by Jenny Moyer
I step into a pod, buckle the straps across my shoulders, and stab the button. The door seals shut, and faint green light illuminates my gloves as I grip the handles. Three days have passed, testing in the gorge. Three days I’ve spent chasing eludial soil.
“The Congress of Natural Humanity thanks you for your service,” a voice says from a speaker. “Commencing decontamination.”
A vortex of air swirls around me, whipping my hair upward like a flag. The fan accelerates overhead with a mechanized whirring as air abrades my body like it’s going to pull my skin right off. The buckles cut into my shoulders, pushing against the new bruises I wear along the pods’ strap lines.
“Particle dust detected,” the mechanical voice drones.
I suck in a breath just before a spray mists me, a chemical that adheres to radioactive particles and draws them away. It burns my lungs if I breathe it, so I tell myself I’m underwater, swimming in a still blue pool—anywhere but here.
With my eyes clenched shut, it’s easier to see my mom. I think of her in these moments, amazed how much of her former life she hid from us. She never spoke of the Overburden. I never knew about this pod that she stepped into, long before I stepped into her arms. She should have taught me about life east of the curtain; instead she taught me games.
Come and find me, Orion, she’d say. There weren’t many places to hide in our outpost cottage, but it didn’t matter. I never tired of searching for her.
Found you, Mom.
The air cuts off, and I open my eyes slowly, holding on to her just a moment longer.
“Decontaminated,” the voice announces. “Proceed, Delver.”
The door opens with a hiss, and I stumble out toward the weigh station. Delvers speak in low tones as we shuffle through the line. We’ve used most our energy surviving the gorge, and in the quiet I hear each Delver empty her ore pouch onto the scale and the inspector’s graveled voice as he relays the weight to the recorder.
Despite our exhaustion, anticipation crackles in the air. One of us is going to earn Fortune tonight.
“Name.”
“Orion Denman.”
The man looks up from the ledger. “The scout from the outposts.”
“Yes.”
He grunts and scrolls a stubby finger over the list of names. “Submit your depth reading.” I pass my forearm beneath a scanner until it beeps. I don’t need to see the numbers to know they’re high. It’s written all over the recorder’s face.
“Let me see your gauge.” He grabs hold of my wrist and turns my arm to study the tech. “This isn’t possible. Your monitor’s malfunctioning.”
“It’s not.” I shake out the contents of my ore pouch. Eludial soil spills onto the scale—five times as much as anyone else had. A few people gasp. The inspector breathes a curse as he leans in to scrutinize my findings. I barely keep myself from smiling. Fortune is mine. The other Delvers never had a chance against a Fourth Ray caver.
“I’ve never seen numbers this high,” the recorder says.Bushy brows lower over his eyes, like he’s trying to see through me to the way I tricked the Congress’s system. “They say you didn’t even have a locating transmitter your first time down. How did you find your way?”
“I captured a tunnel gull and followed it out.”
“You captured a…” A smile breaks across his face. “Flash me, you are the scout I’ve heard about.” He sets a chain on the table. “You’ve won. This chain proves your commissioning status and will grant you access to Fortune.”
“I get to bring someone with me.”
The recorder waves his hand beside the names on his list. “Take your pick.”
“No, he’s … not a Delver. He’s a Brunt.”
The man stares at me, his face more scrunched up than when he took my depth readings. “No Brunts in Fortune.”
“But I get to choose—”
“Not a Brunt.”
“Please.” I grasp the man’s arm, and he doesn’t flinch from my touch—a fellow Subpar, then. “If you’ve heard of me, you’ve heard of him—the Brunt—he was my marker.”
His eyes soften, but he shakes his head. “What you’re asking for isn’t possible.”
“Then make it possible. Please!”
“What’s the problem?” Val asks, striding forward.
“She wants to share Fortune with a Brunt.”
She gives me a hard look. “The noncompliant one? I told you to let go of him.”
“The flashtide is still an hour away,” I say. “If I find him before then, will you let him share Fortune with me?”
“Brunts are kept beyond the perimeter. The chances that your friend is still alive—”
“He’s there. I know he’s still there.”
“Even if he is, the Tomb is chaos. You’ll never find him.”
“I can find him.”
“The gates are shut for the night, you can’t even—”
“By midnight!” I turn and sprint for the fence line silhouetted against the flashfall like the spine of a wiry beast.
I weave around the glowing domes of the Delvers’ quarters, past the barracks, telling myself I can do this, I will find Dram. The flashfall shivers along my senses like a mocking caress, and I shut out the doubts that rise up like gooseflesh.
I fit my hands to the cordon fence and climb, just high enough to see the Brunts gathered twenty meters in the distance. I have no hope of finding Dram in the crowded pen of Brunts they call the Tomb. If I’m going to bring him to Fortune tonight, it will have to be because he sees me. I jump down and run toward the tallest thing in this place, the corral tower that marks the entrance to the cordons.
I leap for the bottom of the wooden structure. The slats are spaced wide, forcing me to jump to the next beam in order to reach it. The ground shrinks beneath me as I scale ten meters, twenty—my hand slips, and my fingernails claw the battered wood. I straddle a slat, leaning against an angled support beam.
See me, Dram.
In the distance, the flash curtain displays its splendor in towering ripples of fuchsia and emerald, moving across the horizon like a vertical wave. The colors smash up against the edges of its parameters, as if hitting an unseen boundary. There is time yet. I stretch my gaze, but I can make out only dark shapes moving beside the Tomb.
I need to get higher.
Standing carefully, I draw my axe from its holster and slam it in an arc above my head. The pick bites into the wood of the next slat and I pull myself higher, my feet scraping for purchase. My legs clamp the wooden slat, and I pry the pick loose for another swing.
The Brunts trudge toward the Tomb, its metal doors reflecting the glimmer of flashfall from a slab of ground dug out of the sand. They shuffle through the sand with heads bowed, like the ground offers the only solace. I climb higher, hoping to catch Dram’s attention. I wonder if he still bothers to look up.
Rotted wood snaps, and I slam against the corral, legs dangling. Breath pushes from my lungs, parting the ash-filled air. I clutch the corral post, scanning the cordon for a lifted hand—anything that would indicate that Dram sees me, that he’s still alive out there. I take a flare from my pack, rip the cap off with my teeth, and light it one-handed. Smoke lifts as I hold the flare high and sparks nip my face and hand.
See me, Dram.
I close my eyes, willing someone to notice—just one Brunt at the Tomb to point out the girl hanging off the top of the corral. Wind whines through the tower, and the flashfall stirs a golden-orange, like flames being stoked with a bellows.
“Brunts in!” a Strider shouts.
Doors lift from the ground with a mechanical groan, and figures lumber toward the refuge, shoving in their haste to get inside, safe from what’s coming. I scan the shadows for the stragglers, the ones who find the Tomb more terrifying than exposure to the curtain. There’s just one. A Strider murmurs something in low tones and raises his weapon. The shape turns and faces the soldier; he lifts his arm, where an amber indicator flashes. My breath catches.
Dram.
They shaved his hair off. I almost didn’t recognize him. The flashfall illuminates his dirty, bruised face. I can’t see him clearly, but I sense the emotions he’s holding in check.
“It’s almost midnight, Brunt,” the Strider says. “Get down with the rest.”
“It’s not time yet.” His tone is flat, dead as the land he’s standing on.
“Get in the Tomb,” the Strider commands.
I hurl the flare toward them. It sails over the fence, and the Strider whirls toward me, rifle raised.
“Delver?” He squints up at me.
I barely look at the man. My gaze collides with Dram’s. He takes an unsteady breath, like he’s not sure the air is safe.
“You’re not supposed to be this close to the perimeter,” the Strider calls, lowering his weapon.
“I have Fortune,” I shout. “And so does he.”
“No Brunt gets Fortune.”
“He does.”
“Not tonight.” He shoves Dram toward the Tomb, and Dram shoves back. He connects with the Strider’s armor. Current ripples through him.
“Dram!”
His body spasms, and he collapses. The Strider checks to make sure Dram is still breathing, then drags his unconscious body to the edge of the hole and shoves it over the side. The doors grind shut, and he jogs to the fence.
I cling to the corral, frozen in horror. Then, a taste like metal on the back of my teeth as the first orange bands spiral down. I’m too late.
“Orion!” a voice shouts.
I sigh against the wood supports, ignoring the metal brace cutting into my cheek. I stare toward the curtain, where a wave begins to crest.
“SCOUT!”
Wood explodes beside me as a bullet tears off a chunk of the corral. I glance down and see Greash shouting up at me. I toss my axe to the sand and scramble down as fast as I can.
“Run hard,” he calls, taking off toward the Strider barracks.
The flashtide ripples downward, bathing the Overburden in the shades of a flame. I hesitate, my gaze straining toward the place where Dram was pushed into the Tomb. If I don’t survive, neither will he.
I grasp my axe and sprint for Fortune.
* * *
The metal badge I wear is a key. Attuned to my biometric signature, it opens places to me that most people can’t enter. At least, that was how it was explained to me before I ran off, climbed the corral tower, threw a flare at a Strider, and got stuck in the flashtide. I pound up the pathway to Fortune’s indistinct, rounded door and collide with the metal-enforced wood. A remnant from Old Alara, Val told me, referring to the entrance that looks more like it should lead into a secret fairy garden than an underground fortress.
I slam my hands against it. Right now, I don’t care if it leads into the underworld—I just need to get out of the flashtide.
“I’m a Delver with Fortun—” The door opens, and I stumble through, into a dark alcove. It closes and locks behind me.
“Welcome, Orion,” Val calls. “The lights are at night-dim. I’ll help you find your way.”
“Dram’s stuck in the Tomb—”
“As he should be. No Brunts get Fortune. I told you to forget about him.”
“I told you I wouldn’t.”
“Then we’re at an impasse.” She smiles like she’s offering me a gift. “Come out of the vestibule, and I’ll show you to your quarters.”
I clamp my lips together and remind myself this is where I need to be. I’ve never been closer to the cure. I need this woman to trust me. I swallow the arguments simmering behind my teeth, and follow. My boots echo off stone tiles that gleam in the faint light. They’re painted, etched with designs, spreading across the floor, up the walls, to the low ceiling arching above us.
“You must decon before descending into Fortune,” Val says, directing me toward a pod. “We preserve Protocol at all costs. Especially here.”
I want to tell her what I think of her Alaran Protocol. Instead I step past her and seal myself into the pod. Air whips around me, and I will the chemical to sear away my thoughts along with the curtain’s particles. Every thought but one.
I’m where I need to be.
The pod opens, and I stride to where Val waits beside the entrance to a narrow tube-like shaft. Blue lights illuminate its cylindrical metal bars.
“Fortune lies thirty meters beneath us,” Val says. I step inside, and the bars close around us with a soft groan. The inside of the shaft is bare earth, compacted in ways that tell me Conjies helped form it. “The early Subpars devised Fortune with a series of interconnected shafts,” Val says. “This port leads to the Grand Hall.” Tech illuminates and we drop. I count down the meters instinctively, mapping the place in my mind.
“You have hands,” I say. “Are you a Gem?”
“Subpar. Outpost Two.”
“You were a caver?”
“Second Ray. The Congress brought me here to test in the gorge when I was sixteen.”
Metal sighs as the port slows to a stop. We step out into a massive cavern with walls of gleaming white stone, lit by crystal lights suspended from the vaulted ceiling. Balconies rim one side of the hall, and alcoves veer off from the main room. I realize I’ve stopped walking, that I’m gawking at portraits lining the wall.
“A long ways from Outpost Five,” Val muses. She lifts a candelabra off a table and turns down a corridor. “Have you heard of Vestiges, Orion?” I shake my head. “They are people dedicated to preserving the heritage and traditions of Alara as it formed after the flash curtain fell. They are esteemed for the history they preserve—the reason our culture survives. Meredith grew up a Vestige. It’s why she’s so tied to this place—and why it remains as it is.”
“Meredith?”
“You’ll meet her tomorrow. She’s the Subpar commissary, fifth member of the council. She lives and works here.” She turns an ornate metal handle on a door. “This is your room.”
I step past her, working to conceal my shock. It looks like something pulled straight out of my imagination. A canopy arches above a huge bed piled with blankets, and beside it are a small table and chair, a shelf filled with books, a wardrobe with clean clothes and Delver’s suits. Val sets the candelabra on a low table.
“Fortune is powered by much the same tech as Alara—but Meredith prefers the old ways.” She turns down a coverlet and ushers me toward the bed, as if it’s a normal occurrence to get tucked into a lush bed in the Overburden. The candlelight casts leaping shadows over the stone walls. Like monsters. I can practically sense them, stirring in the bowels of this place.
“The beautiful things are usually the most dangerous,” I murmur, my gaze slipping over the room.
“This isn’t the part of Fortune you should fear. That will come tomorrow down the tunnels.”
I climb onto the bed. “It can’t be worse than tunnel nine.”
Val smiles, and I’m reminded again of monsters.
“You had to leave your family?” I ask. “When you came to live here?”
“Congress needed a new Prime Delver, and Subpars make the best Primes.” She douses the candles, shrouding us in darkness.
“Don’t you need the light?” I ask.
“You spend enough time underground, you learn to see in the dark.” She turns to go.
“What happened to the Prime Delver? The one you replaced?”
“That’s the part of the story you know.” I can hear it in her voice—she’s smiling again. Dread crawls through me as if the shadow monsters peeled off the wall and slid beneath my skin.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She didn’t tell you about any of this?”
“Who?” My heart pounds as if it’s trying to escape my chest.
“The girl I replaced. Your mother.” She walks from the room, and I stare after her, gaping.
I was wrong—the shadows aren’t inside me. I’m becoming one of them: formless, void, absent witho
ut light.
I’m not sure I’ve actually won anything by getting into Fortune.
It feels suddenly like a trap.
NINETEEN
7.2 km from flash curtain
“MEREDITH,” VAL SAYS, “may I present Orion Denman, your newest Delver.”
An older woman turns, and color drains from her face. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she murmurs, shaking her head. “It’s just that … I feel I’ve stepped through time. Ferrin was your age when she came to us. You look just like her.”
The white-haired man at her side steps forward, scrutinizing my features. “You’re indeed Ferrin’s daughter,” he says. “You have her features.”
I like to think I have her heart or her courage.
They stand before a wall of ports, each marked by a tiled pathway etched with a number. Meredith stands atop a chipped 3 carved into the stone.
“This was your mother’s tunnel.” Her words pierce me, like a knife slipped past my armor.
“My mother mined the Barrier Range,” I say. “Seven was her tunnel.”
“Before that. Before she was sent to Outpost Five. She grew up here, in the Overburden.”
Mom is preserved in my mind in hazy, light-filled images, snippets of memories that are painted with feeling more than visual representations. Her smile, the way her hand felt on my cheek, and now—like it’s been summoned by Meredith’s words—a sort of lost look in her eyes, when she’d stare toward the curtain. But now I know—she wasn’t looking for the curtain at all. She was trying to see her home. The Overburden.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because it’s a dangerous thing to know. Her silence kept you safe, Orion.”
“I’m not sure that lies keep anyone safe.”
“No, but they keep people alive. And in a world like ours, that’s often the best one can hope for.” She ushers me into the port and a cage-like door slides behind us. It descends, and scents of earth and musty air rush up around us.
“Why did she leave?” I ask.
“Our system is a careful construction of roles and boundaries. One must adhere to them, or we are no longer effective. She could not comply.”
She could not comply.