by Jenny Moyer
A scream builds behind my teeth, but I lever the band free, letting the pain sharpen my determination. Metal twists, biotech cracks, and the Radband falls to the dirt. Blood trickles past my fingers as I stand and stare at the shackle they promised would help keep us safe.
Lies.
I grip my mother’s cracked axe handle and slam the axe down on my Radband. Bits of metal and biotech break off.
“I am not your slave,” I say, bringing my axe down again and again. Tears fill my eyes, and the shattered Radband blurs, but I hammer at the pieces. For Mom. For Dram, and my Ghost father. For every Tempered Conjie. Every Brunt. Every Subpar.
The crack in my axe handle widens; I can feel it splintering apart—the wood that I’ve held in place of Mom’s hand all these years. I collapse to my knees, weeping. I don’t want to let go. Letting go of this shattered handle feels like letting go of my past, and Mom’s past—the two woven together and forming the deepest parts of me.
And, too soon, I will have to let go of everything—this life included.
“AUGH!” I scream to the sky. The sky that isn’t sky. The blanket of clouds and colors that have kept me prisoner my entire life. The radiation that kills and calls to me at the same time.
I let go.
Wood falls away, and my hands fill with dirt.
Dirt.
Splintered wood reveals a hollowed-out space carved into my mother’s axe handle. I turn it on end, and more dirt pours out.
“Holy fire,” I whisper. I sway on my knees, the weight of too much emotion sinking in—the possibilities burning in me more than the embers on the wind. No. Surely, not—
You have magic, Orion.
I study the dirt Mom hid inside her axe. It’s not from the outposts or the cordons. This is Eastfall soil. From the mountain provinces. I know because its elements do not sing to me. They do not burn me. They contain no particles of cirium to contain me.
Slowly, like I’m reaching toward a mirage, I touch it. My mother’s secret.
My secret.
The dirt is soft, with no sand or glass or bits of rock.
She could not comply. Meredith’s words, describing why my mother was sent to the outposts.
And when she was discovered with the Conjuror … Cora, telling me that the Congress’s best Delver loved her Ghost enough to be exiled for it. Or maybe she was doing what she could to get away from the Congress, protecting me even then.
The dirt sifts through my fingers, and I close my eyes, stretching my Subpar senses. Maybe more than what I’ve always thought of as Subpar.
If they’re close enough, Conjurors can sense when elements are being shifted. Jameson told me that once. It was how he knew about Roran’s ability. And now my heart pounds so hard I’m dizzy, my breath coming in erratic bursts—because I’ve felt it. I just didn’t know what it meant.
Subpar and Conjuror.
Maybe. I stuff the dirt into my pockets—all but a handful.
“We are the fortunate ones,” I say, pressing my palm to the ground. I envision the rock shifting, forming to the mental map I’ve laid out in my mind. Minutes pass, with the flashfall heating the air. I close my eyes and picture Fern shaping caverns with nothing but her hands. The wind kicks up, sending ash into my face, but the rubble remains simply rubble.
I am not a Conjuror. Just the daughter of two ghosts.
I slam my hands against the dirt, the cursed Conjie dirt. And it burns me. No—my hands are burning. They are suddenly a forge, altering the elements beneath them.
The earth shifts, and I tumble forward, flailing through darkness.
“Oof!” I land on my back and stare up at the flashfall shimmering above the crater I … carved. It can’t be. It’s not possible that I’m a Conjuror as well as a Subpar. My mind rebels against the idea, even as I stare at the proof.
Then I hear it—the faint hum of cirium, setting my nerves tingling. I need to get deeper. I imagine the ground shifting, opening a passage down to the Sky. And this time, I’m prepared for the burn. I feel the elements like they’re strings on an instrument—I pluck the ones I need, and the melody is one I play by instinct.
* * *
I wedge myself through a tight crevice, hands stretched before me. When they hit air and my headlamp reveals a vast drop, I know I’m getting close. I smell water.
Rock is relatively easy for me to manipulate. Vines—any living things—are proving more of a challenge. All I have to go on are the things I heard and saw while living with the free Conjies. And what I learned was that it takes time and practice to develop the sort of abilities they had. Even then, not all Conjurors are gifted equally.
I’m hoping desperation counts for something.
That, and Subpar instincts.
The dark is oppressive, a heavy thing that breathes in all the air and leaves nothing for me. I’m not sure any air caves survived the collapse of the Range. If that’s not the Sky down there, I’m not sure how much farther I can go. I pull myself to the ledge and bathe my face in the musty air lifting from below.
This has to be it.
We used to follow secret markers to this cavern, ones only the cavers knew about. Now I find my way with nothing to guide me but instinct. My headlamp catches a white mark smeared across stone. I make a sound, not quite a sob. Maybe something more than instinct led me here. I turn, the path new but marked with guideposts I know by heart. And then—
A pool of luminescent blue water, its glow revealing cave walls.
“It held,” I breathe, walking into the cavern. Elation swells … then crashes down.
It’s empty.
I walk its length, hoping for a glimpse of gear, or the remains of a fire—some sign that they were here. I listen for voices, but all I hear is the quiet stillness of this memorial cavern.
I walk to the names written across the wall in chalk. “Good-bye, Mom,” I say, touching the place where her sacrifice is remembered. It feels different this time, and I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve changed so much, or if my understanding of her has. Her axe doesn’t hang beside her name like the others. A sudden thought occurs to me. What if Mom’s axe handle wasn’t the only one hiding secrets?
I climb to the nearest axe and pry it from the rock. The end of the handle is bare. I check the one beside it. Two narrow lines are scratched into the axe handle. I crack it open, and a square piece of biotech falls out. I lift it in my hands, a mystery that’s the size of my thumbnail. I study the coded diagram, trying to make sense of the illustration that shows a wrist and a device implanted beneath the skin where my Radband used to be. Alaran biotech hidden in a rebel’s axe in order to give us access to the protected city. Not as a Subpar who earned four Rays, but as a scout who figured out that the only way into Alara was subversion.
I leap to the next axe and pull it down. Empty. The next falls with a clatter as I pry it free. Parallel lines.
A thin sheet of paper filled with words I’ve never heard before. Do Alarans speak so differently from us? A row of familiar words are crossed through with lines. These are words I know. Subpar phrases. Cavers’ terms. Conjie curses and slang.
Words that would give me away.
I visit every memorial, every name marked with a flash date and a chalk circle. Less than half of the axes bear the cavers’ mark and contain some other piece to a plan I am slowly beginning to understand. They intended to get a Subpar inside Alara. A Subpar who, disguised as an Alaran, would make a way for her people to get free.
I lay the treasures out on the cavern floor. A pile of secrets beside a heap of broken axe handles.
Clothing. Female. A dress of such airy fabric it fit into the handle of an axe. Another contained an embroidered robe marked with the seal of Alara. Something—according to the diagram—worn by a Vestige, a person dedicated to the study of Old Alara. A person who has access to the council’s chambers.
A necklace that I hold up to the gleaming light of my headlamp. A dosimeter, beautiful, fragile-looki
ng, but real. It’s reading the radiation in this cavern with a visible meter worked into a silver backing, steadily gleaming through its levels: green, dark green, yellow, dark yellow, amber, rust, red.
Rust.
The color of my Radband before I destroyed it.
I’m dying. Dram is dying. All of us are.
The thought spurs me to action, and I stuff the items into my pouches.
Before I leave, there is one last thing I must do. I grip a piece of chalk and press it to the wall, tears pricking my eyes. I will honor them, the cavers I could not save, the friends I didn’t reach in time.
I look for a place that will fit all their names together. There’s space on the end, the far corner beside one lone name. I glance at the writing, and the chalk drops from my fingers. Roran. The flash date beside it—just weeks ago.
I don’t read the inscription, but turn and bolt across the cavern—to a different wall. The one where an ore scout and her marker once drew their names when the world seemed full of hope.
I gasp and press a hand to my mouth. I read the names—they’re all here: Owen, Roland, Marin, Winn—every Subpar who followed me into Cordon Five two months ago. Mere. She’s alive, her name written in barely legible scrawl because she likely drew it herself with her one remaining appendage. This wall is for the names of those who got free.
“Scout?”
I whirl toward the cave entrance and peer past the light of a headlamp, a glimpse of broad shoulders and brown skin gleaming beneath layers of particle dust. “Owen?”
His stunned expression gives way to a smile. “Flash me, it is you!” He drops the water bottles he’s holding and runs to me, crushing me in his arms.
Safe. I let myself savor the feeling I haven’t known in far too long. This caver helped carry Dram and me up out of nine when our air tanks failed. He kept me running when the Barrier Range collapsed above our heads. Tears fill my eyes.
“You’re all here?” I ask, my throat tight.
“Yes. We’ve been waiting—for you, for word that things have changed.”
“Soon,” I tell him, pulling away. I dash my hand under my eyes and take in his smiling face. “There’s a serum—a way for us to live in the flashfall without sickening from exposure. I’m going to find a way to get it to you—to everyone.” I smile as I secure my gear over my shoulders. “Tell Mere…” My throat closes, and I swallow hard. “Tell Mere her son’s name is on the wrong wall.” Owen’s eyes widen. “Tell her he’s with me—in the Overburden. And that I’m going to get him out.” He crushes me in another hug. “And, Owen?”
“What is it, Scout?”
“Tell Mere I made the promise like a Conjie.”
TWENTY-FOUR
6.9 km from flash curtain
WHEN DAWN ARRIVES, I’m standing at the fence, first in line to enter the cordon. I managed to convince Meredith that my exploration of tunnel five was necessary—that I was following instincts that led to a dead end. She grudgingly excused my actions, but she’d never approve what I’m planning now.
I watch the Tomb, waiting for the doors to lift. Trepidation prickles along my skin. It’s been four days since I last saw Dram, facing him down over the end of a spear. I needed to get things in place before this final step, because what I’m about to do will push me over the edge entirely.
“Orion?” GM16 approaches with my old squad. The expression she wears fills me with dread. I search amongst the faces, half of them strangers. No sign of Roran.
“Roran?” I ask, panic fluttering in my chest.
“He’s in the infirmary. He’ll recover.” She pauses, and I hear the other name in her hesitation. Dram.
“What’s happened?” I ask.
“Roran got caught out in the cordon. The Dodgers wouldn’t go after him. Dram volunteered.”
“He went into the cordon—at night?”
She nods. “He saved Roran from the flashtide, but … he didn’t make it back.”
A night in the cordon. Without the dose of serum that keeps us alive.
“So he has flash fever.” I sound like Dad when he makes a clinical observation.
“Worse than that.” She slips a syringe into my hand. “We were going to find him this morning, but I have a feeling you’ll be faster. One and a half kilometers northwest.”
I search her violet eyes. “Worse than flash fever?”
“There were cordon rats. Roran could hear him. And the dog—Soma.”
The buzzer sounds, and I push through the turnstile.
“No Delvers in the quadrants!” a Strider shouts.
“Shoot me, then,” I call, shoving my way past.
I feel like one of the winged cordon creatures as I fly across the sand. I sprint harder than I did even from King and his crew. You run faster when it’s to save someone else’s life. I dodge bones scattered along the dust trail and barrel over cordon brush to the mining quadrant assigned to our squad. I scan the burnt sands, and through the flaming embers I catch sight of a figure slumped on the ground.
“Dram!” I scream his name, but the shape doesn’t move. Be alive, be alive, be alive.
I kick something. Dram’s knife, the blade stacked with rat bodies half consumed by the flashtide.
“Dram!” I drop beside him, crumpled on his side next to Soma. I lift his head so I can see past his face shield. His eyes open.
I flinch. His retinas are burned, and he watches me through eyes the color of my Radband indicator.
“I told him to go,” he says, his voice hoarse. His mouth moves, and a ragged cry escapes. “I told him to go.”
“I know,” I say, touching his face through the headpiece.
A thin sound pushes past his cracked lips. His face crumples, and I know if his body had any water left, there’d be tears. I push his suit up, ignoring the red welts blistering his skin, and shove the needle into his vein. “I’m treating you with serum, Dram.” He doesn’t hear me, or if he does, my words don’t mean anything to him. His gloves are chewed through. Bite marks cover both hands.
“I pulled them off of him … but there were so many.”
And then I understand—he was paralyzed with toxin. No wonder he couldn’t keep going. But he’s alive. Soma lay at his side like a bulwark and took the brunt of the attack.
Beneath the layers of cirium cloth, Soma looks like he’s sleeping. If you don’t look at the places his body’s been chewed away. The way Dram’s covered him, just his head and front paws peek out, and they are untouched. Sleeping Soma.
Dram rolls onto his knees and presses his forehead to the dog’s neck. “You are free,” he chokes.
His despair gives me hope. Weeks the Brunt didn’t feel anything anymore. But this is Dram, the caver who saved a dog that saved him back. I untie Dram’s neck cloth from Soma’s neck and push it into his hand.
“He is free.” I repeat the words Subpars say on Burning Days, the words we’ve said to each other too many times.
“Rye?” He looks up at me like he’s just noticed who I am.
“I’m here.” I drip water between his cracked lips. His eyes might be half blinded, but he sees me more than he did in the Tomb.
“I’m bad off, ore scout.” His voice is even worse than he looks, like something clawed the inside of his throat.
“I’m taking you to Fortune. There’s a Radbed.” I slip my knife beneath the strips of cloth holding his armor in place. Cactus, vulture wings, gull feathers—it all drops in a decayed heap.
“Wear my ashes, Rye.” He reaches for his memorial pendants.
“That’s not our arrangement.” I drag him to his feet, wondering how I’m going to cross the cordon with him amber-eyed and flash-fevered. When he staggers and stumbles, I pull both his arms over my shoulders, bearing his weight as we struggle to put one foot in front of the other.
“Walk,” I command. “Walk, or we’re going to die!” His head lists to the side, and I wonder if he can even hear me. “Come on, just a few more meters. Remember the
air cave down nine? Keep. Going.” I grunt as he collapses against me. I grasp him about the waist, but we tumble to the ground.
“Dram Berrends! If you ever loved me, get on your glenting feet!” I grab his arm and pull as hard as I can.
“I did … things,” he murmurs. “Bad things. To survive.”
“It wasn’t you.” His body slides along the ground. Two meters. Five.
“I hurt people.”
“You saved Roran.”
“Leave me. I’m good as dust.”
“You are not dust, you glenting skant!” I drop his arm and crouch beside him. “Why are you smiling?”
“You sound like a Conjie.”
Oh, fire.
I am. I want to tell him so badly. I am one of the Conjies you love so much, Dram. Half of me, anyway.
“I have something to show you,” I whisper, my throat choked with emotion. “I can’t save you as just regular Orion.”
“You were never regular, Orion,” he says, eyes drifting shut.
I tear into the seam of my jacket. Soil trickles from the hole and I wrench it wide, filling my hand. “My mother was a Delver, Dram. She fell in love with her caving partner—an adapted Conjie. When they exiled her to Outpost Five … I was with her. No one knew.”
His eyes open, and he stares at me, then at the dirt I’m grasping.
“Fire, Rye, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you’re going to live, Dram Berrends, because the Subpar who loves you is holding the earth of the provinces.”
His brows draw together, and I turn my focus to the elements in my hand. The compounds of the soil roll across my senses, and I hear them on some level, like the way I’ve always heard the flash curtain.
The same way I became Outpost Five’s lead ore scout, the same ability that earned me four Rays, I understand now—it’s the Conjuror in me, woven together with everything that makes me a Subpar. No one senses the elements like I do, and it enables me to distinguish the chemical makeup of what I’m holding, and alter it.