Lower Earth Rising Collection, Books 1-3: A Dystopian Contemporary Fantasy

by Eden Wolfe

  Maeva turned her eyes to the files on her desk. “Go. Circle all of Lower Earth if you must. The knowledge will either build you or break you. If you are to be Queen then it’s best you know all you will be up against.” Her eyes didn’t lift from the pages before her. “Go now, leave me. I have a crumbling country to keep alive.”

  Ariane turned to leave, back out the balcony from where she came.

  “Ariane!”

  She turned back to her mother. She couldn’t mistake the sight. Revulsion. Her mother’s eyes were filled with revulsion. She’d been blind to it before, believing her mother’s tactics hard for the purpose of teaching her. But now there was no question.

  Her mother hated her.

  “When you find what you’re looking for, Future Queen Ariane, don’t you dare come back to me for answers. If you appear on my balcony unannounced again, I will tear out your throat. You hear me? I will tear out your perfectly designed throat.”

  Ariane had turned, and there was the butterfly, floating in the moonlight, up and away, far away. Somewhere Ariane would never see it again.

  Her hand grabbed at the lava rock, the thirteen-year-old girl still alive in her twenty-four-year-old chest. The butterfly that had floated from the sky as Ariane had scaled the roof in darkness faded.

  But the look on her mother’s face stuck in her memory.

  I showed her. I’ve got it all back, haven’t I? I showed her, didn’t I?

  Her mother was dead. Ariane didn’t regret it for a moment, but now she wished she could show her, one last time, just how much she’d accomplished. How much closer she had brought Lower Earth to a world free from disease, where the women of Lower Earth would be of genetic perfection. Little by little the weakest died out, as they must, and the strong took over.

  The strong.

  She had to be surrounded by only the strongest.

  But some of the strongest were those very women who opposed her.

  I must win them. I must win Daphna. I must win Irene. I must find those with the greatest potential, and they must become my inner circle. They must love and protect me.

  Or else I’ll never be able to rest.

  Ariane let her head come down to her hands. She sent a wish up to the settlers, though she was pretty sure they weren’t listening to her. Their communication had thus far been one way only. Ariane was to obey everything and not ask for anything. That much she had understood.

  38

  Leadon

  Leadon was surprised by the emotion running through her as she watched Irene load the small boat with supplies. She blinked and found that tears were welling in her eyes. She had thought that such kinship between her and Irene had been impossible, that the only thing they shared was DNA.

  She had been wrong.

  Realizing now that she didn’t know when - or if - she would ever see Irene again, Leadon found that all her sense of power, leadership, and poise had been exchanged for concern, insecurity, and sadness.

  With Irene leaving, it meant that Gana no longer had any representation in the fortress. Their political situation would be forever changed. This would leave them more vulnerable than she had thought. While Irene may have earned herself criticism, disgust, and loathing for having traded the power of the ancestors for those of the settlers, Leadon knew that Irene had always kept a firm arm for Gana in the machine of the fortress.

  Now they had no one.

  The boat rocked on the water. It was a small vessel and Leadon feared it would not take them the full distance, across the waters to the only island they believed inhabitable and not under the control of Upper Earth.

  Irene dropped a small sack and walked back along a plank to the dock. Her face gave nothing away. Leadon couldn’t tell if she was fearful, regretful, eager... there was no sign of anything.

  Leadon’s emotion was written across her face and she knew it.

  Irene looked up from the plank and saw her.

  She walked straight to her and put her hand on Leadon’s shoulder. “I was never as I should have been with you.”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself.”

  Irene looked up at the sky.

  “I do. But I don’t yet have the words. My world is spinning even as the earth beneath my feet remains in place.” She looked back at Leadon. “I hope when I find what I want to say that I shall have an opportunity to say it to your face.”

  “As do I.”

  Roman passed them, carrying a box of provisions. They watched him pass. His eyes stayed fixed on the plank before him.

  Irene put her other hand on Leadon’s other shoulder and they leaned their heads in, foreheads touching.

  “Don’t be afraid for us.”

  “I will be afraid, not for you, but for all we are becoming.”

  “That is worthy of your fear. You must lead like no one before has led, Leadon.”

  Leadon inhaled. The smell of Irene’s fortress uniform was both familiar and startling. She heard footsteps approach them, but Leadon didn’t want to interrupt the closest thing to an embrace that she and Irene had ever had. Slowly, they separated and stood before each other, the younger and elder of the same woman, and they spoke of their dedication with their eyes.

  “Go well, Irene.”

  “I am Irilena. I was always Irilena, even when I forgot it.”

  “May the ancestors accompany you on your voyage, Irilena-weh.”

  Irene nodded, turned, and walked onto the boat.

  Priya stepped closer to Leadon as the boat with Irene, Roman, and two warrior priestesses pushed away. Off they went. Leadon felt Priya’s eyes on her as the boat had nearly disappeared between the waves, but she wasn’t ready to break the spell of its rhythmic rolling into the horizon.

  Leadon looked at Priya, but they didn’t speak for a long moment.

  Priya brought her hand to Leadon’s arm and squeezed. “There is goodness in her we didn’t expect.”

  “You didn’t expect.”

  Priya nodded. “Goodness that I didn’t expect.”

  “I share her blood. I know what else lies within her.”

  Priya nodded.

  “Without her, what am I?” Leadon looked past Priya. She tried to bring herself back into the present moment. “What of the girl?”

  “Gillian is with the Sisters. They are taking her back to the Dark Counties.”

  “Good, good,” Leadon said, but she couldn’t focus.

  Neither woman spoke as the sound of the waves filled the space between them.

  As they reached the edge of the main village, Leadon saw one of the lookouts pacing, hands wringing, quick breathing.

  What’s happened now?

  Leadon and Priya looked at each other and then quickened their steps.

  “Chief!” the lookout cried on seeing them. “Thank goodness you’re back. I didn’t believe my eyes at first, it’s been so long since we’ve received any kind of message from the capital.”

  “There’s a messenger here? Speak faster!” Leadon’s heartbeat thumped in her ears. They’d managed to keep Irene and Roman’s arrival a secret from the rest of the Ganese, but was it possible someone in the capital knew?

  The messenger had been spotted in the distance, formal garb from the capital was the clearest sign something was different. Not a usual message, not a diffusion of information by a low-level messenger that they’d seen often in recent times.

  This was different.

  And the messenger was now waiting at the gates. She wouldn’t enter until the chief was there; only the chief would be audience to the message she had to deliver.

  Leadon marched toward her without a thought for anything else but the question of why the messenger had come.

  “Chief Leadon,” the messenger bowed her head.

  Leadon bowed her head low though inside she was bursting, ready to pounce, or attack, or react in whatever way was necessary depending on the messenger’s next words.

  “Tell me why you have come, and why you w
ill speak only to me.”

  “I bring a request from the Queen,” the messenger looked to the other warrior priestesses standing around. “May we go somewhere quiet?”

  Leadon turned, “Follow me.”

  She led the messenger to her hut, but didn’t let her get any further past the threshold.

  “Speak now. My patience is very, very thin.”

  “I can understand your anxiety.”

  “Not anxiety, anticipation. And you, messenger, seem very unaware that you are surrounded by a population who will not hesitate to make a show of you if you do not speak your message and quick.”

  “Understood,” the messenger stiffened. “The Queen inquires into the well-being of the Ganese.”

  “Our well-being? We are under constant threat of illness, though our agricultural stores are holding up.” She lowered her chin, “Now tell me the real reason you’ve come or get out of my hut.”

  “She expects to receive word personally.”

  “She wants me to come to Geb?”

  “No, not you.”

  Leadon shook her head, “Not me? Not the Chief?”

  The messenger took a deep breath and spoke words that had clearly been given to her, “The Queen would not purport to pull you away from your people during such sensitive times as this. Instead, she simply requests that the Keeper of the Chief provide a report at the fortress, so that the Queen may hear with her own ears about the plight of the Ganese and our collective future.”

  “She wants Priya?”

  “For a report.”

  Leadon blinked. This was unexpected. Priya had delivered the message back when the Sisters were making their way to Geb, nothing more than that. But Priya was also her most faithful companion. Did the Queen intend to seek truth through Priya that she thought Leadon wouldn’t provide? Or did she mean to turn Priya against her?

  Priya will not be turned. She will be true to the end; she swore it.

  “Priya will accompany you back to the fortress.”

  The messenger bowed, “Thank you, Chief. That makes my reply to the Queen infinitely easier. I will wait outside the gate until she is ready to go.”

  “You can wait inside the gates for her.”

  The messenger’s face changed and Leadon caught her glancing around as if someone might jump her from behind. “I’d rather not, thank you.”

  Once the messenger was on her way to the gates, Leadon called Priya into her hut and explained.

  Priya’s face dropped as Leadon reached the point in the story where Priya would be the one to go to the capital.

  “Why me?”

  “She’s asked for you.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. She never spoke of you to me when I came with Gillian. You saw her – was there anything that transpired between you then?”

  “I would have told you!”

  “Perhaps it was subtle. Think back. Did anything occur that might explain why she has specifically called upon you?”

  Priya closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Leadon could feel her frustration. But this Queen was nothing if not unpredictable. That her messenger should arrive on the day Irene set off for the island of discarded children, then to call for Priya by name, the coincidences seemed too many to be happenstance.

  Priya lifted her head. “She looked at me.”

  Leadon waited, but Priya did not continue. She was starting to worry there might be more to the Queen’s request after all.

  “She looked at you, and...?”

  “And that was it. But I saw something in her eyes. Like she was seeking something out from inside me. I assumed it was just the intensity with which she looks at everyone,” she paused. “But it was strange. Yes, she looked at me strangely indeed.”

  Leadon couldn’t think of a reason why any of this was happening in the way it was.

  But perhaps that was the whole point. Their world was out of balance and she couldn’t see any way that would change, not anytime soon.

  Priya’s eyes were wide, waiting on Leadon to speak.

  Leadon put her hand on Priya’s shoulder. “We will find our way through this. The ancestors have brought us through time to this particular point and there is reason for it, even if we don’t yet know what it is. Prepare for your voyage.”

  Priya blinked and turned.

  “Priya!” Leadon couldn’t let her leave, not just like that.

  Priya turned back slowly, eyes glazed.

  “No matter what happens, this is your home. I am your home. We’ll navigate this.”

  Leadon’s own eyes glazed and she had to blink to see Priya, feeling the tear run down her cheek.

  The two women, proud, strong women of the land, held each other with their eyes for as long as they could before the call of time demanded that they move forward, into the unknown.

  39

  Daphna

  “That’s her,” Lynn pointed to a woman across the field. She was gathering bushels together, putting them onto a cart, thus far unaware she was being watched.

  “Yes. Indeed, that’s her.”

  It felt like a lifetime had gone by since Daphna had seen Gale. It wasn’t that they had ever been close, but Daphna had always kept a certain eye on Gale, knowing where she had come from. Any waiting-woman from the fortress, and especially one who had been so obviously close to the Queen, warranted that extra level of observation.

  Daphna hardly recognized her now. Gale’s hair had grown out while her body had thinned. She maneuvered various bushels of food, hauling them across the field, as though she had done it her whole life.

  Gale had always been adept at blending in. She did it with the Sisters, why wouldn’t she do it again in the Dark Counties?

  A part of Daphna was desperate to rest. Their trip had been as fast as possible given their means and she was feeling the exhaustion catching up with her now. But if she waited, what was to say that Gale wouldn’t somehow get spooked, or learn of their presence and take off again? No, there were needs much greater than hers, and once the Queen found out that Irene had not come to collect Gale, it would only be a matter of time before some deployment would snatch her up and take her back to the capital to be bled like an animal for the rest of her life.

  No, this has to happen now.

  Daphna looked to Lynn and nodded, and then marched in Gale’s direction.

  Gale didn’t see her until she was almost there. When she locked eyes with Daphna, Gale froze. Bushel in her arms, she stared at Daphna as though watching a ghost floating towards her. Her face went white, but her expression didn’t change. Daphna approached to about ten feet from her and they stood that way for a long moment, neither woman daring a word.

  Gale blinked. “Can I help you?” she said in a voice that gave no sign of recognition.

  “You know me.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  Is she putting on an act? Or has the illness done damage to her?

  “You do, Gale. I can understand your hesitation. But you must know that nobody holds any grudge against you.”

  Gale reanimated, color coming back into her face. She lifted the bushel in her hands up into the cart. “I’m sorry, I must prepare for the collector’s rounds. She’s been noticeably stricter of late; we understand the needs in the capital are great right now. Starving women and such.”

  Daphna reassessed her strategy. It seemed that being direct was the only way she was going to bring Gale around.

  “The Sisters have set up the camp a couple of miles from here. I can understand why you would want to stay hidden, but you won’t be able to, not for very long, the Queen is coming for you. What they’re looking for is in your blood, Gale,” Daphna stepped closer to the former waiting-woman and former Sister. Gale wouldn’t make eye contact. “You were infected with illness... and remedy. And you’re going to find yourself a biological slave unless you come with me now.”

  Gale continued as though Daphna hadn’t spoken at all.

 
; Daphna was starting to lose her patience.

  “I need you to hear this and understand it quickly. You may not be responsible for having become infected, but you are responsible for the illness spreading to this place. The lives lost here, because of you. We need to put an end to this, Gale. Come with me now or you’ll find yourself under the power again of the Queen, and she only has one plan for you. It’s not one you will survive.”

  Gale stopped but still wouldn’t look up at Daphna.

  Daphna didn’t want to have to force her, she didn’t want to have to bring the Sisters to abduct her, but she would if she had to. Everything would be easier if Gale came with them now.

  Gale didn’t move nor speak.

  Daphna took a risk. “I’m leaving now. I’m turning around and I’m walking away from this place. My offer to help you is time-limited. When I leave, it’s over and you are on your own. You need to drop those bushels and forget the Dark Counties’ collectors. You need to come back to the Strangelands. We will keep you safe. Together we will overcome this illness and the injustice that has been done to you.” Daphna briefly closed her eyes. “None of this is fair, and none of this is right. But here we are. My offer stands for the period of time it takes me to walk back across this field.”

  Daphna turned and walked away. Her legs kept her moving forward, away from the place where Gale stood, though her mind was screaming at her to go back and shake some sense into the woman. But she had to give Gale a chance to come on her own. Everything would be better if she came on her own.

  Please, just come. Use your sense; recognize what you’re up against. And do it quick, before I finish crossing.

  Each step felt heavy, like a step further away from where she needed to be.

  Then she heard the grass shifting behind her. She stopped and turned, Gale running in her direction. She was running hard, her legs lifting high and her arms failing like a child. As she got closer, Daphna could see Gale’s chest lifting and falling, heaving sobs escaping from her lips. Gale arrived and crashed at Daphna’s feet, grabbing at her, sobbing, cries to the heavens escaping her lips.