by Jenny Moyer
“If this doesn’t work,” Dram mutters, “at least we’ll die quick.”
I barely hear him. Even with the tech he placed behind my ear, I’m struggling to block the sounds of the curtain slamming down around us. We brace ourselves against the rounded metal walls as the SAMM rockets through the passage. It’s stifling. There’s no ventilation. Our suits are the only things keeping us from suffocation.
The metal collection doors strain to open. The seams groan where I’ve conjured them shut. Eludial gems ping against the metal, and it sounds like rocks hitting a tin roof. They sound like they will hammer right through the cirium shields.
The SAMM was designed to collect ore, and it seems to resent being forced to transport people. It begins to rattle so hard it shakes the breath from my chest. I brace myself, but my teeth clack together. The door motors grind, smoking as the gears spin uselessly, the sounds adding to the cacophony pounding through my skull.
Please end soon, please end soon, please end—
We hit the seam bed, and my head slams against the inside of the pod. Dram wedges me against him, gripping me tightly with one arm, the other braced against the metal wall, his legs splayed to keep us secure.
“I’m going to tell you about my talisman,” he says loudly in my earpiece.
“What?”
“The promise I made you. The secret one.” The craft rattles so hard that it makes his words vibrate in his chest. I feel them better than I hear them.
“I’m listening.” Anything to get my mind off the rattling, jolting—
“Home,” he says. “I vowed to give you a home. One you didn’t have to keep running from.”
Home. The word resonates in me, stronger than the curtain. I try to paint an image in my mind, but come up blank. So I hold on to the word, as if it’s a thing with doors and windows and shields enough to shut out the flashfall. And I cling to Dram as we rattle through the passage.
All at once, the collection doors cease their clatter. We’ve left the seam behind. The SAMM glides through the delved passages. I don’t give myself time to catch my breath. We have only moments before we reach the tunnel entrance, and whoever’s awaiting the SAMM beside the Box. I tear my gloves off and drag my hands across the inside of the module.
“What are you doing?” Dram asks.
“I didn’t seal it completely. I left it open—just a crack.”
“Why?”
“A theory. An important one.” Rock forms beneath my touch, and I concentrate, focusing on the elements. I have to get this right.
“Are you conjuring rocks?” Dram asks.
“Tunnel shale.”
“Is there a reason you’re filling this very small space with worthless stone?”
“I’m thinking like a Conjie.”
“Great. You’re talking like one, too.” The SAMM slows to a crawl. “Whatever you’re doing,” Dram says, “you’d better hurry.”
I conjure away the places where I sealed the opening, then carefully slide my gloves back on. The module stops with a hiss. “Let me do the talking,” I murmur.
“Part of your theory?”
“Step in my steps.”
The collection unit opens. Techs in Radsuits hover at the opening. They stare at us, their instruments hanging slack from their gloved hands.
“Commissary?” one of them calls. “You’d better come see this.”
Meredith strides forward just as Dram and I sit up, dusted in glinting particles of eludial soil.
“Striders,” she orders, and four soldiers raise flash rifles at us.
“The Luna failed,” I announce, unfastening my headpiece and stepping free of the pod. “I had to ride the SAMM out of the seam.”
“And him?” Her wide eyes shift to Dram like he’s a flash bomb about to detonate.
“Ordinance sent him to assist me.” Always best to lie with the truth.
“He died in Alara.”
“Not completely,” Dram says, taking off his headpiece. He turns his arm so she can see his Codev.
“Restrain him!” Meredith commands. She turns to a tech. “Get the council on the screencom. Now!”
“We can’t transmit from down here—”
“We’ll go up. Bind her,” Meredith orders. I don’t fight as a Strider forces cirium binders over my gloved hands.
Meredith pushes past the techs and peers into the pod. “This isn’t right,” she mutters, lifting the small boulders of tunnel shale. She tosses them on the ground. I watch where each piece lands.
“Where’s the eludial soil?” she demands.
I meet her hard stare. “Beyond your reach.”
Her gaze flicks to Dram, then to the Striders holding him. “Take him up. We’ll question him before the council.” They drag Dram into the port.
“Where do you want the Forger?”
“Put her in her cell,” Meredith says. “We’ll find out what happened, then deal with her.” They guide me into the Box, and she hovers at the entrance.
“Your mother played her tricks with me,” Meredith says. “And it gained her nothing. She died beneath a heap of rock at the bottom of a cave. It seems you’re following in her footsteps, after all. The physic will be coming for you to fit your collar. If you survive the procedure, you will probably wish you hadn’t.” She steps away and nods to the tech.
“There’s no light,” he says, glancing past me at the dark bulb.
“Seal her in,” Meredith orders. “Ghosts don’t need light.”
The door slides shut. Darkness holds me in its grasp.
“I’m not a Ghost,” I say.
I wait for the vibration that tells me Meredith and the techs have ascended the shaft. Then I turn my focus to the eludial soil pressed against my palms, hidden beneath my gloves.
Flame sparks and flares in my hand. They have consigned me to darkness, but I have my own light. I study the flame leaping through the cirium binder. I shouldn’t be able to conjure through cirium. It’s not possible. Not unless I’m right about eludial soil …
I stop conjuring fire and turn my focus to the dirt pressed against my hand. My Subpar senses pick apart the elements until I can identify every trace of rock and eludial gems. I’m already attuned to the cirium—there’s so much of it—surrounding me on all sides and binding my hands. An image fills my mind: the flashtide swirling in spirals through the flashfall, like it’s being drawn down from the atmosphere. I feel the eludial soil pulsing with similar energy, a sort of compulsion to draw the cirium back into itself.
I told Dram I had a theory—and I know, as the binders fall away, that I was right. I conjure fire with both hands. The gloves are burned away, but the eludial soil remains. I crouch and study the metal binders. Iron. I turned them into iron.
I start laughing. The Congress thinks they have me contained. They have no idea what I’m capable of, but I’m figuring it out, inside their carefully designed prison.
Meredith and the Prime Commissary may understand the power of eludial soil, but not the people who have the ability to wield it.
“I’M NOT A GHOST!” I shout. They can’t hear me. No one can hear me.
The flame wavers in my hand, dancing in a draft of air. I lift it, examining the size and shape of the air shaft. No other Forger would have seen it—not without light. Even if they had, the vent is high up, with no possible way to reach it.
Not for a regular Forger.
I don’t speak aloud my next thought, but I hear it echoing from my past, from the tunnels of Outpost Five, and the dust of the cordons …
I’m Orion, the Hunter, the Scout who can find anything.
And I just found the way out.
THIRTY-FOUR
7.2 km from flash curtain
I NAVIGATE THE ventilation system like a gorge mole, conjuring my way up and out of Fortune. I dangle from bioluminescent vines forty meters up, pulling myself up the narrow shaft. I’m not sure how long they planned to leave me in the Box, but I feel like I’m on borr
owed time. Every second that cirium door stays shut is another second to put my plan in motion.
Before crawling up through the ventilation system, I conjured a narrow crack in my cirium cell, just wide enough to slide through. I filled my pack with every last piece of the tunnel shale left discarded beside the SAMM. Hefting that thing onto my back made me grateful for every time Reuder made me carry a pack full of rocks. I know just how to shift and balance the weight. I’m strong in ways I wasn’t before. I didn’t realize it then, but every time I shouldered that extra burden in the cordon, I was practicing—for this.
The final air duct leads through some sort of decontamination system and a massive fan with an air intake valve. I conjure my way around it, tunneling up through the ground into the Overburden. I spit dirt and sand from my mouth and drag myself into the shadows. I study the flashfall and try to guess the time.
I feel like a literal ghost, moving unseen amongst the rest of the camp.
I need to get to my old squad.
* * *
I choose my moment, watching the barracks from beneath conjured concealment. The lights switch to night-dim in anticipation of flashtide. If Dram’s right, it won’t come tonight, or ever again. But the squad doesn’t know that. Any moment now, they’ll be opening the door. GM16 might lead them now, but I’m betting they still do initiation.
Shouts erupt, muffled, followed by a scramble up the steps. The door flies open, and I slip past the startled newcomers. I trudge down the stairs of my old squad barracks.
“Orion!” GM16 gapes at me, and I throw my arms around her.
“They told us Dram was killed, and that you were—”
“Not dead.” I pull away and clasp her arms. “How compliant are you feeling?”
“Tell me what you need.”
“You know Greash—the Strider?” She nods. “I need you to bring him here, along with anyone else you think will help us.”
“But the flashtide—”
“No flashtide anymore. Ordinance destroyed the tech that was causing it. Most everyone will be seeking shelter, but tell Greash to trust you. Tell him I said to ‘run hard.’”
“I will.” She glances at the squad members staring at us with wide eyes. “Do whatever she says. She’s squad leader now!”
“Gear up,” I tell them. “Make sure you’re dressed for the cordon and your rifles are loaded.”
“Rifles? What kinds of creatures are we supposed to fight in the middle of the night?”
“Not creatures. Striders.”
“Our weapons won’t fire on humans.” The voice comes from the back of the barracks, weighted with scorn. My heart lifts. Roran.
“I think I know a way around that,” I answer. I turn to the Dodgers and Miners. “Prepare your gear with extra rations and anything you want to take with you. We’re leaving the Overburden.” They rush to comply with my orders, and I walk to where Roran sits at the table.
“You’re alive.” He tries to make his voice sound flat, but his expression is giving him away. Especially the hope in his eyes.
“Dram’s alive, too,” I say. “So is your mom.”
“GM16 told me you said that.”
“It’s true. You’ll see her soon.” I heft the pack of rocks off my shoulders. It clatters to the ground. “I’ve been practicing.” I toss a chip of metal onto the table.
“What is it?”
“My talisman. The piece of cirium you gave me our second day in the Overburden. It chipped off from the end of your wrist, remember?”
He lifts it, tilting it in the light. “This isn’t cirium.”
“No,” I say softly. “Not anymore.”
His eyes dart to mine. He looks back down at it, then slowly fits it to the divot in the metal. The uneven edges align perfectly, only the metal’s a dull gray instead of silver. His hand trembles, and when he looks back up, his eyes are filled with wonder.
“You did this? With the earth of the provinces?”
“Eludial soil,” I say. “It has properties that allow Conjurors to manipulate cirium.”
“You can conjure cirium?”
“I can’t create it. I can only change it into something else. But, Roran—Ordinance sealed off access to the eludial seam. It was the only way to stabilize the flash curtain.”
Roran’s face falls. “So you’re saying it’s gone?”
“Not all of it.” I open my pack and lift one of the rocks out. “I couldn’t let the Congress take it, so I used—how would a Conjie say it? Scammer’s tricks. This is tunnel shale, the most worthless rock a miner can bring up out of a cavern.” I conjure the rock away to reveal eludial soil cupped in its hollow center.
He laughs. “You are a Conjie!”
I press my hands into the eludial dust, and my palms glitter with glinting chips of gems. I clasp them over the band of cirium at the end of Roran’s wrist. “My dad told me that Conjies instinctively conjure new tendons and bone—everything—once the cirium isn’t a barrier.” My entire body shakes. So does his.
The elements shift beneath my hands, and I sense energy in rivulets of current, like I’m swimming in the blue water of the Sky.
The Sky, where his mother waits.
He makes a choked sound of surprise, but I’m not sure what he’s seeing, what he’s feeling. My eyes are clenched shut so I can focus—
“Orion.” He squeezes my hand. With fingers. Not appendages.
Now I’m the one who makes the choking sound. Tears break behind my eyes before I even open them and see—
And see.
He flexes the fingers of his hand.
“You have magic, Orion,” he says.
“It’s the curtain in my blood,” I answer, echoing the words he said to me months ago, at Outpost Five.
“Yes,” he says, lifting the piece of shale. “And something more. Maybe something there isn’t a name for.”
I slide the bag of rocks toward him. “Your turn.”
* * *
“You can’t be serious.” Greash lifts his face shield. “Brunts. That’s your plan?”
“It has to be now,” I answer. “While the Striders and compliance regulators are sheltered from the flashtide.”
“Why do you think I’ll help you?” he asks.
“You have a chance to trade the life you have for the one you want.”
“I fought to earn this,” he says, pointing to the Strider designation on his sleeve.
“So fight for something more.”
Cora strides up with Dram and I release a pent-up breath.
“You got my message,” I murmur.
“Sarcoom,” Cora says. “Conjie word for freedom.” She holds up my note, where I scrawled the word before dropping it through her room’s air vent.
“I wasn’t sure you’d remember.”
Sadness fills her eyes and I know we’re both seeing our last memories of Fern.
“I’d never forget,” she says. “Though the rest of your message was less clear.” She taps the note where I wrote Dram and spear place. “I got to Dram and he took down the Striders guarding him without a sound.” Her wary gaze flicks to him, and I see that she’s as unsettled by his new Vigil abilities as I am. “He understood the rest of your message and knew it meant to meet here. He told me about the flashtide, and we walked right out the door. No one expected us to try to leave. Not after night-dim.”
Dram stands watching me, and I can tell he’s putting the pieces together—forming a theory as to how I escaped the Box. “You conjured through the binders?” he asks.
“I transformed them into iron, then conjured them away.”
His eyes gleam. “The eludial soil.” It’s not a question. He studies me, in that new Gem way he has of analyzing information. Suddenly he grins. “Your gloves. It was hidden inside your gloves.” My smile matches his. “And the tunnel shale is actually—”
“Quite valuable once you conjure the stone away,” I say. “I gave it to Roran.”
“Who ha
s—hands—again?” He hesitates, as though he’s afraid to hope that much. My eyes well with tears. I nod. “Fire, Orion,” he breathes, and the smile he gives me is one that I know, a part of him Ordinance didn’t touch.
“We need to get going,” Greash says, “if we’re going to follow through with this plan.” He gives Dram a hard look and sets his hand to a panel beside the Tomb. The doors begin to lift, and Greash glances at me. “You remember your last encounter with Brunts, right?”
I feel Dram tense beside me. “I remember,” I say.
“And you’re really going back down there?” Greash asks.
“She’s not.” Dram says, stepping past the doors. “I am.”
“They’ll tear you apart if I’m not with you.”
“Not if I’m leading them out.”
* * *
There are only a handful of Brunts left who remember Weeks, but every one of them has heard the stories. Dram’s past is legendary to them, and seeing him now—strong, healthy—resurrected from certain death—gives them the faith to leave their only shelter during flashtide. They emerge onto the cordon, many wearing cactus-barbed armor. Some have cordon rats trapped in their spears or flash vulture carcasses dangling from their belts.
Dad would remind me that testing theories is all part of the scientific process. This is what I tell Dram as I aim a Dodger’s rifle at his chest and squeeze the trigger.
It locks. A yellow error light glows in the periphery of my eyeshades.
“It won’t fire on a human biometric signature,” I call to the Brunts, Dodgers, and Miners gathered tightly around us. “But it will shoot through a cordon rat, or flash vulture. Effective, if we can get them close enough. Lift the spear,” I command. The Brunt positions his spear so that a flash vulture carcass hangs in front of Dram. I engage the gun’s safety and squeeze the trigger. Green light in my eyeshades. The familiar high-pitched tone of a flash rifle ready to fire. I lower the weapon. “That’s how we fight them. But only if we have to.”