Darklight 6: Darkbirth

by Forrest, Bella

  “I don’t know what this stuff is, but I’m under the impression that if I were a proxy, I would have dissolved,” I whispered. It was a horrifying concept, and it made me dislike the arbiters’ treatment of the proxies even more.

  Now wonderfully free from any metallic goop, I touched Dorian’s arm. His lips lifted gently, but he glanced covertly back to the crowd.

  “What happened?” I kept my voice low, though it was hardly necessary thanks to the yelling.

  Dorian sighed and seemed to be fighting something very Kane-like in response. “We won. They just seem upset about how it went down.”

  “Unfair,” bellowed someone in the crowd.

  Ruk cleared his throat so loudly it cut through the bickering. I hadn’t noticed him before because I was so distracted by the crowd’s antics. What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he searching the estates? Then I noticed how closely he was being watched by various arbiters and realized he must not have been able to sneak away.

  “We won,” he stated firmly. “We were the only team who succeeded in bringing a flame back to the temple.”

  “Brought it back?” Bi echoed with a huff. “You set the whole building ablaze! There’s no way that counts.”

  “The rules Krysh laid out said we had to bring the flame inside the temple,” Dorian said. “There was no rule saying I couldn’t set the outside on fire. The flame went inside, so we fulfilled the requirement.”

  Bi narrowed his eyes. “I would argue against that, and it certainly wasn’t pretty to watch.”

  “Yes,” a purple orb added sourly. “There’s no elegance in just throwing the flame into some tinder.”

  Dorian’s gaze narrowed slightly, but part of me remembered that we needed to play our roles and keep the peace if we didn’t want the situation to turn ugly. I put on my most convincing worried expression. Besides, it’s not like Dorian chose to get body slammed into the dry vines by a serpent proxy.

  I watched Krysh from the corner of my eye, noting how her eyes danced as she observed the frothing crowd come apart at the seams. Were the design and vague rules intentional? I bet she hadn’t seen such a fun show in a while…

  “Does it count?” someone called from the very back. “Will the bets be honored or not?”

  It was odd to hear the usually composed arbiters in such a tizzy, but even so, their words were more annoyed than angry. I knew it was more about their bets than anything. Sure, they wanted their precious logic to save the day, but some of them had probably bet big against us and were now regretting their arrogance.

  I raised an amused eyebrow at Dorian. Granted, I was concerned… but watching the arbiters argue like middle-schoolers over a dodgeball game was funny. Whether we won or not, it wasn’t really as important as what we’d already done: we’d successfully distracted and entertained the arbiters. And while Ruk hadn’t been able to slip away and search for Aurora, this situation might lead them to debate for hours or weeks, or however it was that time worked here. The longer they argued, the better it was for our plan; it gave us more opportunity to search estates, and for Ruk to dissolve his estate and gather the energy, which in turn gave us a better chance of getting home. I was ready to let them spend eons on this, but I put on a pinched expression of disappointment. Let them think we were upset, the better to throw them off our scent.

  “That’s enough,” Debt Keeper suddenly announced in an authoritative tone. “I’m calling for order.” She paused, letting everyone turn toward her as she rose above the crowd. Her size appeared to have increased, but maybe she'd just done it for dramatic effect.

  “What do you say then?” Un asked icily. “What is your ruling on this situation?” He had been crossing his arms in stony silence the entire time, suggesting he already knew the answer.

  Debt Keeper flickered with light. “The win is valid. The condition set by Krysh was that one team bring the flame successfully into the temple. There were no specific means mentioned regarding how the fire had to reach the inside of the temple. Ruk’s team accomplished the set task.” She gently rotated in our direction and dropped her voice into a more serious inflection. “Furthermore, I’ve been doing some calculations. According to the bets that Ruk made…”

  She paused for a moment. My breath stopped. Dorian’s hand brushed mine, sending up an electric current of anticipation between us.

  “Yes, if my calculations are correct, the winnings from this event will pay off almost all of Ruk’s debt. If he dissolves a few more pieces of his estate to cover the remainder, his debt will be cleared completely.”

  My pulse staggered. Debt Keeper’s announcement might as well have been an injection of pure rocket fuel into my veins. The talkative arbiters went catatonic for the moment. Un opened his mouth and closed it, looking like a fish caught on a hook. An odd thrill ran through me. Nearly the entire debt, gone in one go?

  Ruk stared at Debt Keeper, but little joy showed on his face. His expression was stony and unreadable. Why isn’t he happy?

  “This is a gross injustice,” Un blurted.

  Ah, there it was.

  The incensed white-haired arbiter marched straight up to Debt Keeper, his spider-dog proxy trotting alongside him, legs clicking together as if he were ready to jump on Debt Keeper himself. The crowd rallied around Un in agreement.

  “The win wasn’t fair!” another orb of spearmint color chimed in. Un nodded passionately. His fellow supports—who I could only guess had placed bets on Un winning—surrounded him with cheers of support. “The human and the vampires used abilities that we’ve never seen before.”

  Debt Keeper soured at this. “I will remind my kin that we shaped and designed the ancestors of these lower beings.” Her hardened tone suggested that pushback was unwise. She must have untold years of experience judging controversial wins.

  Un glared at her with his disturbing white eyes, then gathered himself up in his magnificent robes. He rounded on Ruk, who was several feet away, and snarled, “You probably cheated.”

  The accusation flew through the air like a javelin. Several arbiters gasped, and the designers, particularly Krysh, began to grumble in annoyance.

  “Oh, I cheated, did I?” A grin unraveled on Ruk’s face. His lavender eyes twinkled with fury and pride to the point of looking happily demented. “I’d also like to remind my kin of something. You lot stripped me of my energy, drastically reducing my capabilities and greatly weakening me. Please educate me on how I managed such nefarious activities with my current abilities. And are you suggesting that Krysh’s design was flawed or that Debt Keeper ruled wrong?”

  The crowd simmered. Un’s really pissed if he’s willing to risk angering both the designers and Debt Keeper at once.

  “I’m all ears,” Ruk hissed, taking a challenging step toward Un. The latter looked as if Ruk had sucker-punched him square in the stomach. It must be frustrating to have to try to justify your wild accusation made in the heat of the moment.

  I hooked my arm through Dorian’s and leaned into him, enjoying the feeling of his skin, especially after that awful metallic bath. “They’re just going to keep arguing,” I whispered. “Let’s go somewhere we can be alone to actually celebrate… and then strategize.” Leave the arbiters to their bitter bickering and longstanding rivalries. Ruk could deal with that. They would sort themselves out.

  Dorian gave me a wicked grin in agreement. I focused on the image of Ruk’s estate in my mind, knowing Dorian was likely doing the same. We channeled our energy and stepped away from the arbiters. After all our training and efforts, the travel was almost instantaneous. We landed in the tower of Ruk’s estate to find no roof above us. But I didn’t mind because when I looked up, I could see the misty gray hanging over us, dotted with flecks of gold. Our pride at our victory? It was magnificent.

  A creaking sound made me turn. Jia stared unabashedly at us. He must’ve followed when we left.

  I smiled down at him, no longer resentful of his presence but still in need of some privacy. “C
an you wait in the stairwell, please, Jia?”

  The proxy simply nodded and strolled off to the stairwell outside. Dorian immediately ran to shut the door, his urgency to get me alone making me giggle. Jia had strangely grown on me, despite his disturbing purpose. As soon as he disappeared, I threw my arms around Dorian with a cry of joy, pulling him down for a kiss. He smiled against my lips, and a spark of love exploded between us. Without the prying eyes of arbiters, we could truly be alone and ourselves here. Dorian groaned in pleasure as we deepened our kiss.

  I pressed the full length of my body against him, glad to feel his warmth after the chill of the liquid silver. A wave of desire pulsed through me, making my head light with delirious affection. It was a combination of a lover’s embrace and our huge win against the odds. How many times have we beaten the odds together?

  I pulled back for a moment. “I think we make a good team, Dorian. We could keep doing this forever, I suspect.”

  “I suspect the very same thing,” he replied smoothly before angling me and pressing me against a wall. “A great team.”

  I moaned happily as he kissed me again. A swirling breeze struck us, the texture a strange one after so long of no change in the weather. I opened my eyes to see a flurry of glittery golden specks dotted with a breathtaking cloud of amber. The amber and gold mixed into the peach for a moment, then separated again in a glorious stream of beautiful colors. I let out a delighted laugh as we broke away. Our emotions poured into the universe around us. The Games had been almost fun, minus the threat of grievous injury…

  If everything else weren’t weighing down on me, I could probably let this exhilarated feeling flow freely through me without any worries at all. The gold specks danced in front of my face, pulling me away from my concerns. I stood pressed against Dorian as we looked up at the sky. The peach-tinted, misty breeze rose up into the sky to form a swirling vortex of happiness above us. There was no trace of anger or sadness anywhere, only love and warmth and celebration. I rested my head against his chest as I admired the show. It was enchanting to work alongside my talented partner and use amazing powers we never even knew existed. We’d defeated proxies together. We’d bested the arbiters.

  Specks of silver began to show, then fireworks of gold and silver suddenly popped off within the mist. Dorian let out an amused chuckle. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jia had crept up from the stairwell and cracked open the door just to peek at the light show. His round blue eyes stared up in wonder, the amber and peach reflected back beautifully on his smooth gray face. A cool violet began to sink into the mist, but the golden specks remained, and they turned even brighter.

  For one glorious moment, everything was illuminated. I turned to Dorian, admiring his sharp profile in the glow of our success. He smiled down at me and placed a gentle kiss on my forehead.

  "We did it."

  "We really did," I whispered.

  The light above us shifted and faded back to the same gray landscape. I took in the sound of Dorian's breath as it rose and fell, noting the way his broad chest felt as he moved beneath my touch. This. This was happiness.

  And yet…

  We had a lot ahead of us. I wanted to be back with our allies, fighting the good fight and making sure Irrikus and his Immortal Council paid for their crimes. We couldn't let the tear merge the three planes. I was happy for this moment with Dorian, but we had our loved ones and a universe to save. It did soothe me a little to think that the universe was on our side, too, after my near injury in the Games.

  "I can’t help but wonder how our friends are doing," I admitted to Dorian. When I looked at him, his glacial eyes had sobered, but they were gentle as he brushed his thumb over my cheek.

  "I was thinking the same thing. I could enjoy this more if I knew they were all right."

  I sighed and gave him one last tight squeeze, letting my body memorize his warmth. I needed to tuck this feeling deep inside my memories. If I ever needed hope again, I would think of this moment. We broke apart with our hands clasped together. The light show was over, and with the gray mist hanging above us, we left the tower chamber. Jia waited silently on the third step down, having returned to his post from watching the fireworks. We sat on the top step, lapsing into silence as the gravity of our situation returned to us.

  "I have something to tell you," Jia said abruptly. “It is an observation I have made that I think would be of interest to you.”

  I started, surprised that he'd initiated a conversation. Dorian and I shared a stunned look, then stared down at the proxy, who turned to look up at us with his large, unblinking eyes.

  "You create light energy between the two of you when you do that."

  "When we—" I thought back to the kiss, a hint of warm embarrassment sneaking up my neck.

  "Yes," Jia simply replied. "When you are together like that. This information is new to me." He paused, and his rudimentary brow furrowed with wonder. How interesting. He’d seemed so doll-like in the beginning, but it was like he was slowly coming alive in little ways.

  "I didn't know that, either." I glanced at Dorian, who shook his head.

  “Guess I’m learning all sorts of new things about souls, and light and dark energy,” he said.

  I looked back at Jia in all his concentration. Was he communicating with Xiu silently, the way Ruk had taught us to do? Maybe their proxies could do it, too…

  "But if you know, then Xiu knows," I pointed out to Jia gently, hoping he didn't become suspicious of my worry. To my surprise, the small golem hummed with doubt.

  "Perhaps."

  I raised a curious eyebrow. "Why does she want to keep an eye on us, anyway? Nobody else has assigned a proxy to us."

  "Uncertain," Jia replied, a hint of his mechanical tone coming back. "She only occasionally queries my memories for information. I am unsure of her supreme purpose, but she has designed me for this. It is logical. A proxy serves a purpose, even if it does not understand the purpose."

  Distaste and annoyance filled me. It didn't sit well with me how the arbiters treated the proxies, particularly after watching them die in the Games. Or a version of dying. Did it count as dying if they had no soul? The ethics of it all gave me a very uncomfortable feeling. Okay, sure, maybe I have a hero complex. I mulled this over as I stretched my arms in front of me, noting the beginnings of a few nasty bruises. I doubted they would deepen while we were here, since the energy of the universe helped Dorian and me heal our injuries on a subtle level.

  "Do those marks in your flesh cause you pain? " Jia asked.

  Dorian watched our exchange with great interest. I cocked my head to the side and showed my bruises to Jia, who, to my surprise, came up one more step and sat down to get a closer look.

  “If I were in the lower planes they would hurt,” I said, “but here they don’t, thanks to the stasis.”

  Jia stared up at us, tucking his legs to his chest. "I believe that it will heal soon, returning you to your previous state of stasis, but there might be some stiffness for a while." He sounded as if he were thinking aloud. His voice was gentle, a tad curious, although he was careful to keep a step’s distance between us.

  How did he know? I tested my arms myself. Indeed, there was a slight ache in my joints. It was similar to the way I felt headaches or eye strain from lack of landmarks in this plane. "You must learn a lot just by noticing," I suggested.

  Jia truly fascinated me. The arbiters treated proxies like servants, but it wouldn't be the first time that the arbiters were guilty of underestimating other species… I moved and felt a dull ache in my heel, as well. I popped off my boot and peeled back my sock to look at the back of my foot. It was a tad pink, the skin a shade darker than it should be.

  Jia leaned forward to peek at my foot. I twisted my lips curiously, wondering if he wanted to look more closely but needed to be invited.

  "Do you want to look at it? You don't have to."

  "Yes, I would," Jia admitted. He stretched out one small hand to gently touc
h my foot. The contact didn't hurt, but Jia's hands were surprisingly cool. It felt nice against the warmth of my slightly swollen heel. "Yes, the heel is still a bit aggravated from the blue flame. I cannot fix it… but it appears that the universal energy is repairing this wound just fine."

  "Good." I smiled at Dorian. The universe really was giving us something, even if I didn't understand how.

  Now that we’d had more experience seeing other proxies, I had a million questions I wanted to ask Jia. Did he have his own thoughts? Did he always need to ask permission from Xiu before he did something? My mind raced as I pulled my boot back on. I was about to ask my first question, a dozen others beginning to pile into the back of my mind, when a flash of light fractured the sky. A red lightning bolt traveled through the gray mist, and then it disappeared. Angry voices gathered outside, growing closer. I quickly laced my boot as Dorian got to his feet, his face alert to possible danger. We scrambled down the stairs as the mist above us grew more colorful, with splotches of eggplant purple and the same crimson anger. It wasn't coming from the two of us. We hurried downstairs, my heart pounding in my chest.

  A crowd of arbiters was approaching the estate, following Ruk, who was waving his hands as if to shoo away annoying pests. The group was much smaller, perhaps a dozen in all. He’d clearly tried to stop them from coming, but try telling anything to a group of supernatural beings with their own twisted sense of logic.

  "Oh, fantastic," Dorian muttered dryly. Our moment of rest was already over. Jia kept close to me as Ruk finally stopped a few feet ahead of us and spread his arms.

  "You're unhinged," Ruk said icily to the crowd. Un and Krysh led the front. “You levied a debt you thought was commensurate with my crime, and I paid it off. Will you now go back on your decision?”

  Un curled his lips into a displeased snarl, but Krysh looked on more coolly. Her gaze seemed catlike as she moved between Un and Ruk, but underneath her composure, a hint of twisted delight sparked.