Dark Ember

by R. D. Vallier

  "No, no. You misunderstand," Orin said. "You fought." I stared at Orin, blank. His eyes swooped. "Come on, Miriam. Did you ever stand up to Sam like that?"

  My brow furrowed. I knew I hadn't; I had been too timorous. But my mind combed through our relationship—the high school years, the crappy apartment, the move to Appalachia, his career—desperate for a scrap to throw in Orin's face.

  "No," I admitted, slowly. "I always appeased him."

  "Why?"

  My chin trembled. "Because I'm a coward."

  Orin's eyes swooped again. "Why were you afraid?"

  "Well…" I hugged myself, chewing my lip. Upstairs, an alarm chimed. "Sam intimidated me. I feared his insults and rages."

  "So why'd you challenge Delano?"

  "Because…" My eyes widened. "Because I felt safe."

  Orin nodded. "Because you trust him. Not completely, but enough."

  I felt a swelling and a sinking in my torso. I trust Del? I wanted to simultaneously cry and laugh, regretting our fight, yet finding relief concerning my past. I once believed, wholeheartedly, that I was weak and worthless. Thus, I handled Sam the only way I knew how during our marriage. The one incident where I stood up for myself he tried to kill me. What would've happened if I confronted Sam before I knew who I was or understood my capabilities? I'd be another changeling, dead through circumstance. Weight floated off my chest as I breathed deep, and started to forgive myself.

  Blankets rustled upstairs. Electricity hummed. I was stronger now, growing bit by bit, discovering my voice. Compared to a darkling, Sam was a kitten, and the reality was, if Delano wanted to physically hurt me, I probably couldn't protect myself. Nevertheless, I confronted Delano and said my piece. I participated (granted, poorly), and felt no need to retreat or become numb to protect myself, because I felt safe to be myself around him, no matter how ugly.

  The cot creaked as Orin stood. "I won't say what you should or shouldn't do regarding darklings, but cut the guy some slack. He's lashing out because he can't cope. It's only been two days. Give him time to process and come to grips."

  I bit my lip. If the sentries don't kill him.

  The medic tiptoed downstairs. Her terrycloth bathrobe whispered as she passed my bedside. Orin kept his head bowed, hands in his pockets. Her squeaky pen checked a box on the whiteboard, then she scratched the owl's head until its enormous, yellow eyes blinked open. The owl drank willingly from the green-glowing dropper she offered, then ruffled its feathers and drifted to sleep. The medic offered me a drowsy smile before returning to bed.

  Orin's scowl followed her up the staircase, his jaw ticking from tension. "How are you feeling?"

  "I've been better, buh—buh—" I sneezed, and cried out as pain stabbed my head, my ribs, my thigh, my back. I hugged myself, gasping, my body throbbing, tears fogging my vision. Orin straightened, scanning the bunks, the cells, the children snuggled in blankets beneath the tables. "Sorry," I panted, thinking he worried I woke everyone. "I didn't mean—"

  "Shh." Orin removed a folded scrap of wax paper from his pocket. His eyebrows drew together. "Do you trust me?"

  I rubbed my hip and forehead, wincing. "Of course, Orin."

  He unfolded the wax paper, revealing a dollop of mauve jelly. He scooped it onto his finger, then pointed at my mouth. "Lick my finger."

  My eyes widened. "Wha-what did you say?"

  Orin's eyes twinkled like sun-drenched lagoons. "Lick my finger."

  The hair on my neck prickled. Snores became chirping crickets. Walls morphed into dogwoods. I saw Delano as he had knelt beneath The Big Dipper, surrounded in tangy grasses, his finger dirty with bacteria, his leer dirty with promises. Yet, the memory was also now. Orin superimposed on Delano, mauve jelly on his fingertip, concern in his oceanic stare. The air thinned. My heart raced. The sky in my memory shifted from day and night with each blink. My consciousness seemed to crack and expand, as if arcane knowledge was clawing free from my reptilian brain. I saw darkness as light and light as darkness. Coincidence didn't exist, only threads, twisting and binding to form a picture in an ever expanding tapestry. What was my brain grasping at? I didn't know, but oh God, I needed to. Desire rushed in as I faced a long sought answer to a question I had forgotten, a metaphysical, spiritual knowledge I could comprehend if I activated hidden neurons. If I wasn't so mortal.

  I opened my mouth to describe this indescribable moment, where past seemed present, present seemed past, where light and dark were one. "Orin!" I gasped, feeling on the verge of a breakthrough or a dive into madness. "Orin! I—!"

  Orin poked his finger into my mouth. My head jerked, startled. Foreign flavors coated my tongue, a taste like pollen sprinkled with exotic spices. The moment vanished; the cusp of knowledge slipped away, instantly forgotten. Light burst in my vision like swarming fireflies. I gasped, my breath stretching to my toes, inhaling the ambrosial air of a tropical world. I collapsed onto the bed, wondering where Orin found Realm medicine, wondering how much trouble he'd be in if caught, wondering … wondering … What was I wondering? My muscles liquefied. Pain leaked out of me and soaked into the mattress, draining my cares away.

  Orin repositioned my body, tucked me beneath the blankets. His fingers twiddled in a farewell wave. "Sweet dreams." He then faded behind the flickering illumination as fireflies buzzed through my nerves and carried me into a sweet, nebulous light.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  We were stuck.

  Sentries swarmed Delano's territory. Several were spotted nearby, thus Cham ordered a lockdown to prevent them from sensing our location. No magic was permitted, and only scouts could leave until the sentries returned to the Realm. After three days, people became stir-crazy. With so many crowded faeries, I was baking alive. No one emptied the latrine buckets or trash, and right when I adjusted to the stench, it thickened and made me gag. I'd volunteered to call in a fake police report, pretending to be a hiker who stumbled onto a marijuana field. Theoretically, law enforcement would swarm the area and force the Realm to retreat long enough to restock supplies and empty waste. The faeries loved my idea, but Cham refused and demeaned it for thirty minutes. Orin insisted it was because Cham hadn't thought of it, but I decided to keep my mouth shut from then on.

  I limped to a utility closet and grabbed a broom. I had escaped imprisonment, but the Realm still stole my home, my darkling, my life. My core burned like my thigh's torn flesh. I felt cheated and abandoned, but I had been abandoned amid furious faeries who wielded guns and vengeance. They saw me as an outsider, but maybe we could unite under revenge.

  But will they let me? Orin insisted the rebels were desperate for recruits, and I knew he'd vouch for me, but that was Orin. Everyone else gave mixed signals. Some were genuinely friendly. Some were defiantly friendly, as if befriending a changeling directly struck the Realm. Others kept their old prejudices and avoided me, like the red-headed scissor-wielder Orin had scared away. My rusty eyes didn't help, and with the magic restriction, I was forced to keep them.

  Raina broadcasted the Realm's message every evening. The rebels glued themselves to the screen, waiting for her to signal ransom negotiations. Two nights ago, she had crowed about a darkling murder in the Virgin Islands and granted everyone a day off to celebrate. I spent the night with a broken heart as the world grieved.

  Is this death the tipping point? I had wondered. Will darklings begin dying on their own because there's no longer enough of them to handle the Earth's energy? Kager had spotted me rubbing my arms, comforting myself from a nonexistent chill, and flashed me a pitying smile.

  By day five, Raina still reported only propaganda. Sentries still hunted. Delano was still missing. Rations dwindled to oatmeal and beans. The children bounced off the walls.

  Now, it was day six. My stitches were out, my back pain-free, but my thigh sore and burning. Most faeries mended garments or cleaned firearms upstairs. Orin and Vina chatted in the corner near the rock tumblers, their hands glowing over a large solar panel, charging deep-cycl
e batteries. Three children jumped rope with the sniffer's bullwhip, reciting a Realm nursery song I now had memorized.

  "One, two, three. Lynch their bodies in a tree. Four, five, six. Beat them bloody with our sticks. Seven, eight, nine. On their eyes the crows shall dine. Do we end at ten? No! We'll kill again and again! One, two, three…" Smack-Smack-Smack went the sniffer's whip.

  I swept the floors, the hound rattling its crate every time I passed. Growling, growling, that dog was always frigging growling. I limped down the table lengths. A mud dauber buzzed my head. My swelling was gone, I had full sight, and my pain lessened enough for my imagination to win control. My brain warred between two mental loops. One side replayed my fight with Delano, and everything I should have said. The other half chewed on Orin's assessment regarding trust. At the moment, fight was winning.

  "How dare you lash out when I'm the one hurt," I said in my current fantasy. "If anyone should be throwing a hissy fit, it's me!"

  Fantasy Delano gasped. "Hissy fit?"

  "You don't care about my well-being! Otherwise, you'd have warned me about the dangers of hybrid magics! But you only cared once they affected you!"

  Fantasy Delano scoffed. "I'll excuse that absurdity to your pain and injuries."

  "Oh, you did notice them," Fantasy Me sneered, which made no sense because Fantasy Me had no injuries. Fantasy Me sported red high heels and the fabulous charcoal dress I'd spotted in a Sonora boutique a few weeks ago.

  Fantasy Delano's eyes glanced at my breasts which miraculously swelled two cup sizes. "Yeah, I noticed."

  I jumped when Orin touched my shoulder. "How's it going?"

  "Okay. I—"

  "HEY!"

  I whipped around in time to see the sniffer's meal plate fly toward his hound's crate. Oatmeal sprayed my swept floors as his plate nailed the fourteen-year-old girl between her eyes. "Gwaaaah!" the girl wailed, dropping a stick.

  Kager aimed his rifle at the sniffer's head. "Sit!" he shouted while the children scuttled behind the tables.

  The sniffer gripped the cell bars. A spark flashed in his eyes like flint on steel and—despite the locked cell, the rifle aimed at his brains, and the entrapping cinder block walls—I feared for Kager's life. The air tensed with a free-fall sensation, that stomach-tightening moment between tripping and striking your face on the pavement. And I knew, somehow, Kager would lose his teeth.

  The sniffer's eyes narrowed. He then stepped away from the bars and plopped into the corner. "Keep your filthy brats from teasing my dog." The sniffer's voice was gruff yet melodic, like a blues singer. Or a grays singer. Yes, gray. Every sniffer felt gray to me, as if the Realm washed them too many times, drained the color out of their souls.

  The children sniveled behind the tables. The fourteen-year-old rubbed her nose's reddening bridge. Orin glared at the sniffer, shaking his head. "To think, I once admired his kind." His face darkened. "Murderers. I admired murderers."

  Vina clapped her hands, smiling cheerfully beside the solar panel. "Who wants to make art?"

  The kids scampered, hands stretching over their heads. "Me! Me! Me!"

  "Kager, get the craft box and—" Vina glanced at Orin, blushing. "If it's okay, that is. Sir."

  Orin smirked. "Yeah, it's great." He squeezed my hand. "Join us."

  Kager brought a large cardboard box from the supply closet. Several kids scrabbled to sit around the table as he and Vina set out paper plates, glue, pop cans, staplers, scissors and clippers, marbles and ball bearings, paintbrushes, empty coffee cans, spools of wire. They also set out nine-volt batteries and roofing nails, which I thought odd, but funds were tight and rebels repurposed everything. It was sweet, really, making do where they could. I smiled, glimpsing a family-dynamic I hadn't been privileged to before. A stepping aside from dark times to focus on happiness and each other.

  By the time I sat, five kids actively glued marbles and nails to paper plates, chittering. Orin handed me empty Sprite cans and a pair of metal clippers. "Cut the can."

  "Into what?" I asked.

  "Shapes, animals. Anything! Be creative," Orin said brightly, then darted to the rock tumblers whirring in the corner.

  The fourteen-year-old sat on my left, the bridge of her nose ripening like a plum. Vina and Kager sat across from us. Kager opened a box of spark plugs. Vina punched holes into the bottom of coffee cans with a hammer and nail, casting me anxious glances. The hound growled from its crate.

  A freckled six-year-old stared at me from her marbles and nails. "Is it true changelings become darklings to hurt faeries?"

  "Er, no—"

  "It's a Realm lie," Vina said. "Changelings make the best darklings because they attach to Earth's culture first."

  "Then why ain'tcha a darkling?" the freckled child asked. "Ya kinda look like one."

  The fourteen-year old focused on her wires and nine-volts. "Cuz she doesn't like Delano, dummy."

  "That's not true!" I said.

  "Why does that matter?" Freckles asked.

  "Well—" I started.

  Vina glared at me, brushing her chopped locks from her face. "It doesn't matter."

  I sighed and clipped my pop can into lopsided hearts and stars and lima beans. Orin had gone all out this morning and weaved wildflowers into my plaits. I worried it was because he knew today was my birthday, but if he did know, he fortunately didn't confess.

  I rolled my neck to ease a shoulder cramp as my mind crawled to daydreams.

  "How can I trust you?" Fantasy Me said. "You never tell me anything!"

  "Like hell!" Fantasy Delano snarled, his face all anger and lust. My high heels clacked as I stepped back. My spine pressed a wall which inexplicably sprung up. "I tell you my life wants! My territory's secrets!"

  "Ha! It sounds impressive, but it's all surface crap!" Fantasy Me swung the hair out of my face. "I'd learn as much from a résumé!"

  My melodramatics stunned Fantasy Delano. He then—

  Orin returned with a rock tumbler barrel and dumped its silver glitter into an empty yogurt container beside me.

  "That's pretty," I said.

  Orin grinned his toothy grin. "Isn't it?" He sat next to me and scooped tablespoons of glitter into ziplock bags. "It reminds me of home. The leaves of the revliz plant resemble this during pollination."

  Kager emptied a baggie of chunky soil into a cup of red paint and stirred with a popsicle stick. My nose crinkled; it smelled like a litter box. Vina pulled instant-cold-compresses from the box. I expected Vina to hand one to the girl for her swelling, but instead she cut them open with safety scissors. She discarded the water packs and poured its crystals into ziplock baggies, jabbering with Orin about some Realm film relating to the revliz. The kids slathered textured paint onto their projects. My imagination wandered off on their laughter.

  Fantasy Me squared my shoulders and snapped: "What else aren't you telling me, Del? Huh?"

  Fantasy Delano pressed his palms against the wall, trapping me between his arms. "What are you not telling me?"

  "I've been honest!"

  "Liar."

  "It's you—"

  Fantasy Delano crushed his mouth against mine. Fantasy Me protested, but quickly surrendered. Our tongues wrestled. Fingers dug. My legs belted his waist as he pressed me against the wall. "Tell me what you want, changeling."

  Fantasy Me gasped as he tugged my panties aside. "I want—"

  "ORIN!"

  Cham's shout needled my fantasy bubble. He stormed to our table looking as if he descended a beanstalk. "You killed the personal sniffer of Earth's ambassador?" he screamed, jabbing his index-finger at Orin's face. "Do you know how much we could've ransomed him for?"

  Orin wiped spittle off his cheek. "Do you know how many fae I avenged?"

  Cham's eyebrows jumped. "Avenged?" Rage creased his face. "We're here for liberation not personal revenge!"

  Orin slapped his spoon onto the table. Faeries crowded the overhead banister to watch the show. "My command confronted a twenty-fiv
e-strong Realm enforcement detail, but we took zero casualties. And you're angry because a sniffer died?"

  "Those who surrender, live! No exceptions!" Cham yelled. Nausea sloshed inside my stomach as Orin faced punishment for helping me. Again. "We don't need dissenters! Maybe we need to rethink your—"

  "Hh-he didn't surrender."

  Cham and Orin turned to Vina's faint voice. Her enormous pale eyes peered from slumped shoulders, a baggie of cold-pack crystals trembling in her hands.

  "What?" Cham demanded.

  "Fff-Fff-Fino didn't surrender."

  I held my breath. Vina's body language screamed LIAR!

  "She's lying!" The red-headed scissor-wielder marched over, wagging a finger at Orin. "I saw Fino surrender and Orin kill him!"

  The fourteen-year-old stared at her nine-volts. "You dunno what you saw, Leont. You were across the field with me, up to our necks in sentries."

  "Shut up, Alys," Leont snapped. "I saw his hands lift."

  "That's true," Kager said. "Leont is right." Vina's lip trembled. Orin sat as motionless as a hunting heron, his jaw tight. "I was beside Orin when it happened."

  Leont's chest puffed triumphantly. "See?"

  Kager shook his head. "Fino didn't surrender; he reached for a fallen gun. Orin saved us."

  Leont's mouth fell. "But—" He glanced from Orin to Cham to Kager to his audience of scrutinizing fae. His fingers ran through his hair. "I-I could have sworn…"

  Kager smiled sympathetically. "It's okay, brother. Things get confusing during battle."

  Cham's eyes narrowed. "Is this true?" he asked Orin.

  Orin glanced at his three defenders. He met Cham's eyes and smiled as sweet as lemonade. "Absolutely."

  Veins bulged in Cham's forehead. His eyes darted from Orin to Vina to Kager with the shiftiness of someone expecting they're being played. My trembling hand clipped a jagged heart. We're okay. We're okay. Cham looked ready to kill something, but what could he do? The faeries sided with Orin.

  My stomach churned acid. Who cares if they lied to a tyrant to protect him? A bad faerie died at the hands of a faerie believing he did good. And Orin is good.