Radiant's Honor (Founders Series Book 2)

by Mari Dietz

  “Where’s William?”

  Samuel smiled at her. “We need to find him.”

  “Huh?” This was the most Samuel had spoken to her since he’d gotten purified. She’d only heard the same response to William. He’d claimed Samuel seemed off, but Vic didn’t know what the radiant did on a normal day so she couldn’t judge his behavior as weird. Radiant all felt strange to her.

  He got up and took her hand. “He’s gone. I need to find him.”

  “Okay, then. He didn’t come home last night?” How would he know what was going on?

  “He didn’t come home. I need to find him.”

  Vic tried not to flinch at his constant smile. “I’ll help you.” Had Tristan caught William? “I hope he hasn’t done anything foolish.” Something might have happened to him. Worry blossomed inside her. What would happen if they caught him snooping around? They might take away his relic. “We’ll check his workplace and see if he’s okay.”

  “I need to find him.” Samuel’s blue eyes blinked steadily.

  “Right.” Vic debated taking Samuel. The smiling radiant seemed frustrated. She didn’t think she should leave him alone. Could the radiant hurt themselves? “But you need to stay with me, okay?”

  “I need to find him.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. I hope I don’t regret this.”

  She left Kai’s house with Samuel, and they hailed a water taxi. Samuel smiled, but Vic didn’t know if he was content or not. The eerie thing about the radiant was the constant smiling. It was hard to tell their actual feelings about any situation. He shouldn’t cause her any problems—maybe.

  The water lapped against the boat, and the comforting musty smell of Verrin wove around her. People chattered in the streets. Even though her world had fallen apart, the rest of the city continued on with life. Would there be any news of all the mogs in Nyx Order, or would it pass by like most of the news nowadays? Would these people get taken from their homes and turned into mogs “for the good of the city,” or would they be one of the lucky ones and survive the creation of blight? A person’s future was set from the day they were born in this walled city. The daily life of trying to survive kept thoughts away from what GicCorp did. Vic felt the endless frustration build. Keep the people struggling and they’ll never have time to look behind the walls. When you went to bed hungry every night, how did you find time to care about anything else?

  Vic faced the sky, and the blight swirled a dusky rose color. “It’s almost pretty today, isn’t it, Samuel?”

  Samuel followed her line of sight. “I need to find him.”

  Vic chewed on her lip. William had mentioned that Samuel didn’t act like most radiant. Didn’t they forget their attachments? Samuel remembered William and showed concern for him, even though he continued to smile. They weren’t supposed to worry, right? Wasn’t that the whole attraction? Get rid of your worries by becoming purified.

  Now that she and Bomrosy weren’t speaking, her one source to look at William’s relic had disappeared. The water taxi came to a halt, and they got out, stepping on the slick stone steps. Algae crept up the sides.

  “Strange that so close to the nice part of town it isn’t maintained.” Vic stepped onto the street.

  “A lot is falling that way, miss,” the water taxi driver answered her. “Not enough imbs to keep up with the repairs of the city.” He nodded and pulled into the dock to wait for another customer.

  Or GicCorp turned them into mogs.

  They walked to GicCorp. Unlike Nyx, with its streets getting emptier by the day, near the factory and shops, people crowded around them. Some, once seeing the smiling Samuel, balked and stepped out of their way. Even though he didn’t wear white, his blank features gave him away. Maybe if people cared less about radiant smiles and more about the missing people, they would have more people to fight GicCorp. Bitterness didn’t look good on her, and how would they know about GicCorp unless someone told them?

  The massive factory loomed ahead, and she stared blankly at all the doorways. “I don’t know where he was assigned.”

  Since she was never assigned to patrol the center of the city, Vic didn’t come to the heart of Verrin often. A loud bell clanged, and workers dressed in jumpsuits of various colors emerged from the building. It might be lunch. Vic had a hard time keeping track of time. It’s not like she got out much to do anything but hunt mogs. If she ever got more free time, she would sleep.

  Samuel stepped in front of her and walked with purpose to a door with a large C above it.

  “Here?” No one had told her about radiant radar.

  “I need to find him.”

  Vic shrugged and went in the door. A sizable woman barked orders from the center of the courtyard. A jumpsuit clung to her thick frame, and although loud, she wasn’t harsh. When Samuel tried to go to a door in the back, Vic pulled him back. “Wait a second. We can’t go where we want.”

  Samuel smiled, but the corner of his eye twitched. Vic tilted her head. Was the Samuel she used to know still in there? If the soul got purified, as they claimed, it must stay in the body. He took in more than others thought.

  “Sorry, but they’ll stop you before you make any progress. We should ask about William for now, and if we need to, we can break in later,” she whispered.

  That strangely seemed to calm him down.

  The large woman faced them. She finished talking and strode over to the odd pair. The jumpsuit made a loud swishing sound as she walked.

  “Never thought I’d get a visit from a reaper and a radiant. Are you lost?” Her thick brows furrowed, and her topaz eyes said little surprised her anymore.

  “I guess you could say that. I’m looking for my friend William.”

  “William? Oh, you mean bait?”

  “Sure?” One day and he already had an affectionate nickname. Vic couldn’t even open up to the other reapers. This woman must barge in and force a connection.

  The woman frowned and pulled Vic aside. “I thought he didn’t have a place to stay.”

  Vic thought she should play along. “They kicked him out of his home, but I didn’t see him this morning and worried something might’ve happened.”

  “I let him stay here last night, but this morning, he was gone. The door was still locked on the inside.”

  Vic glanced around the courtyard filling with people in unflattering red jumpsuits. “What exactly do you do?”

  “We repair the lines into Haven from the sewer.” The woman crossed her arms and squinted at the pair. “If you see him, let him know I’m looking for him.” Then she left.

  It’s not like she’d given anything away besides basic knowledge that Vic could have found out with a bit of digging. She walked to the door, but Samuel didn’t follow. She ended up having to pull him behind her. “Samuel, we can’t go down there.”

  “I need to find him.”

  Vic let go of him. “I know, but they’ll stop you, and you’ll probably get arrested. We need to wait until nightfall.” She didn’t say that walls cut the sewers off from the rest of the system near Haven. Inside might be the only way in or out. They might have lost William down there, or maybe he’d gotten caught.

  “We may need help.” Vic stared at the wall surrounding GicCorp. Officers patrolled the wall night and day. They would need to scale it or break in through the door. William might have found something connected to Haven.

  “Let’s come back later, okay?” There would be fewer people to spot her at night, even though she wouldn’t have backup. Samuel would need to stay home, and she doubted he would like that.

  Samuel said nothing, and Vic found that more unnerving than his repeated phrase. She didn’t talk to him as they took a water taxi back to Nyx. She might as well talk to Kai. Samuel followed her, but she couldn’t help glancing at him to make sure he hadn’t run off.

  They walked through the ashy courtyard, the bags of ash now gone. The floors smelled of cleaner, the spatters of dried blood gone. She went to Kai’s of
fice. She knocked and heard a soft, “Come in.”

  She opened the door, and Kai sat in his chair, facing the window. “Kai?”

  He turned the chair, his eyes bloodshot and face drawn. “I thought you’d left with the others.” He turned back to the window.

  “No, I went to check on William.”

  “I guess he’s more important.”

  Vic held back the words she wanted to say. “No, I only wanted to make sure he was okay. Is that a problem?”

  “No.”

  Vic walked to the window and stood in front of Kai. “I’m here to help.”

  “Help with what? There isn’t anything left to help with.”

  Vic growled, “I’m not here to fight with you. This isn’t over yet. If you could get your head out of your ass, we could use your help.”

  He turned to face Vic. “I’m so tired, Sparks.”

  It hurt her to see him so defeated. The confident Kai had disappeared when he’d become the commander. Vic wrapped him in a hug. “Me too.”

  He relaxed in her arms, and they stayed that way for a while. When they finally broke apart, Kai started as he saw Samuel in the room. “Why is he here?”

  “William went missing after his first day on the job. Samuel is worried about him.”

  “I guess we need to go find William?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kai stared out the window at the empty courtyard. “I messed everything up.”

  Vic gripped his shoulder. “No, you did what you thought was best.”

  “So did Xiona.”

  The mogs’ attack on the Order had provided Landon with the chance to find Xiona. Bomrosy claimed no one else could use her tech, but the doors had opened on their own. “Do you know why the latches and hinges opened?”

  Kai shook his head. “When it happened, Bomrosy ran up here to inform me. Something messed with her transmission. She didn’t have time to figure it out before we heard the mogs coming. We assumed she was the only person who understood tech and didn’t rely on magic.”

  Vic paced the room. “You don’t think GicCorp did something?”

  Kai got out of his chair and put on his harness with his scythe. “Tristan knew about the tunnel. I don’t think any of our reapers would know how to mess with Bomrosy’s system. I didn’t trust them enough, and they left. I don’t want to think any of them would have loosed mogs on their own Order.”

  Vic snapped her fingers. “Oh, and the pile of bones outside the sewer. Only GicCorp has that kind of access.”

  “Sadly, I don’t think Tristan will tell us anything.”

  “I can do my best.” The smooth voice sounded from the door. Tristan, in a freshly pressed suit, strode in like he owned the Order.

  Kai reached for his scythe but didn’t flick it open. “Make yourself at home.”

  Tristan’s eyes gleamed. “I don’t think you can say that anymore, commander.” He folded his hands together behind his back. “I have never seen an Order fall so far or so fast. I commend you for your record-breaking efforts to destroy something.”

  “Did you come here to gloat? We have other things to do.” She kept him in her sight but moved so Kai’s desk stayed between them.

  “If it were only that simple, but you see, my dear, your commander broke the law even after I’d taken the time to warn him.” Tristan tapped his foot. “Do you think I gave that warning lightly or didn’t mean it? The officers of Verrin are behind me. For the safety of Verrin, it is forbidden to mess with the grates leading out of the sewer. The mass of mogs you baited and brought in could have killed many more people than your reapers.” Tristan shook his head in false sadness. “Those poor families of the reapers who died. I went in your stead to comfort them and tell them of the loss.”

  Kai’s hands formed into fists. “You had no right to talk to the families. They needed to hear it from me.”

  “Why? So you could spin more tales?” Tristan rested his hand near his wand. “I gave them a generous compensation for their loss and told them you wouldn’t put any more lives at risk.”

  “More like bribed them. It isn’t your duty to fire commanders. You don’t have power over the Orders.” Vic stepped in closer in case she needed to help Kai.

  “You’d like to think that, but no one is above the law.” The cheerful note in his voice grated on her nerves.

  They heard shouts and footsteps on the stone floor leading up to the office.

  “I’m not the one relieving him of his command.”

  The officers burst into the room and crowded into Kai’s office.

  Vic’s throat dried. “Wow, do they really need twenty people to take one person in?”

  “I told them there might be some resistance.” Tristan stayed back and calmly watched the scene as though he were viewing a boring play unfold.

  Kai stiffened, and Vic noticed the hand that held his scythe tremble. He would lose his scythe, leaving his family relicless.

  Vic placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll return this to Freddie. He was looking for it.” She gently pried it out of his hand. “His relic broke in the fight,” Vic explained to the room, pretending they would care about her story.

  Tristan chuckled, but he said nothing. The officers ignored her and moved in on Kai. He released the relic to her and didn’t resist as they cuffed him.

  Kai said nothing as they took him out, but he glanced over his shoulder, his face downcast.

  “I’ll take care of this,” Vic called after him.

  A stocky officer held out his hand to her. With triple bags under his eyes, he eyed the relic. “I need his relic.”

  “This isn’t his. The gem broke in his last night. This is Freddie’s. He got his fixed, unlike Kai. He was returning it to him.” As the words poured out of her mouth, she confused even herself. Couldn’t she come up with a better lie? She’d had better excuses when sneaking out of the house as a teenager.

  The officer rubbed his shaved head. “That’s a nice story. Turn it in to us and we can trace the scythe to Freddie’s family.”

  “But this is Freddie’s.”

  “So you say. We can return it to Freddie once we prove it isn’t the commander’s.” Even though the officer looked ready to fall asleep, he still pushed on with his duty.

  Tristan placed an arm around Vic, and she shook it off. “She’s telling the truth, officer. There is a shattered scythe down on the first floor that belongs to the commander. Their repair person was trying to fix it, so there is nothing to confiscate.”

  The officer looked between them, and Vic thought he might go against Tristan. “Whatever. I don’t get paid enough to butt heads with founders.” He followed the other officers down.

  Vic paced back from Tristan. “You can leave too.” Tristan reached for the scythe, and Vic looked down at his proffered hand. “Can I help you?”

  “The relic.”

  Vic grinned and pulled out her scythe with her other hand. With a smooth motion, she flicked it open. The sound echoed in the office. “Come and get it.” Let him give me an excuse to fight him. She got ready to dodge his strange magic.

  Tristan reached for his wand, then dropped his hand. “I’ll let you win this one. I have a feeling you’ll need it.”

  Vic held the relic between them. “Don’t get all cryptic now.”

  He calmly walked to the door. “If I were you, I’d make sure everything of value was out of the Order by nightfall.” His footsteps grew distant until she was alone once more.

  Vic leaned on her scythe for support. “Samuel, he won’t lock up the building, will he?” She turned to face the brother, but he wasn’t there anymore. In all the confusion, he’d vanished.

  “Samuel?” Vic yelled and ran down the hall. “Samuel! Sam!” She burst into all the rooms, but there was no sign of him. “Blight take me, did he go back to GicCorp?” She let out a frustrated scream that had no response in the empty halls. Couldn’t one thing go right? Now she had to hunt down the radiant when she should have bee
n getting Kai out of jail.

  Vic sprinted out into the streets since Samuel didn’t have money for a water taxi. After hours of searching the alleys between GicCorp and Nyx, Vic needed a break. She would stop by Nyx one more time and then check Kai’s house again. Maybe Samuel would return there. It might be time to check the jails. If he’d tried to walk into GicCorp without stopping, he might have gotten arrested. What if they returned him to his parents? Vic grimaced. She didn’t think any harm would come to him there, but William had been firm in keeping their parents away from Samuel. If they hurt him, it would be her fault.

  Her body heavy, she returned to Nyx. She didn’t know what Tristan had meant when he’d told her she should have everything out. She went up the stairs to her room and took out her pack from her room closet.

  It only took moments for her to pack up her black clothing. Then she gently placed Scraps on top, and he purred as she scratched his ears. Vic went to Kai’s room and gathered his items. With two packs and two scythes, she went down to the courtyard.

  An ache formed in her chest as the empty building faced her. The windows, once bright with light, were now dead and empty. No shouting reapers in the halls or training in the yard. The friendly smell of food had given way to the fading scents of blood and the rot of mogs. The reapers had been the beating hearts of the Order, and due to a series of terrible choices, they’d been broken one by one. Vic gripped the packs and turned her back on the tragic sight.

  “It’s not over yet, Tristan. You can’t take us down completely.” She walked out of the iron gate and left the building she’d yearned to call home behind.

  15

  Vic

  Vic stepped into the dreary house. In her heart, she knew Samuel wouldn’t be waiting for her. Scraps jumped out of the pack as she set it down. He rubbed against her legs, and she went to the kitchen to find him something to eat.

  “Scraps for Scraps.” She placed a bowl out for him and sat down on the sofa. When was the last time she’d slept or eaten? She fought against sleep. There was too much to do.