Summer Ruins

by Trisha Leigh

  They penetrate my mind immediately. We’ve been taught our whole lives that the Elements are marked, four per generation. No more, no less. While my friends and I don’t bear black star marks on our necks, we are their children.

  If no more are marked, and the Elements die, so do the Others.

  It’s brilliant in that it will save our lives. It’s not so great in that the Prime will surely realize very quickly that not only can he not kill us, but that he’s going to need to keep us on a tighter leash than ever—and when they leave Earth, we’re going to have to go with them.

  That can’t happen. I won’t do this to another planet.

  The Prime remains silent for several minutes, drumming his fingers on the railing in front of him. Kendaja slides off Lucas’s lap, silent for once in her horrible life, and climbs back to her father’s side. She whispers something in his ear, and I watch with disgust as a string of drool lands on his shoulder. He either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

  “You may have a point, son of Earth. A tenuous one, and one that may be resolved should any of the embryos currently awaiting processing emerge marked as an Element. The question is, what do we do with the three of them for now?” He pins Deshi with a cold black gaze. It’s so contemptuous that I expect Deshi’s body to contort in pain any second, but it doesn’t. “And once again, are you with us or with them?”

  “He’s proven himself many times, Father,” Zakej interrupts, an urgency in his voice that I’ve never heard before tonight. “There’s no reason for him to suffer their fate. Deshi has chosen a side. The right side.”

  After a moment, the Prime nods. He seems reluctant to me. “They cannot stay here. I don’t want to worry about feeding them until we leave this forsaken planet. They’ll be banished to the Harvest Site with the rest of the troublemakers, and we’ll decide whether they are indeed necessary to our survival at a later time.”

  He points at his son. “You will escort them there immediately, along with a Goblert.” The Prime then flicks a finger at Deshi. “And you will accompany them.”

  Everyone in the room seems to sense that the meeting has been adjourned. The Others that were seated get up, some talking quietly under their breath as they file toward the exit. I notice for the first time that there are women mixed in with the men. I’ve never seen women in the hive version of this chamber.

  I’m stunned to still be alive, but even if I weren’t, it’s not as if escaping is any more an option now than it was five minutes ago. It reminds me of the night they took the Morgans and I to be refreshed, and I followed like a docile, mind-controlled human because there wasn’t another choice.

  It chafed that night, and it’s going to chafe now. But going to the Harvest Site to work is better than being dead. As long as we’re alive, there’s still a chance to figure out how to turn the tables in our favor. To make the dead man’s hand the winning one, for once.

  The Prime doesn’t even spare us a glance as he leaves the bench, disappearing through a door behind him that I didn’t see until now. Kendaja follows, casting a last longing look toward Pax that rolls a shudder down my spine.

  Zakej steps toward the three of us, followed at a respectful distance by Deshi. I try to catch our fourth’s eye, try to glimpse whether he went to the cabin and that’s what changed his mind about trying to save us or if the story he gave the Prime is the real one. He studiously avoids my attempts and I give up, not wanting to call any unwanted attention to myself.

  “Untie them,” Zakej commands.

  Deshi does as he’s told, and the sharp ache in my shoulders when I’m released makes me bite my swollen, bloodied lip, which makes me cry out. Lucas reaches out for me as soon as his hands are free, but the gloves make it impossible to feel him.

  “Can you take these stupid gloves off?” Lucas growls.

  “And have the three of you travel away? I’m not an idiot, in spite of what you tell yourself to sleep at night, son of Water.” Zakej waits for a response, but when he doesn’t get one, he continues anyway. “We’ll remove them when we secure you at the Harvest Site, not before.”

  The Goblert shuffles into the room, obedient but apparently not fast enough for Zakej, who smacks him on the back of his bald head. “Took you long enough.”

  “Squat down,” Deshi orders us, his voice devoid of emotion.

  We do as he asks, the three of us crouching in front of the Goblert. Zakej and Deshi stand behind us, the heat of their bodies and the smell of their breath making me nauseated. The twisted creature unfurls all eight fingers at eye level, and glittering black dust piles in each palm. The instant before I close my eyes, preparing for the inevitable but mysterious traveling, I meet the Goblert’s gaze.

  It says, Have hope.

  Chapter 10.

  The experience of traveling with Dax’s magic dust doesn’t differ terribly from being yanked into a new season by a Spritan. One minute we’re in the Underground Core in a lit room. The next, total blackness. It presses against my skin as though the darkness has weight, flattening me into one of the Morgans’ cranberry pancakes.

  I’m alone. Disappearing. Nonexistent.

  I’m crying when life reappears around me, sure I’ve been erased from the world for good this time. Slowly, everything comes back into focus.

  The Goblert dropped me on my hands and knees. A rug, ornate and braided with reds and blacks, swims into view. The room is warm, perhaps overly so. Dizziness recedes, and when I turn my head to the right and see Pax, my stomach unclenches and the fear leaves me. He and Lucas still flank me as they did in the Underground Core, but the trip knocked us all to the ground.

  Both Zakej and Deshi appear unaffected, standing on either side of a polished cherry wood table and murmuring in quiet tones. Zakej pours an amber liquid into a cut-glass tumbler, offering the first to Deshi before pouring a second one for himself.

  Sound returns, along with balance, and I sit back on my rear. Beside me, Lucas and Pax do the same.

  Zakej throws the drink into the back of his throat, then motions with a single finger to the Goblert, who is still behind us. While the little half-breed slides the power-trapping gloves off our hands, Deshi steps behind him and snaps the Spritan bracelets off our wrists. When he drops them in Zakej’s hand, it’s pretty clear that he didn’t save our lives back there so he could secretly join us.

  “Where are we?” I ask, mostly to distract myself from screaming at Deshi.

  “At the Harvest Site. These are the Prime family’s personal quarters. I don’t expect you’ll be spending much, if any, time here.” Zakej takes a smaller sip of a second drink.

  I notice that for his part, Deshi looks quite comfortable.

  “Oh, yeah? So where are our quarters?” Pax drawls, sounding as nonchalant as ever.

  “Probably in the same cage they kept me in the last time. And then they’ll expect us to help them when the Elements are dead and they need to stabilize another planet,” Lucas spits.

  “I hope there are cleansing rooms.” I say it absently, and honestly, this entire situation feels like it’s happening to someone else. It might be residue from the traveling, but it’s almost like I’m hovering above the room and watching the conversation.

  That said, I would not object to a shower and a toilet.

  Pax and Lucas shoot me glances that are both concerned and incredulous. I shrug. “What? We reek.”

  This makes Deshi’s lips turn up in the smallest of smiles, gone like the beating of wings against the wind. Zakej rolls his eyes, but I can see that Lucas’s statement made him think.

  “He’s right, you know. You can keep us alive and drag us across the universe on your spaceship or whatever, but if you’re not a little bit nice to us, why would we help you?” I fold my arms across my filthy chest, pinning Zakej with a gaze that’s much braver than anything inside me.

  We don’t have the upper hand here; we’re prisoners. But if we work things right, maybe we can be prisoners with running water.


  He stares back, and after a moment, a smile twists his lips. It’s not the kind of smile that makes me want to smile back or that promises he’s going to make our stay at the Harvest Site more comfortable.

  It’s a smile that says he can’t wait to kill me.

  Blood drains from my head into my feet until I sway, my dizziness returning. It makes me think twice about trying to go toe-to-toe with Zakej again in the intimidation game.

  “I see no reason we can’t begin a civil imprisonment. Your parents lost the right when they disobeyed the rules, but seeing as though the three of you are not Deasupran, there are no such restrictions placed on you.” He drops our bracelets on the desk behind him, and I can’t help but stare at them. They’re our only way back to South Dakota; he’s surely aware of that fact.

  “You can no longer travel, since the Spritans revealed that particular ability is not yours, but theirs. I see no reason for you to be separated or to be caged any more than our other guests here. You will supervise their work. Less for us to do that way.”

  I have no idea what any of this means, but the not being separated part sounds great. We already knew the enchantment that makes us travel disappeared with Cadi. The bracelets still hold Spritan magic, but without them we’re stuck.

  All of sudden exhaustion winds through my limbs. I feel Deshi’s eyes on me, and when I look up, I see the brief consternation that’s become familiar. He looks away after a moment, and though it’s not clear exactly what he’s thinking, for some reason I feel a little better.

  “Would you like me to show them to a furnicar?” he asks Zakej, a strange, shy smile sneaking across his face.

  “Yes, that’s fine. I’ll be returning to the Underground Core the day after tomorrow, and so will you, Deshi. We can get them settled into their duties before then.”

  “Yes, sir.” Deshi drains his glass and sets it gently on the table, then turns to the three of us. His kindred. The people he should be intent on helping.

  I remind myself that we still don’t know where he stands. He saved our lives; he might have been to the cabin and scratched Wolf behind the ears and believed every truth Brittany told him. Even if that’s the case, we haven’t been out of the Prime’s or Zakej’s sight, so Deshi hasn’t had a chance to get us any kind of message without revealing himself.

  It makes me feel better to think he might be working from the inside. But something about the way he acts around Zakej tells me that whatever’s going on is more complicated than I know. That, as usual, we’re still missing a piece of the puzzle.

  “Let’s go.” Deshi sighs, sounding almost as tired as I feel.

  Pax looks at Lucas, who shrugs. We all follow Deshi out of what turns out to be a fancy tent constructed out of thick canvas. Outside, a blast of frigid air hits me like a punch in the gut. I’m painfully numb from my head to my toes. I struggle to keep my eyes open. Pax’s hand clamps onto mine, hard enough to relay the fact that he’s struggling as much as I am with the conditions, while Lucas is fine.

  Through the panic and icy pain, Deshi’s voice finds its way to my ears. “Use your abilities. We can push a bubble around our bodies that stays the temperature we’re most comfortable. Stop panicking and focus. Push it out of your pores.”

  It doesn’t make sense, but then I stop struggling forward and take a deep breath. Heat flickers in my center, but another inhale and exhale pushes it outward until my blood warms, and then my skin. Pax’s hand falls out of mine. Then I’m warm, and the air brushing my face feels like the summer at the lake that Cadi showed me.

  My eyes see nothing of the sort, though.

  Ice stretches as far as the eye can see. Ahead and to the right is a huge, transparent dome. It looks like a soap bubble but sturdier, the early morning sunshine glittering off the frost that coats the top and inches down the sides.

  Now that Pax and I aren’t in danger of freezing to death, each encased in an invisible temperate pouch of our own, the climate doesn’t seem different when we step through a hatch and into the enclosure. I realize after a moment how much energy it takes to maintain my shield of warmth and drop it a little at a time, testing the temperature in the bubble.

  Not as warm as I’d like, but not cold. Lucas’s hand slides into mine and I take a couple steps toward him so that our hips are touching.

  There are rows and rows of tents that resemble the Prime family’s quarters, only smaller. They stretch from wall to wall, front to back, and stack from bottom to top. Pathways wind between them and rickety staircases like the ones Deshi collapsed in the Underground Core last spring climb toward the roof. It’s eerily quiet. There must be thousands—tens of thousands—of people housed in here, and yet I don’t hear a peep.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Breakfast isn’t for another ten minutes,” Deshi explains. “The tents are designed by a species I doubt you’ve met—Antals. They trap sound as efficiently as they hold the inhabitants inside except during allowable work hours.”

  Antals. I wonder where they’re from, why the Others chose to drag them along after they used up their planet. I’m almost too tired right now to care.

  Deshi’s still talking. “There are four meal tents, spaced out against the outside walls. You’ll recognize them because they’re bigger than the rest of the furnicars. Plus Lucas has seen it before, he can show you around.” He stops, holding open a flap. “Here we go. This is where the Elements stay when they’re on site.”

  Inside, it’s not quite as nice as I expected. There are two beds, each smaller than the ones in all of my human houses. The sheets are plain white, the blankets brown and suspiciously scratchy looking. The ground is the same transparent substance as the bubble, and white ice glows underneath it. Between the beds, at the back of the tent, is a single dresser. Deshi pulls open a drawer to reveal clean clothes.

  “The cleansing rooms and wasterooms are clustered in the center of the terraform. There are four, but they only operate the hour after the workday concludes. We’ll make an exception today, since you’ve just arrived and I doubt you realize how off your conception of the day and time are. Tomorrow you’ll be expected to observe the same schedule as everyone else.” He strides back to the tent flap that leads outside.

  “We’re trapped in here, then? Until when?” Pax demands, his hands clenched at his sides.

  None of us fare well in captivity, not after so many years of not being able to go or do as we please. Familiar distrust blooms in my chest, crawls upward until it gets the better of me.

  “Why are you even letting us stay together? Isn’t the Prime afraid we’ll cause some kind of trouble or get away or something?” I shoot at Deshi.

  “As I said, you will be confined by the Harvest Site rules, and there is little free time for anyone.” Deshi smirks. “Lucas can fill you in on why extreme measures aren’t necessary, even for you.”

  I glance at Lucas, who shrugs. “There’s no way out of here. Not even for us. We could make trouble using our elemental abilities, but there wouldn’t be any point. We’re here until they say we’re not.”

  “I wouldn’t cause any trouble. The Prime and his Wardens may not be able to kill the three of you, but they can separate you. And they will not hesitate to take out their anger on those who are not protected by genetics.”

  Silence follows his threat and jabs me with cold fear. We’ve hurt enough humans.

  “Why are there only two beds, if this is where the Elements stay?” Pax asks.

  It strikes me as odd, too. There are four of them, and none of them are couples, as far as I know.

  “They’re not allowed to stay together, the four of them. It’s painful, but they have earned the distrust.” It’s like he’s quoting from a textbook again, and it’s almost creepy the way I can hear Zakej’s voice coming from Deshi’s mouth.

  “Oh. Kind of like us,” I try.

  “No. Not like us. Only three of us have earned distrust.” Deshi levels a serious gaze at me. “Brittany s
ays hello, by the way.”

  With that, he sweeps out of the tent, leaving Pax and Lucas staring at me with open mouths.

  “You told him about the cabin?” Pax’s eyes are huge and filled with worry.

  “It was a last-ditch effort to get him to see our side.”

  “What did you tell him?” Lucas asks, sinking down onto the edge of the bed on the left.

  I would love nothing more than to crawl up next to him, to rest my head on his chest and fall into a deep enough sleep to be able to believe this is all a dream. Then I get a whiff of myself—refuse, dirt, body odor—and decide bed can wait until after a shower. There’s no mirror but the job Zakej did on my lip can’t look much better than what Kendaja did to Lucas, and we both have blood on our faces and dried on our shirts.

  I tug a hand through the snarls in my dark red hair, wincing as a few strands yank loose of my scalp. “I told him everything. About the cabin. About what we can really do.”

  Trusting Deshi is one thing. Assuming these Antal-made tenements aren’t monitored is a different story. Neither of them says a word, all of the emotions I battled in the Underground Core marching across their faces in a line. Doubt. Possibility. Desperation.

  “I don’t know if it made a difference, or if it was the right thing. But we’re alive, and Deshi didn’t tell the Prime or Zakej about… that thing we can do.”

  “It’s okay. It was the right thing to do.” Lucas runs his hands through his own tangled curls, giving me a tired smile.

  “Do you think that’s why he saved us down there? I mean… if he hadn’t showed up when he did, Lucas would be a goner.” Pax shudders.

  The thought hurts my stomach. “I don’t want to think about it. And since the three of us are going to be cooped up here for the foreseeable future, we’ll have plenty of time to talk. Although I do think we should make sure we’re really alone before we do.”