Hafi
Hafi felt a tendril of excitement, akin to that old familiar righteous anger. It travelled from his gut into his mouth as he watched the test of the traps go off in the valley below where he stood on the top of the western wall. One of his soldiers gently pushed the first unsuspecting piece of produce, a large melon, toward the trap at the bottom of the tree. As the private ran away as quickly as he could, the melon rolled until it neared the base of the tree and abruptly exploded.
Chunks blew straight up into the tree, pieces splattering and careening off of branches until they triggering the series of explosives rigged in the upper half of the tree. The barrels of shrapnel burst in a chain reaction, shards of metal spraying from the branches and into the series of melons in concentric circles expanding from the tree trunk. The shrapnel ripped into the third largest circle—about a forty yard radius of death.
It would take his soldiers hours to clean it up the test and reset the traps before they moved on to rigging up each tree in the area, but it was worth the satisfaction to know what awaited the Xenai when they made it this far. He could practically see the black blood of Xenai dripping from the branches and into the ground as their horde of an army rolled through the traps without hesitation.
The small benefits of the influx of refugees from the outskirts showed themselves here: the trappers that were new to the safety of Prin had spent days fighting over how to design traps for an army of Xenai, rather than the patrols they were used to taking out. In the end, with some gruff and vocal peacemaking from Hafi, they had come together and created the most gruesome series of traps that Hafi had ever seen. He loved each one and only felt a small amount of guilt that he enjoyed them so much—just as the mercenary he used to be had enjoyed such things back in Ceafield.
Some of the trapper’s plans, like the tree traps, were simple yet elegant. Others, like the traps set inside the wall itself, were complex and designed to be used as a strategic last resort. The explosives rigged up in the rock would cause the outer layer of rock to cascade down onto the Xenai, wiping out large swaths of them while providing a reinforced chokepoint to funnel the Xenai to their deaths—at least until the guards met theirs. Hafi peered over the edge of the wall down to the iron gate at the bottom, wondering how stable the series of explosives he was standing on top of really were. The rock bumped out from the composite construction beneath it: another layer of protection. Since the Xenai Source-casters couldn't manipulate composite, it would coerce them to send their hordes to take the wall by force.
Sure, if we have to blow them, we will be a single step away from our own deaths, but it’ll be worth watching them die by the thousands and in pieces.
“Hafi!” A small frantic voice rang out behind him, “It has to be me.”
He turned to find Shara running up behind him. She reached him, panting for breath, gripping the wall he leaned against as she sucked down air. How far did she run? “What are you talking about, girl?”
“Mom told me about the Xenai that was captured in the Underground. It will be executed, and it has to be me that does it.”
What the hell has gotten into her?
“What on earth— why? Why the hell would you want to do that, even if I let you?”
She glared up at him fiercely.
“Because. I am the little princess,” she said as she wrinkled her nose, “I am the Peace of Prin. The little angel. And almost no one knows what I can do—not really. They hear stories and assume they are exaggerated. It’s one thing for you and Mother to know what I am capable of and to deny me to fight. But if all of Prin knows—if all of Prin sees— she can’t fight both of us and all of them. She can’t stop the entire city from pinning their hopes on me. We have to give them a show so that they take up our fight and I can enlist.”
Shara really was her mother's daughter.
“Alright, I can see that helping, but your mother isn’t exactly one to bow just because people are unhappy with a decision she makes. What if you kill this thing for no reason? You have only ever killed one before, with good reason, and that was hard for you.”
Shara rolled her eyes, “I was six, Hafi.”
He shrugged, “Killing doesn’t get easier with age—maybe with more killing, but not just because you are older.” He watched her as she paused. A brief flash of emotion flickered in her eyes. She was recalling the cave and the scream of the Xenai as it burned alive at her feet. Good.
She lifted her face to meet his eyes again, and hers were no longer filled with hunger and excitement, “I can do it—I have to Hafi. Prin can’t keep living this way. It’ll fall apart from within once the Xenai get close.”
Hafi leaned against the wall across from Shara, staring into the space behind her. She would take his consideration as an affirmation that she was going to get her way—and she was probably right. Once she laid out any plan in enough detail, Hafi rarely told her no, the damned child.
He finally nodded slowly. He started to think through the beginning of a plan. But more importantly, he tried to push Shara's line of thought into a more refined state. He imagined the dais and the platform it stood on, the crowd in the stands, the leaders of Prin standing on the wooden deck off to the side of the platform and watching it all happen.
“You know your mother will kill me for allowing it. She will assume it was my idea.”
“And I will mourn you, Hafi, but we have to do something. I have to do something.”
“Alright, assuming I can get agreement for a public execution again—what would your plan be?”
Shara smiled, “We can get the warden to loosen the cuffs, just enough that it will try to escape. I can step in. It doesn’t have to look like it was intended for me to be the executioner.”
Hafi nodded. “Well, while that could save my ass from your mother, chances are it won’t fool her.”
“It’s not meant to fool her, just to stop her from coming down on you. Also, it adds extra flair, which really just allows me to be more… creative… with the disposal. Once it's done, what can she do but scold us?”
“Alright, what if the Xenai notices the cuffs are loose and breaks out too soon?”
Shara looked off to the side, her eyes flitting back and forth for a moment, “Tie it up and put on the loose cuffs before it's at the dais. Then untie it at the dais when we are ready.”
Hafi nodded, “Okay. What else could go wrong with this plan? What if it’s a Source-caster and your attempt to kill it quickly turns into a source fight? The crowd would be in danger.”
She nodded, reflecting over the additional problem, “Post guards and our own Source-casters in front of the crowd. I’ll step through them to thwart its attack. The crowd would be protected.”
Hafi shook his head, “But, they would have to know to let you through their protective barrier, and if that many people are in on the secret, it’s not a secret anymore. Your mother would find out before we even set the plan into motion.”
She turned and leaned against the wall next to him, “Why tell them? Would they really stop me from stepping through?”
Hafi laughed, “I am not the only person who your mother has threatened to have killed if you got hurt.”
“Okay. So they can’t know and they wouldn’t let me through. I could dress up like one of them?”
“Stinks of premeditation again, but that’s closer to something that would work.”
She sighed, “You’re not making this easy.”
“Easy isn’t my job. Winning is.”
She wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at him, “Alright then, how would you win?”
He laughed, “By considering all the angles.” He looked down at her and waited for his words to click as she thought through them.
Shara was silent for a moment, then sucked in her breath and rolled her eyes, “Well, shit. Figure out the details for the execution with the Warden. I’ll be in the alley behind the dais and ready.” She stood and turned without waiting for his response and walked away
. He knew her well enough to recognize the slight skip in her step that she was trying to hide. He smiled at her back. She was closer every day to mastering his world and her mother's world; a deadly combination.
12
Shara
Sometimes it was hard to look at the Xenai. Not just because of the deep grey smoke that shrouded the members of their army and made it seem like they were always shifting behind your gaze like a mirage, but because, as an Inari, Shara could feel them. Some felt more lost than others, but there was always a sense of forced submission to them. She had felt similar things from the most downtrodden people of the Underground, or in prisoners, but this feeling went deeper. It wasn’t just a response to circumstance. It felt as if it was a part of who they were. Free or captured, a Xenai always felt like a prisoner.
She stood ten feet away from the base of the dais, in the alley at the corner of the platform. The pillars directly in front of her blocked her from sight from the crowd and from the section of the platform where her mother would be standing. The Warden and two guards led the Xenai up to the center of the dais and forced it to its knees. They bound its legs to the base of a small, broken pillar, which they would bend it over to behead — if that was how it was actually going to die. Shara didn’t miss the Warden incorrectly tying a slipknot in the rope around its ankles before untying the rope from its wrists.
The shackles on its arms were a composite. It didn’t seem to be a Source-caster, but the Warden required that the composites produced by the Nagata bound all Xenai prisoners. Like the Illara, the Xenai never learned how to manipulate fabricated materials. This was why the city architects designed Prin's fortifications with large pieces of composite welded together on a composite frame. The stone that coated it had been Source-cast over the composite base for purely aesthetic reasons until recently. Even the Warden’s scythe was composite.
She freed her hands and felt the world around her, pulling air to her and feeling the charges of electricity in it, letting it flow around her as she waited. The Warden stepped back from the prisoner to ready his scythe and she could feel the excitement in the crowd rise, imagining the actions in her mind that matched the emotions like the crowd pushing forward to see the creature in its last moments. Another guard stepped up to the Warden and said something to him. Shara expected the Xenai to make his move when the Warden turned his head to face the guard. But the Xenai stayed still.
Move.
She continued to wait as the Warden and the two guards kept postponing the beheading. They gave the Xenai opening after opening, but still it stayed on its knees in perfect supplication. The Warden caught her eye and gave her a slight shrug. He stepped forward, pushing the Xenai forward over the pillar. As he raised the scythe, the Xenai turned its head, as if trying to look behind it. The hundreds of faces peering at it meant nothing. It did not look around to see the environment. It looked to the side, and that was when Shara felt it. Awareness burst through her as the Xenai reached out to her with Intuition. She had a sense that it was smiling at her—that she was here—almost as if it was happy to see her. She translated the feeling as if it knew her plan and was working to keep her trapped in Prin, unable to kill its kind.
Shara thought back to her experience in the Underground with the Intuition, wondering if she could send words to the Xenai, or at least images. What would I say? Why won’t it fight? She felt for a connection to the Xenai, and found it through Intuition and a diamond implant, like one on her own amulet. As soon as she made the link, she felt the Xenai, who it was.
It feels…familiar.
Images of her adventure into a cave alone when she was six flooded into her mind. The Xenai she killed, burning, the smell of its flesh and the screech that reverberated off the cave walls as it died. Then, the images of what happened before that gruesome death and before Hafi had found her. Images of another Xenai she found in the inner cavern, one that did not want to hurt her. He had wanted to warn her that others were coming for her. He was a Xenai that wanted her safe. She remembered his words to her, “There are others like me. We have a word, you can recognize us by this word.”
She refocused on the link to the Xenai on the platform and pushed into it the connection until she felt something like a wall breaking before her will.
‘Jer-stohr-yr!’
The Xenai’s emotion changed abruptly to surprise, and she felt it listening. The scythe was at the top of its arc before it would come crashing down. She didn't have time for words; she formed images and sent them to the Xenai, hoping it would convey what she wanted to tell it:
‘Fight me so I can fight the Xenai that are not like you!’
A feeling of understanding radiated out from the Xenai and a wave of images washed over Shara: moments from the Xenai's life. Memories of friendship and love with the other Xenai like her that didn't want to harm Shara and a single thought in the common language of the Pact, 'My name is Xarie'.
The Xenai shoved her legs apart, freeing herself from the shoddy knots. She rolled to the side as the scythe crashed down and hit the pillar. The crowd broke into shouts and screams as the Xenai jumped to its feet, ripping apart the composite cuffs. Shara stepped forward from the alley, into sight of the crowd and onto the base of the stairs to the platform. She felt a joy from the Xenai, as if she was glad to see Shara—to finally meet her. Shara paused as nausea sprouted from her belly and her hands trembled. Could she do this?
She felt a warmth spread through her body—the Xenai she was about to kill was encouraging her. She swallowed, focusing on the feeling of her tongue pressed up against the roof of her mouth to distract her from the tumult of her feelings. She refocused on the Xenai—on Xarie.
‘I am sorry, friend.’
Shara felt the Xenai's response to her regret: she understood what Shara had to do.
Shara threw back her hood, bringing her hand up as it filled with sparks of light, threatening to release too soon. She reached out with source and latched onto the Xenai’s implant, successfully tuning herself to it and using it to lift the Xenai off the ground until she hung ten feet in the air. Shara could feel the pain she was causing through the connection she had forged. She could let go of the connection, but somehow, it felt wrong to not endure what this Xenai was willingly subjecting herself to.
Shara held the charge of lightning in her hand and Xarie in the air as she ascended the stairs up onto the dais. She thrust her hand with the lightning charge toward the Xenai, unable to stop herself from feeling regret as the charge arced from her hand to the Xenai. As the flash of light hit, Shara could feel the overwhelming pain in every muscle of her own body as Xarie convulsed in the air. The only thing Shara could do was make it quick for her. As Shara slammed her hands down toward the ground, Xarie's body threw itself into the marble dais. Her head splattered open. It was the best Shara could do. Shara blinked back tears as the connection between her and the kind Xenai faded to nothing.
The crowd was silent.
Shara saw her mother off to her right. Her hands gripped the edge of the railing in front of her so hard that her entire body was rigid with the effort. Her dark skin seemed as pale as the marble she stood on, but behind the frightened veneer Shara could see the tight expression of anger. Already the Warden was extolling praise upon Shara’s actions and the crowd started to murmur with excitement.
It’s going to work.
In the chaos of the crowd after the execution, Shara weaved her way away from the platform. The lifeless body of Xarie felt like a void to her, like a hole in the world. She had to get away from it. As she was nearing the edge of the crowd on the west side where she had a straight shot to her home, Jon emerged from a group of Undergrounders and grabbed Shara’s arm and pulled her to one side.
“What just happened?” Jon’s voice cut through the noise.
The boy was Inari, and with the time they spent together, likely very attuned to her, even though as an Undergrounder he had little opportunity to train his source. He continued
, “That Xenai didn’t want to fight. It wanted to die peacefully.”
“Yes, she did.”
“What did you do?” He paused, "She?"
Shara didn’t want to explain it. The nausea was overwhelming. “I can’t explain right now. We can talk tomorrow,” she said.
He let her go, but she felt him watching her as she ran away from the crowd, back into the alleys of Prin. She wanted only to be alone and to somehow forget the pool of black spilling out beneath the head of a Xenai that didn’t want to hurt anyone at all.
Killing doesn’t get easier.
Oh, Hafi, you have no idea how true that was.
13
Ayna
Ayna Shae found the cool, rusted metals of the Underground a welcome change from the echoes of argument with Shara that still filled her mind. Shara had latched on to the public pressure to send Shara to the war front after the botched execution and the arguments between them had become a daily occurrence. Ayna had been preparing to head to the Underground when Shara had accused her of being willing to let Prin die to keep her safe.
“You can’t stop me from going. I’ll go anyway!” She had screamed and slammed her door before Ayna could leave the house. Ayna had dispatched a message to the Prin guard, asking for a detail for Shara, then left the house. The argument would pick up later.
Ayna stepped up confidently to the entrance of the lab and pounded on the door. It was impossible for the caretaker of the power lab to refuse her entry. She had only a small bodyguard with her, barely more than a boy, but the stateswoman always got what she wanted, no matter who escorted her. Today, she used the fact that she had appeared without force, after filing her intentions with the States House, to gain her entry. If she disappeared or did not file a report on what she saw, the Prin Guard would have no choice but to launch an inquiry. An inquiry would lead to the loss of the facility. At that moment, she didn’t care about the illegal experiments that were being done; she cared about seeing what they were doing. In a war without manpower, information was power.
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