and flashy blue eyes?
“She’s all the fam I got in this world,” he murmured softly.
He took his time observing Ruena’s long and slender neck, her smooth and creamy skin, her straight hair that sometimes danced even when there wasn’t a breath of wind in the room, perhaps dancing with all the electricity that lived in her fingertips. He often found himself as turned on as he was scared of her. She could, in one painful instant, fry him to the bone if he wasn’t quick enough to turn immaterial first.
“I miss my aunt,” she confessed. “Really, she was the one to be Queen. She was the true heir. Kael Mirand-Thrin. Queen Kael. It has a stronger ring to it, I think. Maybe I was never meant to be Queen. I’ve never known a normal life.” Her steely eyes met his again, but this time, they seemed filled with a strange sort of curiosity. It took Rone aback. “Tell me what it’s like.”
Rone lifted an eyebrow. “What what’s like?”
“A normal life.”
Rone laughed softly at that. “My life’s anything but normal. I doubt anyone’s life is … normal. We all think we’re the special one, don’t we? We all feel like the exception to some great rule that every other tortured soul in this world obeys.”
“Some great rule?” Ruena seemed amused, as if trying to follow some joke Rone was telling. He found that he very much appreciated her sudden change of attitude. In fact, it was downright endearing. “Tell me. What’s the great rule?”
“That we’re supposed to live a life without suffering.” Rone took a bit of her hair into his palm, feeling it as it fell through his fingers. She let him, standing perfectly, rigidly still. “That we ought to know the way out of every trap we find ourselves in. That we should live our lives happily.”
“And?”
Rone smiled crookedly, tilting his head as he kept stringing his fingers through her long, dry, white-as-bone hair. “And the joke is, we all suffer, we all know nothing, and we’re all unhappy.”
She stepped closer to him. Her breasts pressed against his side and her cool eyes bore into his. Rone felt his buddy jump in his silken pants, then realized with a start that he had no way to hide his excitement. Ruena seemed to notice and it did nothing but entice her to get even closer to him, so close her breath began to tickle the tiny hairs on Rone’s smooth, caramel chest.
“And what would make you happy?” she asked innocently.
His hand came up to caress her cheek. She leaned her head into his palm, encouraging him. “To take you in this room. To feel myself inside you. To smell your sweet hair while doing so.”
Ruena’s eyebrows lifted with mock surprise. “You would speak in such a manner to your Queen?”
“My apologies, Your Highness.” Rone tilted his head. “What I meant to say was … I want to fuck you on this floor.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Oh?”
He was already running his hands down her shoulders, gently and ever so slowly slipping off her top. “Repeatedly,” he amended.
“You will pay … for your Queenly disrespect,” she said, shifting her shoulder to let her top fall off easier. Her fingers found the waist of his silken pants, which already hung so low on his hips. It took little effort for them to slip down to his thighs, revealing his dimpled butt and his unrelentingly stiff cock. “You know it is a rule that all the citizenry of Atlas must respect their Queen.”
“Thank Three Sister for exceptions,” groaned Rone.
And then the two connected their bodies. The floor met them next, and their legs entwined, smooth as silk and slippery with their lust. Twice as they kissed, Rone felt the pinch of electricity pass through their lips, giving him a shock. Both times, he jumped in surprise, and found Ruena smirking devilishly. This was not a side of the To-Be-Queen that he was expecting to get to know.
But he loved every second.
0163 Rone
The sexual trysts between Ruena Netheris and Rone Tinpassage became a daily thing after that day in the indoor garden. What else were two horny people stuck in a Lifted City mansion to do? And each time they met, Ruena seemed to unwind and loosen further. She was changing before Rone’s eyes—or perhaps more accurately, it was that she was revealing more of her true self to him each day. She laughed wildly. She became more frisky. She would giggle and shock him for a surprise, zapping him while they fooled around on the floor of the indoor garden … sometimes twice a day.
Rone knew that Erana could hear them. It would be impossible not to. What did she think of Rone and Ruena’s quick and sudden hook-up? Was she jealous? Did she feel cheated and betrayed? With as much (or rather, as little) as Erana showed on her face, Rone could never quite tell where her mind stood. She never seemed put-off or sullen when they all met in the food room to have a bite. In fact, she always had some new observation to share, talking on and on about a past King or Queen who turned the throne, or executed a disloyal Marshal, or enacted some rule or law about rebels and punishments. Erana even spent a whole evening telling them every detail about the Slum Queen’s rise and fall, all the way down to Peacemaker Janlord’s very involvement in the whole thing. She didn’t seem to notice the downcast, faraway stare of Ruena across the table, who was likely still mourning Janlord’s death in her own private way.
Rone thinks about all of these things that have brought him to this point right now. Two months in this room have changed his life.
Rone lets all his clothes slip off his body.
He sighs with delight as he sinks into the lavish bathing pool.
He thinks about how slowly and yet how fast he developed this relationship of circumstance with Ruena, the To-Be-Queen of Atlas. Never in all his life did he think he’d be in this situation. Yet here I am, having all the sex I want with a girl who … electrifies me.
The joke makes him smile as he lets himself float along the surface of the cool water, staring up at the curved ceiling with his cock exposed to the world. In this Lifted City indoor pool, he feels like he’s gliding across the sky.
He thinks about Wick suddenly. How is the madness affecting the slums? Did he get down there with Athan safely? The last words they’d shared were harsh ones, but the time that’s passed has allayed whatever anger he felt. Would I have done the same thing, had I found Cintha first? Would I have insisted that we leave to the slums if Wick had not found his lover in the sky?
The quick answer is no, he would never have. The truer answer is … he’s not sure.
Before he can have another thought, Erana slips into the room without a word and drops her clothes to the stone floor with a little clumsy shake. The only thing she wears is her glasses.
Rone, still floating on his back, watches her, stunned. Not what I was expecting. Silently, Erana steps into the pool on the opposite side, submerging herself up to the neck, then hovers there without regarding Rone at all, her eyes staring off at the wall opposite her. Her tangled black hair floats in the water around her.
“Are you alright?” asks Rone finally, his voice echoing through the room.
Erana hums her answer, blankly stari
ng at the walls as if lost in thought about something curious. She makes that expression often. Rone has always wondered if it’s a side effect of remembering every single thing she ever sees, learns, and is told. She must have a million thoughts in that head of hers all at once, all the time.
Rone has a few thoughts of his own. Though he and Ruena have been having satisfying, mind-blowing, literally electric sex for weeks, a tiny part of Rone still wonders what it might have been like had he and Erana finished what they’d started.
“Your hair looks like the tentacles of some strange sea creature,” he murmurs over the water, watching her.
What the fuck, Rone? That’s your first thought?
Erana, completely unfazed by the comment, looks down at her hair. “Why, it does,” she observes. Then her mirror eyes lift up to Rone, made enormous by the lenses of her glasses. “I read once that beyond the edges of the land during the time of the Ancients, there was nothing but miles of the deepest water you can imagine. It was called the ocean, and in its depths there lived creatures as big as buildings. They were called sea monsters and leviathans.”
Rone should have known that any passing comment can turn into a lesson of histories when Erana is involved. “You know so much stuff,” he says dreamily.
She shrugs and glances away.
Rone let his legs sink, then gently wades, shoulder-deep, toward Erana’s end of the pool. “Are you alright, Erana?”
“You’ve already asked.”
“Are you … truly alright?” Is Rone asking for forgiveness? Does he want reassurance that his meetings with Ruena in the plant room aren’t ruining his connection with Erana, if there even is one? Is he really that greedy, to want both women to like him, no matter which one whose sex he samples daily?
“I am thinking about my mother Desura,” she says simply. “I worry about her … and I worry about what my being chosen by the Legacist three Legacy Tours ago has done to her.”