by S. M. Beiko
We finally arrived at what had to be our destination. An amphitheatre, set low at the basin of the cave, ringed with graded levels. I had seen this place before, or else something like it — in a place on the outskirts of Aleppo, forty some years in the past. Suddenly there was a flash, and the powerful form of Deon was at the centre of the bowl, towering over me, lowering her blade —
“Easy now.” Killian had me by both arms, and I couldn’t stop myself from cringing. He put me upright and let go just as quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Listen. Whatever has happened, ye’ve had a rough go of it. Believe me, I know what it is to make your way through alone.” When I looked up at him, his casual joking air was gone, replaced entirely by a fierce determination to make me see. “But ye aren’t alone. We’re called Family for a reason. For better or worse, we are tied by the same element that drives us. And we are stronger together. Remember that.”
I was expecting him to reach over and squeeze me, or some other overly affectionate gesture, but he just stood straight and waited. His words lit something else in me I hadn’t known I was missing, and I tightened the corners of my stinging eyes so they wouldn’t betray me.
“And don’t let them get to ye. They’ll certainly try.” And when he turned aside, body angled at the bowl beneath us but unmoving, I knew he would be right behind me. But I had to choose to go first.
Waiting below, seated around the empty bowl in a semicircle, were five people. They were all Foxes, which I could tell from their colours alone — tunics and trousers and cloaks in that unifying scheme of black, red, and gold. Some of the gathering I recognized from the barest of glances when those cinder kids had attacked me. The woman in the centre of the five I did not. Her tunic was bright red, offset by her olive skin and piercing grey eyes. She stood when I stopped before them, and Killian moved to the side.
“Hello, Roan,” said the woman. “I trust you are feeling better after such a long period of rest?”
I reflexively looked at Killian, who was staring straight ahead as if I’d disappeared. “How long was I out?”
“Three days,” croaked the man closest to me. He looked to be in his seventies, but his back was rigid with the discipline age afforded him. He leaned forward on a plain walking stick, despite being seated.
“Didn’t realize I was on some kind of blackout schedule,” I snapped. I heard Killian clear his throat aggressively.
“My name is Mala,” the woman went on, hands folded in front of her. So this was the Conclave’s leader. She made no move to be as friendly with me as Killian had been, and she ignored him entirely as she introduced the others. “These are our acting Council members. Akilah Fante . . .” the Black woman with the elaborate hair wrap nodded “. . . Jacob Reinhardt . . .” the ginger-haired man’s icy eyes narrowed at me “. . . and Edward Kilduggan.” The elderly man with the walking stick worked what remained of his teeth in a grimace. “We welcome you to our sanctuary. You are safe here.”
“The stone,” Edward barked, stamping his stick. “Let us see the stone.”
Mala cleared her throat. “Now, there’s no need —”
“Edward is right; we need to test its provenance before we go any further,” Akilah cut in. She smiled to me encouragingly, and it put me off in such a tense and hostile space.
But it also made me realize that this was their world and the stone was as much theirs as mine. I wasn’t about to let them rip my shirt off so I unzipped my hoodie as a show of good faith.
“That’s it . . . that’s it!” cried the woman beside Mala, whose name she had not yet given, leaping to her feet but tripping over them. Mala caught her smartly by the arm.
“It’s all right, Ruo. We know.”
A knife went through me. Because the woman Mala steadied was the same one who had come after me in the café, shouting about Cecelia. And the name rang in my ears like an explosion had gone off too close by.
How could I have seen it through that mask of scars covering her face? But the stone and my spirit eye layered on the neat features of the woman Cecelia had obviously loved decades ago. And now . . . she was shaking and frail, and Killian came forward to relieve Mala, helping Ruo sit again.
“It was Ruo who told us where you were,” Mala said. “She had mistaken you for Cecelia. But we already knew the truth. And I am sorry for your loss. We all are.”
A general note of assent from the peanut gallery, reluctantly given.
“She went down fighting.” Akilah Fante nodded. “An honourable death.”
I scoffed, Cecelia’s old grievances seeping out through me unbidden. “And I’m sure you made her feel honoured when she was alive and kicking.”
Their reverent grief clicked over to defensiveness just as quickly. “The apple doesn’t fall far, it’d seem,” drawled Jacob. “You are Cecelia’s granddaughter, sure enough. And you have the Dragon Opal. Yet from what we know, you were raised a Mundane, with no knowledge of your lineage or ties to Ancient until a bare few months ago. You may have managed to seal a darkling, but you have defied every law we have and taken what was not yours to begin with.”
I blinked at him. Then I looked at the rest of the gathering. “So?”
“So, she says!” Edward slapped his thigh. “The gods are laughing at us still.”
“Hey, if you’re all so sore about me and this stone, you are more than welcome to take it off my hands. I didn’t steal it. It was just there. And suddenly it was here. And . . . I don’t think we’re compatible. So if you think I’m going to fight you on that, I’m not.”
The glance the four of them exchanged was almost too obvious. My heart was hammering, manic with hope.
“The stone has its own mind,” Mala said evenly. “Whatever we wish of it, you two cannot be parted now.”
And we’re stuck with you, I mentally finished for her. That was it then. I loosened my fists at my sides. Suddenly it was Eli’s voice in my head — it will destroy you.
Nothing for it. “Well then. What am I here for?”
Mala straightened. “War is coming,” she said. “And we must prepare by rallying around the Paramount.”
I felt my skin prickle again. “Will you stop calling me that? I’m not the Paramount. I’m not Cecelia.” I zipped myself back up, all the way to my throat. “I can’t lead you. I’ve got my own problems.”
“Our problems are the same,” Mala answered wearily, pacing slowly around the bowl in front of her counterparts. “The attack you suffered. It is not the first in which we have intervened. There have been others, too many. And some we were too late to stop. An enemy has risen that we do not recognize. And it is after the Calamity Stones.”
My skin around the stone itched again, pulsed warmer. As if the stone knew we were discussing it and sensed it was in danger.
“We were lucky to have found you when we did. If not for Killian, we aren’t certain what would have happened.” She turned towards him and I saw him leaning against a huge pillar, still staring straight ahead, pretending he was invisible and accepting no praise. “We are also grateful to see him after his own long absence.” That time, the corner of Killian’s mouth twitched; so he really was under scrutiny as well.
Then Mala looked between us. “I know the attack happened quite quickly, but it was Killian who saved your life three nights ago.”
I froze. Suddenly I was back there. And there was the man who, standing in front of me, had squeezed away Ben’s life like it was nothing. I wasn’t about to thank him for it, and when he did look up at me, I turned away.
I had to press on, like that carefully won trust hadn’t just been totalled. “These kids are after the Calamity Stones? The Paramounts of the other Families —”
“Whatever the creature is that has brought this plague with it, we know it has the Serenity Emerald, the stone belonging to the Rabbits. The Owl Paramount is missing, too, but according to
their Council — what’s left of it, anyway — the creature doesn’t have the Moonstone.”
“Eli is missing?” I barked, and Edward jumped.
“Indeed.” Mala quirked an eyebrow. “Though I heard he tried to kill you enough times that he should warrant less concern.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “I guess,” I admitted, “but without him, we wouldn’t have stopped Zabor.”
“The girl trusts an Owl, no less. This is what we have for a leader now . . .” Edward stomped his cane, shaking his head.
I couldn’t stand this. “I already told you —”
“And what of the Stonebreakers?” Akilah asked the rest of the gathering. “That shadow cult has been quiet. Too quiet.” She laid the barest glance in Killian’s direction. “What if they have brought this creature here, and what if they rally around it?”
Mala held up her hand. “We are being vigilant.” She could probably see the confusion on my face and addressed me directly. “The Stonebreakers were Denizens who believed the Calamity Stones must be destroyed rather than used. Indeed, we thought those from that extremist coalition had given up their schemes almost twenty years ago. Many of them have been imprisoned. Our intelligence has not uncovered a connection yet. One enemy at a time.”
“Enough.” Jacob slapped his open palm onto his thigh. “The Opal is safe. If this creature, this Seela as it calls itself, comes here with its army of brats, or if the Stonebreakers have planned all of this, it does not matter. We will be ready.”
Mala looked as if she sensed an incoming insurrection. “Jacob —”
“Ready, huh?” I bit back at him, and he glowered at me. “So far you’ve dragged me down here against my will and just slammed me with more unanswered questions than you’ve addressed.” I looked back to Mala.
She nodded, eyes narrowed. “You’re right, Roan. There is much we must speak of. Perhaps we should do so now, in confidence.” She tilted her head at the gathering. “You will excuse us, elders.” And she opened her arm towards me, inviting, and turned aside.
The others stood at being dismissed, Akilah moving to Ruo’s side to help her stand, and without thinking I went to them first.
“Cecelia?” Ruo’s head perked, blind eyes searching.
I took her hand impulsively. “No, it’s . . . my name is Roan. I’m Cecelia’s granddaughter. Do you remember me? We met in Edinburgh a few days ago in a café.”
Her face, already pale save for the angry red in the creases of her ruined face, softened. “Oh.” She bent her head down to our joined hands, clasped her other one over it. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Being in Cecelia’s memories lately had numbed me from that reality. Kept it at bay. Hadn’t I only just seen her? How could she really be gone? So when I said yes, it felt like a lie, and the residue of that must have travelled through our hands, because Ruo jerked away from me like I’d bitten her.
“It’s all right,” the headscarfed woman put her massive arm around Ruo, led her away. “She needs rest.” And they were already out of reach before I could try again.
“Roan?” Mala called.
I whirled. Right. Time for answers. I shot that icy-eyed twit Jacob one last scrutinizing look as he passed me. Killian was nearby, too, but he didn’t look as if he was going anywhere. He shot me a thumbs-up, but I looked away quickly. I didn’t know if I even wanted his support.
I followed Mala through a passage into an antechamber, and the door mercifully shut everything out behind us. We were alone.
“The Paramount of this Family has been most neglectful in her duties.” Her back was to me, and she spoke instead to the wall, which was hung with an enormous tapestry faded by time. I recognized the style — in Cecelia’s memory, Deon had something like it incised in the leather bracers and armour covering her body. But this depicted something else. Three massive dark shapes hulking ominously in the sky, a split sea, and a drowning world — above it, a black orb.
“The rules. The training. The preparation. Cecelia always went her own way about things.”
I thought of Cecelia, her overwhelming need to reject the stone, and that she’d spent her entire life serving its will and leaving us behind because of it. “She did her best.”
“Her best wasn’t enough.” Mala spun to face me, her face hard. “Do you know how long she was gone? Fourteen years. She and the stone. She put us all in jeopardy so she could avenge her daughter. So she could save you.” For a second I thought she was blaming me, but there was admiration there. “Impulsive and heroic to the bitter end.”
I lowered my head, looked at my hands. I swore I’d felt her small fox body there, only for a second, on a battlefield that was far too late. I clenched my fists. “She did her best.”
Mala didn’t argue that time. “Indeed.” She sat heavily on the recessed bench underneath the tapestry and held out her hand again. “Please.”
I hesitated, but where else would I go? I crossed the room and joined her but put enough space between us on the bench to fit another person. “And in those fourteen years,” I ventured, “you were the leader here in her absence?”
Mala smiled. “I’ve done my best here.” She reached out a hand again, as someone would on meeting, and I felt a warmth from her that I could trust, so I took it gingerly. Her grip was firm but comforting. “I do so admire you, Roan. What you have accomplished. What you have sacrificed. It can’t have been easy, doing so much for a world you knew nothing about.” She squeezed a little too hard, then released. “I envy your naïveté. You acted without being bound by the laws or tenets the rest of us are. But such a tether runs out eventually. There are rules. Rules that have protected us in this world for centuries. Rules that exist to protect not only Denizens but those without Ancient’s connection. The Families once worked together towards a common purpose, a common peace, but we are all divided, as you can see. And a crisis does not make it any easier to unite.”
I was on a leash, that much was clear. Mala turned her body aside, bringing a leg underneath her as she eyed the tapestry critically. “The world is in pain. And Ancient still sleeps. I cannot say for certain what this new enemy wants. But it only rose because Zabor was sent back to her siblings. And just like us, the darklings are stronger together.”
She was the third person to say that to me. I stared at her; that time, the accusation was definitely there. Table Five’s chilling and bizarre warning rang in my head — our mother thanks you for helping her . . .
“What . . . you mean the thing causing the plague, trying to collect the stones . . . this wouldn’t have happened if Zabor hadn’t —”
“There is no good and evil in our world, Roan. But there is destruction, the kind that can be held back by inches or succumbed to entirely.” Mala was still staring at the tapestry like it was asking a question she couldn’t answer. “Keeping Zabor sated was, true, only a temporary solution to a greater problem. I fear that sending her back to the Bloodlands was a part of her plan, however good your intentions were. If I were in your position, to see it through a lens unclouded by the laws of Ancient . . . I may have done the same.”
I leapt to my feet; after everything I’d given up last spring, I couldn’t believe that I’d been wrong all along. “But you . . . Zabor was killing Denizen children. Every year. You would’ve kept that up, what, until there were none left?”
Mala sighed. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“You’re just as bad as the Owls.” I couldn’t stomach any of this, and I paced to the other side of the room. “So all of you were content to let that go on? For the greater good? Is that why I’m here — for a dressing down?”
After a drawn-out silence, Mala spoke. “What you did was honourable. A brave and courageous thing. I will not fault you that. Nor will I belittle the sacrifices made for it. What matters now is that something else rose from the Bloodlands after Zabor returne
d there. The children that follow it — they call it Seela. It calls itself the child of the darklings. The plague it brought here affects only humans, those not born with but hungry for power.” Now she stood. “Seela cannot succeed, Roan. To bring the stones together is a disaster we can’t even fathom.” She pointed to the tapestry. “This is an ending we cannot rewrite, but it is only one possible outcome. If Seela brings the stones together, it would have the power to unmake the world. It wants nothing more than to be reunited with its parents. To make this world a Bloodland it can rule.”
My fists were crack-tight and sparks spat off me. I saw wariness rise in her. “What am I supposed to say to that? What exactly do you want from me?”
Her eyes fell from my face to my chest. “The stone has a mind of its own. Surely you know that by now.”
I cooled down at that. “So?”
“So it chose you. For a reason. These things are not done lightly. Some say that you took the stone, that you did not earn it. But in the end, we know you were chosen as a conduit. You have a power and a will to fight. You have what it takes to lead.”
I bunched the fabric of my hoodie above my sternum, tired of listening. You aren’t alone, Killian had said. Mala was asking for my help. But I needed some of my own, too.
“You really can’t take it from me, can you?” My voice was small.
She shook her head sadly. “It is a bond that can be broken only by death. We are not so desperate yet.”
Hardly comforting. I thought of Fingal’s Pint, the havoc I could wreak. “But I don’t know how to control it. There was . . . an accident —”
“We know, Roan. But we can show you how to control it. A tremendous power is within your reach, a chance to join us in the fight that is certainly coming. You could be a part of this. But we have to trust each other.”
That was a long shot. I needed time to think. “This has all been a lot to take in at once.”
Mala was quiet. “Of course.” She crossed the room back to the hidden door that would lead once more into the meeting space. “I’ll have Killian show you to a private place where you can rest.” As she ushered me through the door, her smile did not reach her eyes. She knew as well as I that this wasn’t going to be easy.