Winter Omens

by Trisha Leigh

  Her father’s voice flies over her shoulder, decimating the last of my resolve not to cry. My vision blurs and I swallow hard, unable to stop.

  “While we work on unlocking that trunk, maybe we can start with a simpler question. Perhaps just tell us where your friends are. We will find them, young Lucas and Pax, and the length and brutality of their experience is in your hands, Althea. Tell us where to find them, and it will be easy. Continue to hold out, and your friends will continue to pay the price long after your body rots in the Wilds.”

  His threat hits me where it hurts, but lacks punch considering he’s going to do what he wants with all of us, whether I cooperate or not. In response to my silence, Kendaja pops her finger free, then reaches out and grazes the skin at my hairline. Her touch burns hotter than any fire that’s ever come from inside me, raising blisters as I bite down on my lip to keep from screaming.

  Her nail slides down along the outside of my eye, pausing at my cheekbone. I can’t see my own face, but the pain can only come from a cut like the one she gave Ko in the hive. Imagining my face split open gets easier as hot liquid runs down my cheek, into my mouth, and over my neck. She’s not pressing buttons of agony inside my head, not now, but the exterior wound creates more than enough pain to cripple my faculties.

  Kendaja twists, pinning her father with a beseeching look while she pants in expectation, spit dropping onto her chin.

  He shakes his head at his daughter, whose shoulders slump. “In addition, we would like to know who has been helping you since Cadi and Ko have been made unavailable. Cooperate, and I promise to ask my daughter to lift that finger off your face as gentle as can be. That scar will be ugly enough as it is.”

  I refuse to betray Griffin on principle, and Greer because she was nice to me.

  The rest of the afternoon passes in much the same manner. Much of it disappears into blessed unconsciousness. I have trouble talking through the shreds of the left side of my face. They brought Cadi in a while ago and had her mend the cut enough to stop the bleeding. It would, after all, be most inconvenient for me to die so soon.

  She said nothing while she bent over me, blinking back continual tears. I know she would have removed the pain if she could, because everything in her body language said she would take away all of this if she had the power to do so. Those navy eyes held mine in a final, locked gaze, trying to communicate a message that never transmitted in full.

  The gist of it seems to be that I should hold on. For what or who remains firmly in her mind. There’s no room in my head for anything but hurt and a slip or two of loss and regret, so as she finishes I pretend to pass out again, letting my chin bob against my chest. Even if the ploy buys me only five minutes, it’s a little bit of time to prepare for the next round. The trunk in my mind, where I stashed the one secret I can’t let them have, has taken a beating. Zakej has been prying into that piece of my mind with pliers and hot pokers and anything else he can devise.

  I’m jealous of how Griffin and Greer have been forgotten by the Others. Maybe Pax’s plan would have worked. If we’d left the Others alone, lived in the Wilds with no intention of manipulating our genetics into a weapon, perhaps they might have forgotten about us, too, in time.

  The fact that they don’t have a clue who’s helping us travel interests me. How many half-breed species live as part of the Other hive now, after their years spent hopping through space? The Others have a talent for mind manipulation, obviously, but they don’t possess natural abilities to control or exploit the elements, work magic, or change perception or form. They desire to use the best qualities from the races they conquer and enslave to create some sort of super-Other, able to command a planet with the flick of a finger. To not only control a population, but to put down any resistance without having to fight.

  That’s how it seems to me, at least.

  So it stands to reason that if there are half-Spritans such as Cadi and Ko, half-Sidhe such as Greer and Griffin, half-humans such as me—although granted, the humans don’t have powers the Others want to steal, and Pax, Deshi, Lucas, and I were created without authorization—there must be more out there. Whether they survived is the question, I suppose, since Cadi did say many of the experiments failed.

  “Wake her up. I’m done with this battle of wills. She’s as stubborn as her mother, and it appears whatever powers they’ve inherited includes the Elements’ ability to hold safe places inside them—a talent they’re likely not aware even exists. She needs a different kind of convincing. We know what made Pamant cooperate, and the threat will work on her as well.” The Prime’s tight, angry voice makes fear writhe underneath my eyelids and into my heart.

  “It didn’t work yesterday.” Zakej’s irritated impatience attacks my bowels.

  Yesterday they killed Ko. If they’re going to attempt the same sort of torture a second time, there’s only one person they could use. My heart stops as the Prime confirms the knowledge.

  “She cares for the woman more. Cadi is the one who told them who they are. The bond is stronger. It will work.” The Prime doesn’t sound confident, despite his words.

  “And if it doesn’t?” Zakej snaps, his impatience evident.

  “She will die in my mouth, I’ll eat it, the fire it tastes good, like life, like strength,” his sister responds, her voice lilting and soft and thick with thrill. “Like chicken.”

  Her maniacal giggles bounce off the walls, echoing, magnifying her madness.

  “We do not know what will happen to the children’s enchantments without a Spritan to control them.” The Prime puts forward this offhand concern, ignoring Kendaja’s erratic and horrible statement. It sounds more like morbid curiosity than anything, and Zakej’s response confirms it.

  “It doesn’t matter. It would be better if their deaths do dissolve the protection. Nothing but good will come from their inability to hide among the humans, and if they can’t travel, they can’t escape. I say we kill the bitch no matter what happens.”

  “Wake her, Zakej. And you”—he points to two of the Others—“bring me the Spritan woman.”

  I open my eyes before Zakej can devise an evil plan to wake me. His look of surprise, followed quickly by narrowed eyes, amuses me and I smile. Which is almost worth it, even when he slaps me so hard my throbbing head smacks into the chair.

  The sight of Cadi being walked in between two Wardens, so similar to the way Ko came to meet his doom yesterday, squashes any glint of pleasure from irritating Zakej. No tears fill her clear, dark blue eyes. They say, Be strong Althea. Don’t give in.

  I don’t know if I can do this again. Watch Cadi suffer and die when all it would take to make it stop is to cough up that key and let them open the trunk in my sinum. They’re going to find out what we can do eventually. Is Cadi’s life worth postponing the inevitable?

  There should be a way to protect the information and save Cadi’s life. What makes her believe the humans, this planet, deserve to be saved? Why should we fight so hard for them? With all of the things I’ve learned about Earth over the winter, about war, all the facts gleaned from the stories they write and the way characters see this world, the answer remains hazy and uncertain.

  Perhaps Cadi’s worth ten times as much as all of the people on this planet put together. Maybe Pax and Lucas and I have been wrong, and our destinies lie with the Others, traveling from place to place, learning from our parents how to keep atmospheres happy and livable while our race destroys worlds.

  But Cadi doesn’t think so. Ko didn’t either.

  And it’s not my call. Lucas and Pax have a say, and Deshi, if he wants one. I shouldn’t make this decision alone, except alone is what I am. It’s what I’ve always been, in spite of all of the nice notions of Cadi and Ko watching out for me, watching over me.

  Alone, I’ve survived almost seventeen years. I’ve kept the Others away from our secret without any help.

  “I think you remember how this works, Althea,” the Prime taunts as Kendaja snakes her arms
around Cadi’s neck, licking her youthful red lips as her frantic eyes wait for her father’s permission. The scene’s pattern, identical to yesterday’s, chokes off my air. “Answer my questions—all of them—or my daughter will turn the brain of the Spritan to mush. The very. Last. One.”

  Now, alone, I decide. I won’t let Cadi die.

  CHAPTER 31.

  “Stop.”

  The entire room freezes at my rasped plea. Kendaja’s lips hover centimeters from Cadi’s, stopped in midair at my word and a quick snap of the fingers from her father. The Prime cocks an eyebrow, a gesture that says he needs more than a single word if he’s going to stay his daughter’s gleeful, sadistic hand for much longer.

  “I’ll…I’ll tell you what you want to know. About us. And who’s helping. But I don’t know where Pax went, and I haven’t seen Lucas in months.” Despair lodges a wad of wet paper in my throat, making it impossible to swallow.

  “Yes, the boys did abandon you here. Is that what changed your mind?” Zakej asks the question.

  The taunt turns his father’s lips down in a distasteful frown. “It doesn’t matter what changed her mind, and I am sick and tired of waiting for answers.”

  A flash of anger, replaced by a properly chastised expression, coats Zakej’s face. For Kendaja’s part, she sags with disappointment. My stomach unclenches when she loosens her grip on Cadi.

  Their eyes turn to me like spotlights as they wait for me to follow through. I intend to, honestly, but now that it’s time, the words are stuck between my heart and my mouth. It’s as if that key, the one I swallowed to keep our secret safe, lodges in my esophagus. I’m so scared my arms are soaking wet with sweat inside the magic sleeves.

  My eyes meet Cadi’s. I find strength there, and draw a deep breath. “We—”

  The door to the interrogation room bangs open, metal slamming against metal, interrupting my confession. It jerks me forward and elicits an immediate groan of pain when the motion wrenches the shoulder Greer snapped back into place last night.

  It’s a group of five Wardens, and there’s something off about them. It takes a minute to put my finger on what’s different, but then it hits me. Their faces squeeze tight; genuine horror snaps in their normally impassive obsidian eyes.

  The Prime puts out a hand to stop them. “What is the meaning of this?”

  The one in front, hard to distinguish in any way from his peers, swallows and shoots a glance around the room. He pauses on Cadi, then me, and licks his lips. “We should talk outside.”

  The Prime nods, beckoning Zakej with him out into the hallway. The Wardens exit in front of the two men. Kendaja and Cadi remain with me but both go silent, their faces slack. I realize they’re listening to the conversation outside the door at the same instant I remember I can do the same, now that Zakej and his sister knocked down my wall.

  Inside my mind, the faces and voices in the next room ring as clear as if they spoke right in front of me.

  “What is it?” the Prime barks.

  “Something’s happening in Portland. We started getting reports from the Monitors, then the Administrators, then they came from everywhere.”

  “What is happening? Specifics!” The Prime’s eyes bulge as blood rushes into his cheeks.

  “They’re shedding their veils. Many of them, and it’s chaos. People are Breaking, they’re confused. Some are dead, some are running. We need everyone. Now.” The Warden gasps out his report. I’m not sure if he’s panicking about what’s happening or about having to report it to the Prime. Probably both.

  How could this happen? I’ve only seen four people shed their veils, and I did it to three of them. Lucas did the fourth. The memories of Mrs. Morgan’s desperate face, Leah’s instinctive anger, and Pax’s summer father snapping and killing his mother sliver my heart. If whatever’s happening isn’t isolated, things are going to spiral out of control, and fast. People could get hurt. Too many people.

  Anger bubbles into my stomach, pushing heat into my limbs and toward my hands before I can remember the sleeves.

  Except the sleeves are sloughing off, sliding past my elbows and wrists and onto the floor, like the pictures of snake skins in the biology textbooks. Regular bonds still trap my hands together and behind the chair, but my heat flows under my skin. A glance at Cadi reveals how it’s possible; she winks at me even though she looks like she could dissolve into pieces any second.

  I give her a forced smile then quickly melt the ties around my wrists, though I don’t move from my seat. Kendaja stays within arm’s reach of Cadi, not to mention the fact that the Wardens, the Prime, and Zakej stand just outside the door. It’s not as though I’m free, but access to the only power I have to defend myself relieves some of the stress squeezing my lungs.

  “Sound the alarm.” The Prime and his son follow the Wardens away.

  A bell peals in my head and echoes through the building, the same one they sounded the night Lucas and I escaped Danbury. I withdraw from the hive mind, focusing on this room and what can be done about my imprisonment here.

  Not much. Kendaja makes no move to follow her father to Portland. Instead she leaves Cadi cross-legged on the floor and paces the room like a trapped animal might, back and forth between Cadi and her father’s chair, over to me, to the door. Between that and her nervous tongue clicking, it isn’t going to take long for me to lose my cool.

  Cadi and I can’t talk candidly with Kendaja here, even though it’s not clear what she understands, but there’s zero chance of reasoning with her. I sit still and try to figure out what could have happened in Portland, to figure out what to do now.

  The same answer keeps blinking at me in loud, huge letters.

  It has to be Pax. Or Lucas. Only the three of us have the capability to remove the Others’ veils in human minds, but for so many to have happened at once is something new.

  “Kill the magic lady, swallow the pain, drink, slurp. No answers, Fire girl, nothing told no quarter.” Kendaja surprises me by breaking the silence.

  Maybe I underestimated her autonomy.

  No answer will placate her thirst for blood, or satisfy her desire to cause pain, so I simply stare at her. She goes back to clicking and pacing, going nearer to Cadi with each turn about the room. Without the Prime or Zakej here to control her, Kendaja will eventually lose the battle with her self-control. It’s only a matter of how long it takes.

  It doesn’t make much sense to not make a move when it’s two against one. Cadi’s pretty depleted, but she got rid of my plastic sleeves so her magic spell mojo still works. Kendaja might kill us both before we can get one foot out the door, but there’s a pretty good chance she’s going to kill us both the first chance she gets anyway.

  I wait until Cadi looks my way again, then communicate my desire to take action as best as I can without words. I’m scared to use the tunnels with the Prime’s daughter so close. Silent eye conversations will have to suffice, and Cadi’s quick enough to follow my lead.

  She doesn’t disappoint me, tucking into a ball and rolling toward my chair the second I raise my hands and shoot fire toward Kendaja. It’s stronger than I anticipated, the heat exploding across the small space and warming it to an unbearable temperature.

  Kendaja’s reflexes are excellent. She spins away from the blazes licking from me to her, though they do catch the hem of her black dress and crawl upward. She quickly falls to the ground and rolls, no longer aflame when she springs back to her feet.

  She’s fast. Too fast.

  I avoid her gaze, grabbing Cadi by the back of her shirt, hauling the smaller woman to her feet, and shoving her behind me. Kendaja and I face off, except it’s hard to stare down a woman you’re afraid to look at. She flutters around the perimeter of the room, keeping as much space between us as possible but trying to get into a position to block us from the door.

  A fight with a thing like Kendaja won’t come out in my favor. No matter the horrible things she’s done, or would delight in doing, I can’t t
urn off that part inside of me that gets sick at the thought of turning the tables on her. She doesn’t have to know that I won’t, though.

  She’s heard the same stories as Natej and the rest about how Lucas and I damaged the Wardens in Danbury, how I burned her brother so badly he fell unconscious and Lucas entombed him, however temporarily, in a stream. It assuages my guilt that their wounds heal. It also makes it hard to believe we could ever beat them.

  I ball the nausea over causing pain along with the sickening feeling of being left, the brutal torture, and everything else, then shove. Our enemy doesn’t move fast enough this time, her hair catching fire along with her clothes. She falls to the ground and rolls clear of the flames, still calm and collected, from what I can tell. Cadi and I run past the fire and through the door.

  In the next chamber, one filled with floating beds and refreshing equipment, air free of smoke and heat washes over us. Cadi coughs, the rattling noise shaking worry beneath my panic, but we’ll have to take care of it later. The Others deserted the place when they left to figure out what’s going on in Portland. I’m sure Kendaja won’t be distracted for long, so I light everything on fire in this room, too, and haul Cadi one chamber closer to the outside.

  “Althea, I can’t go with you.”

  I stop and turn, my mouth dropping open to argue. Cadi’s face, haggard and bruised, tells me she’s tired. “I know it’s hard, Cadi, but once we get out of here…”

  I trail off because, once we get out of here, I have no idea what to do. Pax took my bracelet; I don’t know where he went or how to get there. Griffin hasn’t shown his face since last night, and Lucas could be across the planet. Tears fill my eyes, even though freedom waits inches away, but without anyone to share it with, the thought of it frightens me.

  If Cadi won’t come, I’m not sure I want to go out there. “Pax took my bracelet. The one Ko made.”