In A Burning Room

by TS Ward

  The market was vibrant.

  Wooden stalls were mixed with chain-link fence stalls, both with tarps and plastic sheets to keep the weather out.

  The sun was warm and brought the smells of fruit and vegetables and spices into the air, rich and colourful, heavy in the excited atmosphere. Oranges and reds and greens and the purple-blue of plums piled high and the grains in buckets of lovely textures… and the booth halfway down the main road that caught my eye.

  The sign tied to the top of it read: Talon Farms.

  “Finn had a friend from town. He was six years old, like Percy, and he wanted to go play with his friend. I let him, as long as he stayed close, but…” He smiled softly. A muscle in his jaw twitched, his Adam’s apple jumping.

  He didn’t move. He kept so still other than those small movements.

  It was dark inside the tent and it cast heavy shadows where the electric lantern light didn’t reach, but I saw the sunlight of the market reflected in his eyes.

  “He was a really sweet kid. I try to be good, but he was… he was a good kid. Gentle. He used to pick wildflowers for my mom. And there were yellow flowers all over the road.”

  “Jack, please,” I whispered, “I remember, you don’t have to talk about it.”

  He was a little boy with round cheeks and freckles and a button nose, big eyed with a big grin. He wove between the bodies that crowded the sides of the street and filled the market stalls. He had brown hair, like Jack, and his green eyes.

  Bright green eyes that caught mine when he ran out into the cleared path ahead of me, behind the Lumen.

  His friend had a toy gun.

  “He was holding yellow flowers,” Jack said hoarsely. “His friend had this little wooden rifle. He jumped out between you and Finn.”

  “Pilot.”

  He was half the size of Finn, with wavy dark hair and dark eyes. The things that Pilot said have to happen. Pilot. A child. He knew what would happen.

  Jack shrugged. “I think that was his name.”

  Finn tried to hold the little yellow bouquet out to me.

  The hush of the crowd was lost on his ears.

  He stood there, small and fearless, small hand outstretched with the small handful of yellow flowers. Just like everyone else. Only, he stood in front of me.

  He stood in front of me and the Lumen stopped marching. The Lumen held their guns and pointed them at him.

  “Stand down!” My father’s voice ordered. “Stand down, shut them down!”

  I held a hand up to the Lumen as I inched forward and reached for the boy, but then—a dark blur leaped out from the crowd and slammed into my legs. He held a gun. A child held a gun and aimed it at another child. My heart was in my throat even as I shouted and swatted it from his hand too late.

  Too late.

  I think I stopped breathing when the Lumen fired. I stopped thinking.

  “Shut them off! Carson, shut them off!”

  People screamed and ran, but I didn’t hear them.

  I dove around the child who had the toy gun and fell to my knees. The yellow flowers like stars were scattered all around him.

  Red blossomed from his chest and his shoulder, soaked his dirt-stained white shirt, soaked into his pale skin, dripped over his neck. I cupped my hand under his head and squeezed his hand.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered to him, but he was gasping for air. “You’re okay.”

  “Finn?”

  Someone called out a name, and I looked up, and I saw the Talon boy from the roof of that place we usually passed by, the one with the brown hair.

  He walked forward, hesitantly at first, and then he ran. He fell to his hands and knees, shaking, as tears cascaded down his cheeks. “No, Finn, no, oh god, no, no, no, no…”

  He ripped him away from me to cradle him in his arms like a baby, but the kid’s arms were limp and his eyes stared blankly into the sky and a small trickle of blood fell at the corner of his mouth.

  This was a kid. This was a child. One of the Talon kids, one of the farmers, one of our best. My father knew their names. He knew all of their names and in that moment, I knew one. Finn.

  Finn Talon.

  I turned to look over my shoulder.

  No one did anything. The soldiers surrounded my parents with their guns drawn and no one did a damn thing and Isaac Carson was staring into the screen of his tablet, frantically trying to shut down the Lumen and my father had the other little boy next to him, holding his hand.

  Because it was Pilot, his son, Lourdes’ son.

  “Do something!” I screamed at them, “Help him! Help him, he needs help! Why aren’t you helping?”

  “Finn, I’m sorry,” his brother wept, the words muffled in the boy’s hair. His hands held him so tightly as he rocked back and forth.

  I stared at him, this sickness pooled in my gut at the heartbreak on his face.

  “I’m so sorry. Finn. Finn, wake up, I’m sorry—”

  “Damn it, Soren!” Jack tore his hand away from me, leapt from the cot, and crossed the tent in two strides.

  His hands tore through his hair as he paced back and forth, shaking his head. He was pale, shuddering, as he ran the heels of his hands under his eyes.

  “What the fuck was that? What is wrong with you? I did not want to live through that again.”

  “I didn’t—I’m sorry, Jack, I-I-I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—” I didn’t even try. I didn’t try, it just happened, and I hated myself for it.

  The rot of guilt ate away at my stomach, chewed a hole right through me, swallowed my weak spine until I crumpled in on myself like a black hole. Devouring, eating me whole as it pulled all the light in.

  The lantern no longer lit the tent.

  I choked on my heart again and it escaped easily, spilling from my mouth in a sob. I buried myself into this cot until I was just bones beneath soil.

  “No,” he groaned, “No, don’t… don’t do that. I know it’s not your fault. You said I didn’t have to tell you and I know what you can do, so, my fault.”

  I curled up on my side and tucked my head into my arms.

  The static was thick in the air, present in the smallest shock pulsing through him and the people outside the tent—Fitz, hovering outside the entrance and backing away slowly. Tiger waited a few feet behind him. They both left quietly, but Jack came back to the cot and knelt in the dirt, reached a hand out—

  “Don’t touch me! Please, don’t touch me.”

  “Shhh, Sparky. It’s okay. I won’t, but I’m not walking away, either.” He rested his arms on the cot, his cheek pressed to them so that he looked at me straight on through the barrier of my arms. “Do you want to hear the rest?”

  “He knew what would happen,” I whimpered, “He knew, Jack.”

  He frowned. His brows drew close over those damn green eyes that only reminded me of Finn’s staring blankly up at the sky. “What do you mean? Who knew what?”

  “Pilot. He knew. He knew what would happen to Finn, he did it on purpose because he knew what was going to happen—” I was spewing words, gasping air into the aching chamber of my hollowed-out chest.

  My teeth dug into the skin of my arms just to stop the flow of them. I tasted like dirt and ash but it was better than this horrible residue of guilt that coated my tongue.

  “He was just a child, Soren,” he whispered. “He didn’t mean a damn thing. He was just a dumb kid.”

  I swallowed my tongue. Maybe it would make this pit in my stomach feel less empty. Maybe it would find the bottom of the bottomless hole on the way down. Maybe the true damage of a black hole would be discovered inside me and I would taste it before anything else.

  He was just a child, but he wasn’t stupid. He looked at me. He held my gaze with deep, dark eyes and he didn’t flinch when the Lumen fired their guns. He was just a child, but he grew up, like most kids get to. Not like all kids, because some like Finn were lost too soon.

  But Pilot—he got to grow up
in the tower. He met Astra and lived. He played their chess game with perfect precision.

  He wasn’t stupid. He was smarter than everyone.

  “It’s what he does,” I told him quietly. “His Sceptre blood.”

  “His Sceptre blood,” he repeated. “You’re telling me that kid can see the future?”

  I stared at the walls of the tent and nodded. “Something like that. He sees the pathways and the outcomes and chooses which ones to follow for the end that is desired. Right now, it’s a battle between my father and my aunt and he assists them both. He hasn’t been wrong yet. He’s my brother.”

  Jack was quiet, something dark in his voice. “He’s your brother. He knew that parade would lead to this?”

  “Everything that happens to me and around me is an effort to make me their Genesis.” I held my hand with the sliver of moonlight and stars out to him. “And it’s working. It’s working, and that’s dangerous. There are so many people in this world who would take advantage of that. I cannot be the Empress if I have to hide. And Percy—he’s vulnerable and in so much danger. He could be like me, and that could be is terrifying.”

  He nodded slowly. Worry was written on his face. “One day we will find someplace where we don’t have to hide and be afraid. A place to live that doesn’t feel like it’s burning down around us.”

  “I think I would cross the stars for that,” I murmured.

  I reached a hand out and pressed the tips of my fingers lightly against his cheek. Exhaustion gripped me tight just then. I wanted to be safe. I wanted to look at this soldier and remember all the good things and be unafraid of a Sceptre breathing fire invading every minor thing. Don’t let him own you.

  “Stay with me.”

  “Of course. I’ll be right here—”

  “I don’t mean right there, I mean… I just…” I closed my eyes and shut up before anything else left my mouth and made me blush worse. “I’m an idiot.”

  Jack stood up and left the side of the cot and for a minute, I was certain that I had misinterpreted everything that had happened, heat flushing through me, but then he was sat down on the opposite side of the cot.

  “You’re not. But I know what you’re trying to get across and the fact that you’re turning beet red over it…”

  “Shut up.” I jabbed an elbow back blindly and caught him in a soft spot.

  He groaned, lying down next to me. His arm hooked around my waist. “Girl’s got sharp elbows.”

  “Don’t push it, Talon,” I growled, but he just laughed, and I held my breath as he settled against me.

  James was in my mind and I pushed him out with all the force I could muster, but I still felt him. I still felt the sticky heat of his skin and panic rose in me—

  “Talk to me, Jack. Just… talk. Please.”

  30

  The absence of this god made the room feel somehow more infinite.

  Like the mirror planes were closer but the stars on the other side were farther away. I couldn’t reach anything. I stretched my arms out and ran and jumped and I never got any closer. It was like it moved under my feet. A simulation room inside my own head with collision walls that showed me the universe.

  I knelt.

  The mirror below me rippled to white marble struck through with black wisps, speckled with gold flakes under the polished surface. It looked milky in this light, almost blue, almost gray, but it was unmistakable. His floors were marble. His statues were marble. His lobbies were shining marble. Polished and pristine and perfect.

  I pressed my palms to it. It was cold, like always. Cold and unforgiving.

  The constellation Scorpius blinked near the edge of this marble slab. His claws stretched up into the sky above him, his body twisted, his tail curled up on his side. Zeus weaved the scorpion into the stars after Artemis used it to sting Orion. That was the story I remembered, part of it, at least.

  These stars must have been placed by the hands of a god.

  I stared at it until it started to wriggle and come undone. The black threads of the universe that were so carefully placed unraveled in loops and spirals and pooled a hole through the edge of this marble. Black fabric shifted away like a sheet of silk until there was nothing but a scorpion with his sparkling charcoal armour, legs rolling like waves as he clambered around this chamber, sliding with ease and relief into the black water that formed the ceiling above. It rippled until he settled above me.

  His tail was curled and poised. The sharp point of it hung like a dark jewel in front of my eyes. He did not belong in a place like this.

  I stretched my hands up, reaching slowly to this scorpion’s shell. His beady black eyes followed my movements. His tail flinched when my skin touched the smooth armour of his back.

  He shrank. He grew small. He was swallowed up by the vastness of this universe and these constellations all around and he was content to be where he did not belong. He had been where he belonged his entire life—

  A cry echoed in this hollow chamber.

  A bright bolt of feather and wind buffeted my hair in a swirling mess around me. The bird dove through the air, upside down, with his sharp talons outstretched, to snatch the scorpion off the surface of the water. He pinned it by tail and claw, his beak the guillotine that flashed down and severed the body from the head.

  “Cruel creatures,” my father’s voice filtered to me, muffled, like it was underwater.

  I turned and stepped face first into a wall of water.

  Hands reached and pulled me up to breach the surface. I floated on my back, cradled by him. Him, my father.

  I lifted my hands soaked with warm water to rest against his stubble roughened cheeks. “It’s just their nature. We’re the cruel ones, not them.”

  “I think that’s our burden,” he told me, “That we know the difference.”

  “We created the difference,” I murmured, wrapping my hand around the one he offered to me—the left hand where the moonlight draped around my finger was clearly visible.

  You’re dreaming now, a voice in the back of my head told me, and that strange sensation of being out of control started to fade.

  “We created the idea of right and wrong and inherent evil. The burden is only there when we do what we know we shouldn’t. We tell lies and make justifications to feel better about our cruelties.”

  He pulled me up, out of the water and into his dream. The lake, where the water was so still that it reflected the stars like a perfect mirror, the mountains bordering us on nearly every side.

  “You’re wearing… So you remember, then?”

  I stepped toward him. The water splashed around my knees, the lake bed soft underfoot. “No. But what I do remember is sitting on the floor of a pub in the morning while the doors were still locked with a girl whose face I can’t see while Percy took his first steps. A child took his first steps in a pub of all places. And this—this was in that memory and when I came back from it, I was still wearing it. I still don’t remember. I don’t know. I don’t know why I feel so… so sad, or why I feel so ill with myself, I don’t… I want to remember. I’m just scared.”

  “You will,” he insisted, “In time, you will.”

  “I did this to myself. I made myself forget, I made myself forget my mother, and I made myself forget my grandfather, and I made myself forget Percy, and Jack, and everything that happened—I made myself forget to help you, and I don’t even know why, but I’m done. I’m done helping you, so this is your chance to explain everything before we march through the gates of Redbird and set the Empire on fire.”

  My words jabbed like the scorpion’s tail, full of poison and venom and acid. I stepped toward him again, the water stirring in loud splashes, distorting the night sky reflection. My hand was still wrapped tightly around his, the tips of his fingers turning white and red.

  He took a step back and shook his head as he pleaded with those damn Beckett blue eyes. “I have nothing to explain, here, now. These things, you already know them. It’s alread
y there, in your head—”

  He tapped his finger against my forehead and I slapped his hand away. Heat flooded me as the anger that boiled in my chest bubbled up in a roar.

  “There is everything to explain! Explain Pilot. Why you so desperately need this thing that I am. What you’re doing to Percy, why you thought it was anywhere close to a good idea to let James near me—explain Conleth. Explain why people were burned and slaughtered and why their homes and livelihoods were destroyed. Tell me that, Emperor.”

  He placed his hand over mine. “I’m sorry about Mercury. I am. I’m sorry. I want you to understand that none of this was ever what I wanted for you.”

  “You keep saying that,” I growled, “And it still doesn’t change anything.”

  A muscle in his jaw jumped. His nostrils flared as he took in a breath and exhaled slowly. “Astra wants to build a new world. She always has. She has always been a perfectionist, has always sought permanent solutions and grandeur, to such an extent that she is cold and precise and calculated. To such an extent that the life that is present now isn’t valuable—only the future. She stole Pilot when he was just a young boy, to hold him and my… my infidelity over me, and when she discovered what he is capable of… she holds all the cards, Soren. She will kill you to get what she wants.”

  My heart raced, pounded against the cold snow and ice gathered between my ribs, the icicles piercing ventricles to drip chilled water through my veins, as if they were teeth that tore through skin.

  I ripped my hands away from him and stumbled backwards in this shallow lake. “You’re going to blame everything that you have done on Astra.”

  “No!” He shouted the word, and then hushed himself. “No. You wanted me to explain and I am explaining. Everything that I have done has been to work against her, to protect you, to keep the Fox—I have sought every opportunity to bring you safety and happiness, and if the path that I have taken in order to do that has been cruel, for you I have no regrets.”

  My hands shook with the chill that spread through me. “Did you plan Finn?”