The Lotus Effect (Rise Of The Ardent)

by Bridget Ladd

  The power within me was my own, but its origin didn’t feel right. Its source was being fueled by hate. It was unnatural.

  Panicking, I tried to redirect the power, turn it away from its origin and sever the links to its source. Crying out in denial, I let go of Briggins, watching as he scrambled away from me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t control it. Could not coax the power back within me. The hard web encasing it was unraveling . . . shattering to pieces.

  Suddenly and without a will of my own, a force so powerful slammed from my chest in its release, a rupture of uncontrolled energy. My arms flung uselessly to the sides as I was knocked backwards from the torrent, my armored body a mere rag doll in comparison to its might. I closed my eyes against the release of my body as I was propelled through the air.

  I felt numb. An empty shell.

  I casually braced myself for the impact.

  The impact that would never come.

  For I was falling now.

  Falling weightlessly over the Edge.

  Chapter 47

  The Ardent Ascends

  I was not unfamiliar with the feeling of flying or falling even, but this, this was different. This feeling would never stop. The constant unraveling uncertainty that gathered into the pit of my stomach never leveled out, only increased as the seconds ticked by.

  I tumbled endlessly into the depths of the unknown. The sky was blue now but a dark chasm awaited me at its end. That was all that existed beyond the Edge. All that I’d ever been told.

  Grandmother and the Akkadians? How had they survived on the outside?

  No. I refused to give in to hope. I was to die. I would accept my death with honor and with peace.

  My mind returned to me after the onslaught of power was released. There was nothing left inside. No hatred. No grief. Just the feeling of falling.

  And shame. I tried to kill Briggins, maybe succeeded even.

  Maybe, I deserved this.

  At my side I heard a noise, a piercing sound that grew louder and louder.

  Ignoring the buzzing, I lay my head back against the force of the wind, turning to the side to watch as my fingers made beautiful vertical stripes in the clouds as I passed, the same patterns I made when Xander had first flown me to the Outlands.

  The noise became louder, distracting me, urging me to look above. With tearing eyes I watched as a golden body quickly and like a bullet pierced through the endless sky, gathering speed as it neared me.

  He had jumped.

  That idiot.

  Xander sacrificed himself to save me? Or perhaps, to not allow me to die alone. Now that angered me.

  Like a brick hitting me in the face, I awoke from my apathetic daze. What am I thinking? I’m the idiot.

  Xander has wings. Xander can fly.

  There was so much I had yet to accomplish. So many people had died in the hope that I should succeed. I wanted to live. Deserved to live. Refocusing my mind back to survival, I knew I needed to slow myself. I tensed my body—which was a mistake. I started tumbling end over end in my panic.

  I looked up mid-spin. We were much too far apart. He’d never make it.

  In an attempt to stop the spinning, I spread my body out, which worked, stabilizing me again. Trying my best to ignore the awful feeling in my stomach, I concentrated on holding my heavy limbs at my side, belly exposed to the rising white clouds beneath me. If I was to die, I’d be damned if I was going to let his sacrifice to try and save me be in vain.

  Catching sight of Xander from the corner of my eye, I noticed he had arrowed himself even more, even when he had already rocketed his speed to its max potential. A trail of the clouds’ mist whipped out behind him as he shot towards me, the air visibly vibrating.

  A glimmer of gold twinkled beyond the cloud I passed through, disrupting my attention.

  I refocused my watering eyes, looking harder.

  Was that a gear?

  Whatever it was, I saw another, and then another. And when I reached a gap in the thick clouds, I almost lost my balance and tumbled again at the sight.

  Gears larger than warehouses were turning and rotating themselves upon one another. All of which were connected to the sides of a colossal mass of brown dirt, large roots hanging heavily beneath them.

  —And then I felt it. Xander slamming into me. His impact from above knocked the breath from my lungs, snapping me back to reality.

  Or was this my reality?

  Xander grabbed me around the hips then secured his arms across my chest, wrapping his legs over and in-between mine, his chest anchored firmly to my back. Every muscle in my body hurt as he suddenly tried to engage his jets and extend his wings to slow us.

  The jets turned on briefly and intermittently. We were traveling far too fast and the weight of the both of us was too much for his suit to accommodate for.

  Xander cursed as he reached around, slamming his fist onto the side of the jetpack. The clouds funneled around us, creating more spiraled patterns. Spiraled patterns that wove together erratically now, a chaotic mess.

  “We’re too heavy! You have to let me go!” I yelled up at him.

  Before Xander could respond, we both soared below the final forest of vapor—our decent no longer blinded by the veil of dense clouds. We both couldn’t ignore what we saw beneath us: an immense rippling gray mass.

  “Don’t let go of me, Lily!”

  Xander slammed his fist onto the pack a final time before spinning me to face him, wrapping one arm around my back and one around my head—preparing us for what may be our final embrace. He extended his wings as far as they could reach, the air catching beneath them.

  “I’ll find you. In this lifetime or the next. I will find you,” he called out.

  I closed my eyes and let myself go, sinking all that I was, all that I would ever be, into our embrace.

  I expected a sharp pain and then nothing, a blank void of unconsciousness.

  Neither of those happened.

  ~

  Water surrounded me.

  It enveloped every nook and crevice of my body, my armor, enfolding me in its quiet clutches.

  Xander and I had been forced apart by the sudden impact, so I alone sank further and further into the calm depths, my arms outstretched to the rippling sunlight above me—memories of a dream of long ago resurfacing in my mind.

  My armor was weighing me down. I blinked, coming to full alert. I didn’t see Xander anywhere. Even if I successfully learned how to swim, I was too weak and too tired to try and remove the metal shell from my body. Whatever happened when I attacked Briggins had made sure of that. An angry, frustrated resentment prickled at my nerves then, thinking of all I had left to fight for.

  I can’t die. Not now. I kicked my heavy feet as I wrestled with the straps attaching the metal to my legs. My fingers fumbled with the clasps, but my hands were trembling so terribly I couldn’t get either of them to budge.

  A pressure rose in my chest, my lungs started to ignite. I clutched at my throat as I continued down.

  Down. And then, even further into the graying abyss below me.

  I would soon pass out. Better to be unconscious than drown while awake.

  Where was I?

  It didn’t matter.

  Spotting my satchel floating up in front of me, I grasped it tightly to my chest, my only comfort in death. The flesh of my lungs was aflame now; the ember had caught, burning brightly. Dots swam across my vision suddenly and I squalled, choking in a mouthful of water, my face contorting into an ugly grimace.

  Death by drowning would not be a glorious death.

  But then I felt something—saw something from the corner of my failing vision, a latticed rope-like design.

  Water surged beneath me, the force pushing me upwards and into a ball. A fetal position. In a flash, I was captured and gathered against the rough texture. A net? After wrapping itself around me, it suddenly swooped up, clinging at my feet and crumpled armor.

  I fought against the pres
sure in my chest as I watched the sunlight approach closer. Or was it I who approached it? I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.

  The sunlight blinded me fully as I broke forth from the surface, the warm breathable air rushing at my face like a long lost friend.

  I heaved in great gulps, sputtering water from my aching lungs. My trembling fingers involuntarily clasped to the sides of the net while being dragged through the water. Eventually, I was hauled upon a gritty surface.

  Sand? My fingers dug into the warm broken earth through the mesh of the net.

  “Xander?” I managed to yell despite my nauseated delirium. My stomach heaved. Hot water burned its way back out of me, making me choke and retch into the sand. The water tasted of salt and like nothing I had ever experienced.

  Where is he? Drowning?

  “Xander!” I shouted once more, which started another fit of wet coughs, dislodging the last bit of water that remained in my lungs.

  “Lily,” Xander spoke close behind me. “Stay calm. I’m here.” The sound of his voice, reassuring me, nearly brought tears to my already stinging eyes.

  I looked to my right, to the direction of his voice as I lay breathing against the damp sand. He too was trapped inside a large net near the water’s line, but was now standing, removing it from his body in a flourish.

  Shifting on my arms, I spun myself to rest on my back, my armor sinking into the sand. Through my bleary-eyed disorientation, I gazed to the sky where we’d fallen.

  A large island floated high above us.

  City Prosper: An island propelled in place by the enormous geared assemblage I observed on the way down.

  On the way down?

  Is this all a dream? Am I dead?

  City Prosper? My home, the only place I’ve ever known to exist—an island floating in the sky . . . ?

  “Where are we?” I managed to ask, my voice just as gritty as the sand I lay on. Feeling a wave of dizziness hit me, I looked to my hands. They trembled uncontrollably as I lifted them: I was consumed by shock.

  “I have an idea, but I’m sure they’ll be able to tell us,” Xander said cautiously, nodding towards the sound of movement behind. Slipping a dagger from his belt, he finally dragged his armored legs from the shallow water. “You alive?” he asked without looking, stepping into place at my side.

  “I think so.”

  “Good,” he said shortly. Just like the situation with the Sa’Vas creature—he was too preoccupied reading energies to give anything more than a one syllabled answer.

  The footsteps slowed as they approached my head. Someone grabbed the net above me, slicing through it with the metallic blade of a curved knife. Xander must trust their energy; otherwise he wouldn’t have allowed them to approach. The sunlight reflected from the knife, blinding me momentarily before the silhouette of a man’s head blocked out the golden luminance. A halo crowning itself behind the shadow.

  I blinked rapidly as a man with an oddly-shaven beard came into focus.

  He stood above me, grinning knowingly.

  “Welcome to the Amerika, Mistress Emerson. It appears you have finally arrived,” his rough and brittle voice scraped against my sensitive ears. The stubbly bearded man looked to another who stood close behind. “Inform Sojinn. The Ardent has descended.”

  The man looked relieved: He’s waited to say this for a very long time now.

  “Ardent?” I asked, my own voice sounding rough and broken.

  The man chuckled. “Who do you think had enough power to raise an entire civilization to the safety of the sky if it wasn’t for one of you? I think the old bugger still lives up there too. Sojinn says he can still feel him.”

  “Teizel . . .” Xander breathed out in a rush.

  I looked to Xander in confusion, but he’d holstered his knife and had fallen to his knees in the sand. He looked at me with such an awed reverence, a secret and hidden knowledge he knew of all along, rekindling itself in his mind. The idea that this secret was within me—came as a surprise even to him. Xander, the impossible shadow, he who reads the energies of others, he who loves me the most . . . could not detect this.

  The man turned back and met me with serious eyes. “The time of living in the sky has reached its end. You are Ardent and what’s left of humanity needs you and your kind.”

  “No.” Another man stepped into view. He held himself in an almost regal posture, but one that had been weighed down by much sadness. “No, I’m afraid an explanation must delve much deeper than that. You are not simply one petal of a blossom—you are the flower itself. You, are what binds us. The stem, the power, the light in which all others derive from.” His voice rose. “Ardency: An evolution of humanity. Nature’s answer to the call for help—a rebalancing to the threat that sent entire nations to the skies.” He turned his head away, reading meaning within his vacant stare. “The Law was established to not only persecute those who are different. The Council, Lily, was trying to find you.”

  The man stood taller, turning his head back to me, and like Xander, regarded me with an unbridled reverence. “You, Lily Emerson, are the first female Ardent born to this world, chosen by the great Mother herself. We have been waiting, and for good reason. For you are not simply an Ardent, no,—you are The Ardent.”

  The man smiled sadly, his features proud.

  “Engineered to save us all.”

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the following people:

  Mom—for giving me that spark, the one that encouraged me to write down my crazy dreams and stories. And to Dad—thanks for being my Mtn’ Dew buddy! To my older brother and sister, thanks for being awesome, even if you draw all over my face with permanent marker, or ‘accidentally’ toss my water slinky from the window of a moving car, or suck my hair up into the vacuum cleaner. And to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law—thanks for laughing at my corny jokes and for sharing my excitement! To Susan and Jeanne, thanks for rooting me on. To my nieces and nephews—I can’t wait until you all become old enough to read this book, so we can finally talk about it! And to the others in my extended family that I haven’t named—I love you all!

  To Anne Elisabeth Stengl—thank you for your writing wisdom. I couldn’t have gotten this far without your sage advice. To the Bronies of the world. Keep on keeping on. Love and tolerate! /)(

  And to my readers—thanks for giving The Lotus Effect a chance. I’m very appreciative of your time. Thank you!

  Most importantly, thank you, Stephen, for believing in me and helping me pursue what I love. You’re my best friend—Partners for now and always.

  ~

  About the Author

  Bridget Ladd never quite grew up. She’s most likely to be caught carrying a pocketful of souvenir rocks and shells (to the washer’s dismay) and gets excited over trivial things like colorful ponies and raiding tombs alongside her longtime favorite video game pal, Lara Croft. The smell of freshly turned dirt and the sea air are her favorites, and she isn’t above doing twirling spins barefoot in the grass on a beautiful day in her yard. Her books are her shields and she will admit to having her head in the clouds more times than she probably should . . . but she doesn’t let any of this bother her too much, remembering her favorite quote by Le Guin, and knowing that the creative adult is indeed the child who survived.

  She graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 3D Computer Animation/Interactive Design and minored in Art History at East Carolina University. Living her life solely as an artist and illustrator after school was not enough—knowing that a picture was only worth a thousand words—she felt that she needed more. She had to get the trapped stories, the vivid, sometimes adventurous, sometimes terrifying dreams, out of her head. Like the authors, artists, musicians, scientists, peaceful warriors who inspire her, she too wishes to share her worlds with others, let them escape into the unknown. Let them know that like her, it’s okay to be different.

  Lily and Xander’s journey continues in Book Two:

 
; Ardent Ascension

  Coming Soon!

  A Personal Note From Bridget

  I cannot begin to express my gratitude to you—my readers. I hope you enjoyed the beginning of Lily and Xander’s journey. Almost two years have passed since The Lotus Effect was only an idea and a goal of mine—to one day write a story that others could get lost in. Now, writing has transformed well past being just a hobby or career, but into a love of dreaming of new worlds and sharing them with others.

  If you enjoyed this first novel, I ask you to please consider leaving a positive review on the website of your choice. The more positive feedback I get, the more time I can spend writing and honing my craft! I’d love to chat with you on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads . . . you know, those old dogs, about anything really—movies, shows, books, comics, video games, cosplay, sushi, crazy cat pictures, rocks, ponies, spaceships—you name it! Thanks again and happy reading!

  -Bridget

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