by K A Riley
“Stupid,” Sara says as she pushes past me. “Really, really stupid.”
42
Church
It’s dark by the time Haida leads us to Matholook’s compound.
It’s a good thing, too. Otherwise, everyone in my Cohort might see me shaking.
It’s my second time in New Haleck. Other than the fact that it’s eerily empty, it’s not much different than it was five years ago.
It’s still got the patchwork buildings of wood and stone rising up from the combination of dirt paths, broken concrete walkways, and rough fields of weeds and jagged rocks.
Looming up like giant tombstones under the ghostly light of the blood-red moon, a collection of archways, pillars, and wood scaffolding for partially-built additions rise up in clusters around the perimeter.
A wide road of hard-packed dirt runs through the middle of the compound with smaller footpaths branching out toward the one and two-storey structures making up the small, outlying town.
In my brief travels across the country, I’ve seen giant cities—some as big as London—toppled by drone strikes, poisoned by radioactive fallout from the Atomic Wars, and emptied out by the Cyst Plague. War and Mayla once told us about what cities like Chicago used to look like a long time ago. They described jam-packed busyness, endless fleets of vehicles, and towering skyscrapers of glistening steel and stone with millions of crystal-clear windows looking out onto the world.
With its quiet, rustic calm and apparent lack of anything modern about it, I don’t think New Haleck ever looked any other way than it does right now.
Matholook asks me to thank Haida for him.
I tell him I will. “She definitely doesn’t like to fly at night.”
“Then give her a super special thanks. Without her, I don’t think we’d have found our way back.”
“Those leaders of yours…?” I start to ask, but Matholook, his neon green eyes finding mine in the dark, shakes his head.
“They’re out on the front lines. They’re the only ones the rest of the Devoted will follow into battle against the Unsettled.”
The fact that Justin and Treva—the leaders of the Cult of the Devoted—aren’t here doesn’t make being behind enemy lines any less creepy.
While it’s true that we’ve never been attacked directly by the Devoted, Kress swears they were hours—maybe minutes—away from doing something terrible to us when we stopped here on our way to find the Academy five years ago.
“Trust me,” she said during one of our training sessions. “Render can sense trouble, which means I can sense trouble. If we can get you and Haida to the same depth of telempathy, that same level of connectedness could one day save your life. Of course, it helped to have Matholook on our side.”
On our side.
From Kress, those three little words and the vote of confidence they imply mean everything in the world.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to let my guard down, though. Matholook may be helpful. And he may be cute. But he may also be the enemy. And what was it Haida said about an enemy within?
Could she have meant Matholook? No. She wouldn’t have agreed to lead us here if there was danger.
Summoning us deeper into the compound, Matholook leads us through the front double-doors of a dark church. Our bootsteps sound like thunder against the wobbly wooden floorboards lining the aisle.
Matholook nods toward the pews and the ring of folding chairs set up in a semi-circle in front of the low stage. “We’ll wait here in the crossing.”
Leading us to the open space in front of the altar, he taps a small input panel on the dais, and a thin band of holo-lights on the walls to either side struggles to life, casting the whole front part of the church in a weak, hazy glow. “We’ll be okay here until services start in a few hours.”
I’m happy to see how empty the place is. It reminds me of a smaller, much creepier version of our Assembly Hall, and I’m suddenly nostalgic for the Academy.
While the rest of us gather at the front of the church, Ignacio drags his finger along the back of one of the front pews. “Is everyone really out at war?”
“Not everyone. But most of us. Yes.”
“Is this a normal thing around here?”
“Unfortunately,” Matholook sighs, gesturing for the six of us to join him for a very welcome sit-down in the small ring of chairs.
“I don’t know how you live like that,” I tell him. “Constantly at war.”
“The alternative is sitting back and getting slaughtered. What would you do?”
Sitting at last, Ignacio leans back, his legs crossed at the ankle. “You’ve got a point.”
“Relax,” Matholook insists. “The Devoted who are still here are asleep on the far side of the compound. The rest of us—Justin, Treva, and our military detail—will be gone for hours. Maybe even days.”
“We can’t stay here for that long,” I remind him.
“I agree. It’s too dark now. And too dangerous. First thing in the morning, though, we should work on getting you all back to your Academy.”
Libra surveys the rows of empty pews in the dark church. “Preferably before people start swarming in for service.”
Matholook scratches at the scraggly part of his beard along his jawline. “There aren’t enough of us left in the compound to ‘swarm’ anywhere. But yes, we’ll definitely get you out of here before they start trickling in.”
“What about Haida’s warning?” I ask.
“Since we’re here, whoever’s out there looking for us won’t find us. If it’s the Sentinels, they’ll figure you got away and headed back to the Academy. If it’s the Unsettled, they’ll be too busy fighting against my people to worry about you.”
“And if it’s your people out there looking for us?”
Matholook shakes his head. “We hardly ever go up the mountain. Not even when we’re not fighting against the Unsettled.”
Ignacio clamps his hands to his knees. “Okay. We camp here. But then we’re out of here first thing in the morning, right?”
“First thing,” I promise before swinging back around to Matholook. “Hey. Whatever happened to that really tall boy…what’s his name?”
“Bendegatefran.”
“Right. Where’s he? And what about that mean little half-brother of his? He was a beastly little piece of work as I recall.”
“Efnissien. The two of them are out on the front lines against the Unsettled. They’re Vindicators.”
Sara’s eyebrow goes up. “Vindicators?”
“Warriors,” Matholook explains. “Fighters. The advance guard of our military detail. They’re the ones trained to inflict pain on others and ignore their own.”
“And you?” Sara asks.
“I’m what’s called a Caretaker.”
I lean forward, my elbows on my knees. “And what, exactly, do you take care of?”
Matholook doesn’t answer. I’m about to press him when Libra interrupts with a cavernous yawn.
“Sorry,” she laughs. “I don’t think I’ve ever been quite this tired.”
“We’re all tired,” Sara tells her. “But I don’t think falling asleep right now is the wisest idea.”
“I agree,” Ignacio says. “I say we help each other to stay awake all night.” He turns to Matholook. “No offense.”
“None taken. I didn’t bring you here to put you at more risk. We’ve only got a few hours before morning. So stay awake as long as you like. But at first light, we’ve got to go.”
Ignacio opens his eyes wide and promises we’ll all get through the night together, only to be the first to drift off.
Shifting over to one of the wooden pews, Libra falls asleep next. Sara and Mattea aren’t far behind.
Under his hood, Arlo’s eyes are the last to flutter and close. His legs are stretched out and crossed at the ankle. Even in sleep, he grips his scythe close to his chest like it’s his favorite stuffie.
As it turns out, there are only two of us
who manage to stay awake:
Me and Matholook.
In the gloom of the dark church, he and I continue to talk, our voices breathy and barely above a whisper.
“What did you mean before?” I ask. “About us being…inevitable.”
“The Mabinogni,” he murmurs, and I have to ask him to repeat the word.
“Oh,” I say. “I know those stories. It’s where our names come from.”
“More than just our names. Our destinies.”
I start to chuckle, but I stop when Matholook seems offended. “Sorry. But what does a set of thousand-year-old stories have to do with us or with any of this?”
“In the old stories,” he tells me, his voice hesitant with caution and thick with awe, “you were a kidnapped princess. I was a kidnapping king. Our nations went to war over us. There was death, deception, betrayal, and mutilated horses.”
“Mutilated horses?” I ask, sitting bolt upright in my chair.
“Your parents didn’t tell you about that part?”
I shake my head, embarrassed that this emerald-eyed boy sitting across from me seems to know more about me than I know about myself.
Check that. He knows more about the myth behind my name. That’s all. That’s a million miles away from knowing anything about me.
“In the old stories,” he continues, “the prince my brother is named after mutilated the horses of the king I’m named after. He cut off their lips. Their tails—”
“Ugh. That’s terrible.”
Matholook gives me an apologetic shrug and taps his fingertips to his chest. “I agree. But I didn’t do it.”
“So what happened after that?”
“Oh, you know. The usual.”
“War?”
“Yes.”
“Betrayal?”
“Naturally.”
“Romance?”
Matholook grins. “Inevitably.”
“Do you think those things really happened?”
“The things from our myths?”
“Our myths?”
“Sure. We have them in common, right?”
I scoff at this. “We’re from two different worlds. Literally. Anything we have in common based on a million-year-old myth isn’t anything more than coincidence.” I don’t feel the least bit bad when Matholook blushes a crimson red I can see in the near dark.
Hunching forward in his wooden folding chair, he laces his fingers together and rests his hands on his lap. “Are you asking if I think myths are real?”
“You’re right,” I admit, tucking my legs under me on my own chair. “Dumb question. Myths and reality are opposites by definition, right?”
Matholook stares at me for a long time before he answers. “Maybe the mistake is drawing such a dark, thick line between the two.”
“You’re saying the myth you think is about us is…real?”
“No. I’m saying it will be.”
“You talk about reality and myths and about the past and the future like they’re all the same thing.”
“Maybe they are.”
“I once knew a girl who’d agree with you.”
“One of the ones you came here with?”
“Her name was Manthy.”
“I remember. She mostly hung out with that redhead.”
“Cardyn.”
“Right. Whatever happened to them?”
“They…left.”
Matholook nods and says, “Oh” but doesn’t press me to explain any further. Which is fine with me.
I still don’t totally understand the worlds that Kress and the twins—Lucid and Reverie—have been working on accessing over the past five years. All I know is that five years ago, I personally watched two seventeen-year-old human beings—Cardyn and Manthy—walk into a circle of light and disappear. I didn’t understand it then, and despite all the lessons Kress has given me, I still find the whole idea of it pretty baffling.
Matholook leans back and smiles at the sleeping forms of Libra, Sara, Mattea, Arlo, and Ignacio. “I like your friends.”
“Oh,” I scoff. “They’re classmates, not friends.”
“Remember that dark, thick line…?”
“That’s not the same,” I protest. “Friends are people that you like and care about and share experiences with. Classmates are just the kids you go to school with.”
“It sounds like being at the Academy together is the least of all the important things connecting you.”
I think about this for a second, and I’m about to agree with him, but I stop myself.
No sense giving this boy the upper hand in my weird, evolving relationship with my Emergent friends. I mean, classmates.
I grin as Libra mumbles something unintelligible before she rolls over and drops back into a deep, snoring sleep, curled up on the pew with her knees tucked up to her chin.
I slip my jacket off and drape it over the back of my chair before turning back to Matholook. “It’ll be morning soon.”
“I know.”
“Haida could lead us to the Academy, but we wouldn’t be able to follow her. The terrain is way too rough, and I don’t fancy running into any of Epic’s Sentinels who might still be out there looking for us.”
“I know. But there are access ports to the underground mines.”
“And you know where they are? You can really help get us back to the Academy?”
He closes his eyes for a long time. When he opens them again, he takes a deep breath like he’s getting ready to dive into the ocean. “I have a confession.”
“What is it?” When he doesn’t answer right away, I press him harder, my voice low but firm under the gloomy high-ceiling of crisscrossing wooden beams. “What is it?”
“I didn’t bring you here to New Haleck to save you.”
A lump rises in my throat, and my heart revs in my chest. “Then why—”
He shakes his head and presses his lips together.
“Matholook,” I whisper-hiss in the cemetery silence of the church.
He answers by standing up and resting one hand on my shoulder before walking over to the far wall off to the side of the church.
He presses his palm to an input sensor pad. A concealed wooden panel—about the size of a small door—slides open. One by one, a dozen, blinking and disoriented kids steps out into the dark chapel.
The kids shuffle into a compressed knot behind Matholook who rivets his pleading eyes onto my very stunned ones.
“I brought you here to help me save them.”
43
Gather
I don’t think my gasp is all that loud, but the other five members of my Cohort stir, moan, and then snap to full attention as if I’ve just announced at the top of my lungs that the church is on fire.
Ignacio rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands before leaping to his feet like the Army of the Unsettled is about to come storming in.
Libra, Sara, Mattea, and Arlo—as if they were four bodies with a single mind—snap themselves from the depths of sleep and jump into defensive postures in a semi-circle behind me.
Their weapons—sledgehammer, throwing darts, bear claws, and scythe—are drawn, poised, and ready for action.
Matholook seems surprised by the sudden burst of motion. I’m not sure why. It’s not like we’re accustomed to getting startled awake by the sudden presence of a group of haggard kids who’ve apparently been trapped inside a small room hidden behind a wall in an old church.
Ignacio says, “What the hell—?” and spreads his arms out—a shillelagh in each hand—to form a protective screen in front of our Cohort.
Ducking under Ignacio’s arm, I step forward and do a quick head count.
The twelve blank-eyed kids—probably all between thirteen and seventeen years old—gather in an even tighter clump behind Matholook.
The boys and girls range in shape and size, but they’re all wearing the same rumpled blue outfits with the Eagle crest of the Devoted embroidered on the breast pocket.
&nb
sp; Without turning my head from this unexpected group of quivering kids, I flick my eyes toward Matholook.
“Who—?”
“I’m sorry. I really sprung this on you, didn’t I?” I stare daggers at him as he stutters on. “They’re Devoteds. We call them the Set-Asides. They’re the ones we think might be Emergents. Maybe even Hypnagogics.”
“Where did they come from?”
“Some were born right here in New Haleck. Most once lived in Sanctum.”
“With Epic?”
“Yes.”
Libra gives my sleeve a frantic tug, but I hold up a wait-a-minute finger and tell her it’ll be okay.
“I doubt that,” she mumbles.
“Epic was using them?” I ask Matholook.
He nods, and his eyes go sad. “Like he was trying to use you.”
“How…how’d they get here?”
Matholook actually blushes. “I um…I saved them.”
I’m about to ask how he managed to do that, but he cuts me off, his words tumbling out in brisk, crashing waves.
“They’ve demonstrated some exceptional but also some pretty dangerous abilities. You’re not the only ones Epic is after. We like to take care of our own. But in this case, ‘our own’ don’t belong to us. They barely belong to themselves. If they stay here…”
“They might be killed?” I ask.
His eyes flit from me to the group of kids behind him and then back to me. Dropping his voice, he says, “No. They might kill us.”
Pointing a dagger-like finger at the opening in the wall behind the kids, Mattea’s acid-laced voice spills out from behind me. “And your solution is to keep them trapped in there?”
“For their own good, I promise. Our examiners…they test them. But they never hurt them or experiment on them. You have my word on that. ”
Libra stands in fist-clenched defiance next to Mattea. “It’s hard to accept the word of someone who keeps a bunch of kids locked in a closet.”
“It’s not a closet,” Matholook insists. “And I didn’t keep them there.” He brushes loose strands of hair away from his eyes and turns to me. “You can ask Branwynne. I’m the one who just let them out.”