That said, I could be happy wherever my family was. Besides, I didn’t want to pile my own dissatisfaction on top of hers.
“It has a certain charm,” I said, an answer that could have applied to either question. She raised her eyebrows a hair like she knew exactly what I hadn’t said but didn’t comment. We passed the rest of the train ride in a comfortable silence.
Fourth Sector station was the closest to the shoreline and our destination. We walked the three blocks to the soup kitchen. My mother never wrinkled her nose at the combination of factory smoke and the fishing district wafting our way on salty air, and I strove to follow her example.
The old mistress was already hard at work in the back kitchen when we got there. She greeted us with a smile and a grunt, as was her usual way.
The hungry crowd usually poured in around lunchtime, but it took the entirety of the morning to prepare the food, which was whatever we could get our hands on. My mother anonymously donated heavily to the cause, but there were so many who went without in this sector. This morning, it was some sort of gruel and bread.
It wasn’t long before we were all streaming with sweat in the cramped, sweltering space. We visited and laughed while we worked, though. Mama loved the old mistress, who never went by any other name. We never gave more than our first names, and I wondered if the mistress suspected our true identities. If she did, she had never commented on it. There were rarely any other volunteers to notice us.
The old mistress went up front to set up while we stayed behind to cook. I was kneading dough and Mama was measuring out gruel when a commotion outside caught our attention. We looked at each other, then both walked to the doorway to peek outside.
General Killian Noble was making his way through the crowded street. He was well known for his victories in the war, but it was rare to see him out and about in public. He spent most of his time training the troops in the barracks or at his countryside home. I had only seen the man socially on perhaps one occasion, an award ceremony in his name, and he had left early to get home to his sons.
Today, he was alone. His features were troubled. Though he wasn’t impolite, I watched him gruffly bypass everyone who made efforts at greeting him. Odd.
What in the world was the highest ranking general in the Ceithren Empire doing walking through the heart of the slums?
3
NELL
I was sitting in my bedroom, tinkering with my golden bracelet when an eerie silence descended over Central Island. It was a tangible silence, heavy in its weight and more than the mere absence of sound. It left in a flash of blue light, as quickly as it had come. The rocking of the island and screams that followed in its wake were much worse.
I was uncomfortably reminded of my past, my home island, and I pushed the thoughts out of my head. It took nearly half an hour to make my way from my Third Sector home to the edge of the enormous blast site, picking my way down an unfamiliar walking trail.
As soon as I got there, I wanted to return home. I had thought I needed to see what happened, but the enormous gaping hole where only minutes ago there had been factories, hotels, and rundown apartment buildings, was something I could have gone my entire life without seeing. Families, children, entire lives and futures erased in the time it took me to snap my fingers.
At the outskirts of the blast radius were caved in buildings. That’s where the loudest screams were coming from. Redshaw and the Corporation’s elite private forces, the Red Sons, were already there organizing search and rescue parties. Some citizens were helping. Others were kneeling around the bodies keening or shouting or begging for help.
A handful of people were running down into the sunken circle where nothing remained, looking lost or calling out names as though there were anything left to be found there. The rain came down to mingle with the blood running down the sloped sides of the indentation.
In the war, villages had been pillaged and raped and burnt to the ground. Families had been torn apart in droves and what Ceithre thought of as the unspeakable evil on The Other Side of the World had tainted the Empire with its blood and death and malice.
Even so, the mass destruction and devastation before me was on a scale I had never seen before, never imagined. How many had died today? How many more had lost someone? Shouts loud enough to be heard over the mass grieving sounded, and I watched as a piece of the cliff from Third Sector larger than most houses tumbled down, crushing some of those still wandering around the blast zone. Just like that, another dozen souls were snuffed out.
I saw the world around me in a series of still frames. A tiny lifeless arm protruding from a block of rubble. A woman sobbing in a pool of blood. Red Sons carrying out sheet-covered bodies on stretchers. Maybe there were hopeful stories playing out, too, but not from where I was standing. I stood frozen, my skin growing cold even in the unnaturally warm heat. Tears burned behind my eyes but refused to fall down my cheeks.
I tried to shake myself out of it so I might go assist, but then I remembered Central Island’s feelings on women. Sure enough, I overheard a man tell say the women volunteers were to stay in the nursing area rather than using their strong young bodies to help with the search and rescue. I shook my head at the idiocy.
There was really no need to check in with them, then, was there? I tied my hair back and grabbed a disheveled newsboy cap from a pile of debris, trying not to think about where it had come from. I pulled the cap down low and took a moment to be grateful both for my athletic build and dislike for Central Island’s skirted fashions. I was in boyish slacks, and no one would be paying much attention in this chaos anyway.
A man twenty or so feet from me was attempting to use a metal crowbar for leverage to free a trapped woman. I headed there first.
“Try again. While it’s up, I’ll pull her out,” I instructed in my throaty voice. If he had a problem with being given orders by someone clearly younger than he was, he didn’t say. He only nodded. Sweat poured from his face while he threw his weight into it again. I crouched by the crying woman, meeting her dark, panicked eyes with my own.
The storm in them calmed while she held my gaze, trying to swallow back the obvious pain she was in. The weight of the rock shifted off her legs, and I pulled her out. Her arms were slippery with perspiration and rain, but she cleared the rock before it tumbled back to the ground. The man moved onto the next pleading victim, and I helped the woman to an area that had been cordoned off for the wounded.
Hours passed. Endings like that of the first woman were fewer and far between as the light faded. Much to the shock of the people, the Director of Redshaw himself showed up. From what I knew of him, I didn’t like the man, but I had to admit his steady presence had seemed to bolster the crowd. I went to school with his daughters, and they seemed decent enough. At least the older one did. Her kind smiles and demeanor might have suggested I had misjudged the man.
There was something in his eyes, though, even now. His being here felt like a farce, his sympathetic moue too practiced and his attire too immaculate for the maelstrom around him.
Director Kensington had not been here long when a Red Son approached him carrying a slim, mangled body. A golden braid, streaked through with blood, hung from the lifeless form. The Director looked at the helmeted man, then down at the body. His eyes widened, and he shook his head.
“No,” I heard him declare. “What would she even be doing down here?”
My feet subconsciously inched closer. I wasn’t anxious to see yet another ruined remnant of what used to be a person, but I was curious despite myself. It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone I went to school with would be in this wreckage, what with it being in the slums.
The fading sunlight showed shoes that were far superior to those anyone here could have afforded. The torn and bloodied clothes were nonetheless of fine fabric. I forced my eyes up to her face. Compared to the rest of her body, it was relatively untouched. Only the slackness of her features and the caved in wound on the back of her head
belied her true state.
It was Amelie Kensington. What she would have been doing here, I had no idea. Obviously, her father didn’t either. I looked back to the Director. His eyes widened with shock and he shook his head, but he reached out gentle arms to take his daughter. Looking down at her face, his expression was the most human I had ever seen him display. Despite all the horrors I had borne witness to today, my eyes welled at the site of my classmate.
Was Adelaide here too? She lacked her sister’s warmth, but she had never been cruel. Unlike so many of the girls at our elite school, she had treated me and the two other scholarship students with as much respect and courtesy as she did anyone. It was unlikely that she was anywhere else, though, as I had never seen the two sisters apart.
I wasn’t the only one staring at the sight of the untouchable man cradling the body of his firstborn, but I was one of the few close enough to hear what the Red Son said next.
“I’m truly sorry, Sir, but she wasn’t alone.” The robotic voice didn’t match the condoling words. No sooner had he finished that sentence than another Red Son came carrying a less recognizable body.
“Your wife was found attempting to shield your daughter. It took us longer to clear her. I’m sorry for your loss,” the second Red Son intoned through his helmet.
“Yvette! No. No.” Sebastian Kensington sobbed outright, and he staggered to the ground. “Adelaide?” He looked beseechingly to the first Red Son.
“There was no sign of her. I will call the Manor to inquire as to her whereabouts.”
“Thank you, Locke.” The Director answered in a hollow voice. He didn’t speak again, didn’t cry or scream or plead. Only sat silently with his daughter in his arms and his wife’s malformed hand in his own, staring out at the destruction around him with empty, broken eyes.
I left him to his mourning and returned to my work, ashamed to catch myself gawking. When darkness fell and the dense clouds obscured the moonlight, the Red Sons spread the word for the volunteers to go home. Their helmets were rumored to have night vision tech, and they had training and a surplus of flashlights at their disposal. Besides, there was a dwindling number of living bodies in the wreckage.
I was a mass of grime, sweat, and other people’s blood. I had long since blocked out the rancid smell of the carnage in the heat, but the drizzle was pushing the mixture into my mouth. I didn’t think I’d ever accustom myself to that tangy, metallic taste. As guilty as I felt, the truth was that I was ready to go home.
At first, the mewling noise blended in with the cacophony of the explosion aftermath, the cries of distraught families and wounded victims who hadn’t yet been relocated. Then I saw it, a miniscule white puff of fur moving, barely visible in the black night. It was pawing at the larger cat next to it who, along with another couple of kittens, appeared to have been caught by falling debris and were beyond my help now.
There was nothing more I could do here. The kitten mewled again. I picked it up, letting the damp, weightless ball of warmth seep into my numb arms. I knew I couldn’t keep it forever, but I couldn’t bear the thought of another casualty of this tragedy. With knees that trembled and feet like lead, the kitten and I headed home.
4
LOCKE
As the Commander of the Red Sons, the most elite forces in the Ceithren Empire, I had overseen the rescue effort for what people were now calling the Silent Explosion. If you could call it a rescue effort. We recovered fewer than a hundred survivors in the rubble among hundreds of lifeless bodies, not counting the thousands that were presumed to be ashes in the center of the blast.
Two of those bodies had been the wife and daughter of my Director.
In the twelve years I had been in Ceithre’s Armed Forces before accepting an offer to join the Red Sons, I had seen untold amounts of death and destruction. Even before that, my younger sister had been cut down by the invaders. We had already lost our parents years before. She had been ten years my junior, and they had forced me to watch when they ran her through with their scythes. I had fought back, intending to give my own life in penance, but they had mistakenly left me alive.
I had thought nothing could equal the horrors I had already encountered. I had been wrong.
Only days after the explosion, the Director of Redshaw, my direct superior, was pointing the finger at General Killian Noble. Director Kensington had lost his wife and daughter in the blast and had headed up the investigation, insisting everyone report directly to him. I had expressed concerns about his state of mind, but they had been dismissed.
Accusing the nation’s beloved General had been an odd move without sufficient evidence. Inquiries into that evidence had been ignored up to this point. Something was off, but I hadn’t yet figured out what. I couldn’t very well ask today. It was his family’s funeral.
I walked the perimeter to keep an eye on things, though I wasn’t officially on duty. We had a temporary reprieve from the relentless rain, but I doubt the Director or his remaining daughter were aware enough to care right now. I had seen Director Kensington’s family before in passing, and his youngest daughter had always reminded me of my sister. The slim, pale girl looked nothing like my dark-skinned sister with her bouncy corkscrew curls. They both had a fire in them, though, sharp tongues and steel spines.
Today, the younger Ms. Kensington reminded me more of myself than my sister. She stared at the ceremonial rafts drifting out to sea with the same expression I imagined was on my face when I fought the men who had murdered my sister. She looked like she was regretting not jumping on those floating tied logs bound for nowhere when she had the chance.
Her shoulders sagged slightly but at a low murmur from her father, straightened back out. I marveled that she was keeping herself together at all. It was certainly no thanks to the cold man at her side, and her crumpling face told me it wouldn’t last much longer. Before I could consider what I was doing, how I might be overstepping, I walked over and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Deep breaths,” I told her in a voice that wouldn’t carry. “Count backwards from five, taking a deep breath in between each one. I’ll do it with you.” The technique was one we learned in training. I showed her how to breathe and watched as her face recovered. She was a fighter.
No longer concerned at all over my boundaries as the employee of one of the most powerful men in the world, I offered to take Ms. Kensington home. If he didn’t want her to grieve openly, he could damn well give her the space to do it in private. If I hadn’t seen him grieving his other two family members firsthand, I would have doubted the man harbored any emotions at all behind his steely façade. In the past, I had referenced nothing but ruthlessness and calculation from Sebastian Kensington, and I feared that would only get worse now.
He agreed to my taking his daughter home, and I accompanied her back to their Manor. I stood guard outside her bedroom door and pretended not to hear the sobs drifting through the door.
While I stood there, I considered the facts I had before me. When her sobs subsided and I felt that, perhaps, she was asleep, I went to see the Director in his office. He hadn’t bothered to return home.
“I’d like to formally tender my resignation as the Commander of the Red Sons, Sir,” I told him without preamble.
He looked up at me, eyes widened in surprise.
Before he could respond, I continued. “With your permission, Sir, I would like to take up the position of your daughter’s personal security detail.” I hadn’t been about to save my own sister, but I could work like hell to protect this girl who was so much like her.
“My daughter doesn’t have a bodyguard,” he said, a question in his voice.
“No, Sir.” But she needed one. Partly for her safety, but also because of what I had witnessed this past week coming and going from the Manor. There didn’t appear to be one person in the world left who gave a damn about her state of mind. I left my response hanging in the air while he considered.
“Why do you think she needs one now
?” He questioned. That was a loaded question, one I believed he knew the answer to as well as I did. There were several reasons, but I only bothered to list one.
“Because we both know this isn’t over.”
* * *
THE END
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About the Authors
The name Robin D. Mahle represents a dynamic husband and wife storytelling team. They’ve travelled the world for both love and war, and a tale began to form between the two of them that just had to be told. Steven’s love of anime and comics collided with Brittany’s love of fiction novels to produce a story with action, captivating dialogue, and riveting prose.
* * *
The female piece to the puzzle that is Robin spends her days as a captioner for the deaf and hard of hearing. Brittany loves to read, write, and loves all things Doctor Who. A Marine Corp veteran, Steven homeschools their offspring, lovingly nicknamed Thing 1 and Thing 2. He loves to write and spend time in his garden. They also have two fur babies: a standard full-sized poodle and a persian cat. Their family lives in Colorado after a lifetime of being way too hot in Texas.
Also by Robin D. Mahle
Coming Soon: A World Apart Trilogy
The Silent Explosion Page 2