by Brenda Poppy
“Damn it, man! You should be able to take care of that…” Thestle’s words drifted off as the guard raised a large baton.
With an effortless swing, he clubbed Thestle on the side of the head, eliciting a satisfying thud as the wood struck the man’s thick skull. He swayed precariously for an instant before collapsing on top of Burn, knocking the wind out of her lungs.
The guard shoved Thestle off of her, moving the body as if it were nothing more than a pebble. Getting to work on her binds, he swiftly undid the fabric, freeing one arm then the other.
Burn’s mind felt sluggish. It didn’t make sense. Why was this guard helping her? She watched suspiciously as he checked her for injuries, not trusting him in the slightest. He seemed to understand her hesitation, though, and made no move to touch her.
“So,” he began, his low voice rumbling to life, “tell me again how you don’t need saving, Burn.”
Burn’s mind went blank, confusion clouding her thoughts. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. But yet…
“Hale?” she asked tentatively, relieved to find that rendering Thestle unconscious had also returned the use of her voice.
The guard smiled sweetly at her and nodded.
Chapter 15
It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. It wasn’t Hale’s face staring down at her, and it wasn’t his voice that emanated from the guard’s thin mouth. Nothing about this man was familiar. Yet it was Hale.
Burn didn’t know how to react. Fear and desolation still clung to her, making it difficult to form coherent thoughts. She wanted to believe him, wanted to believe she had been rescued, but it seemed too good to be true. Something in the back of her mind kept casting doubt on his identity, warning her not to trust him – or anyone else in this place.
The way the man stared at her was heartbreaking. Pity and anger and helplessness mingled in his eyes as he looked down at her disheveled form, the remains of her torn shirt still hanging loosely around her chest. Turning his back to her, he rose from the bed and hastily searched the room.
A moment later, he returned, a wad of green fabric clutched in his hand. He offered it to her wordlessly, but all she could do was stare, clutching her arms around her chest and trying to hold herself together.
Sighing, the guard unfurled the bundle, revealing a large shirt. As gently as he could, he pulled the garment over Burn’s head, helping her thread her arms through the baggy sleeves. The cloth hung loosely around her frame, but it covered her exposed skin, concealing what Thestle had laid bare. The smell of him lingered in the fabric, however, and the guard had to stop her from tearing the shirt from her body.
“It’s OK, Burn. It’s OK,” the guard repeated, his hands stroking her arms in reassurance. “I’m here. And I’ll make sure no one touches you. I promise. I won’t leave you.”
Burn looked up at him, trying to find Hale in his eyes, but even those were someone else’s, an unfamiliar grayish-blue staring back at her from a foreign face.
“Hale?” she asked again, practically pleading this time. She needed Hale, not whoever this was. She needed his strong arms to take her away from this place, to erase this town and these people from her memory.
“Yes, it’s me, Burn,” he replied soothingly, taking a seat next to her and moving his hand up to stroke her hair. She flinched at his touch but didn’t pull away.
“How?” she asked, her voice sounding small.
Hale sighed, removing his hand and placing it in his lap. He looked at her sadly for a beat before embarking on his story.
“You were right,” he said, a cheerless smile on his lips. “Your father did come to Callidus. Apparently he snuck in and began recruiting people to join him on his journey back to Kasis. Except Thestle discovered what he was up to, and your father was forced to flee. He did manage to send a final message to his contacts, though. He told them that once he’d found a way in, he’d return for them, and together they’d make their way home.”
He paused, trying to find the words to relay the next part of his story. Burn looked on in confusion, trying to piece together the threads of her father’s journey – and what it had to do with Hale’s sudden change of appearance.
“He never came back, Burn,” he continued solemnly. “They don’t know what happened to him. Some think he’s still out there, searching for a way back into Kasis. Others assume he perished during his journey.”
The thought of her father wandering through the wildlands, lost and alone, touched something in Burn. A pang of sorrow cut through her shock, clearing some of the cobwebs that had settled over her mind. She was on the right track, after all, although something deep inside of her told her that she was rapidly nearing the end.
“What happened?” she whispered, needing him to go on.
“Well, most of the people he recruited are still here, and they still want to find a way back. I told your story to the guards, and one of them knew your father. She was one of the people that had agreed to go with him. She told me what had happened. And she helped me escape.”
“Is that why you look…like that?” Burn asked, a hint of her former confidence returning to her voice. They were finally getting somewhere, and the progress restored more of the strength that Thestle had sapped.
“Yes,” Hale said quietly. “She can change people – their face, their body, their voice. She helped me become one of the guards. It was the only way to get in here without a fight.”
A sudden moan of pain emanated from the floor beside the bed. Burn and Hale immediately shifted their attention to Thestle, who had begun to regain consciousness and was clutching the spot on his head where Hale had struck him.
Moving with purpose, Hale grabbed Thestle and tossed him into a nearby chair. In the blink of an eye, he’d snatched the strips of fabric from the bed and fastened them around Thestle’s arms and legs, securing him tightly to the seat.
Thestle’s head lolled against his chest as he tried and failed to sit up. Finally, he managed to right himself, swinging his head around to an upright position.
“Be careful,” Burn warned as Hale considered his prey. “If you get too close, he can steal your voice.”
Hale’s look of pity returned as more pieces of her ordeal fell into place. He spun to face Thestle, his gaze filling with rage. Fearing that he’d do something rash, Burn gingerly leveraged herself off the bed and walked to his side. Putting her hand on his shoulder, she turned him to face her.
“We need him,” she said slowly, drawing him back from the edge. “He might know what happened to my father.”
“He deserves to die,” Hale said, his fists clenching and unclenching as he spoke.
Burn couldn’t disagree with that, but right now she needed him alive. After that…well, after that she’d wash her hands of him.
Sighing, she turned to face Thestle, who was fully conscious now. His gaze flicked between his captors, his thin mouth turned down in disgust.
“I won’t tell you anything,” he said boldly, raising his nose toward the sky. “Do whatever you want, but you’ll get nothing from me.”
He was so proud of himself, so pleased by his own fortitude. Burn wanted to wipe that smile off his face, to fight his fire with hers. Yet striking him wouldn’t help her get the answers she needed; it would only feed into his sick sense of control, confirming that he still had the power to influence her actions.
“Fortunately, I don’t need you to talk in order to get answers,” Burn replied, plastering on a cocky smile.
The courage may have been an act, but the sentiment behind it was real. All she needed was a single thought, a momentary recollection, or a flash of memory to discover what he knew. Hale seemed to intrinsically understand her plan. Cracking his knuckles, he moved behind Thestle, placing his hands menacingly on the man’s shoulders.
“Now,” Burn began, pacing slowly in front of Thestle’s chair, “we know that you were acquainted with my father, Arvense Alendra. He came here and tried to lure away your p
eople and take them with him to Kasis. You had a problem with that. You wanted him gone. That much we know. What we don’t know is what happened to him after he left Callidus.” Burn paused, letting her words sink in.
“I think you know what became of him,” she continued. She leaned in toward Thestle, scowling as she raked her eyes over his fleshy form. “What did you do to Arvense? Why is it that he never returned to Callidus?”
A small, almost imperceptible smile turned up the corners of Thestle’s lips. He stared at her silently, smug in his own defiance. Yet, despite his exterior composure, his thoughts were ablaze with memories.
Burn didn’t hesitate. Closing her eyes, she stepped fully into his mind, surrounding herself with his thoughts. His memories were unlike anything she had ever experienced. There was something sinister about them, and they tasted wrong, leaving a tinge of rancid meat lingering on her tongue.
Instead of forming a linear pattern, his past swirled around her like a sandstorm, with bits of it clinging to her skin and others threatening to choke her.
“What did you do to my father?” she repeated, her eyes still closed.
At her question, bits and pieces rose in his memory, and Burn seized them, coaxing them into her mind. Little by little, a story emerged, wrapping its tendrils around her and drawing her into its fold.
A picture of her father appeared before her eyes, so clear that she could almost feel him beside her. He looked different than he had in Kasis, older and more tired. His wild red hair was now complemented by a shaggy beard, and his light skin had darkened in the desert suns. His loose clothing was dirty and torn, but he still had that same gleam in his eyes, the same sharp intelligence that she’d always admired.
Burn watched as her father crept around Callidus, making friends and enemies in one fell swoop. Thestle despised him, that much was clear. He wanted Arvense gone. He considered her father a threat to Callidus and its people, and he would stop at nothing to be rid of him.
But Arvense was smart. He learned of Thestle’s plan and escaped from the city just in time. Or so he thought.
Because Thestle knew where he was headed. There was another camp on Arvense’s agenda – a place called Aberra. It was the closest colony to Kasis and his best chance at discovering a way back in. Only, he never arrived in Aberra.
A blood-drenched scene filled her mind and threatened her sanity, but she held tight, needing to know the ending. Three guards, covered in blood, made their way into the very tent where Burn now stood. The leader, sporting a gash along one cheek, proudly held something in his outstretched hand. Thestle took it, a euphoric smile stretching across his face, and Burn felt his elation leech through her like a drug.
From behind Thestle’s eyes, Burn observed the source of his delight. It was Arvense’s head.
Burn disconnected from Thestle’s mind. Turning around, she retched onto his bed, spewing up bile and disgust until nothing was left in her stomach. Still, violent convulsions racked her body, sending her to her knees.
She longed to believe that it had been fiction, that Thestle had concocted the scenes to torment her further, but she knew that wasn’t the case. He could never have fabricated such detail, such clear and gruesome facts. He had killed her father – she knew it in her bones. Arvense was dead.
The hope that had sustained her vanished, sapping every emotion until only despair remained. She had mourned her father once, but it was nothing compared to this. Seeing the true extent of Thestle’s villainy had broken something in her, leaving a hole where mercy used to lie.
She didn’t realize Hale was holding her. She didn’t realize she was on the ground, curled into a ball. Her scarred heart had been ripped back open, and it took everything she had to hold back the fire so it didn’t consume her completely.
It was Thestle’s laughter that finally broke her out of her stupor. Burn could read him now, interpreting his thoughts without even trying. He was proud of himself, proud that he’d managed to break her without uttering a single word.
An eerie calm swept over her, and she rose from her place on the ground. She approached him slowly, the wicked gleam in his eyes now mirrored in hers.
“How many people have you killed?” she asked evenly, her body straight and her head held high. “How many have you tortured? How many have you used like you tried to use me?”
She let the thoughts wash over her and through her, adding fuel to her rage. As each face flowed past, she tried to memorize it, acknowledging the sacrifices they’d made. These people deserved to be remembered. They deserved to have their lives and their deaths honored. She could do that much for them. She would carry them with her, away from this place, away from this monster. She would make sure their memories lived on when his did not.
Once again, Hale was by her side. As the images trickled to a stop within her mind, she looked up at him, searching for the man she knew within the stranger’s face. Reaching his eyes, she held them for a heartbeat, silently asking for his help. He raised one eyebrow in question, and Burn gave a small nod.
Turning her back, she strode to the mouth of the tent. Behind her, a sharp, quick crack resounded from the direction of Thestle’s chair. A moment later, Hale joined her. Together, they left the scene behind and walked into the night.
Chapter 16
The Lunaria’s chosen safe house for the evening was a dump. Well, technically the safe house was next to a dump, but Scar still maintained that the house itself could be chucked in with the rubbish and no one would even notice. But that’s what they got for securing a safe house near enough to the Corax End that you could still smell it.
As planned, Scar was the first to arrive – and she immediately wanted to leave. Piles of debris carpeted the lane outside, and she was forced to wade through used bottles and bags and the rotten remains of things that had once been food. Even with her mask secured tightly around her face, the smell was so potent that she found herself holding her breath.
The house itself promised a modicum of relief, but, unfortunately, she couldn’t enter. She’d promised to meet Kaz outside so she could escort him in – a promise she was now wholeheartedly regretting.
The lights in this part of the city were inconsistent at best, and they flickered overhead, casting her in and out of shadow. More than once, she heard movement around her and turned to find a not-so-small rodent burrowing its way into a nearby trash heap.
When Kaz finally did arrive, Scar nearly mistook him for yet another member of the rodent kingdom. She had taken aim and was fully prepared to throw a shoe at his head when he spoke up from the darkness, confirming his humanity.
“Scar?” he asked tentatively, feeling his way through the gloom. “Scar, are you there?” Scar dropped the shoe back into the pile at her feet, returning it to its rightful home.
“I’m right here,” Scar shot back, giving him a target to aim for as he shuffled through the debris. “Remind me to upgrade your goggles with night sight,” she murmured as he got closer. “Maybe then you’ll actually arrive on time.”
Turning to the door, Scar scanned her finger and entered. The house itself was warm and stuffy, and it still retained the distinctly sweet smell of decomposing matter. The floors, however, were clean and tidy and mostly devoid of refuse – save for the few pieces that Kaz tracked in as he tagged along behind her.
The pair made their way down a narrow hallway, passing several locked doors as they traveled deeper into the house. At its end, the hallway opened into a surprisingly large room, which was made all the larger by its lack of any proper furniture. Only a handful of battered aluminum chairs stood around the space, some upright and some knocked askew as if their former inhabitants had left in a hurry.
Getting to work, Scar began to tidy the meeting space, righting the chairs and organizing them into a shape that resembled a circle. While she worked, she snuck glances at Kaz, who had taken her lead and started work on the other half of the circle.
“Something’s different abo
ut you,” Scar said abruptly, breaking the silence that had lapsed between them.
“Oh, yeah,” Kaz stuttered, straightening to rub the back of his neck. “I shaved. And got a haircut. I wanted to make a good impression on the Lunaria.”
Scar found that strange. After all, the reason most of the Lunaria didn’t like him wasn’t because of his too-long hair or his scraggly beard. They didn’t like him because he was a member of the very organization they were fighting to overthrow. Unless he had somehow changed that, as well, she didn’t see how a haircut would help him.
She didn’t say that out loud, though. It was probably best to let him think that he had a chance at changing their opinions. In reality, he was more there as a prop to back up her findings. She didn’t need them to like him; she needed them to respect her ability to get him to do what she said.
“It looks nice,” she finally managed to respond, the politeness feeling thick and unnatural on her tongue.
Without further conversation, they took their seats in the circle. Just like at the last meeting she’d attended, the Lunaria trickled in steadily, filling up the chairs and spilling onto the floor. Unlike previous sessions, however, there was very little chatter. The mood was subdued, almost despondent, and Scar wondered what she’d missed.
Cali, the woman who had proposed the ventilation scheme, sat to Scar’s right. She seemed more downtrodden than most and was consciously avoiding everyone’s gaze by looking down at her shoes. Intrigued, Scar waved her hand in front of the woman’s face to grab her attention.
“Why is everyone so quiet?” Scar whispered, trying to soften her normally blunt tone. “What’s happened?”
Cali’s large eyes darted around the room, as if to make sure that no one was eavesdropping. When she was certain that their conversation couldn’t be overheard, she leaned toward Scar conspiratorially, her mouth uncomfortably close to Scar’s face.