by Daryl Banner
“If you come with me …” Ruena starts.
“I’m coming.” Erana faces her and sighs. “I don’t want to go. But I know you will protect me. And I will guide you. We are stronger together, yes, I know this.”
Ruena experiences an inner sigh of relief, grateful Erana sees the truth in it. “Of course you do.”
“Also you have left me no choice.” Erana pokes a finger into the bridge of her glasses. “Is it safe now?”
“Safe is a relative term to use.” Ruena extends her hand. “Come.”
Erana crosses the room and takes Ruena’s hand. Her hair still crackles as the bits of static discharge and release, the long white strands slowly dropping a few at a time. The young women cross over the rubble without very much difficulty, but also without very much grace, the effort somewhat awkward as they climb overtop a chunk of Sky Rail debris or two, which had helped keep them safely inside. The sun pours over them as they soon reach the short summit of the pile, and a view of the Lifted City greets their eyes.
“What’s your plan?” asks Erana as they scope from the top of the rubble.
“To Cloud Keep,” she instructs.
“That’s a horrible plan.”
“It’s the only way to Facility. It is not my wish to bring harm to anyone, but anyone who works for Impis is a part of the Madness, and …” Ruena sighs, not liking the tone of her own words.
“And deaths may occur,” Erana finishes for her. “Perhaps you have the option to simply incapacitate them with your power?”
“It is not so simple. It is unpredictable. It is dangerous. You must stay behind me at all times. Keep hold of my hand so that you retain a grounding from the electricity … and do not let go.”
“I won’t.”
Ruena faces forward. “There is a secret way into the Keep that only Kings and Queens learn of. My grandfather shared it with me, since I was his only blood and he knew I was soon to take the throne. It is a secret way that Impis himself will not know.”
“Where is it?”
“Through the Glassen Garden. Come.”
Soon, the half-fallen house that was their safe haven is at the girls’ backs, and only empty, quiet roads lie ahead. Ruena and Erana strive to be the same: quiet as the shadows cast by the afternoon sun. They never let go of one another’s hands.
They stop at the first distinctive sound of footsteps—footsteps other than their own. The chrome column of a candy parlor’s glass awning finds their backs as they hide, hands still clasped, and listen for the feet. It’s incredibly unsettling to hear someone walking by and not knowing who they are or where they’re headed—a someone who could most certainly mean their end.
“The moment you see who it is …” whispers Ruena.
“I know,” whispers Erana back.
The footsteps fade off, and soon there is silence. Ruena peeks around the column, a stray breeze catching her hair, and then she makes her way farther down the street, Erana tugged behind her.
The two make it down two more streets lined with tall, slender trees that have no branches until two-thirds of the way up, the leaves bright and green and glimmering in the sun. It’s near the last set of trees on the street that they hear voices. The girls stay behind a wall while they listen, waiting for the voices to go away.
Instead, the voices grow closer. Ruena holds her free hand steady, ready to gather a charge and cast it at whoever comes around the corner. The anticipation tightens Ruena’s chest. She feels the crackle of power in her free hand.
A pair of faces emerge. One of a young teenage girl. One of a woman with glowing hair and nails. They seem as surprised to see Ruena as she is to see them.
Ruena experiences a brief moment of not knowing whether the women before her are friends or foes. The only emotion that seems to transfer between them is curiosity.
The young teenager squints and makes fists from her fingers.
“Queen!” someone cries out—who Ruena can’t identify because she’s doubled over with a searing pain in her temples.
Unable even to open her eyes from the crippling headache, Ruena aims her free hand and blindly discharges a bolt of energy from her palm, not seeing where it lands.
The pain subsides. Either she struck, or the attacker’s focus has been broken. Ruena takes the chance to open her eyes.
The two women have scattered, the one with glowing hair and nails seeming to be running away while the teen girl takes cover behind a lamppost across the street.
“Which one made my skull feel like it was caving in??”
“The girl,” answers Erana. “But she’s out of range now.”
“If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll stay out of—”
She doesn’t. The girl darts out from behind the lamppost with speed that could combat Ruena’s lightning, heading for the shelter of a waist-high wall that protrudes from Maline’s Marvels across the street. Ruena, still gripping Erana’s hand, steps forward with her free palm outstretched, drawing an electrical charge.
Just as she prepares to release it, two others appear around the corner. One is a huge red man with muscles that are so big, he looks like he stuffed the meat of three other men into his arms and legs. The other is a tall, gawky fool with olive skin who seems to be competing with Impis in terms of wearing odd, mismatched clothing.
Ruena holds her extended palm toward them now, uncertain, then brings her palm back to face the girl. Which is more of a threat? Migraines or red meat or bad taste in clothing?
Bad taste in clothing, it turns out. He lifts his fingers before his face, and they seem to grow five times in size, which is as alarming as it is unsettling. Then his fingers grow points and he aims them at Ruena and shouts, “My splinters will discharge as quickly as your lightning will. Put down your hand and I’ll put down mine!”
Ruena glances at him, annoyed at the pincer she suddenly finds herself in. Light is always quicker, but do I want to take the three lives of people who could potentially be influenced by the Madness and who are not of their true sound minds?
“Drop your hand, Fell Queen!” shouts the man once again.
Necessary risks, decides Ruena, releasing her electricity onto the man. He makes one small effort to deflect the attack with his hand, but the full force of the current seems to connect with the tip of all his fingers at once, and for a brief second, one would not be able to tell whether it is Ruena discharging the power or him.
The man flies back, slamming into the red beast behind him, and then his fingers seem to fly off like arrows—five sharp darts launched in five random directions. One of them rips through the air as quick as lightning and finds itself an unfortunate and ironic place to rest: through the teenage girl’s head, giving her a certain and final headache. It is like a sick slummer’s jape, the fate the girl endures as she draws one last quick breath, rolls her eyes back, then drops to the chrome street like a stone.
The red beast of a man charges forward. Ruena lifts one hand to summon a bolt of deadly power as she tugs Erana with her other, pulling Erana protectively behind her. The red beast makes a swipe at Ruena’s hand, but Ruena parries and slams her palm into him, thrusting all the electricity she can manage into the bizarrely big and muscled man.
It is not the shrieking growl of the man in front of Ruena that alarms her, but rather the anguished scream at her back.
She turns, too late in realizing her error. Ruena lets go of Erana’s hand at once, horrified as Erana falls backward and clasps her own hands together, screaming in agony. A sick hissing, crackling sound issues from Erana’s now-charred hand as she screams and screams.
The red beast, proving an unfortunate match to the electricity, grabs Ruena’s slender neck and lifts her right off the ground like a chicken. Ruena kicks once, twice, and then casts her electricity into the big red juggernaut by gripping his massive forearm and pushing all the current she can muster. Taking every watt and spark and fiery surge of Ruena’s Legacy, the red man howls and grunts and spu
tters as he endures the pain, but his grip on her neck does not relent.
Or perhaps his grip is strengthened by her Legacy. Ruena will never know as her consciousness, second by second, is slowly stolen from her. She gasps for a breath that never comes, then feels the world slip away as she fights the darkness that sits upon her closing eyelids. She kicks, kicks, then goes limp.
0196 Wick
It’s the moment just before Wick realizes he’s dreaming that he stands before Impis Lockfyre, who lifts a sword to Wick’s neck, and in his airy, sing-song voice, the King asks, “Any last words, Anwick Lesser of the ninth?”
To that, Dream-Wick lifts his chin, reaches for Impis’s Madness, and declares, “Yeah. You’re going to die laughing, you fucker.”
Then the Mad King laughs, and Impis’s blade becomes Wick’s somehow. He begins to duel Impis before the whole world. Every single broadcast in all of Atlas displays the final battle between slum and sky, between the Madness and the Mighty, between wind and Rain, between the wild fire of the candle and the wick—the Wick.
Dream-Wick makes a slice at Impis’s hair, and three of his dumb ponytails drop to the floor. The crowd—wherever they are—erupt into laughter. Impis looks furious, and to that, Wick says, “What is the matter? Don’t like your haircut? Let me give you another!” And he goes for Impis’s hair once again, but cuts a silken scarf at Impis’s neck instead, causing it to float to the floor. “Ah! A change to your wardrobe is what you want!” taunts Wick. “Why didn’t you say so?”
In this beautiful moment, it is not Impis Lockfyre laughing, but the world. They laugh at him for once. Wick holds the sword over the wicked Mad King, ready for the final strike, ready to end him, ready to free the world from his cruel, chaotic dominion.
And then he sees a pinch of hurt in Impis’s eyes. The world has always laughed at him, Wick realizes just now. It was always them laughing at Impis, thinking him a joke, thinking him a fool. He’s been, his whole life, ridiculed and mocked …
The point of Wick’s sword touches Impis’s nose, and Impis does not flinch, as if accepting his defeat. His eyes are sad and, for once, they are human. No insanity touches them. Even the white powder from his face seems to fall off, flaking away like snow melting off the bark of a tree.
We did this to him, Wick realizes. We created Impis Lockfyre.
We are the Madness.
Wick’s eyes flap open, the dream disintegrated to nothing but scattered thoughts and colors in the next instant.
He props himself up on his elbows and finds Athan at his side, snoring. Wick scrunches up his face, confused as he watches his Lifted boy snore demonstratively, curled up with his eyes closed as his every exhale turns into a whistle of air sputtering out of his lips. Am I still dreaming? Wick wonders, staring at him incredulously.
And then the snoring stops at once and Athan peeks an eye open, grinning.
“Really?” blurts Wick. “Mocking me? Mocking your boyfriend?”
Athan giggles and tackles him back to the floor, then plants a kiss on his nose. “Good morning, boyfriend.”
Wick chuckles, kissing Athan back. “But really, do I sound like that?”
“Sometimes.” Athan lets out another giggle, resting his chin on Wick’s chest as he speaks. “You called me your boyfriend.”
“I did. Isn’t that what you are?”
“I’m whatever you want me to be.”
That particular wording gives Wick a wicked idea or two. “Put your face in mine and I’ll show you exactly what I want you to be.”
An aggressive shove, a rolling-over, and a laugh erupt between the boys before they settle against one another, Wick on top and Athan’s muscular body beneath him, and the boys make an assault on one another’s mouths. Wick tastes fruit on Athan’s lips, which deepens when Athan’s tongue joins the ardor of the moment.
“Up, up, up,” gasps Athan between their feverish kisses.
The boys are too heated to contain their pants any longer, and so Wick’s suddenly finds his thighs while Athan’s slips off entirely. A firm wiggling of Wick’s body upward and Athan’s downward ends with Athan’s lips latching onto the prize below. Wick discovers a new depth to his moan as Athan’s mouth works the whole length of Wick’s cock. In only a matter of seconds, Wick is ready to blow.
But he doesn’t. With a grunt, he flips his Lifted boy’s body over. Wick kicks Athan’s legs apart and hooks his hands under his boy’s armpits, latching onto him as the tip of his cock slips between the firm cheeks of Athan’s ass, finding the entrance and slipping in with little resistance.
Athan moans loudly, his eyes rocking back and his lips parting as Wick pumps away. Even with all the partying that never seems to end in the street outside the window, no one knows a joy deeper than what the two boys feel right now.
Wick feels himself slip past the point of no return, his insides coming alive like lightning as he shivers, groans, and spills himself. Aftershocks crackle down his skin and end in a fit of joyous laughter that breaks from his mouth, turning him half into a Mad King for this precious moment of unabashed delight.
Without giving himself a second’s rest, he flips Athan back over to find Athan grinning dreamily up at him. “You’re next,” Wick says to him, then grips his boy’s meat firmly and goes to work, first with his hand, then with his mouth, then finishing with his hand. Athan reaches the edge the moment Wick plants a deep kiss on his mouth, then hovers over his face to whisper, “Come for me … boyfriend.”
And he does.
The boys clean up in the shower together, despite the water being far from warm. The heat of their own bodies is warming enough as they take turns under the wimpy spray of water, trading a bar of soap between them. Drying off, the boys kiss naked in front of the bathroom window without a care for who might be seeing them from the street in the broad daylight.
Athan pulls on his too-tight shirt, jeans that hug his ass in every right way, and a pair of white shoes that belonged to either Halves or Aleks, but they fit his feet perfectly. Wick slips on his red sleeveless hoodie—freshly and mercifully washed last night—and a pair of loose jeans, complemented by his shoes with the red stripe up the side.
The boys hop down the narrow stair and find Lionis cooking up some breakfast. Wick’s brother, as usual, looks annoyed.
“Something crawl up your butt?” asks Wick lightly, hopping onto the stool at the counter by Athan.
Lionis ignores the jab. “Arrow, Prat, and the girl already ate. I believe they’re visiting the wives down the street.”
“Do you know anything about that girl?” asks Wick suddenly, watching as Lionis holds a bowl of water, warming it in his palms.
“Other than Arrow recovered her from a strike of Madness in a rich suburb of the sixth. No idea past that. No idea what the hell he was doing in that part of the sixth, either. I feel like there’s more to the story than we know. He’s like to have formed a crush on her one day when he was planting charms, maybe got a bit of wood in his pants, then upon visiting her, ended up rescuing her.”
“Romantic,” murmurs Athan dreamily.
“Psychotic, more like,” blurts Lionis.
Wick smirks. “You know, Lionis, if you spread all your fingers apart, you’ll gather more heat.”
To that, Lionis snorts. “I’ve had my Legacy my whole life. Don’t presume to tell me how to use it better.”
“But you can. I’ve tried it. Let me show you.”
“Let the cook cook,” says Lionis, annoyed.
Wick slips off his stool and rounds the counter, grabbing a bowl from the cabinet. He fills it with water from the sink, then brings it next to Lionis, holding it up by its bottom just as Lionis is, but with his fingers spread. Wick draws from Lionis’s Legacy, feeling the warmth gather in his palms. Instantly, he feels sweat between the glass and his skin. Somehow, the heat surging into the glass and the water doesn’t burn his hands, though it is mildly uncomfortable. He focuses, feeling the muscles in his hands tighten.
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The water in Wick’s bowl begins to stir by the subtle evidence of bubbles rising, while Lionis’s water remains asleep. In a matter of one minute, Wick’s water is bubbling.
Lionis doesn’t seem sure whether he wants to express fury, outrage, or jaw-dropped admiration. Finally, he just sets his own bowl down and grabs the one from Wick’s clutch, then finds it too hot, a yelp coming out of his mouth as he quickly sets it down onto the counter. Lionis glares at Wick incredulously, perhaps both angry and embarrassed that Wick was able to get the bowl so hot that it is too hot for Lionis to hold.
“Incredible,” murmurs Athan.
That word does nothing to ease the ire on Lionis’s face. “Always needing to show off,” the brother mumbles under his breath, then grabs the bowl at the sides instead of the bottom, taking it to the stove where his chopped-up vegetables are gathered and waiting. Wick leaves him alone to cook, reclaiming his seat next to Athan and giving him a little kiss. When the salted root-and-onion stew is ready, Wick and Athan shoot playful glances and smiles at one another as they eat. There’s a tiny bit left in the bowl after Wick and Athan get their servings, so Lionis helps himself to the rest, eating in silence across from them.
“I want to show you something,” Lionis says as he takes their emptied bowls.
Wick lifts an eyebrow. “What?”
The bowls find a quick rinsing under the faucet, and then Lionis leaves them overturned on a towel to dry. “Come with me. Let’s take a little trip down the road.”
Without any further explanation, the boys follow Lionis as they depart the quiet house and start down the broken road. Everything is a lot quieter during the daylight hours, likely because half the people on this street are nursing headaches from the drinking and partying of the night before. The daylight is so bright that the long arm of the Lifted City above looks black in contrast, like a thin section of sky has been ripped away, revealing the night and the stars beyond. It looms over them like a cliff, but even its presence doesn’t seem to bother Wick, not anymore. That’s not my war, he tells himself for the hundredth time since he returned home, no matter how many times I dream of being the one to put a blade in Imp’s belly.