by Daryl Banner
Is this the end?
And then the lightning strikes somewhere deep in the slums. It strikes once, twice, three times—and once, twice, three times a crack of sound ripples across Atlas, the echoes reaching their ears.
Then the red glow rushes out of the sky in an instant, the dim late-evening blue returning to the world.
Slowly, the chatter returns as if nothing happened at all. A man laughs somewhere. A woman cackles amidst the reviving banter and partying, and in a matter of seconds, the street has picked up their celebrations without any seeming memory of the interruption.
Athan and Wick are still staring into the distant sky, the two silent souls on a street full of cheer.
Wick wonders how many lives were just taken at the other end of that red bolt of fire. He wonders whose house was leveled, whose family business was set ablaze, whose night was just cracked in half by the Mad King.
“We can be happy,” says Athan suddenly, though he sounds like he’s trying to convince himself of his own words. “We have a house. We have friends. We have food. And we are away from the … the …”
The Madness. The death. The looting. The Wall Breakers. The dark will of the hungry and the scared and the desperate. The Abandon.
Wick turns his boy’s face with a finger to his chin, and puts a kiss on his lips, gentler than before, soft as Lifted City silk.
Athan smiles when they pull apart, but the smile doesn’t touch his eyes. He’s afraid, Wick realizes. “You’re safe, Athan.” Wick runs a hand through his boy’s hair, feeling the soft, short strands of yellow gold flitting through his fingers. “We have a house. We have friends. We have food. Just like you said. This is our home and we’re going to live here. You said it yourself, didn’t you? Someone’s going to put a sword through Imp’s belly.”
“Imp,” echoes Athan, the ghostly smile still pulled across his face, his eyes glassy with thoughts.
“And when a lucky lady or lad does that, the Madness will end. The Queen will take the throne,” Wick assures him. “Say it after me, alright? The Queen—”
“—will take the throne,” says Athan. He lifts his chin, mustering confidence somehow from shaky nerves and uncertainty. “It will be Queen Ruena. She’ll take the throne and restore peace to Atlas.”
Wick nods. “Peace,” he agrees, wondering what that may entail.
After that, Athan and Wick resume strolling down the street, having forgotten the impassioned sexual heat that had built between their bodies a moment ago. The two seem to be lost in their own thoughts, the partying and the laughter and the craziness around them ignored utterly, fading into a background of white noise.
The two end up back at Wick’s house, the peace within its dark rooms being a welcomed one. Wick pokes through the cabinets for something to eat while Athan sits at one of the mismatched stools, idly playing with a spoon that had been left on the counter.
“Tide tried to kill me.”
Athan lifts his face from the spoon. “What? … Tide?”
“Yep. And Yellow took all his memory of us since the moment he joined Rain.” Wick shakes his head as he pulls a container of nuts and grains from the cabinet, only to discover that it’s nearly empty. He gives a shrug and sets it on the counter anyway, opening the lid to snack directly from it instead of getting a bowl. “Can you believe that? He still thought my ability was being able to smell really well. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
“I saw him in the Abandon.”
Wick snaps his eyes to Athan, surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Athan’s gaze drops to the container where Wick’s hand has frozen inside it at his piece of news. “I was completely thrown by the whole Juston thing that I forgot to say anything. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, baby.” Wick reaches across the counter and takes Athan’s hand, the near-empty container of nuts forgotten. “Did he try to hurt you? Did he even recognize you?”
“Neither. He had no idea who I was, but the second I mentioned you—that I was looking for you—he got angry.” Athan lifts his eyes to Wick’s. “Something’s wrong with him.”
“He’s gotten all tangled up with a band of rats,” spits Wick, his insides recoiling at the thought of Tide speaking foully to Athan in any way at all. “He’s such a big dumb idiot, that Tide. He is totally lost, clearly, and he’s fucking aimless.” Wick sighs, his experience at the warehouse suddenly revived and pulled to the front of his mind as he lets go of Athan’s hand and leans against the counter, slouched. “Maybe it’s his wind that makes him … how he is. I felt so powerful with his Legacy in my grasp. With that much power in you, it has to do something to your psyche. You start thinking you’re invincible. As a kid, you learn to get what you want with your power. It has to corrupt your mind over time, doesn’t it?”
Athan tilts his head. “I’d like to think it depends on the person. Put power in the right hands and they will use it for good purposes. I don’t think all power is evil.” He glances out the back window where one of Lionis’s trees in the backyard reaches the glass with a single branch, scratching its greetings with every sway of the late-evening breeze. “Ruena has formidable power. Ruena isn’t evil.”
“But we haven’t seen her sit a throne yet,” points out Wick.
Athan folds his arms on the counter, pushing the spoon that he was playing with away. “Maybe I’m naïve to think this way, but I believe all wayward souls can redeem themselves. I believe we are all good people and …” His face tightens suddenly, like a dark thought just struck his brain from the side, startling him. “And some of us make bad choices.”
Seeing the worried look in Athan’s eye, Wick circles the counter and brings himself up behind Athan, wrapping his arms around him. “You and I will make good choices,” Wick murmurs into his ear.
“We will.”
“It’s my choice to live in this house with you for as long as we’re able to.”
Athan hums his approval. “I like that choice.”
“It’s my choice to not put either of our lives in danger,” Wick also decides. “We’ve been on the go for so damn long, I don’t know if we even know how to properly enjoy our time together.”
Athan chuckles dryly, leaning back against Wick and hugging his arms against his body. “I imagine it has something to do with touching each other at all times.”
Wick grunts his agreement against Athan’s ear, causing Athan to moan softly. “Whether in a hug …”
“Or by our lips …”
“Or holding my hand …”
“Or slipping between the sheets of a bed …”
“My bed doesn’t have sheets,” Wick points out.
Athan sighs mockingly. “A shame. I guess we’ll have to make do without our sheets or our clothes.”
“Clothes?” mumbles Wick, confused.
Athan sorts that confusion out with a quick turn of his stool and a tug on Wick’s red hoodie and loose jeans. Wick responds by giving a similar yank on Athan’s too-tight shirt and pants, and before either of them make it halfway up the narrow stair, the boys are naked. Wick’s door shuts as clumsily and loudly as it’s opened, and on that mattress in the cramped makeshift room that overlooks the roof of Wick’s porch and a street full of oblivious, drunken, happy idiots, the boys enjoy an hour or two of sweaty wrestling, unhindered groping, and otherwise shameless behavior.
0189 Ruena
“Erana?” she calls out.
Erana emerges from the indoor garden carrying a small potted plant, which looks dead as plants can be. “Yes?” she breathes.
Ruena paces slowly about the den, her arms folded. “You know Impis’s Posse, yes? You’ve seen them at the Windstone Academy.”
“I know most of their names and Legacies.”
“Most?”
“Some of his Posse he’s acquired from his most recent Legacy Tour, those of whom I have not met,” Erana points out. “Others he’s never brought back to the Academy. Some are at Cloud Keep and no one’
s met them.”
“How many have you met?”
“Thirteen of the Twenty-Two.”
Ruena stops pacing to smirk from the other side of the room. “That’s barely more than half. How is that most?”
“Anything more than fifty percent is most,” recites Erana.
It’ll have to do. “Tell me about them. Each one you know, and their Legacy. Only the important things.”
Erana seems to stare through the dead plant in her hold as she pulls the requested information from her mind. “Umi, a large woman with curly hair who can summon hundreds of tiny balls of light that, when looked at upclose, are actually people, each an inch tall. She calls them her will o’ the wisps. Then there’s Nightly, a girl with luminescent hair and nails, which is her Legacy. Kellen is a gaunt pale man with long white hair—much like yours—coming down to his thigh. He can produce blades when he lifts his arms up high. The blades seem to fall out of his elbows, and he catches them to engage in two-handed swordplay. The swords disintegrate in a matter of minutes, so he must produce them over and over. Wire-Fire, a girl of fourteen years, she has eyes that turn red—even the whites of them—and whomever she focuses upon starts to experience a bad headache that sometimes causes them to bleed from the ears and nose. If she uses her power too much, she too bleeds from her ears and nose. Then there’s Aegis who becomes a human shield by lifting his forearms, which flatten out somehow. He’s about twenty years old, blond, looks like a Son of Sanctum even though he’s only lived here for one year. Nermia can blind people when she claps feverishly at them—some tease her and call her the city’s worst audience, naming her Legacy as ‘the applause’. She cannot sustain her ability however as the affected slowly regain their sight, and some don’t go completely blind. She is also only able to focus on one person at a time, though she has trained for a while to expand her powers. Lyth is nineteen years old, thinnest woman I’ve ever seen, celebrated her birthday the day she was picked from her Legacy Exam. She sings and then people’s muscles begin to atrophy. While she never inflicts complete paralysis, her Legacy certainly hinders anyone trying to run at her—or run from her. Ogre—that’s a nickname, not his real one—has a Legacy that the others describe as, and I quote, ‘crazy strength’, which is ironic since he’s quite petite and unassuming, only thirteen years of age. Baigan is enormous and has an ugly face and reddened skin, but I do not know his Legacy, nor do I know that of his friend Splinters—the two never leave one another’s side. Zyeni is a girl who has no hair and no eyebrows, and when she screams, no one hears it except the one person she focuses on—and that person hears a thousand screams within their skull. They call her the Psychic Screamer. And finally, the mentalist sisters Arcana and Axel, who can read minds and who can plant ideas into the mind, respectively. They are twins, dark of complexion, long of hair, and alike in every way except for a tiny scar above Axel’s right eyebrow that sets them apart.”
Ruena blinks. She feels like the ceiling just fell in on her and squished her to the floor. “Um …”
“You asked for it,” Erana points out.
Yes, I most certainly did. Ruena resumes pacing contemplatively. “Thank you, Erana. It’s crucial that we know who we’re up against. Would you be able to identify any of them if, say, we happened upon one on the Lifted City roads?” She paces around the couch, slowly strolling past the large window from which the morning sun pours in, thinking of her plan. “Well? Would you?” she asks again.
Erana does not reply.
Ruena stops and looks up at her. “Erana?”
“I … I thought we were waiting for him to return. Rone.”
“Yes, but … Come here. We need to talk, you and I. Woman to woman.” Ruena takes a seat at one end of the large, cushy couch, sinking into it. She pats the spot next to her. “Come, I said.”
Erana comes, still carrying the plant. She sits next to Ruena as instructed, the sad potted dead thing in her lap. Through her thick glasses, Erana sullenly meets Ruena’s eyes.
“This morning, I happened to remember a specific conversation I had with my grandfather regarding a place called Facility.”
“I must be rubbing off on you,” jokes Erana with no humor in her flat voice whatsoever.
Ruena smiles, appreciating the humor anyway, then takes the end of Erana’s dark braid, playing with it thoughtfully. “I had made nothing of it at the time, but he was insistent that he and I were the only ones who knew of its existence. However, Janlord was just outside the room.” She presses her lips together. “I am getting an unsettled feeling that … perhaps … Janlord did, in fact, know of this Facility, and his death interrupted a plan he had set in motion. A plan that may or may not have involved Rone’s sister.”
“Because Cintha was on the Peacemaker’s list?” Erana whispers the question, putting it together plainly.
“The Peacemaker only kept a list of those he deemed key in maintaining the peace of Atlas. He told me so himself. But Cintha does not seem to fit such a list. I suspect he had a secret list in your database, a list he put Cintha on—for a reason that I can only guess at.” Ruena tries to put herself in a room with Janlord. She tries to hear his voice from the other side, positing what it is that the wise Peacemaker may have been planning with Cintha and whomever else was on that list. Why didn’t he tell me?
“But you think the reason is Facility? You think Janlord heard you and the King discuss about its existence?”
Ruena nods. “See, because I happen to know that certain people Guardian arrest—who are not sentenced to the Keep or otherwise—may be retained by the King and sent to Facility. Cintha must have been one of those people, though I was not aware of it. Maybe my grandfather sent her. I cannot say. And if Janlord noticed that she vanished after her arrest—neither being brought before the King nor sent home—then he might have speculated that Cintha was sent to Facility, and thus put her on a secret list for his own records. Perhaps Janlord was trying to figure out what, exactly, Facility was.”
“What is Facility?”
Ruena does not hesitate in answering this question. Really, what importance does the task of keeping the whole thing a secret carry anymore? Sanctum is split wide open, and all its secrets are on the table now. “It’s a place my mother June established where Legacies are studied to learn what, precisely, they are. Can one be altered? Can it be transferred? Can a Legacy be … eliminated?”
Erana’s eyes grow wide. “Oh, to be without the memory. What a peace that’d be.”
“Of course, my grandfather had ulterior motives for its research. He believed that what we learned there could help us hunt Outliers in the city. He was terrified of them, Erana. He believed an Outlier would destroy all of Atlas somehow. He believed Outliers were the most dangerous of things in this whole silly world.”
“It’s just a word, really.”
“Tell that to the ghost of my grandfather.” Ruena chuckles dryly and lets go of Erana’s braid, placing an arm along the back of the couch as she glances out the large window. “If Rone passes through every wall in this city, I think it’s likely he’ll happen on Facility. And if my suspicions are right …”
“Then he’s found his sister by now,” Erana finishes.
Ruena nods. “Of course, if I’m wrong …”
“Then he’s been caught by one of the Posse and we will need to save him.” That last sentence she utters scares her suddenly, her eyes wide as she averts them, staring at her sad plant in terror. “I don’t want to leave this house.”
“We may have to.”
“No, we do not.” Erana stands suddenly, gripping the pot so tightly, she might crush it. “Rone will come back. Rone said he would. If he really did find his sister, like you said, then he’ll bring her right back here and then together we’ll fight to make our peace less temporary. Those were his words. I remember them without seeing the note, Ruena. I remember them.”
“I do too,” she responds, but Erana is already heading back to the garden with her p
lant, ignoring whatever else Ruena might say.
Ruena sighs and leans forward, staring down at her hands. The weight of her fallen Queenship has never felt heavier upon her thin shoulders, and she finds herself inescapably drawn to the last thing her grandfather said to her. Her mind descends into the dark place of that day when she sat in the King’s bedchambers and he gave her the gift of knowledge—the King’s secret that has passed from hand to hand to hand … a secret that, she fears, she is the only one to know.
‘The girl,’ her grandfather had said. ‘I failed to find the girl …’
Ruena sighs, falling back onto the couch as her mind spins and spins with some of the final words of her grandfather. ‘They are real,’ he’d told her, his words swimming. ‘They are real, all three of them. I have not found the girl and so … so I die …’
She shakes her head, trying not to hear his voice, trying not to listen to the words. It’s nonsense, she says to him, to the King’s ghost. It’s utter nonsense. Everything you told me. It’s a fantasy, the gift of knowledge, what you said to me. A fantasy of a King who longed to be just like the Immortal King, the Twice King … who is long since dead. You believed in a fantasy, grandfather. To live forever. To heal yourself of your own broken throat. To chase after a mythical girl …
Oh, grandfather … You were a fool to believe in fantasies, and so am I. She glances back at the fallen ceiling that is now a wall that keeps the two of them confined in this little piece of heaven they’ve made for themselves. Oh, but how it’s starting to feel like a little piece of hell, Ruena thinks bitterly.
0190 Tide
Dog sits in the chair by the window, working an instrument that needs no electricity and turns thread into clothes. Tide watches him with mild interest, still stretched out on the soft couch with a bowl on the floor next to him and a clay cup of water in his palm, resting on his stomach. His other arm is folded behind his head, his feet kicked up on the other end of the couch.