Dark Ember

by R. D. Vallier

  The chainsaw revved. I squished the earplugs into my ears, thoughts racing as two more trees met their fates. I'd thought of Orin constantly for months, our adventures, his kindness, our talks, his contagious smile. Outside of Delano and the coyotes, he was my only friend, and I counted the minutes to our reunion. Exhaust and wood-chips thickened the air, and my brow furrowed. If Delano was correct, though, Orin's past could destroy him. Destroy us.

  RRRREEEE! Teeth devastated. A strong trunk cracked. A stunning height wobbled and collapsed. Sigh. BOOM! Thanks.

  Orin had seemed happy to see me, but was he? Did he maintain his darkling bigotry? Did he lump me in with what he despised? I assumed risking our lives for each other created a platinum bond, precious and strong. Now worry churned my stomach. God knew what four and a half months sprouted inside him, what seeds germinated to embrace his sunshine, what changed. I had been so excited to reunite with my friend, to laugh and wander and nibble candy canes while discussing thoughts, histories, stories, wants. Now our approaching reunion felt like an evaluation, as if train tracks lay between us, and we each needed to decide which side of the tracks was home.

  The night screeched. Grief overwhelmed its magic. I stumbled with Delano as another darkling-death rolled greasy waves from the north. Tears sprung to my eyes; my heart shattered and tornadoes whirled inside my joints. The sensation was milder than before, but strong. Close.

  Delano swayed to Earth's invisible song. "Male energy. Probably around Canada," he said. "We're okay. We—"

  Delano yelped as red and blue lights flashed near the campground. He scoffed at his nerves and killed the chainsaw's engine. "Looks like LEOs joined the party."

  Grief-waves plowed through me, stabbing my racing heart. I felt small and vulnerable, desperate to embrace my human upbringing and run to the police, crying: Help! Please! The Realm is killing everybody and we don't know how to stop it!

  A car door slammed. We plucked out our earplugs and fled into the shadows, the Earth's fresh grief wailing through my bones.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I sat at a picnic table inside a grove, overlooking a deserted reservoir surrounded in forested hills. Stumps and pale gray boulders dotted the shore. The coyote with the missing ear volunteered to guard today, and panted on the ground beside me. I practically chewed the skin off my lip. When Orin and I had separated last winter, he was flogged, mauled, his nose broken and skewed. He'd destroyed his life to protect me, and I hoped his sacrifice wasn't in vain, that he'd somehow been bettered. I wanted him happy, secure, with purpose. I wanted his eyes open to the Realm's corruption, but his heart intact. I hoped his flogged wings were his only scars, and his tears and terrors remained in that horrible January. I hoped the new year brought him a new life worth living.

  I pulled Delano's iPhone from the backpack to distract myself. An earlier text conversation with his old-cellmate-turned-darkling sat on screen:

  Delano: Bavol kidnapped pregnant bloodline woman. Expect catastrophe.

  Weldon: WTF?! Want me to shoot him?

  Delano: I wish. Too many DDs & ETs. Might need the psycho's help later. :-

  Weldon: Want me to shoot u? haha

  My eyebrows perked. Del's considering collaborating? Maybe good will come from this. DD meant dead darkling; ET meant empty territory. Delano hardly mentioned last night's murder, but I heard him toss and turn in bed all morning.

  I opened the web browser. The phone displayed one bar and 3G. Frigging liar. I waved the phone overhead, to my side, laid it on the table, tapping the screen. Nothing. I sighed. For whatever reason, we received texts, but not much else out here. I no longer missed the internet, though, and actually felt happier without the time-sucker. A shoddy connection also kept away the temptation to spy on my husband.

  Ex-husband. Ex-husband. Sam's my ex now.

  The coyote leapt to its feet, growling.

  Tik.

  I gasped as a chickadee dropped dead on the phone, its feet curled, a blood corsage on its chest. Orin stepped from around a tree, cocking a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun.

  "Sorry about that." He pinched the chickadee's foot and flung the corpse into a bush.

  Orin's muscles were thicker, but worn notches showed where his belt cinched tighter, as if the past four and a half months had been scarce on food and hard on labor. I stood and threw my arms around him. "Oooh! It's so good to see you." I melted into his faerie-fever, breathed in scents of hollowed logs and early spring. He hugged me tight. I snickered. "Gee, Orin, is that a gun in your pocket or are you happy to see me?"

  "Actually, it's on my belt. I'm required to carry." He lifted his open over-shirt to show me a holstered pistol. My cop-wife brain cringed and shrieked: That's so illegal! Some habits die hard, and even Delano had stopped nagging me to carry in California.

  Orin gave me a lopsided smile. "But of course I'm happy to see you. Why wouldn't I be?"

  "Never mind."

  Several mud dauber wasps circled us, then darted to scout for spyders. Orin adjusted his backpack and slung the Red Ryder over his shoulder. "I can't believe we're meeting in daylight. I was sure…" His grin faltered when he saw night's rust tinting my eyes.

  I looked away. "Yeah, well, it's been an interesting few months."

  Before we had parted in January, Orin said he preferred death over becoming a darkling. A common sentiment among faeries, and I didn't blame them. The Realm brainwashed its people into believing darklings were monstrous, and the darkshine was a horrific prison sentence. That wasn't a false belief someone easily shed. I cleared my throat, wishing I had taken in enough day magic to return my eyes to their natural, boring brown.

  Orin scratched his head. "Uh, how ya feeling?"

  "Great."

  We headed toward the water. The coyote darted ahead, leaving paw-prints in the coarse sand. Delano's drought had receded the water 100 feet. Brown and tan sandbars cut into the earth like wide staircases, denoting the water-level drops. Umber blotches peppered the encompassing hillsides, marking where bark beetles devastated, their mandibles and eggs killing the forest.

  Orin's feet dragged across the sand. His arms didn't swing; his gait lacked its typical bounce. Summer shone on his seaside face, but it was no longer a summer of clubhouses and creek beds with jeans rolled over knees. It was a summer of broken air-conditioners, hot leather seats, sore muscles desperate for a workweek's end. Orin's constant half-grin now seemed weaker, a muscle memory holding onto an action long past. His eyes glazed as he scanned our surroundings, as if conserving energy for threat evaluation, tactics, safety, concerns. We approached a fluorescent orange fishing lure, its metallic fins sparkling in the sunlight. Orin's Converse crushed it into the sand.

  "Sooo, you were up north?" I asked, wondering if he'd been stationed near the recent murder.

  "Yeah. Running security for the generals. But here needed a squad leader."

  "Squad leader sounds like a better promotion than retriever," I said, shamelessly prompting him.

  "It is." He laughed. "Can you believe it? I struggled for decades to climb out of my grunt position in the Realm. Now I'm a leader in four months."

  "I guess the rebels were a good choice for you." I bit my lip. "You sound well."

  "I am well." Orin smiled, a sun's dull glow beneath an overcast sky.

  The coyote sniffed a pair of men's briefs half buried in the sand as we sat on a low boulder beside the reservoir's edge. A merganser scooted along the surface, cutting silver trails across the water. Gnats flittered in aimless races. Cellophane crinkled as Orin pulled a bag of gumdrops from his backpack and shook some into his hand. I popped a green one into my mouth when he offered. My chest lightened. My conscience exhaled. I hadn't destroyed my friend or torn his life to shreds. Sure, life changed, but Orin achieved his long sought rank. He found community and freedom, purpose which—

  "I'm lying."

  I turned to him. "Huh?"

  Orin faced the water, his mouth a pressed line. A shadow passed over his
expression in spite of the clear, bright sky. "I'm not well. I'm not even okay. I'm…" He dropped his head, rubbing above his eyebrow. "I don't know what I am."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Everything!" he blurted, thrusting his palms at the water. "My whole life is built on pretenses! What I always believed, what I based every action and thought on, is a lie. That means I am a lie. I want to be myself, but I don't know who I am, and fear my anger will make me explode or hurt someone. Except, what's terrifying, is I enjoy the anger. It's real, and reminds me I'm no longer a captive. But then that makes me angry." His fingers splayed, exasperated. "I'm angry at those who betrayed me, but mostly I'm angry at myself for stupidly letting the Realm use me to hurt others."

  My heart thrummed. The sixty-three-year-old man who looked hardly twenty-seven melted away, replaced with a scared, wide-eyed boy. "I've hurt people, Miriam," he whispered. "I thought I was doing good, but I wasn't. I thought they were bad, but they probably weren't. That means I hurt good people for bad reasons, making me bad."

  "Oh! No!" I clasped his shoulder. "You were deceived!"

  Orin wiped his eyes, sneered at his moist fingertips as if even his own body betrayed him. His hand clenched and the tears disappeared in a wisp of steam. "Yeah, well, never again. I won't let evil destroy me or good people. At first I thought: Hey, I want to fight the Realm, so the rebels are best for me. But now?" He shook his head. "The Realm instigates violent protests and blames them on us. They insist we're a cruel, looming threat the population needs protection from. But it's all lies! We're a small force, mostly untrained civilians without military experience. Our cause is helpless, our efforts meaningless. We destroy infrastructure, we steal. We act more like petty gangsters than like rebels, and the Realm has more than enough support to correct our damage. So am I fighting the Realm or am I inadvertently helping the Realm spread fear and corruption? Once the Realm can control the people without a bogeyman, I know they'll annihilate us."

  The trees and sky reflected in the reservoir's still water as if the world had flipped upside down. Orin puffed a breath. "I'm combat-training nine fae, as green as spring shoots. They're farmers and messengers and wind changers. It's so frustrating because they don't know how to shoot or run drills, but they want to fight. They're passionate and determined, but I dunno how to transform that into what's needed. I've never led. I don't want to lead! Especially after realizing I'm a follower, and can't even lead myself. I fear I will doom them to their graves. That's terrifying, and makes me so, so angry."

  I gaped at him. I'd spent months trying to squeeze any kind of emotion out of Delano. Seeing emotion gush out of Orin was almost shocking. "You have every right to be angry."

  "Do I have every right to stay that way?" he retorted. "I should let it go, but I can't."

  "Who says you should?"

  "Well, I dunno. But anger can't be healthy," Orin said.

  I shrugged. "I'm not a therapist and can't even figure out my own mess. But should sounds dangerous. It sounds like another blind follow, another fake reason to belittle and restrict yourself. I mean, who says you should, you know? And how do they know what is best for you in this moment? And why are you listening to them?"

  Orin stared into the water, silent, the gold in his eyes burning with the intensity of dying suns.

  "Please stop beating yourself up," I said. "You're doing the best with what you have. You say you want to be you. Well, right now you're angry! Stop feeling as if you need to act like someone else. That's the opposite of what you want."

  Orin ran his hands through his hair and groaned. "Yeah, maybe." He snorted and shook his head before looking up, his hair in fluffy disarray. "All I wanted was a family and stability. I didn't think that was too much to ask."

  I clasped his hand. "You still can."

  "No way. Even if the rebels allowed relationships, I can't bring children into this world, raise them in fear and hiding and pain. The best father I can be is to never be one." He gazed out at the water, silent. Tears surged in his Caribbean ocean eyes. He breathed deep, forbade them to flood. "I'm a terrible son. I've never missed my mom's birthday before this year. She's probably agonizing about what happened to me, but if I call or write or anything, the Realm will execute her for aiding terrorists. The Realm might already be pumping my parents for information, my…" Mud daubers buzzed past our ears. He slid his hands down his face, pulling his lower lids. "…my little sis. Some days I wish the sniffer had killed me. I'd rather cease to exist than suffer this anxiety."

  The coyote's one ear perked to a motorboat grumbling across the gray-blue water. Orin lifted his hand in an apathetic wave. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Orin's home was broken. The locks were changed, the portraits torn in half, the love letters crumpled and burning. My excitement about seeing him dissolved into dread, heavy in my stomach. I stared at a twist of fishing line caught in the bark of a nearby stump, my eyes stinging. I resisted the urge to shove his chest, kick his shins, force him to leave this reservoir, these mountains, these woods. I didn't know what kind of relationship we'd develop and I didn't want to find out. I couldn't handle the constant reminder of the life I destroyed.

  Monsoons brewed in Orin's gaze. "Do you know what a dumgun is?" I shook my head; foreboding trembled my lip. "They're rebels who blow their brains out on the Earth consulate doorstep. The Realm insists they're terrorists. The border sentries make fun of them—I made fun of them—tickled they did us a favor. Now I understand. Dumguns don't send messages of terror. They prove they're dead so their loved ones are protected from their crimes. It's commendable."

  I hated the day-dreamy glint in his eyes. "It is not commendable," I said, slowly. "It's terrible." We stared into the reservoir, the water reflecting our tight faces like a scrying glass. "You better not do anything stupid, Orin."

  He snorted. "Don't worry, Miriam. I'm determined to die in battle, taking a sniffer or two with me."

  The ripples from the boat's wake slapped the shore, wiping our reflections away.

  "Have you discussed this with anyone?" I asked.

  "Tell my fellow soldiers how I miss my mom and dad? Uh, no. I have enough problems."

  "They probably feel similar."

  "There's camaraderie, but it's strained. We fight for the same cause—to overthrow the totalitarian regime and go home free—but there's no real trust or loyalty. We're not family, merely a group of fae betrayed … which makes me homesick for the Realm. I feel unstable here, like an alien on this world." He picked up a rock, rolled it between his palms. "Although, I admit all the trees are wonderful."

  Orin lowered his head, profiling where my husband—

  Ex-husband! Ex-husband!

  —had broken his nose, and I realized he'd undertaken more damage than a bump of cartilage. Heartache twinged my chest. Orin inherited my lonely changeling curse, except he lacked the connection to human culture. In my selfish struggle to find my place in the world, Orin had lost his. In my desperation to find a family who loved me, he lost a family who always did. He wanted to share everything he loved, but, like a drowning victim, I had towed him under and ended his life.

  "And Cham." Orin chucked the rock. It hissed and steamed when it struck the water. "Rumor says he unknowingly busted his fiancée in the Realm before defecting. I know what guilt can do to a person, and I try to empathize, but uggggh!"

  "Delano calls him a paranoid mall cop."

  To my surprise, Orin laughed. His eyes shifted to the sides. He crouched into his shoulders with a naughty I shouldn't be doing this, but damn it feels good expression, like a ten-year-old flipping through his daddy's Playboy. "Cham is third in command to the rebel organization, but only because he helped Dain and Xalvador at the onset."

  Dain and Xalvador, the two generals up north. Cham's bosses.

  "Cham's not a fighter," Orin continued. "He was a Realm techie, but acts tough because he gets to order others around. His combat tactics are reckless. I clench my teeth every time he gives an order,
every time we go out while the milksop stays behind."

  "Cham gives us grief, too," I said. "Del almost tore his head off because he tried coercing me into divulging territory details, like mine locations, the darkshine's demands, etcetera. Yet Cham refuses to relay rebel intel. For free, anyway."

  Orin glowered. "Typical. Let me tell you what he did when Kager dared to take initiative, and…"

  We sat for almost an hour, griping and snickering and poking fun at Cham. We attacked his methods, his attitude, his double-standards, his fashion-sense. Not even his haircut was safe. Sure we were puerile, but it felt good to pick at an asshole. Our frowns reversed into smiles, our gripes into giggles, and I watched Orin's face brighten. I hoped his outlook on life did, too.

  The mud daubers circled Orin's head. He glanced at the sun, puffing his lips. "I gotta go. My grunts await their fearless leader," he said, rolling his eyes. "I'm sorry I wasted our time whining."

  "You didn't. I've enjoyed seeing you."

  "Next time I better hear about you," he said with a toothy grin. "Meet me Friday outside Kohl's in Sonora? Daybreak. I gotta surprise."

  My eyebrow lifted to the devious glint in his eye, but I agreed. The coyote stood with us. Orin heaved the backpack onto his shoulders. It looked as if it contained the weight of the world.

  We hugged. "I'm glad you're here," I said, unsure if I lied. "But I'm sorry they transferred you to an assignment you hate."

  Orin pulled back, his brow arched. "I wasn't transferred. I asked to come."

  Huh? "But if you hate leadership, why—?"

  "You're the one person I trust and I promised to protect you." He jogged up the air, smiling over his shoulder. "I came for you."

  CHAPTER SIX

  "What's wrong?"

  "The trees are irritating me," Delano grumbled.