by Unknown
There are others on the tarmac. Others who have their eyes on us specifically. Or maybe, they just have their eyes on me. My robe blows in the constant flow of wind that pushes sand across the tarmac in ribbons. I put a hand up to my eyes and speak over the howl. “Is it always so windy?”
“Yes, but Aura is surrounded by high walls to break the flow of the wind. It’s much more bearable there.” Echo tugs on the hood of my robe, keeping one of his hands by his eyes to shield and protect it from the whipping winds. “I bet you are glad that you wore this now, aren’t you?”
“I always wear this, Echo.” For the first time, I laugh, and Echo puts his arm around my shoulders to escort me to a white limo with golden rims that is parked not too far from where we are.
“Wow. Fancy, aren’t we?”
“You have no idea.” Echo opens the door for me with a grin that promises I’ve seen nothing yet.
Chapter 2
Echo was right. I hadn’t seen anything yet. As the limousine cruises up to the gates of Aura, I can’t do anything but stare out the window in complete awe. Aura is the complete opposite of the City. I immediately understand where their city gets its name from, with its golden-hued buildings and sparkling, translucent glass windows. Everything glitters, even the sand as it whips around the tall walls that protect the city from the dry gusts of wind.
I place my fingers on the limo’s window and press my forehead to the glass as I try to get a better look. I can feel Echo’s eyes on me as I react probably as a child would at the first sight of something they’ve never seen before. There are no skyscrapers here, no crowded, jumbled row homes with sooty exteriors. The buildings are no more than two floors high, allowing for a precious view of the almost purple mountains that peek up in the distance.
“Echo … this is beautiful … ”
“Thank you. This is the home of the Dreamcatchers. After the City banished us, we had to travel a long way to find a place where we’d be safe from attack. We chose this area because it’s so dry, hot, and humid, that we don’t know who’d willingly want to come out here. Besides us, of course.” Echo scoots over on the leather seat to sidle up closer to me. “It is beautiful though, isn’t it? This is my first homecoming, to be honest. I’ve never been out of the city for this long.”
The gates click back when they are fully open, and the limo pulls forward once more. As soon as we are moving again, I can see the crowds of people who line the main street, which leads directly to an impressive palace that stands center of Aura, just like our Institution does in the City. The people are all dressed in white, some with different colored trims on their robes. They reach out for the car, calling for Echo, wanting to see their prince.
We pull around a circle in front of the palace, and the courtyard is also filled with Dreamcatchers, cheering for Echo’s arrival. He brushes a hand down his robe, smoothing the wrinkles from the soft fabric. “Are you ready?”
Then, a sudden fear grips me. “Do they know I am with you?”
Echo’s pale blue eyes meet mine. “No.”
I want to slap him, and it takes everything in me not to lose my temper. “What?”
“They don’t know you are with me. I did not tell anyone I was bringing you home. It is a part of my strategy.”
I lock the limo’s doors. We stare at each other for a long while, my chest rising and falling in anger. “How could you put me in this situation, Echo? I am the Keeper. I’m the leader of your enemy. You are putting me in great danger, and you know you are.”
Echo, in his ever-calm way, reaches out and helps pull the hood of my robe up over my head. “You will be fine because you are my guest, and it is a law in Aura that we must treat our guests with utmost respect.” He pauses. “Not that we get many guests … ever.”
Now, I do smack him. My hand makes contact with his arm, and I scowl. “You better not get me hurt.”
“Listen to them. They are too happy to see me. I doubt they’ll even take notice of you.” Echo unlocks the doors and slides across the seat to the other side where he can exit first. “Driver, we are ready.”
The chauffeur exits the vehicle and appears again beside Echo’s door. As soon as he opens it, the sound of cheering flows into the car and I hear Echo suck in a deep breath. He exits first, and when I see his hand lower back into the limo, I reach out and gently rest my palm against his, using the offered support to help me out of the car.
As my feet touch the floor, my black robes fall all around me like darkness covering the day, and I’m free of the limousine. Lifting my chin, my eyes move from the ground to the people, and I swallow as the cheering comes to an abrupt stop when they see my violet irises. Almost all at once, they take a step back, and no one makes a sound.
I tighten my grip around Echo’s hand, sure that in the next moment they are going to rush us and kill me where I stand. Here I am, their sworn enemy, the representation of the Keeper before me who persecuted them, ran them out of the City and killed many of them, including their princess. I stand before them as if none of that had ever happened. I know, if I were in their place, I’d certainly want to see myself dead, too.
Muttering very quietly to Echo, I tug on his hand. “Let’s go.”
Echo seems to sense the danger as well, and he half drags me through the throng of people and toward the palace stairs. As soon as he’s in view of the guards who stand by the main entrance, they move at the same time, stiff and rigid, and escort us the rest of the way. Before I know it, we are out of the humid outside and standing on a gold and white marble floor of a vast welcoming room. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and much like I did when coming to the city, I openly stare, almost forgetting about the awkward silence that has replaced their cheering outside.
“This is where you live?”
Echo nods his head, letting go of my hand to walk ahead of me. He spins around, arms out by his sides, gesturing to the room. “Well, not in this room, of course, but yes, this is the Dreamcatcher Palace. My great grandparents established it when they established the city of Aura.”
I look up, peering at the paintings that have been carefully created on the ceilings. Most of them depict tales of the Maker with people from a time way before ours. A large chandelier dangles from the middle of the room with crystal teardrops hanging off its many tiers. Candles flicker in their sconces hung around the perimeter of the room. “Everything is so … so golden here. It’s like some sort of—”
“Dream?” Echo chuckles, holding his hand out for mine again. “Come. I don’t want to keep my mother waiting. I’m sure by now she’s probably heard of your arrival.”
“You said your mother knows I am here?” I take his hand and follow him down a long hallway with mirrors placed on one side to reflect the beautiful view of the windows opposite of it.
“Mother knows everything. Whether she believes it or not is another story. Her abilities are far more than mine. She knows my thoughts as soon as I step into the room, and she knows well that I thought about bringing you back to Aura to help us.”
We round the end of the hallway where two ornate white doors with gold leafing stand closed in front of us. The entrance is flanked by two guards holding guns across their chests. I look up at the doors, then to the guards, and finally back to Echo. “This is it?”
Echo offers me an encouraging smile. “It will be okay, Beatrice.”
I sure hope so. Even the guards look at me in contempt, when they probably should be standing at attention. Echo pays it no mind, though, and we walk by them and into the room beyond.
The welcoming room is nothing compared to the throne room. Seated on an embellished chair set on a dais is a beautiful woman dressed in a white, silk gown that hugs close to her form. Her hair is so blond it’s almost violet, and it’s done up in pins with crystals that sparkle when they catch the light. The throne is situated in the middle of the vast room, which has little else in it besides two cushioned chairs to her left and to her right. On the right
hand chair there’s a long white rose that rests across the seat.
I hesitantly continue to follow Echo into the middle of the room, where he half bows, never letting go of my hand. His mother’s pale blue eyes never leave me and hardly meet her son’s presence at all.
“You’ve brought me the Keeper, my son?” Her voice is soft and gentle, and though her gaze is stern, there’s no hardness in her words.
“I’ve brought you Seer Beatrice, the current Keeper of the City, my Queen Mother.” Echo tugs on my hand, and I take another step forward.
“She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she, my love?” The queen rises to her feet, the dress rippling around her the way water does when it’s disturbed from its still state. “Too pretty to be such a threat to our people.”
“She is not a threat, my Queen Mother. She’s not like the Keeper before her. She came here to help us with our … our situation.”
The Queen smiles the most beautiful smile. I can’t take my eyes off of her as she steps down the dais and approaches her son, and consequentially me as well. “Oh, did she? And what made her want to do that? Because I know very well that it would be the most unacceptable thing to do, according to her people.”
“Me.” Echo states simply.
I’ve not said a word, nor do I intend to. I listen with interest to the exchange between mother and son, figuring I have no place in their conversation just yet. Standing tall with my chin held up, I try not to look as pathetic and lonely as I feel right now. If only Gabe could see me, standing in the face of the enemy, poised and collected. I wonder if he’d be proud of me for keeping my mouth shut, or if he’d roll his eyes at the fact that I refuse to say anything just yet.
The queen circles me like I am cattle waiting to be bought and sold. I lift my chin just a little more to show that I’m not intimidated by her. While she might be Echo’s mother, it’s not easy to ignore seventeen years of being told that this woman who is standing in front of me is my enemy. That I should want to kill her and watch her bleed all over her precious marble floors. To turn her silk white dress into a satisfying crimson.
Reaching out, she grabs me by the wrist for just a moment before I pull my arm out of her grasp. “She has many violent thoughts inside of her head, I feel,” the queen assesses and stops circling me when she’s in front of us once more. “I can feel them coming from her. She is radiating violence.”
Echo looks at me with a glance of betrayal. I shrug one of my shoulders and finally speak for the first time. “Would I be able to read the minds of your people and yourself, I would probably come to find the same thing.” I pause, not sure what I should call this woman in front of me. I recall the words “your highness” used in the fairytale books that we were allowed to read when we were young, and I go with that. “Your Highness.”
“This might be true. It is not every day, or … ever, if I dare say, that we have the Keeper inside of our walls. And for my son, the beloved of his people, to bring her back home, hold her hand even … well, it is much to take in. I do hope that you forgive my people for their thoughts, just as I shall try and look over the fact that you wish to turn my dress the color of blood.”
I say nothing.
“So this is the girl for whom your sister foolishly got herself killed?” The queen’s blue eyes focus on Echo, waiting for an answer. There’s a tension between them that can’t be broken, and obviously this is because of Paradigm.
Before the battle between the Dreamcatchers and Seers broke out, Paradigm, Echo’s young sister, snuck out of Aura and made her way to the City in order to eliminate me, or at least, that was her plan. She had found out about her brother’s plan to find and convince me to somehow stop the fight before it even began.
Paradigm’s special ability was to be able to fit in, much like a pattern. She could mold herself to belong to others, convince them that she was a part of them. Unfortunately, though, because of my Vision, she failed and was caught and put in front of a firing squad. It was then she told us that the Dreamcatchers were coming, and it was from that moment on when everything got to be too serious.
Echo didn’t answer his mother’s loaded question. He walked over to my side and stood by, tall and unified, as if protecting me.
“And what do you plan to do with her here, Echo? You’ve gone much out of your way, endangering good Dreamcatchers, like Enigma, in order to get your hands on this little Keeper of yours.”
“Beatrice will know what to do,” Echo finally replies, but I have no idea what he is talking about.
“What to do? About what?” I immediately ask the question before he can go any further with this plan of his.
“About the plague.” Echo turns himself on an angle to look down at me. I can see his face under the edges of my hood, which is still pulled up over my head, shrouding my face. I feel comfortable and protected inside of my robes, as if the Institution itself had managed to wrap its arms around me and remind me where I’ve come from.
“How would I know what to do about that?” I look between them both, though the queen is no longer looking at either of us. She moves like she walks above the ground and approaches a tall window, made in the old French style, long and narrow. In our history books, we’ve learned that the windows were made that way to allow the panes to be thrown back and for the air to circulate through the room. The heat and wind outside doesn’t allow for this option, though, and the windows are kept tightly shut.
She puts her hand on the glass and peers outside, and when I look to what she’s focusing on, all I can see are the tall tops of green and brown cacti and some thick leafs from the palm trees that survived the war. Her hands are small and slender, like that of a child’s, and her long, stark blond hair falls down her back in thick tresses. She shines in the sun, as if she were part of the sun herself.
“I figured that maybe you’d See it. That is what the Seers do, is it not? And aren’t you the Seer with the best Vision?” Echo asks these questions of me, and a part of me wonders if he truly doesn’t know the answer to them. I’ve never had a Vision of this place before, nor have I ever seen a plague.
“Echo, I don’t even know what it is that your people are going through. How would I be able to … I didn’t even know what Aura looked like before now … ”
“And do you need to know these things before you See them? Isn’t it possible that if you stay here for a little while you’ll figure it out?” Echo stands in the way of my view of his mother, who still stands by the window and watches outside, waiting for something.
“I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever see anything that has to do with here.” I step forward and lower my voice. “Is this why you brought me here, Echo? In hopes that I’d See something? You know I can’t control my Visions. You know that.”
Echo shakes his head, his hands pulling up into the comfort of his long bell sleeves. “I don’t know how your gift works any more than I understand my own sometimes. All I know is that our Citizens are dying, and without them … we’ll fall apart, just like you’ll fall apart without yours.”
“It is true, Keeper Beatrice.” The queen turns away from the window and looks back at me and Echo. “We are in danger. There have been reports of Dreamcatchers having caught the illness now. It is only a matter of time before it spreads amongst us and we can’t heal it anymore.”
I still don’t understand how I fit into this picture. I swallow as the pressure builds and I’m beginning to feel as if I’m being pulled between the both of them. “So, what am I to do? I can’t cure plagues. I am just the Keeper, and I can’t even do that job when I’m here, in Aura.”
“You can get us more Citizens.” She makes her way back over to where we stand, her dress’ train dragging on the floor behind her. “Healthier ones. We can use them to heal ourselves after purging Aura of the infected.”
My mouth opens, gaze shifting between Echo and the queen. “Excuse me?”
“The Citizens belong to the both of us, Keepe
r Beatrice. We are both made by them, and we both need them to keep our powers balanced.” The queen starts to continue, but I cut her off, maybe a bit rudely.
“We don’t use the Citizens to resurrect and heal ourselves, though. We don’t use them to tap into any special abilities. The Dreamcatchers kill them in order to become more powerful. The Seers stay around them in order to balance our Sight.”
“No? You don’t kill them?” The queen barks a laugh at this and snaps her fingers. A servant scurries from somewhere near the side of the room with a digipad in his hands. He offers it to the queen, head dipped down so that no eye contact is made. The servant is a Citizen; I can tell by his dull brown hair and scraggly physique, despite the finery of his clothing.
The queen turns the digipad on and slides a few of the screens around until one is made visible from under the others. She pushes the face of the digipad and the picture begins to play, showing a short clip of a Training Games session. One of the ones from when the old Keeper made us use Citizens as targets. “What is this, then, Keeper?”
I frown almost immediately. “We didn’t choose to do that. We were made to do it. They were convicts, criminals that she had brought in for target practice.” I glance away from the digipad and train my violet gaze on Echo. “If this is how you wanted me to help you, Echo, I don’t think I can.”
“Oh, darling Keeper,” the queen begins, handing the digipad off to the servant who brought it to her. She brushes her hair out of her face and approaches her throne once more, her walk slow and languid. “It is much too late for thoughts of home. Now that you are here, you are going to stay until we figure out a way to fix our little dilemma.”
Panic sets in. “Are you keeping me your prisoner then?” I direct the question to Echo, at whom I immediately feel most angry. How dare he bring me into this unsafe situation, pitting the future of his entire people on my shoulders when I can’t do anything about it. “Huh, Echo? Is that what I am to you now?”