In A Burning Room

by TS Ward

  He offered me a small nod and thumbed his cheek, and without thinking about it I mimicked the movement and found saltwater on my skin.

  I had cried enough recently. I squared my shoulders.

  “There was no other success in locating our stolen children. There was no success for our people travelling to the Embassy. As I hear it, they won’t be returning, not from the dead. However,” he held up a finger, straightened himself in his seat, settled both feet to the dust. “This secret weapon, our hope for our survival and a fair and just leadership—we have that, too.”

  A hollering whoop echoed from somewhere above, and just under the edge of my hood I saw a man standing on the precipice of half a building, the front portion collapsed in rubble on the road, his hand held up in a fist as he shouted.

  “Let’s go get that bastard!”

  “Quiet!” Tiger’s hand shot up at the same time Rabbit’s did, her voice a roar that quieted a moment later. “We have the weapon, but that weapon—she’s a Sceptre. A different kind of weapon. A political pawn, desired by the Empire and our foreign neighbours alike.”

  A pawn? I nearly spat the words back at him. I am not a weapon, I am not a pawn, I am not a toy to be played with and discarded when you’re finished with your little game.

  My hands curled into white knuckled fists that left crescent moons written in my palms, tight and sharp, and I imagined if I came across a palm reading psychic that she would call me Jupiter for the number of moons I held in my hands.

  “Being that as it is, all of you will respect this girl. She is too valuable to damage. You will keep her safe from harm. You will treat her as you would treat my own daughter, in respect for the kindness she was shown at the end of her life, despite any misgivings you may hold against her. From what I have read in Arden’s letter and heard from the present family of her mother’s side, she might make good of the family name.”

  He tapped a finger against his head and held my eyes with his. They were dark as the night without any stars and with a pit in my stomach and reluctant stiffness in my muscles, I let myself obey.

  My hood fell down to rest against my back and without hesitation there was a collective intake of breath. Curses were tossed with poison to my feet along with the cores and heavy seeds of fruits. Apples and nectarines, plums, the rinds of oranges—what a waste. What a waste.

  I tried to stand still and keep my chin up but I flinched and grew pale and wished I had a name other than Beckett, other than the option of Carson that loomed with the heat of the sun above.

  I wished that I was born with eyes like my mother’s.

  “Beckett bitch!” One voice carried over the rest.

  Please don’t let Percy hear this. Don’t let him think his name is a curse.

  Did he even know his name? Did I?

  “Silence!” The girl’s voice was thunder that quaked through the structures of these buildings and shook sand from above.

  It had strength that I didn’t think her small body could have stored. I was certain it came from Rabbit himself.

  His command glowed in the shadowed pupils of his eyes and stitched the mouths of the people shut. “I ask for respect for the girl who was my daughter’s last friend on this earth, in her honour, and for the maternal side of this girl’s family. You all know how precious our children are. They come to us in small miracles and are taken away just as suddenly. There is a child who you all know and love who does not need to grow up thinking that everyone in the world hates him and his name. For Percy, for Arden, for Tiger, for your children.”

  I shook like a leaf, searched for my little bear in the crowd, searched for Percy. Where is he? Where is my little bear? Where are Jack and Fitz and Pucks and Ellie and Roam?

  They were the ones I wanted to run from, to take Percy and get away, and yet I sought them out as a refuge from these rebels.

  “Answer this, Beckett: have you been a captive in the Embassy for four years, held against your will?”

  Moon Rabbit took another bite of the peach. Its juice dripped down his braided white beard.

  I remembered James and his peaches and what he said about the same tree and the same garden.

  My father came and went and left him in charge, gave him the power to tell every Lumen and soldier and assistant in that place what to do and how to do it, and I…

  Do you see them listening to you? They don’t belong to you. They belong to me, they listen to me, they follow my commands. Not yours.

  I held Rabbit’s gaze and looked into his onyx eyes. My voice was more of a whisper than anything these onlookers could manage.

  “Yes.”

  “You took a long time to ponder such a simple question,” he mused.

  “Hard to accept the truth sometimes,” I told him.

  My eyes darted at every small movement, every shake of every leaf on the short fruit trees and the plants under them.

  Someone in the crowd called out, “Bullshit!”

  Moon Rabbit waved a lazy hand and held up the half-eaten peach to press a finger to his lips. Somehow, the action came across as a command that the entire crowd heard and they were silenced once more, not another whisper carrying over.

  He set the peach back down. “This is a fair trial. The girl will say her piece uninterrupted.”

  Trial?

  I looked across the garden, searched for Jack or Fitz, for Pucks, for someone to stand with me against this angry sea.

  A spot of colour caught my eye.

  Ellie stood half hidden at the edge of the crowd, a blue scarf wrapped around her hair and the bottom of her face. She was the only one I could see, and the only one in this damn desert who wore bright colours. She was supposed to be watching him.

  Where is he?

  “What makes you believe that you were captive?” Moon Rabbit continued the questioning and then took another bite of the peach.

  A dark room, ten by ten by ten, the walls two feet thick. Lined with rubber. A dark room, in the belly of a dark tower struck into the sand at the edge of the Wastes, the edge of the ocean.

  If I knew I was going to be interrupting his lunch I wouldn’t have come when I did. If I knew I was going to stand there alone, I wouldn’t have let them separate me from the soldiers. I would have held on to them, like a boat with an anchor dragging through the sand.

  I almost tasted the fruit. I smelled it, sweet in the air.

  Semi-ripe ones hung heavy from thin boughs, most of the ripe ones piled up high in a crate next to Rabbit.

  For his enjoyment, while his people stood by in rags and hunger and shared the fruits with those standing next to them. It reminded me of the long table in the mirror hall, my father placed at the center of it like a painting of an ancient feast. This was Rabbit’s version of that.

  He was a king in the slums.

  He held the fruit for ration cards—I saw them being traded, collected by the rebels with guns.

  “What makes you believe you’re such a good leader?” I fought to keep the venom from my bite, to keep it from dripping off sharp teeth, honey-sweetness that coated dangerous words.

  I heard the crowd ripple with shock, their anger murmured.

  Moon Rabbit dropped the peach to the dust. “I am the one asking the questions.”

  “I didn’t come here to be put on trial and questioned about the things I don’t want to remember. The only reason I came to you was to carry out a promise to my friend, to bring a message to the man she held in such high regard, the man who is supposed to be leading these people, the man making the difficult decisions for the betterment of his people, the man providing good food and clean water and a safe place to sleep. But what I’m seeing is an old man pretending to be something that he has no idea how to be, other than what’s in his Sceptre blood—”

  “—That is enough—”

  “Uninterrupted!” I shouted at him, hands clenched in fists at my sides. My father was in my voice then. “You said I will say my piece uninterrupted. You are loun
ging in jewels and decorative knives, surrounded by a garden that is capable of feeding this crowd twice over, a crowd who you have taken the duty of providing for, and still there was a half-starved man cowered in an alley, and still there are people standing here who are skin and bones and chewing on your half eaten, discarded peaches. And you—you sit here eating a peach for dramatic effect, throwing it away as if it isn’t capable of saving a life. For some reason, these people have accepted an overdramatic asshole as their leader. So tell me this, Moon Rabbit: what the hell makes you think you’re doing them any good?”

  The man swung his feet to the ground, heavy, and raised a cloud of dust. He rose with jeweled fingers dug into the arms of his chair.

  The knives along his belt shone in the bright sun overhead.

  Someone rushed to his side with the polished wooden staff topped by the rough-cut crystal, and scurried away the moment it passed between their hands.

  Tiger didn’t need his signs to understand him. Each word was punctuated by the staff slamming against the ground.

  “You. Are. A. Child!”

  “I was never a child,” I growled.

  Moon Rabbit walked toward me. The tail of his leather coat swayed with each step.

  I saw the anger in him. I felt it when he stopped close enough that I could smell the peach juice in his beard.

  “I led these people across a barren wasteland. I promised them an oasis free from conscription and enslavement, a place to have their children safe from the kidnapping of the Empire, a place where they would not starve and survive off dirty water alone if they were lucky enough to have even that. I showed them the way, and we built Warren. I give them food. I give them water. I give them shelter. I give them a caring leader.”

  “You brought them here on a promise that you cannot keep. Where are their children? You feed yourself before you feed them, and before that you feed them fear. You give them fear, Rabbit, you tell them that they’ll starve at the hands of my family when it’s my family trying to feed the whole goddamn world—”

  “Do not presume to know what you don’t understand!”

  Rabbit hissed. His teeth flashed as he swung the staff downwards faster than I could move. It whistled through the air, thudded when it connected with my legs.

  He stood over me, crumpled in the dust at his feet. “Do not undermine me in my own home.”

  I started to push myself up, screamed at myself to not say the wrong thing again, pissed that he was doing this and pissed that I didn’t just play along.

  But I had been playing along for too long now.

  The staff connected sharply against my elbow and left a stinging pain deep in the bone.

  “It’s hard to undermine someone when they’re already so low—”

  The staff whistled again, but this time I caught it, yanked it loose in his hands.

  I rolled up onto my knees.

  My hip was leverage when I pushed it into his knees and forced him to the ground behind me as I twisted around. The staff swung through the air, light but heavy at the top.

  The sharp point of the crystal grazed against the skin of his neck. It was enough to cut. It was enough to slice skin and crush muscle held the right way. He held up his hands in surrender, because he knew that I could.

  There was silence. Just breath and wind… and Moon Rabbit.

  He laughed, chuckled, a white toothed grin spreading across dark skin. “Do you see? Give a fox a fight and see how it comes out on top. This was a test, Miss Beckett, a test to gauge your judgements and motivations.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I hissed, tossing the staff to the ground. “Don’t start a fight if you’re too scared to finish it.”

  Then, the words foreign in my mind: more ways to fight than this. I flinched at the sound.

  Moon Rabbit held my gaze as he rose to his feet, his chin held up in the air as he spun to address the gathered crowd. His smile was painted on. “The Emperor’s daughter was his secret weapon. They kept her caged, they tried to brainwash her into their corrupted ideals, they pushed her to her limits, and here she is. Kneeling in the Garden of Warren and determined to keep each and every one of you fed, clothed, housed, protected. You all heard it yourselves. This is Soren Beckett, this grand Empire’s Duchess, the Emperor’s own daughter, and she is our weapon!”

  I couldn’t breathe. I knelt there, listened to this man act like he’d done all the work. Listened as he took the truth of my words and twisted it into something that served him.

  No, that wasn’t how this was supposed to work.

  But the people, the people believed him. They listened to him.

  They cheered, and I couldn’t breathe at all.

  19

  Ellie’s blue scarf bobbed through the crowd ahead of me.

  Sharp elbows connected with my ribs and my arms as I hurried after her.

  Panic urged me forward. Anger broiled beneath my skin—for her, for Rabbit, for my father and James. I didn’t know where she was going but I knew she didn’t have Percy with her and I felt the heat of the gold band tucked away in my pocket, the heat of James watching from the shadows of the city.

  He beat us here somehow and it didn’t make sense to me. We would have seen him.

  I broke free of the thick of the crowd, stumbled into a run after the Beckett blue woman, shouting as she rounded a corner. “Ellie! Ellie, wait!”

  Every second that I didn’t know where Percy was left him in danger, left him at risk of being stolen from me. She was supposed to watch him. He should have been glued to her side.

  But leaving Ellie to watch a child, any child, should have been deemed a bad idea at the start. James was a testament to that.

  I came to a halt when I saw her crouched next to the half-starved man we had passed earlier.

  One hand held his chin up as the other syringed a creamy medicine into his mouth. His bony, leathery hands grabbed onto her as he shivered despite the heat. His skin was hollow, loose, and gray, the whites of his eyes yellowed, his belly a small round protrusion beneath distinct ribs.

  “Soren,” Ellie murmured, and waved me close. Her eyes were somber and shadowed.

  I knew that look. I had seen it before. The man was dying, and she was asking me to help him.

  “Please.”

  I lowered myself to the ground next to him and took one of his hands in mine.

  He felt cold. He felt frail. But he also felt human, and my heart broke for him. He was alone in the alley with no one to take care of him, no one to help him, while Rabbit sat in a fruitful garden that could have saved his life if he had bothered to take a look at his people.

  His rebels.

  What kind of an enemy was inside a man who couldn’t even hold himself up, who had tears spilling from his vacant eyes as he rested his head against my shoulder?

  They weren’t rebels so much as refugees.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as a small spark of blue danced from my fingers into his, travelled slowly up his arm and his neck, to the base of his skull.

  What is your name? I wondered, and there was a woman—her big lips pulled into a shining smile as she leaned over the boy, a shine on her rounded nose as she said his name.

  “Avi,” I whispered.

  The man shook with a sob and clutched tightly to my hand.

  He was a boy next to the ocean, the waves gentle and the air so clear, apple slices clutched in his small, plump hands. They tasted so sweet. The sun felt so warm. The sand was soft against his skin. The ocean cooed against the shore. The birds—

  He was still. He was gone.

  I felt numb as Ellie pulled his hands from me and leaned him back against the alley wall. She pulled me to my feet and gripped my chin, her thumbs running over my cheeks.

  Tears spilled from my eyes, sparkled as that memory burned in my mind.

  “Soren?”

  I looked up at the sound of Jack’s voice, stumbling back as I realized a crowd of onlookers were gathered behind
him. Their faces were full of curiosity and awe, the soldier’s understanding, but Ellie—Ellie had a sly smile that she hid from the rebels.

  She knew he was dying. She knew what I could do. She knew there would be witnesses.

  I hurried out of the alley as sickness rose in my throat.

  If she wanted to avoid talking to me, she certainly knew how to do it. But now I was running, and my heart hammered against my lungs and my feet pounded on the cracked pavement.

  The taste of apple was stuck in my mouth.

  Please be with Roam, I silently begged Percy.

  The building that housed the stairs to the Sailer looked crooked in the daylight, but I didn’t hesitate now. James wanted Percy and I had no idea where either of them were.

  “Hey!” Jack shouted after me. “Stop, Soren!”

  The stairs weren’t as dark when the sun rested so high in the sky. It reflected off the glass of the other buildings and lit up the floors with all of the broken desks and raided offices.

  Still, I didn’t want to stay here any longer than necessary.

  Jack ran up the stairs two at a time, breathing heavy, and I didn’t wait for him to catch.

  My hand was tight around the railing and my steps hurried.

  Jack lunged forward. His hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled. It threw me off balance, almost made me fall back, but I forced myself forward and hit the cement steps.

  I rolled to face him, tugged against his hand until he let go and knelt beside me, his chest heaving.

  “What?” I growled as I pressed myself into the stairs. “What do you want?”

  He set his hand against the edge of the step that cut into my back and caught his breath. The light that reflected into the stairwell turned the dust and him to gold. It caught the white handle of his knife as he gripped the railing above me with his other hand.

  “Jack!”

  “I just… I want to talk,” he breathed out and lowered his head.

  His hair looked soft. It looked like it was laced with gold in this diffused light. I was almost tempted to reach out and catch the messy strands around my fingers.