by Jenny Moyer
Burning Days are for all Subpars, but this ritual is for us.
Not even my father knows about this place.
Lenore and Reeves dress beyond the ring of light, preparing to leave.
“I stole something,” Dram announces softly. “From one of the guards. This is the only safe place to show you.” He crouches beside his suit and slips something from one of the pockets—a narrow, rectangular piece of tech the size of his palm. “When the guard first pulled this out, I thought it was a flash wand—”
“You stole a flash wand?” Reeves asks. Even he looks horrified. I’ve never actually seen one of Congress’s most powerful weapons, but I’ve seen what they can do. Tunnel nine was blasted open with flash wands.
“It’s not.” Dram grins ruefully. “I wouldn’t have risked stealing a flash weapon. This is something different.” He touches the device, and an image projects across the cavern.
“A map…” I’m relieved, but part of me is oddly disappointed.
“This is more than a map,” Lenore says. It moves as she moves, as if it senses her presence.
I walk forward, and the three-dimensional image shifts so that I’m crossing the five outposts bordering the Barrier Range. On the other side of the Range, the cordons stretch all the way to the flash curtain. Beyond it are more cordons, and the tapped-out tunnels of the first outposts, now an abandoned strip of the Exclusion Zone. Congress calls this area the Overburden, the name given to land above depleted mines. All around me are elements of the flashfall—shifting clouds and the fractured radiance of the curtain I’ve known all my life
I step beyond it.
My breath catches. I know it’s just tech—an illusion only—but as the towering peaks of the provinces rise up around me and the first forest I’ve ever seen enfolds me like a lush green secret, I want to take hold of it. I want to grasp at bark and pine needles and seize this life for myself. Living things. Life-giving, natural things. A life of my own choosing.
This isn’t real, this isn’t real, I keep telling myself.
But, fire, I want it to be.
Everyone stops moving, and I look to see what they’re all staring at. The cirium shield rises up before us, arcing around the city like an enormous silver wing.
The shield our ancestors died to put in place. And beyond it, the place we’re trying to earn our way into, a gram of cirium at a time.
“Ready?” Dram asks. We step forward, and the shield shifts past us. We stand inside the protected city.
The jewel.
The Prime Commissary called it that once, during a transmission she sent to cavers. I remember her smiling when she said it, her accent lending precise corners to her words. The protected city is the jewel in the crown that is our city-state.
I see so much water and so many green, growing things—not rugged, like the provinces, but tamed. I reach toward buildings glowing with light, thinking, jewel. In the distance, waterways bisect parks and roads. Transport devices whir by, and I’m saddened by how small-minded I was all the times I imagined this.
Dad is right. We live a rustic life here in the outposts. Now I understand the way he half laughs, half cringes the word when he says it. Rustic. I want to spit it out like a sour taste. No wonder Cranny and the other Naturals spare no smiles for us. Who would want to leave this to go serve in the outposts? I can hardly imagine more different worlds.
I’m standing in sunlight that does not wish to consume me, with the arc of the shield casting part of the city in shadow. There is no hint of the flashfall. Above me the sky—
Ah, the sky—
Clear. Not a cloud in sight. And blue, like Mom always told me it was.
Blue, like her glass memorial pendant around my neck.
The thought brings me back to this cavern, my bare feet on smooth stone, the grit of memorial chalk on my fingers.
I glance at Dram, but his eyes aren’t fastened on the jewel.
They’re on me.
“You climb the Range like you keep hoping to see beyond Cordon Five,” he says softly. “So when I saw the guard use this…” His lips lift in a half smile.
My eyes fill, blurring Dram and his gift.
“They’ll tear the outpost apart when they find out this is missing,” Reeves says.
“I’ll return it tonight.”
“You’re mad, Dram. If you’re caught, they’ll send you down four.”
“Some things are worth the risk,” Lenore says, and she crushes Dram in a hug. I’m not the only one who longs for a life beyond this outpost. She breaks away, darting a look toward the shadows. “I think I hear a tracker.”
“We need to leave,” Reeves says.
Lenore fastens her skullcap, her eyes locked on Dram. “Stay by the water. We’ll go first.” She reaches for the rest of her gear.
“Hurry, Len,” Dram whispers, his concern as evident as hers. The air fairly hums between them, like there is a special tension reserved for siblings who have only each other left in the world. Reeves stoops to help Lenore, and it occurs to me that he has no one—not a single person in the world with shared blood. But as he and Lenore duck from the cavern, he clasps her hand, and I think maybe shared blood doesn’t mean as much as love.
I’ve never been more aware of the chalk circles in this cavern.
Dram slides his finger over the device, and the image cuts out. Now it’s just us two beside the luminous blue pool. He sets the device with his gear, and our gazes collide and bounce away. With Reeves and Lenore gone, this space feels smaller, and I’m suddenly aware that we are wearing almost nothing. Wet almost nothing.
But now, when I close my eyes, I can call up an image of a forest, and the sky, and they are more than my imaginings of them ever were before. No one has ever given me such a gift.
“Thank you,” I whisper. The words aren’t enough, but I don’t know how to say what I’m feeling.
He starts to respond, but then whirls toward the cave entrance. We hear the whistling at the same time, louder than usual, and throw ourselves into the water just as they hum into view. Not one, but four trackers.
“Dive!” Dram says.
I kick to the bottom of the pool, my chest squeezing for lack of air. I’ve never seen trackers working in tandem, and some instinct tells me it magnifies their sensors. I press my hands to the cirium, willing my body to stay down.
Dram’s beside me, staring up toward the surface. We breathe out air, working to keep our bodies submerged. The bubbles lift, where we can see the trackers hovering still.
I need air. Panic flutters beside the pain in my lungs. These aren’t black spots clouding my vision, but a red wave of pain. One set of trackers leaves.
My body is having a war with my mind. I’m telling it to stay under, but it’s showing me it intends to live, and I realize I’m kicking to the surface.
Dram grabs my leg, and I cry out, losing my last bit of air.
One second … two … three. The trackers leave. And now Dram’s not pulling me down, but pushing me toward the surface.
We gasp, treading water, and I lie back, letting the Sky hold me in its embrace again.
Dram dives deep, and I watch him stretch his hand along the cirium basin. The water moves in eddies as he breaks the surface, droplets shimmering over his chest and arms. He looks different with his hair slicked back from his forehead, more a man, less a boy.
“If you’re going to look at me like that, it’s only fair that I get to stare back.”
I blink. “Oh. Um.” I duck beneath the water. Flash me, what am I doing? I stay under longer than my lungs tell me they’re comfortable with.
When I emerge, Dram’s waiting. A smile lingers in his eyes.
“We should go,” I say. But I don’t swim to the edge. The levity fades from Dram’s eyes as he watches me. “What is it?”
“I just had this image of you—taking my axe to the bottom.”
“Our axes will never hang here.” I swim to him, grasp his shoulders. “W
e’re getting free.”
He studies me as if he’s judging how sure I really am. “What does it sound like?” He speaks so softly, but I know what he’s asking.
All Subpars sense the elements in the earth—to some extent. We are born with an innate connection to the curtain that is honed down these tunnels, where our families have mined for generations.
But it is different for me.
“I don’t hear it with my ears.” I take his hand and press it above my sternum. “I feel it here. Like a sort of vibration…” I hum and watch his face. “Feel it?”
He looks down at his hand, pressed above my heart. “No.”
I lift his hand so it cradles my jaw. His fingers brush my skin, and there’s a question in his eyes. “Sometimes it’s stronger, like this…” I hum, and his breath stutters.
“Felt that,” he says.
Then there is just the sound of Dram’s breathing and mine, and the water lifting us, so that everything feels impossibly light. I feel things that scare me, that threaten to take what Dram and I have together and trade it for something altogether different.
“I have an idea,” Dram says suddenly. He pulls away and swims for the pool’s edge.
“What are you doing?” I heave myself over the side and follow him.
“We’re both about to reach four hundred grams, so this may be our last time here.” He fishes some chalk from his suit pocket and writes Orion on the blank stone wall. And beside it, Dram. But he doesn’t draw the caver’s circle. We’re not safe yet. Instead, he scrapes two parallel lines, tilted at an angle. It means—
“The way out,” Dram says. He and I will be the first cavers of Outpost Five to earn our way beyond the curtain without dying. “Maybe one day this wall will be filled with more names—other Subpars who mined enough.”
I touch the expanse of dark stone, and something stirs in me, too big to name. A promise that beats above my heart, in the place where the cirium sings.
* * *
We rarely see hovers at Outpost Five. The few times a year Congress sends us supplies and collects our cirium, the machines drop down behind the walls of Central, usually in the dead of night. But a cordon breach must break all kinds of rules. Cranny released a forfeit, and the day after, a craft lands beside the lodge.
I nearly drop the hammer I’m clasping in my blistered hand. Nails hang forgotten from my mouth as I watch the craft settle with a hiss into yellow sludge and ash. We were given the day free from caving, to honor the dead, but we’ve spent the remaining hours of this Burning Day salvaging what we can of the lodge. Because I’m the “mountain goat,” Cranny has me perched in the eaves, banging shingles into place.
I spit out the nails and scurry down the roof. My mind is racing so many places at once, I nearly fall. All I can think is that a hover like this will be coming soon for Dram and me, Lenore, and Dad.
I make my way to Dram’s side, where he watches the craft, grim-faced. He saw this sight the day his father was forced aboard. I can barely picture the hover that day, but I remember Dram clearly. His shirt had a tear, and I kept thinking that Lenore was going to have to learn how to sew. And I wondered about the new memorial pendant he wore for his mother—if it felt as heavy to him as mine did to me.
Technicians unload the craft, revealing crates of nutrient packs and wooden beams to rebuild the lodge. There are also new cavers. Congress sent us replacement parts and, apparently, replacement people.
Ashes from the funeral pyres lift on the wind, mingling with the smoldering remnants of the cordon breach. Even now, there’s a burn in the air. It irritates my exposed skin and makes my lungs work a little harder for air.
People are pouring from the hover. Four women, six men, and two I can’t quite believe. A little girl, maybe eight years old, and a boy who looks about eleven. I watch the children through the smoke of nine bodies.
“Looks like they’re planning the future repopulation of Outpost Five,” Dram murmurs.
“No Radbands,” I say. “They’re not Subpars.” These new people aren’t transplants from another outpost. They’re Naturals.
“Cave fodder,” Ennis huffs at my side.
I look at Dram. His jaw clenches so tight I see a muscle twitch in his cheek. “Why wouldn’t they just send more Subpars?” I ask.
“Maybe there aren’t any,” he says.
Outpost Five has never lost so many. Not even in the last flash storm. It’s safe to assume the other four outposts would have been impacted, too.
The little girl tips her head back, like she’s looking for a familiar landmark. She’s discovered the night is darker this close to the curtain, where we have only ashes for stars. Her dark hair hangs down over her yellow dress. She is the only splash of color in this gray world.
My eyes sting. From grief, from ash, the remnants of the curtain—it hardly matters. Congress is going to send this child down the tunnels.
“Fire,” I whisper. I have this horrible image of flash bats seizing her through that yellow dress.
“We’ll keep her safe,” Dram says.
I curse again and turn on my heel. I can’t listen to any more empty promises today, so I run past the infirmary, the Rig, and the weigh station, unsure where my feet are taking me. We tell ourselves we’re serving the city in some noble way, but the truth is so ugly, and it’s getting harder and harder to believe what they tell us.
“Evening, Scout,” Barro says as I turn into the forge. He glances up from his bellows just long enough to nod his head.
“Can I just … sit here awhile?” I ask.
His eyes shift back to mine, and in their depths I see a deep sorrow. This man gave me the memory of my mother that hangs around my neck. Barro is the only artisan at Outpost Five, but I’ve always thought of him as a magician because he takes all the death and gives back some precious bit of beauty. Something that reminds us that the tunnels don’t take everything—not the memory of the person we love.
I sit beside the furnace, absorbing its warmth, hoping it will thaw the ice within me. I close my eyes and imagine that I’m on the other side of the flash curtain—but it’s difficult with smoke burning my nostrils and the ache of Foss’s death pressing my chest like a stone.
* * *
“Found you,” Dram says quietly. The firelight plays across his face, bathing his stubbled cheeks in flickering shadow. He sits beside me and watches the glassblower pour ash into his tube. “They are free.”
It’s what we say on Burning Days to comfort the grieving. Today it just makes me angry. “Do you think Naturals have Burning Days?” I ask.
“Naturals aren’t as strong as us,” Dram says. “I’m sure they mourn even more dead than we do.”
“They call them ‘funerals.’” A young man steps into view. He has almond-shaped eyes and fair skin, and I remember seeing him emerge from the hover. His black hair hangs to his shoulders. “I’m Gabe,” he says. “Gabrielein, actually.”
He has an inflection to his voice I’ve never heard before. It makes me think that the language we speak is not the only one he knows. I stare at his hands—or rather, the metal palms and fingers that have taken the place of his hands.
“Not seen these before?” he asks.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”
“It’s fine. I still catch myself looking at them.” He flexes his hands. The hinged phalanges and metacarpals make a pinging sound.
“Were you in an accident?”
His eyes narrow, like he’s weighing his words. “No. I had two perfectly great hands. The Congress gave me these.”
“Why?” I can’t keep the shock from my voice.
“Have you never heard of Tempered Conjurors before?”
Conjuror.
I glance at Dram. His eyes are as wide as mine. “There hasn’t been a Conjie here for fifty years,” he says.
“That you know of,” Gabe says with a wink. “We’re a sneaky lot.” He lifts his hands. “Have to be, these days.”
Gabe watches the flames dance in Barro’s forge. “Our talents vary, but I could build shelters from rock, make shrubs produce berries—that kind of thing. Before my alterations, anyway.” He waggles his fingers.
I imagine weaving a vine from rock and letting its twisting arms carry me up and out of Outpost Five. But that’s ridiculous—there’s nothing out there but wasteland, outposts, and the cordoned zones on the other side of the range.
“I once knew a free Conjie so skilled he could form fire in his hand,” Gabe says.
“A free Conjie?”
Gabe gives me a smile, like I’m a child asking if the boogeyman is real. “How much do you know about the world beyond Outpost Five?”
“You mean the protected city?” Dram asks. “Are you from there?”
“I get to keep my hands—or what passes for my hands these days—if I limit what I say to you Subpars. That’s the deal your director made with me. So, in the interests of keeping my fingers—”
“Why are they sending Conjurors to the outposts?” Something isn’t adding up, and my own talent is telling me something that’s impossible.
Gabe smiles, but his eyes darken. “Stay safe in your ignorance, young ore scout. I intend to keep my hands this time.” He stands and walks out of the forge.
“Wait!” I jump to my feet and follow. “What’s it like—beyond the curtain?”
“Like nothing you can imagine. My people live in the mountain provinces—in places where you can still see the sun rise.” He’s right. It’s hard for me to imagine such a sight. His gaze sweeps the shadows. “I’m really not supposed to talk to you.”
“Your hands…” I reach toward him, needing to confirm what my scout’s senses are telling me. “Holy fire,” I breathe, clasping his metal wrists. “Cirium.”
His eyes widen. “You’re mistaken. It’s not even the same color—”
I scrape my fingernail across a joint seam. “Paint,” I whisper. “Why would they—”
He yanks his hands away. “Not a word to anyone, Subpar.”