Venus City 1

by Tabitha Vale

  Asher, in his case, had only begun to have enough energy to pull himself into a sitting position. He was swearing loudly at Channing—and himself for letting the jewelry box out of their reach so easily—but Channing acted as if he couldn't hear him.

  Braya was watching Ophelia in horror as she lay across the shiny floor in an eerie state of stillness.

  “What did you do to her?” Braya hollered, struggled against the man's grip on her scalp. Despite her misgivings against Ophelia, Braya felt a hitch in her chest at the possibility that she'd just been killed. Braya had only just discovered she was her mother, and now she, too, was taken away from her? The tragedy of it shook Braya with a stinging injustice.

  “No need to worry about her,” Channing uttered. Up close to him, she could see through his white collared shirt. The first few buttons were undone and she could glimpse a bit of the skin behind the shirt. It was horribly disfigured—large welts of an angry purple color adorned his chest. The odd thing about them was that they were patterned, organized. As if they were there intentionally. The tops of his fingers had the same gnarled bumps. “You two,” he motioned to the officiant and Page. “Come.”

  Like children being chased by a ghost, the two of them hurried to Channing's side, the expressions on their faces telling Braya all she had to know. They were going to force her to marry Page.

  “I was going to use your precious mother,” Channing admitted, tightening his grip on her hair, “But you've proved more useful. I'm ever so glad that I thought of using you to implant all those boosters over the city. I led you into it, too. Don't discredit me by thinking any of this is a coincidence. It gave me the perfect chance to watch over you and make sure that you stayed alive until I needed you dead.”

  “What do you mean?” She hoped to stall for time. If Asher could regain enough strength to...

  That's the funny thing. I don't even know. Someone mailed the tickets to me.

  The memory had come out of nowhere, and admittedly wasn’t the most helpful thing for her current situation, but decided it might buy her some time if anything.

  “You—you were the one who sent Brielle the Moon Tamer tickets!” Braya realized in horror.

  “I'm surprised you realized that,” Channing said, looking at her with a strange expression. Braya was surprised, too. “Anyway, yes. I had the twins lure you, I made sure one of the Locers was connected to you with the master-slave link—though what a grave mistake it turned out to be letting Asher take that job—and, well, you know the rest.”

  “You know your twisted plan won't work!” Braya exclaimed, at a loss. “Leraphone and my brother are still alive!”

  “You Venusians think you know everything,” he shook his head. “I don't need all your family members dead for this spell to work,” Channing said, his voice steel. “It just helps that there are less alive to share that loyalty with. If all members of the family are dead, the Sare would be mine wholly. But if any remain, I will have to share that power with them. I am...adding myself into the family, as it is.”

  “Then why do I have to marry Page?” She grimaced in pain. He had a nightmare of a grip.

  “An additional safeguard to the spell. Unnecessary, but helpful to have my family connected to yours in any means possible,” Channing said.

  Asher was standing now, advancing.

  “Mister Benedict,” Channing said, turning to engulf Asher in his heated stare. “Do exercise caution in your hurry to rescue your dear love. I have something you might like to hear.”

  A scorching pain assailed Braya. It was like her skull was on fire, and the harder Channing dug his fingers into her head, the more it hurt. She wailed in pain, throwing herself to the ground.

  It abated, and Braya was felt to quiver on the ground. Channing's hand lifted, and Braya took in deep, shuttering breaths. Asher had halted, staring on in rabid horror.

  “Marry them,” Channing ordered the officiant. “Quickly.”

  Then he turned back to Asher. “If you take one more step closer, I will hurt her again.”

  Asher looked uncertain. The officiant appeared next to Channing, and Page crouched down to help Braya into a sitting position. She felt weak and fragile, and hated that she had to be so close to Channing.

  “Do you, Page Arlington, take Braya Vace to be your wife?” The officiant squeaked. He was scared to death, Braya realized, prompting the shortened version.

  Page cast her a secretive look of apology. “I do.”

  She glared at him.

  “Do you, Braya Vace, take Page Arlington to be your husband?”

  “I do NOT.”

  Channing's hands were threading through her hair again—yes, both of them this time—and cupped the back of her skull. The pain consumed her once more and she screamed in agony, unable to hold herself up as the spikes of fire plunged through her body at every interval.

  “Force her to marry Page,” Channing was yelling at Asher. “FORCE HER AND I WILL STOP!”

  “No,” Braya managed to choke out. Tears were streaming down her face, streaming like scalding water. She would give anything to be able to pass out. She doubted she would have the strength to disobey any order Asher issued, and silently willed him not to do it. A few more doses of whatever Channing was doing to her and she would be gone.

  “Braya,” Asher said, his voice shaking. “Marry...marry Page.”

  Braya gasped as the pain vanished. She felt like her innards had been melting into mush, and then the sudden extraction of Channing's power brought them back to their solid forms. Suddenly. Painfully.

  And then she was moaning in exertion as a different form of control fell over her like a sheet of ice.

  She doubled over as the words fought to spill from her mouth. They were coming, like a flood, she couldn't stop them. She couldn't do it. She wanted to cry. She couldn't do it. “I do,” she burst out with a great release of air. Braya collapsed onto the ground, shaking with tears.

  “Excellent,” Channing said, stroking her moist cheek. He reached for the jewelry box. “Now to get on with this.”

  “Bastard,” Asher snarled. He seemed to have realized that Channing had no more leverage over him. “Braya, get away from him!”

  Compelled by his command, Braya half-crawled, half dragged herself as far away from Channing as possible. Page remained where they had just been wed, already up on his feet, staring down at the space where she had been lying. He was caught in some sort of trance it seemed. And he was awfully close to the ledge, his fingers trailing over the rail absently.

  Asher had tackled Channing, who had been kneeling on the ground next to Braya. They tumbled backward in a twist of limbs and growls. Channing was struggling to reach for his Moon Tamer batons, which were barely out of his grasp, while dodging swift punches from Asher at the same time.

  Braya struggled to her feet. Her knees were wobbly and her stomach was heaving like an angry sea. Nausea rose up to her stomach. She clung to the rail, and looked up to see how Asher was doing against Channing, but something else caught her gaze.

  At the top of the stairs, just arriving, were the Locers. They were taking in the scene, and for a moment Braya didn't know how to interpret this new addition. Before, they'd been forced allies. Braya had been working for them, and by her being useful to them, she'd been protected. In the past, the sight of them had been nothing to celebrate, but certainly nothing to fear. But now, as Asher, a betrayer to the Locers, fought against Channing, their leader, Braya began to realize how extremely bad their situation was.

  Ness stepped forward, his milky, sea-foam gaze lingering on her for a moment, before he motioned the twins forward and they wrestled Asher off of Channing. But Asher was so twisted up, so wrought with a frenetic energy that he disentangled himself from the three of them with hardly any effort. He was incredibly strong—stronger than she'd ever seen him before—and that smoldering aggression deep in his gold and blue eyes was enough to send shivers down Braya's neck. Asher's neck—that's when
it hit her. The lavender-hued health boosters staining his chest and neck—they were aglow with ethereal light. Maybe eleven had been too many? Braya didn't know what an overdose of health boosters did, but for Asher, it seemed to be helping.

  The Locers quickly noticed Asher's enhanced strength, and rushed forward to subdue him. Asher couldn't be subdued, though. If it was possible, Braya could imagine lightning crackling from his fingertips and rays blasting from his eyes.

  He swept up the batons that Channing had abandoned and used them to fend off all of the Locers, all eight of them, all the while yelling and cursing at them. Being unarmed, the Locers had to depend on their locer mimics to defend themselves, but unfortunately for them, Asher had the same mimic and could outmaneuver them with his freakishly increasing ability.

  Channing had disregarded the battling sharks and was opening his jewelry box. From it he was extracting a cluster of glittering yellow slivers of light.

  “Braya!” Asher shouted from the other side of the landing. “Stop Channing! STOP HIM!”

  Braya's body reacted immediately to his command. She had the three rings that she'd looped onto the front of her dress before leaving the Brides and Grooms to defend the manor balanced in her hand, and then she was flinging them in Channing's direction. The first one exploded at his feet, causing him to leap back. He careened near Page, and muttered something to his son, but Braya couldn't hear it. She threw the second one, but it arched high and wide, sailing behind them and getting lost over the rail. Braya grumbled to herself in frustration. Why couldn't Asher's commands come with accuracy?

  Channing was already moving away from Page, darting to the right, as Braya released the third and final ring. It was flying directly toward Channing, and he seemed to notice that. In response, he let out a sort of diffuser from his empty palm, and the ring exploded against it, sending up a powerful backlash. The force of it caught Page, who had barely enough time to consider moving out of the way, and carried him over the edge of the rail where he fell out of sight.

  “Oh my God,” Braya gasped, running toward the rail to peer down. It was too far. The bottom level was swathed in darkness. She couldn't see anything. Her heart thudded in her chest. That was her fault. Her fault that Page had...no, there was no way he could have survived a fall like that.

  Channing's fist wrapped around her forearm, and he yanked her flush against him, the golden glow of the Ephraim seedlings in his palm warming her flesh.

  “Time for the spell,” he murmured softly.

  “You're sick,” she wriggled in his hold. “Your son just died and you don't show any remorse!”

  “He was dead to me after my wife died,” retorted Channing. A hand snaked around her shoulder and pulled on a large chunk of her hair. The same rush of pain, of spitting fire and smoldering flames, engulfed her and she grew weak in Channing's hold. She screamed out, only faintly aware of what Channing was muttering under his breath. It must be the spell. She couldn't understand any of it. And the way the light of the seedlings was bending and swaying under the caress of his poem, it was clearer than ever. With tears running down her face, Braya was only vaguely aware of her surroundings as the spell rose, like a crescendo. Only vaguely aware of the Locers that still fought on the other side of the landing—fought in bursts of speed, blips of invisibility, and unerring grace that almost made it look like a bizarre—yet beautiful—and eerie—though enchanting—sort of dance. Asher was on a rampage, the color of the boosters swarming around his neck like ribbons. His movements were fluid, concise, and powerful. Braya had never wanted to kiss him more than she did in that moment—that horrid moment of bone-crushing pain.

  Asher wasn't unaware of her situation. The flash of gold and blue that she noticed before she could no longer keep her eyes open told her as much. But what could he do? He might as well have had his hands tied.

  “BRAYA!” Was that Asher's voice? “BRAYA! FIGHT HIM! KILL CHANNING!”

  It was an order, but how could she carry out with it if she was not in the proper condition to?

  Evidently it didn't matter. The link between them recognized his command and her body made a move to obey it. An image popped up into the back of her mind like a cool compress to a feverish forehead. The searing pain Channing had been filtering into her simmered off—though she could still feel something dull and achey building up somewhere in her body, and she sensed the image was only temporarily blocking the pain—and then Braya could see the scene clearly. Well, it was multiple—no hundreds of different images flashing by, almost in a blur. But she recognized them. They were all of the spots she had gone de-hazing with Asher and Page.

  Braya didn't know what it meant, but she didn't have to. Her body was responding on instinct to Asher's order because she didn't have the capacity to do so herself. A feeling of being flooded over in something warm and pleasant overcame her, and Braya welcomed it.

  And then something interesting happened.

  The small bundle of Ephraim seedlings floating in Channing's hand shattered. Like glass. They splintered off into tiny little pieces, fluttered out of his palm, and spilled onto the floor like dust.

  Channing was shocked. His grip on her loosened and Braya sunk into the floor. Still coiled with the restraints of Asher's command, Braya stuck her palms flat onto the marble ground. Her eyes were shut and she inhaled deeply as the warmth that she had felt a moment ago—that feeling that had helped her shatter Channing's seedlings—rose up from the floor and seeped into her fingertips, up her fingers, up her arms, and then was spilling out of her with a great urgency.

  Braya didn't know what she was doing, or how she was doing it, but she could hear shouting. Could hear Channing screaming.

  Then there were a few moments of absolutely nothing. Braya didn't see anything, didn't hear anything.

  Her bubble of nothing was shattered by hands wrapping around her shoulders, and then her body was no longer able to maintain itself. She blacked out.

  ~Chapter 22: Introducing War~

  “So, they're arranging for you to marry Latham?” Asher asked. They were sitting on the fountain in front of the Heartland Manor, their toes skimming the surface of the water beneath them. The crystal statue of the Bride and Groom embracing loomed behind them, so massive that it shaded them from the sun that sparkled in the afternoon sky.

  Braya nodded mutely. “My marriage to Page was unauthorized. And since they don't know anything about what happened with the Locers...”

  Asher heaved a sigh. “I don't know if I should be grateful that my disguise is still safe, or not. I don't want Latham to marry you...”

  “And now you're sounding like him,” Braya said wryly. “He didn't want me to marry Page. I don't know if I like this jealousy thing you guys are doing.”

  Asher snorted. “Girls love it when guys are jealous.”

  Braya considered his statement for a moment before agreeing. “Yeah...I can imagine Maydessa going crazy if one, let alone two boys were jealous over her.”

  “She was your roommate?” Asher guessed.

  Braya nodded. “I think she's training to be a Maid Bride. She really wants to be apart of a Crown family.” She sighed. “I guess it's not as good as it's cut out to be.”

  Asher smirked. “You never would have said that to me a month ago.”

  She scoffed. “Things changed. Don't make me have to relive it, please.”

  “Sorry,” he grinned.

  They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, but that's all it was. A few moments of silence. The two of them still had more important things to discuss, and both of them were well aware of it.

  “Hey,” Braya said softly, afraid she'd intrude upon his thoughts. “I've been wondering what happened yesterday. How I was able to...use all that power to destroy the Ephraim seedlings and...” she trailed off. She didn't know exactly what she had done to Channing.

  “It was the Venus Sare,” Asher replied, glancing at her with cool blue eyes. “Since you're a Vacelind, the Sa
re will respond to your will. You're completely untrained and inexperienced with it, though, so the only reason I could fathom you were able to use that power yesterday was because of the boosters we'd placed all over the city. Together they were strong enough to funnel power to the seedling bombs the Locers had planted in order to explode the Petti, so they were equally strong enough to funnel power into your body.”

  “To think,” Braya exhaled, shaking her head, “That all that time, all that de-hazing would have been working in my favor.”

  “Pretty lucky there, if do I say so,” Asher added.

  “And what was up with that command?” She edged him with a sideways look. “Kill Channing? He had me in a death grip and he was filling my entire body with agonizing pain...how in the world did you expect me to fulfill that?”

  Asher shrugged, smirking. “Intuition, I guess? It worked, didn't it? I don't see the big deal in analyzing it now that it's over with.”

  Braya shrugged, uncaring. “Speaking of Channing. Did you see what happened to him? Did he...well, did he die? Or...”

  “I knew you would ask me that.”

  “Of course I would,” she said defensively. “I have to know what happened to him!”

  “He's not here, is he? Isn't that answer enough?”

  She knew he was trying to coax her temper, so she folded her arms over her chest and stuck her nose in the air. “Fine, don't tell me now. You'll cave eventually.”

  “Oh, really?” He was scooting closer to her, the smirk playing along his features nearly compromising her attempt to remain cool, intact. Unfazed.

  “When you want to kiss me again,” she stuck him with a pointed look, “I'll refuse until you tell me.”

  “That's a funny thing to hold out on for a kiss,” Asher scrunched up his features. “Besides, you know I could just force you to kiss me...”

  “And now you're willing to abuse your powers?” She asked, pushing against his chest. If he got any closer, she would succumb, and she didn't want to fall into his graces before they covered what they meant to cover. And that was business. Strict business. No kissing. Even if his lips did look plump and delectable the way the sun was casting the slightest shadow across the bottom—no.