Relinquish: Book II of the Rising Trilogy

by Miles, Amy

  I know I’m going in the right direction because of how worn down the path looks. On the edges, I can see deep signs of tire tracks still left over from the ice storm that passed during the night. It looks like this area got a lighter version of our blizzard. I can tell a truck passed by here not too long ago.

  Did it drop Niyah off earlier this morning for a secret rendezvous with Bastien? Was he supposed to sneak out and meet up with her? Was she the one he was whistling to yesterday?

  Bastien’s sidelong glances throughout the morning are enough to drive me mad. Why didn't he tell me about her? seems to be set on repeat in my mind.

  I spend lunch by myself, adamantly trying to ignore Bastien’s whispered conversation with Niyah. Although they speak in low tones, there is tension between them, and I can’t help but feel happy about that. I don’t really remember eating. Only that I did and it tasted like mud in my mouth.

  Now I walk beneath a speckled pattern of sunlight that sneaks through the clouds above, unblinking and unwavering in my need to show him how much I don’t care… but I do.

  With each stomp, I can feel my anger mounting, wishing it was Niyah’s head underfoot instead of muddy slush. I notice absently that my pants are splattered up to my knees, but I don’t care.

  Another voice needles its way through my anger. Is this really so different than what I have done with Eamon? I grit my teeth and send a spray of brown snow into the air with a stomp. Shouldn’t I be happy he has moved on?

  “You’re acting childish.” A voice calls from just over my shoulder.

  I shoot a defiant glare at Bastien and continue walking. He easily keeps pace with me despite the extra weight of my pack on his back. I can hear Niyah walking behind us, feel her haughty gaze upon me. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “At least let me explain.”

  I stop so suddenly he gets four paces ahead of me before he turns and comes back. I ignore Niyah as I get up into his face. “I’m here for one thing and one thing only. The mission. If you think any of this”—I stab a finger between him and Niyah—“matters, then you are wrong.”

  “Illyria—”

  “No.” I shake my head, feeling a spark of electricity skip down my arms. I’m starting to lose control. I need to get away. “Just back off, Bastien.”

  “I can’t.”

  When I lift my gaze to meet his, he takes a step back. I watch as he pales and finally nods, raising his hands in surrender.

  I turn and stomp on, knowing what he saw. I could feel the color of my eyes fading to black as easily as I felt the electricity on my arms. If there is one thing I’ve learned over the past year, it’s knowing when I’m at my breaking point.

  Bastien taught me that the day Drakon tried to kill him. I nearly tore down the entire city on top of my friends for him. I vowed after that I would learn control, or at least learn my trigger.

  He has always been that for me, whether I like it or not.

  I’m volatile when he is around. My emotions weigh heavily on my powers, but I’m most lethal when I’m hurt. Bastien knows this better than anyone.

  “What’s with her?” I hear Niyah ask, and I speed up. I don’t want to hear Bastien try to make some pathetic excuse for my temper. He could try to tell Niyah what I’m like when I lose control, but no one really knows until they see it firsthand.

  I put a fair amount of distance between us as we round a large bend, lined with spruce trees and dotted with small knee-high bushes with bright-red berries. The clouds shift overhead, casting me in shadow.

  At first I think it is this movement that catches the corner of my eye, but the hairs rising on the back of my neck say otherwise. I drop into a crouch, searching the woods. Someone is out there. I can feel it.

  I hear Bastien approaching at a run and turn to warn him but see him waving his hands over his head. “He’s one of mine!” I hear him shout.

  Rising from a crouch, my grip loosens on my knife. I tap it against my leg, waiting for Bastien to arrive with Niyah right behind him, looking less than thrilled to have been forced to jog for my benefit. “He’s one of mine,” he says, sliding to a halt beside me.

  “I heard you the first time.” I glance at the man concealed in the woods. He is good. If it hadn’t been for Bastien’s warning, though, he would be a dead man.

  He isn’t alone. There are four more scouts up ahead. Two on the right, crouched within a tangle of thorns that mask their camouflaged uniforms. Two others are perched from above in perfect sniper position.

  Niyah crosses her arms over her chest, looking perfectly comfortable with the scowl pinching her beautiful features. “So she saw one of them. Big deal. She didn’t see the others.”

  “Yes,” Bastien says without any hesitation. “She did.”

  His confidence in my abilities would’ve made me tingle with pride if I weren’t so angry with him. Instead, I ignore him completely and look to Niyah instead. “I assume this was your idea.”

  Her eyes narrow into slits. Her fingers dig into her arm as she nods. “What of it?”

  I toss my hair back over my shoulder and tuck my knife back into the sheath at my hip. “Bastien would never have made that mistake.”

  Without waiting to see the heat rise in her face, I walk on. Bastien sends out a long whistle followed by three short ones. His soldiers melt out of the woods, standing at attention on either side of me as I pass. I don’t turn to look at them. Instead, I keep my gaze focused on the structure looming before me in the tangle of green.

  Vines grow up a towering wall in a latticework pattern. The wood is dark, damp from the snow. The gates stand nearly ten feet overhead, crisscrossed with supporting beams on either side. I can’t see the hinges at the rim of the doors as they begin to swing open. They disappear into the thick overgrowth, hiding the true length of the walls that spread out on either side of me.

  This place speaks of age. It was not constructed a year ago, but was erected long before. Was this some sort of an outpost used by survivors?

  We managed to endure the Caldonian regime by hiding out in caves. Was it possible that someone actually managed to live above ground and survive?

  I crane my neck back to look at the towering doors as I pass through, marveling at the rope and pulley system that controls them. A wheel-like structure with eight wooden pegs thrust out in a circle is being manned by four men. I can hear the cranking sound of gears hidden within the walls as the doors begin to close behind us.

  A guard tower is perched every hundred feet along the wall, the space wide enough for men to walk side by side along the top. Thick, pointed tree trunks line the front wall. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I realize there are large bowl-like structures set evenly between each guard house.

  “What are those for?” My curiosity gets the better of me.

  “They hold oil,” a man beside me answers. “Just in case the Caldonians decide to scale our walls.”

  “Wouldn’t the Sky Ships just blast through?”

  He grins and I realize he is missing several teeth. “Perhaps, but I like to be prepared, just in case. Call me old-fashioned.”

  I take a closer look at him, surprised to see wrinkles etched deeply into his weathered face. It is unusual to see an older man among the Caldonians. Time moves differently on their home world. This man must be several hundred years old.

  There are patches of age spots on his face and a definite sag to his cheeks. His eyes are a dull yellow, reminding me more of a finch than of the sun. His hands are leathered, with veins winding just beneath a thin layer of nearly translucent skin. His shoulders are hunched slightly, his back curved.

  When he steps forward to offer me his hand, I accept it immediately. “I’ve heard much about you, young lady.”

  He winks at me and then casts an amused glance back at Bastien. From the corner of my eye, I can see the tension along Bastien’s shoulders. “Illyria, I would like you to meet Otto. He is the keeper of the wall.”

  “A job
to be proud of, I’m sure.” I dip my head in greeting and offer him a smile. I like him and the crinkles of years of laughter that gather at the corners of his eyes.

  “The pleasure is mine. I would be happy to give you a tour, if you like.”

  Bastien steps between us and claps the man on the arm. “Another time perhaps, Otto. We are tired from our journey.”

  “Of course.” He leans around Bastien and gives me a wink. “I’m sure you’ll drop by sometime.”

  There is a distinct skip in his step as he turns and walks back toward the wall as the doors shut with a resounding boom that echoes through my chest. When Bastien turns to look at me, I simply glare back. “He wasn’t causing any harm.”

  “You don’t know him like I do,” he mutters and moves past me. I can see the sag of his shoulders and realize it wasn’t my weariness he spoke of, but his own.

  A tiny sliver of guilt settles into my stomach, but I ignore it as I turn to follow, not wanting to be left alone with Niyah as a companion.

  “We house over a thousand soldiers here at any given time,” Niyah says as she notices my wide-eyed gaze as we move away from the wall toward the heart of the base. Long two-story rows of wood and brick buildings span out on either side of me. Even rising onto my tiptoes, I can't see the far end of the base.

  Everything is handmade but finely crafted all the same. Whoever originally built this place had skills I can easily appreciate. No concrete sidewalks, flickering electricity, or humming generators. I feel at home here.

  As we walk between a row of buildings, their windows clothed in plastic, sheets, and other tacked materials to keep the winter winds out, we emerge into a wide-open courtyard. There is no grass here. It has been long since removed by the pounding of feet and movements of machinery. Snow drifts against the buildings, but farther out into the yard, it has begun to melt, leaving great puddles of mud and standing water.

  In the distance, I can see large domed buildings that sit on a small rise. Great black openings within the front of the structures reveal trucks and two Sky Ships. Large blue barrels with evidence of a growing rust epidemic can be seen in a storage building leading to what I can only assume to be a landing area. Dirt roads lead to and from this location, winding through the base.

  Everywhere I look, black-clad soldiers are busy at work—some doing minor repairs on buildings, others carrying heavy loads of linens from one squat concrete block structure and into one of the housing buildings.

  The scent of food still lingers in the air as we pass by an outdoor lean-to. It has no walls, only steel beams holding aloft a wooden roof. Rows of benches and tables rest beneath. A large group of men still sits in this space, their empty bowls forgotten.

  “This is where we train our new recruits, along with our special forces,” Bastien says. I can hear the pride in his voice and I almost smile. It wouldn’t surprise me if he trains personally with each of the groups. “These men are the best we have. Kyan knows I like a challenge.”

  And a reason to escape, I think absently as I look at the training field. Nearly five hundred men stand in square-like formations. It is a sea of black, each man bending, twisting, and shouting commands. They move with one fluid motion as they take to an obstacle course made of ropes, a climbing wall, weaving through barrels and sloshing through mud. I recognize Bastien in their movements.

  Some men stand in a row nearest me, laser guns tucked into their waistbands as they aim for wooden targets. Others use small pistols, holding them with two hands to steady their aim.

  I turn at the sound of clanging metal and see two men surrounded by a large group of soldiers, swords drawn and flashing in the sun. I move forward, enraptured by the sound. Their bodies glisten with sweat, naked apart from rolled pants that rise above their knees. Their muscles ripple and stretch as they dip and lunge, rolling to their feet to parry the next attack.

  “They use real swords?” I’ve never seen one before, but now I want one.

  “They aren’t widely used, but some of the men prefer hand-to-hand combat as opposed to lasers.” Bastien looks over at me as Niyah speaks. We both know I fall into that category as well.

  I’ve always had a thing for knives, serrated and lethal. Guns are good at long range, but I prefer the heat of battle, up close and in my face. Reckless, as Eamon would say. I prefer to think of it as being personal.

  Even I have to admit, as we continue to walk on the outskirts of the training field, that I’m impressed. Not even Kyan oversees a facility as tightly run as this, leaving it to Bastien to keep an entire battalion of men ready for war at a moment’s notice.

  “This way.” I turn to follow Bastien as he leaves the field and heads toward one of the buildings that I assume to be lodging for the soldiers. There is nothing flashy about it. No paint on the weathered walls. Only the base essentials. Back to the basics.

  I pause at the door to look back and realize, if not for Niyah’s presence, I would like it here.

  “I’ll show you to your room.” I blink, surprised to realize it is Niyah who spoke instead of Bastien. “I’m sure a delicate thing like yourself would like to get some rest after such a long hike.”

  I bristle, ready with a comeback, but Bastien beats me to it. “Illyria has had plenty of time spent on the battlefield, Niyah. I would advise that you do not underestimate her abilities.”

  Cool green eyes drift over me as Niyah’s lips peel back into a smile that is anything but genuine. “No. I don’t think I will.”

  The sound of my boot steps along the floor echoes in the narrow hall. Doors line either side. Most of them are closed, but from time to time I peer through a doorway to find a room occupied. The space is small and square with hardly enough room to walk between two rows of beds, stacked on top of each other. I nearly stop and go back when I see the first set of beds, curious as to how such a construction is possible.

  Near the middle of the dimly lit hall, we approach a set of stairs. I follow behind Niyah, trying not to notice how perfectly small her waist is or how her hips flare out. You never used to care about your looks, I think blandly as I keep my eyes fixed at my feet instead.

  “So you’re Eamon’s girl, huh?”

  I nearly trip over the last step as I look up to find her watching me from the doorway of the second floor. Her smile is smug, her eyes bright and knowing. I grit my teeth as I nod, knowing she wouldn’t have been quite so brave if Bastien were still with us. Surely she knows this name is one he would rather never hear again.

  “Yes.” I nod, wishing I had one of those pretty swords from the training field to shove into her abdomen. “I’m with Eamon.”

  “I thought so. Everyone around here is so excited to meet the prophecy girl. You’ll be quite the celebrity. I hope Eamon has a lot of trust in you because I’m sure there are plenty of guys here that would like to get to know you on a more personal level.”

  I just bet she would enjoy that too. Distracting me while she sinks her claws into Bastien. I ache to challenge her out loud but know I’ll regret it if I do. Not because of any guilt over angering her. I could care less about her. It’s me. Saying the words aloud would make all of this real, and I much prefer to imagine I’m still tucked up in bed, back home, fuming over being locked away by Kyan. Why did I ever complain about that before?

  “I’ve heard rumors about you,” she says, seeming unfazed by the fact that I continue to teeter on the final step. She doesn’t move away to give me space.

  “Oh yeah? Anything I should know about?” I can hear the ice layering my words, and I grin. Two can play this game.

  “Just that you seem to have a bit of a temper problem.”

  “Yeah.” I nod as I shove past her, knocking her into the door. “That I do.”

  She lets the door swing closed behind her. I turn around when I realize she isn’t following. “My room?”

  Her flawless olive-toned skin darkens as she thrusts her hand toward the left-hand hallway. “All the way at the end. The door
is unlocked.”

  “I’d say it’s been a pleasure.” I pause as I lean in close to her. “But I think we both know it hasn’t.”

  Her eyes flash with anger, but she nods. “Likewise.”

  She turns on her heel and marches back toward the door.

  “One more thing,” I call.

  Niyah flips her hair over her shoulder as she turns to look at me. I can see she is seething.

  “If you ever hurt him, I promise your death will be slow and very painful.”

  She blanches for a second and then rapidly shifts into a deep crimson. I wiggle my fingers at her in a wave and then turn and walk away, grinning from ear to ear.

  “I know all about you,” she calls, and I stop mid-step.

  I turn around slowly and force myself to lean casually against the wall. Might as well get this showdown over with now. “You know nothing about me.”

  Her smile returns, broad and haughty. “I know the only thing that matters. Bastien left you.”

  My mouth goes dry and my heart clenches painfully in my chest. I have to admit the girl knows how to throw some pretty good punches. “And you’re just the rebound.”

  Niyah’s eyes narrow and her hands curl into fists at her sides. She juts her chin toward the hall behind her. “Bastien forgot to tell you that if you need anything, our room is in the building next door. Top floor. This one is for men only.”

  Our room? I feel decidedly lightheaded and am grateful I’m already leaning against the wall as her words echo endlessly through my ears.

  I can feel electricity spark along my wrists, vining up to my elbows, but I ignore it. “Your room?”

  For a moment, Niyah looks like she’s just popped a whole lemon into her mouth. “I haven’t moved in yet, but it’s just a matter of time. He’s been dying to have me with him, but he insisted on renovating the room first. Isn’t that thoughtful?”

  “That sounds like Bastien. He always went above and beyond to make me happy.”

  Niyah’s smile vanishes, only to be replaced by barely restrained anger. “You were the past. I’m his future. So hands off!”