Beneath the Guarding Stars

by Everly Frost

  For an aching moment, the streak of light paused and a boy’s face looked up at me. It was like light itself: white hair, white eyebrows, translucent skin—the boy from the day before, the one who’d stood across from the cherry blossom tree outside Tower Seventeen and smiled at me.

  For the briefest moment, he smiled again, showing a row of perfect, white teeth. He shot the gleam at my leg. His voice was a bare hint in the air. “Heal well.”

  In the next moment, he was gone, so fast I thought I’d imagined him.

  Except the thing in my leg was not imaginary.

  I fell backward, gasping in a new breath, my hands splayed around the syringe sticking out of my thigh.

  It was a large syringe filled with black liquid, like crushed black pearls.

  A syringe that was almost completely compressed, just enough of the liquid left inside to tell me what it was.

  Nectar.

  Relief and fear battled inside me. I had a chance to live now. If the nectar healed me, I’d survive, but I could feel the fire the nectar was causing already burning inside me, a sharp, agonizing flame; it filled me with dread. I didn’t know what it was going to do to me.

  Michael reached me as darkness crept through my heart.

  I sought his eyes and stretched toward him, seeking the safety I’d felt only an hour before, but nothing and nobody was safe now. The nectar was working up my leg, into my bloodstream, into my heart, stronger than anything I’d ever felt before.

  “My leg!” I screamed. Panic took hold of me as my hands flailed around the syringe. I had to get it out.

  Michael knelt in front of me. “Ava, your neck. It’s your neck.” But he stopped because he could see that my neck had healed. He wiped over it, searching for the cut in my new, smooth skin, his hands growing colder as my body burned.

  The breath sucked into his lungs in a long indrawn gasp as he registered the syringe poking out of my thigh. His eyes went wide and relief raced across his face.

  “You’re okay…”

  “My leg.” I wanted to grab hold of him, cling to the last sane thing in my world, but instead I shoved at him. “Get away from me. Get away, Michael. It’s burning and I can’t control it. You need to get as far away from me as you can.” Tears burned down my cheeks, scalding me like acid, and I swiped at them, crying out when my hands came away coated in black. Nectar was coming out of my eyes. There was so much of it that I was crying it out in my tears.

  “Get … away…” I tried to shove Michael again, but my voice slurred and faded.

  The nectar reached my brain. Then nothing made sense: none of my thoughts, none of what I felt, nothing I did. Everything burned. I was a hot coal that was about to explode. My skin cracked and my ribs burst. The maelstrom shook my chest, spiraling through my spine, snapping my bones like dry twigs, toppling me in on myself as waves of heat pounded off me, pounded into me, crumpling and twisting me.

  I writhed downward, stretching across the stage, reaching for something, anything that would stop the explosion of energy inside my veins, pulsing through my muscles, but there was nothing I could do. The next explosion thumped silently through me a moment before it hit my brain like an echo in reverse. I didn’t know if I was screaming or silent, but to my horror this time the impact flowed beyond my body.

  Michael threw his hands across his face as flames washed out from me and over him. He braced and burned and healed all at the same time, over and over in the wash of fire. The ripple thumped through the rows of chairs, hitting the people and flinging them backward so they threw up their arms against the storm of heat. Wooden furniture crackled, popped, and burst into flame as they scrambled to get away from the stage.

  There were puddles of flames beside me, in the crooks of my arms, around my knees, across my chest. Flame poured from me, pulsing with every breath I took, washing across the floor. The backdrop caught fire and rippled, shredding in lines of orange, and in the next moment the stage itself was alight.

  Ducking my head toward my knees, I tried with all my might to contain the raging heat. I had to make it stop, but I’d turned the air around me to fire and now I was breathing flame, sucking and pushing it to and fro. The people beyond the stage staggered and struggled as though they were in the middle of a windstorm, pulled this way and that in the orange haze like broken fireflies.

  I breathed in and out and the firestorm breathed with me, dragging at the people trying to get away.

  For a moment, I remembered the first time Officer Reid had injected me with nectar. I’d set him alight, but that was nothing like this. I’d focused all my fear and despair into my hands in my effort to escape. But this … this fire had spread a hundred feet in every direction, whooshing toward the Tower, setting everything ablaze on its way.

  What had the pale boy done? What kind of nectar was this?

  I clung to my knees, trying to hold it in, but another wave rolled through me and I screamed, engulfing the stage and Michael in a wash of red that spread wider and wider, pushing further as pressure built inside it—as pressure built inside of me. People dropped, arms about their heads, shouting for water as the stage, the chairs, everything around us started to smolder.

  I tried to stop breathing, tried to stop existing. I almost succeeded, and for a moment people recovered. Ruth screamed for water. Her staff were a hundred feet away and running toward the tower. Naomi, on the other hand, stood in the middle of the flames, watching and waiting. But the reprieve only lasted as long as I could hold my breath.

  I breathed out.

  People were screaming and crying and trying to hurl themselves against the push and pull of the firestorm, burning and healing at the same time as the panic spread, and some of them weren’t healing as fast as others. I was hurting them.

  I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to hurt them.

  Michael shouted my name, fighting to stay on his feet, but all I could hear were the cries of two little girls.

  Lilith and Moira stood between upturned seats, their small hands clutching each other, afraid, alone. Fear scorched the air around them. Fear of me and what was happening to them. I couldn’t help them. I couldn’t go near them—that would just make it worse. I searched the crowd for their parents, but they were running toward the tower.

  The girls were abandoned like my parents had abandoned me. To save themselves. To save the world. To save their things.

  But never to save me.

  Suddenly the heat inside me gathered into a spot at the back of my mind. I focused, and searched the crowd again for the men and women I’d seen with the girls.

  There they were. Right at the edge of the running crowd.

  Shouting for water, maybe, shouting to save the tower, but not shouting for their daughters. Not shouting for the things that mattered.

  I wouldn’t let them go. They couldn’t be allowed to leave their girls.

  Within the flames beside me, there was a small pocket of darkness, my shadow perhaps. It seemed it was the only thing I could control.

  As soon as I thought about it, a dark thing grew from the shadow, strange and black, in the form of a scorpion, its tail stretching and elongating like a thick rope, splitting into more long, dark creatures. They danced—the dark things—sliding, twisting, twirling across the stage, racing toward the people who’d remained huddled on the ground, creeping past Naomi and Ruth, stealing over and around them and onward. Then faster, scuttling after the people running, chasing after the girls’ parents.

  The scorpions caught them and raced up their backs, folding against the curves at their knees and ankles, twining around their necks and wrists, wrenching their feet out from under them, toppling them face first to lie on the hot ground.

  Chairs and tables groaned and crackled in the heat around us, some upturned like burning bones, but the dark things tightened around the fallen people, forming shackles and ropes made of blackness, pulling them taut so they couldn’t move, backward all the way to where they should be, holding
them in the heat with the little girls, keeping them there.

  They were shouting but I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear anything anymore.

  The girls stared with open mouths at their bound parents, but I couldn’t look. Now that I’d brought their parents back to them, where they should be, the anger that had driven me dissipated, falling into fear of what I’d done. Somehow I’d dragged four grown adults backward with only shadows.

  It’s not happening. It’s not real.

  I pushed my head hard into my knees, closing my eyes, trying to block everything out.

  Someone bumped my legs and Michael was still there in front of me, straining to kneel as the force of heat tried to push him away—as I tried to push him away. His body broke and reformed as he flung an arm out behind him, pointing, his mouth moving, shouting.

  Behind him, where he pointed, the strangled, bound people rose off the ground, feet first into the air. The dark tethers around their ankles lifted them, pulling them higher, until each one hung upside down from their toes in the fiery sky, from black threads that ended nowhere and had no substance … and why wouldn’t it stop?

  Michael’s mouth formed my name. A … va.

  I tried to focus on his mouth, the mouth I’d kissed, blinking forcefully, trying to clear my eyes of the black tears oozing down my cheeks, trying not to see the people hanging behind him like red butterflies in black cocoons.

  A … va. Let. Them. Go.

  “No, it’s not me. It’s not real. I’m not doing that to them.”

  His eyes were glassy in the heat, reflective pools, coursing with regeneration, as his mouth formed his next words with great care.

  Yes. You are.

  “No!” My shout rocketed around in the flames, buffeting the floating people and the two little girls cowering under them, shrieking across Michael’s face like a slap. “I’m not.”

  Ferocity replaced Michael’s expression and he jerked me to my feet, forcing my arms away from my body, to press his burning hand against my heart. Flame caressed my chest between us, searing me.

  “Control it, Ava. Remember the green room. Remember when you lost your legs. You controlled it then. You didn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Hurt them?” I thrashed against him, my voice a hiss. “I can’t hurt them, Michael. I can never hurt them. They can’t be hurt. But they can hurt me.” I wrenched out of his hold, touching my throat. “Seth killed me.” I gasped against the heat rising from my chest, my lungs. “They killed me. Nothing I can ever do will hurt them as much as they hurt me.”

  Disappointment blossomed on Michael’s face. “So this is revenge?”

  I shook my head. “No … it’s not like that.” I looked beyond him, toward the red sky around us and the dark things creeping, sneaking.

  This time they crept toward Michael. They would twine around him and float him too. They would control him and keep him from hurting me just like everyone else. Unless I stopped them, unless I chose to stop.

  “I don’t want this,” I said. “I don’t want any of this.”

  “Then control it. Just like before.”

  “I can’t.” That was different. This was different. This nectar was different. Cheyne had said the original nectar had severe side effects and that they’d engineered it to be as safe as possible. This wasn’t safe. This was … something else.

  A blip of light caught my eye.

  For a second, I focused inward, expecting to see a message like I had before, hoping it would help me, tell me what to do, how to make it all stop, until I realized that, like the pale boy streaking across my vision, this light came from outside me.

  It was a spark, like life itself shining through to the darkness of my heart.

  It was coming from Michael.

  His skin was translucent like tissue paper, his body fighting the flame. Always fighting. Fighting me now.

  The spark of life lived in his heart, beating hard in his chest, so hard I could almost see its shape, its strength—a rapidly pounding thing that sent electricity through his veins. Just like Ruth had said, it was like magnetized cells, each one flowing with electricity.

  I wanted to catch hold of it. I wanted to find its calm. To feel the zap of it against me, to focus on something other than the raging heat and craziness surrounding my body and mind.

  With a shaking hand, I reached out to touch him.

  Inches away from his chest, his life was cool against my palm, the force of it so strong. Strong enough to pull me back to myself. A thread of sanity to cling to…

  Before I could touch him, men with hoses appeared from all directions, streaming foam into the arena, smothering the flames, and for a second I could breathe. Maybe it would be okay. They’d put the fire out and the only thing burning would be me.

  Michael’s hand shot to his heart, pressing his chest where I’d almost touched him, and for a second I was worried that I’d hurt him. The spark was hidden beneath his palm and he looked confused, as though he’d felt pain.

  For a moment I came back to myself. I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but his fear fed my own.

  Beyond the stage, the black scorpions were gone, disappeared with the break in my attention, but the heat waves rolled on and everything was alight now. The people were free and running, and this time the little girls’ parents scooped their daughters into their arms, carrying them away.

  I held my breath, hoping the foam would work, and for a moment the flames settled, sizzled.

  I exhaled, and with a single breath the stage lit up again. The flames that had died down flared again. Debris popped and fire burst through the foam. The men shouted as their hoses began to melt, the shock on their faces slapping me.

  “It’s no use. Let down the vat!” They gestured to the tower and the cry took up all around. In the next moment, everyone disappeared as fast as they could, carrying or dragging anyone who remained, rushing toward the walkway at the entrance to the area. Until it was just me and Michael and the flames working their way toward the tower itself.

  It was my fault nothing worked. As long as I stayed there, the fire would continue. If Tower Fourteen caught alight, thousands of people would be homeless. The only way for it to stop was for me to go. I couldn’t go the same way as the escaping people, so I’d have to head behind the burning wooden huts and try to find an exit that way. I wondered if I’d have to climb up the mountain and into the icy peaks.

  I scrambled away from Michael, seeking purchase on the jagged stage, surprised by my own agility as I balanced on the broken boards. I had nectar in my blood, and suddenly the idea of scaling a cliff didn’t seem so unrealistic.

  Michael shouted my name as he clambered after me. “Ava! I love you! Don’t be scared. Just move! You can beat it. I know you can.”

  As I reached the edge of the stage, there was a great whoosh, a roaring from the tower, and I realized they’d released the water vat. It was their last defense against the flames.

  Gravity bore the water downward, a glistening stream on the side of the tower facing the open area, the force of it drowning out the harsh sizzle of water hitting scorched earth, tumbling stalls, tables, and chairs as it crashed onward. Thousands of gallons of water rushed toward us, forming a hundred foot high wall.

  When they’d opened the water vat outside Tower One, the water had rushed over the edge of the cliff, dousing the flames in the surrounding forest, but here the water would crash against the mountainside in one huge wave before it beat back the other way. Michael could hold his breath a lot longer than me, but even so, he could get pulled back the other way, back toward the train station and the cliff…

  I ran to him and shoved my foot down onto the stage so hard that I broke a hole at our feet. I grabbed him and pulled us both down into it, below the surface. Michael landed on his feet and straightened. Beneath the stage, there was an eerie quiet, an illusion of calm.

  I shouted. “Stay here! Don’t let the water take you.”

  Please don’t hate m
e for what I did. Please don’t hate me for what I am.

  He reached for me but I leaped through the jagged hole to the surface of the stage.

  The impact was seconds away. The great wall of blue pounded toward me. I tipped my head back and closed my eyes. Took a last breath. I needed to be washed away. As the water reached me, only then did I realize that he’d told me that he loved me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE WALL of water slammed into me.

  Every bone in my body crunched.

  I tumbled backward in the wash, swallowing water as I forced back a scream, a cry of pain and fear, feeling relief as immense as the flame itself as the impact snatched away the edge of the vast energy, scrubbing the black tears from my face, cleansing me.

  The rushing water boiled and cooled, slamming me against one of the posts at the side of the stage, and the bones in my back snapped.

  Black liquid mixed with water, curling around me, and for a second I bled nectar before I healed. Then the water flung me onward, toward the mountain face. I let it take me, trying to roll with the wave. I couldn’t see a thing but knew the mountain was close, that I’d hit it soon.

  My heart thrummed, my vision heightened. I spread my arms and pushed and it was too easy to move, as though my muscles had increased their strength tenfold.

  The rock face loomed, an approaching shadow that took shape and color. I pushed backward against the flow, the effort easing the burning energy, but even with my new strength I was no match for the sheer weight of the water.

  It tumbled me forward toward the rock, nothing to cushion the impact. The collision jarred my every bone and muscle, crushing me between rock and waves. The side of my head connected with stone and the water filled with black again.

  Then the wave rebounded and took me with it, several feet back the way I’d come, except there was another force working now. Something was pulling me down. Not the water crashing backward after the hit but something at ground level. I spiraled, crashed back against the rock, was sucked down another few feet, crashed back again. Nectar shot through my veins like bullets, pumping bursts of energy into my arms and legs and into my head, making me spin and burn, giving me the energy to swim down in the direction of the pull.