by Hanna Peach
Just great. “But it’s not like everyone’s talking about it, right?”
Jovanna bit her lip. “Are you going to training?”
“Yes…”
“Now?”
“Yes. Jovanna, what is it?”
“I just…want you to be prepared.”
“So, the body was exactly how you envisioned it?” said Tii’la, a warrior from another flock. Her voice betrayed her disbelief.
It had been a day, one damn day, since Symon reported her vision to the Elders, but already the news had spread throughout the lightwarrior camp like hellfire. Alyx had tried to avoid their questions but they gathered around her as they waited for the call to signal the start of training. Jovanna had tried to warn her…
“Yes, exactly how I envisioned it,” Alyx replied.
She tried to move around Tii’la but Tii’la blocked her path with yet another question. “Why would the death of a Darkened even matter enough to have a vision about it?”
Good question. One that Alyx didn’t have an answer to. “I… I don’t−”
“It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Me neither, Alyx wanted to say.
“Have you had any more visions since?” someone else asked.
“Can you see anyone’s future?” asked another.
“What’s in my future?” another yelled out.
This was getting ridiculous. She had to get out of here. Before Alyx could move, a voice rang out over their heads. “You don’t actually believe her, do you?”
Alyx stiffened. A small murmur stirred in the Seraphim around her as her accuser pressed forward to face her.
It was Yael. Yael may have been handsome, rugged perhaps was a better description, if not for his whip-lipped snarl and the constant roll of anger behind his glare. A few more lightwarriors were hustled out of the way as Do’hann and Stantanople, two other warriors of Yael’s flock, also stepped forward.
“I’m not lying,” Alyx said.
“Aren’t you?” A small smile played at the corner of Yael’s lips as he surveyed his audience. “You expect any intelligent Seraphim to believe that you, an unsanctioned child of eighteen winters born of two ungifted Rogues, have suddenly revealed yourself as an Oracle? The only Oracle since Elder Raphael?”
Raphael had been a Chief Elder. One of the original three Seraphim Brothers. He had killed himself over a thousand years ago when his visions became…too much.
Yael’s eyes narrowed at her. “You must think we’re stupid.”
“I never claimed to be an Oracle.”
“No, you just have visions of things before they happen.”
“It was one vision,” she lied. “I hardly think it constitutes jumping to any wild conclusions.”
“You know what I think?” Yael said, taking one grinding step forward. “You put that body there.”
“No!” Alyx cried. She heard the murmur pick up around them. Some of the lightwarriors around her were nodding, already accepting Yael’s accusation. It was, after all, a more believable scenario.
“It’s pathetic to what lengths you will go to try and impress the Elders with your new gift.” Yael punctuated this last word with quotation marks flicked in the air with his fingers.
“I don’t need to invent gifts to impress the Elders. I already did that when I beat you at the last Winter Games.” It was a low blow. Alyx knew that she would probably pay for it later, but at the moment she didn’t care.
Yael’s jaw tightened and his snarl seemed to coil further. “You got lucky.”
Luck had nothing to do with it. Her flock had beaten Yael’s despite coming up against stolen advantages and near-cheating. Alyx had been instrumental in securing the title. Right now, however, she took little pleasure in reliving those moments.
“You’re just a sore loser, Yael.”
“And you are an unsanctioned throwaway. It’s only a matter of time before you go Rogue and join your pathetic parents in exile where you belong.”
Her nostrils flared and she shifted her legs wide in a fighting stance, fingers gripped in hard knots by her side. “You can say what you want about me, but you will not talk about my parents. Take it back or I’ll beat some manners into you.” Alyx noticed too late that Yael had straightening up and that the crowd had gone silent.
A voice bellowed from behind her, “I don’t appreciate you threatening my warriors.”
Her shoulders pinched. She turned slowly. The crowd was already shrinking back from flock leader Varian.
Varian was one of the oldest Earthborn in Michaelea. The centuries under this planet’s cruel sun had toughened his skin to weathered leather. It was rumored that of all the leaders, only Varian was given the right to choose his warriors from those who had Come of Age. It was no secret that Varian worked his trainees into the ground. He had forged out some of the best lightwarriors from Michaelea, winning the Winter Games for the last twenty years. Unbeatable...until last year.
“She started it, Leader,” said Do’hann.
“That’s right, Leader. We were just minding our own business,” Stantanople said.
Alyx started to protest.
“Silence,” Varian’s voice reverberated around the platform. “Fifty points against your flock, Alyxandria. I’m sure Symon will not be pleased.” A rumble started in the crowd but quickly fell silent under Varian’s glare.
This was how they were punished, how they were kept in line. This was how they were rewarded − as a flock. One suffers, they all suffer. One gains, they all gain. Punishment against yourself was easy to take, but when anything you did affected your leader and your flock, the Seraphim who risked their lives to stand beside you...that was different.
Points were gained or lost throughout the year, and were redeemed at the beginning of every Winter Games for weapons, armor, food and other advantages. Fifty points was half a dozen weapons or a week’s food rations, crucial things Varian just took away from her flock.
“That isn’t fair.” Alyx fought to keep her voice steady.
No one moved even as the final call to training sounded, the tension in the air thick enough to slice with a dijis.
“It doesn’t matter what you think is fair, does it?” Varian raised an eyebrow at her, a challenge to disagree with him. Alyx felt the crowd around them collectively holding their breath.
No one from her flock was here. They were all on the far side of the training area where she would have been too if she hadn’t been waylaid by this crowd with their damn questions. She sought out some support in the midst of faces around her, but no one met her eye. It appeared that no one else was prepared to speak out for her.
Cowards. She hated them all.
“No,” Alyx spat out. “It doesn’t.” She turned to leave but−
“I’d like an apology,” Varian said.
Alyx wrestled for control as she turned back to Varian, her fists itching to strike at him. Instead, she forced herself to tilt her chin down in a curt bow. “Sorry.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Leader Varian.”
“What?”
“You shall address me as Leader Varian.”
Alyx could hear the soft sniggers of Yael and the other two behind her. Her cheeks flamed and she bit back the sting that was forming along her jaw.
“I’m sorry, Leader Varian.”
“Get out of here before I start deducting more points. You’re delaying my training session.”
Control over self is the greatest battle, Alyx could almost hear Symon say. Just walk away. She forced herself to turn. She pushed through the crowd, trying hard to ignore the whispers trailing behind her.
One day you’ll show them. You’ll show them all.
Chapter 5
He was in a white room. White, white, everything white. No windows. No doors. Only noises. Noises all around him.
Someone was trying to get at him. Not someone. Something. The demons were after him. The
y wanted him for something…
Something banged, making him jump. The scratching sounds, like claws, began. He spun round and round, following the noises, round and round the outside of his prison.
The stench of his fear crowded up the small room, choking him. There was nowhere for him to hide. Nowhere to hide as the sounds of the thing after him traveled around and around.
It started to tear at the walls, which had become thin like sheets of paper. Black claws. White walls.
He screamed.
And woke up sweating.
Alyx sat up, breathing hard, her heart racing. The fingers of her right hand clutched at the sheets looking to comfort him. As if he were lying next to her. But he wasn’t lying next to her. She didn’t even know who he was.
It was just a dream. Just a silly nightmare. But it wasn’t her nightmare. It was his. This wasn’t the first nightmare of his that she had…intruded upon. This had been happening almost every night since her first vision of him.
The echoes of his terror remained in her heart as she lay back down and clutched the blankets to her chest. It was all she could do just to keep from tearing out of her pod to find him.
“Who are you?” she hissed into the night. “Why are you in my head?” Or more accurately, why was she in his head. What the hell was going on?
She was going to figure out who this damn Rogue was, find him, and make him stop plaguing her life with his nightmares and his slaughter-happy rage fest and all these damn feelings. The first place to start in was the message he carved into his last victim…Adere.
Chapter 6
The next night, Symon and his flock were patrolling the streets of Saint Joseph, the part of Saint Joseph where mortals slid through shadows, hiding their faces behind raised collars as they slipped into noisy dens filled with smoke and too much flesh.
Usually Symon and Alyx patrolled side by side, but tonight Alyx was so far in front of him he struggled to keep her in sight. There was something bothering her. She had been off lately. Jumpy. Distracted. But Symon knew her well enough to leave her alone. If she needed him, she would come to him.
The wind picked up. They’re somewhere close, Symon thought. I can smell them. They smelled of old graves, ripe with moist earth, soured with age.
Up ahead, Alyx rounded a corner out of sight. Symon pressed his lips together. One day that girl will be the death of me.
* * *
Alyx’s skin coursed with a familiar electricity as she moved through this alleyway. Her jacket was sleeveless to show off her bloodink marks, tattoos inked with bloodmagic. Black feathers capped the shoulders to hide the metal barbs underneath and thin, flat ribs of an Alchemist metal-blend was sown across the chest, creating a flexible shield. More metal ribs were sewn into the fabric of her high collars, full forearm cuffs and the shins of her dark pants. Her jacket opened at the belt and swept down to her ankles to hide the various weapons sheathed on her hips.
A discarded flyer flicked up around her black booted heels before settling back down into the gutter and becoming part of the sludge. The Darkened were close, she could feel it. She could feel life leaking out across the air. It felt dull and sharp and it hurt her teeth, as if she had just bitten down on metal.
Across the entrance to a small alleyway she could see the dim shadow of someone, or something, moving beyond the bullet-marked walls. Her ears picked up a muffled noise over the dull ache of bass-heavy music coming from a nearby strip club. It sounded like a woman’s cry.
Alyx snatched her soris from her hip, each muscle swelling with impatience as she rounded the corner to the dark alley. Four Darkened turned their faces towards her, their mortal masks stretched over their demon faces, grotesque and snarling underneath.
One creature was pressing into a mortal woman against a wall, her tight red dress now bunched up around her hips, no underwear, and dirty bare feet, shoes lost somewhere in the muck. Her head lolled back, moaning, her life drawing away into the body of the demon that held her. Bet this wasn’t the good time she envisioned when she had dressed for the evening.
The other three Darkened hovered close by, clawing at her bare shoulders, no doubt waiting for their turn with her.
“Sorry, dirt crawlers,” Alyx said tilting her body into a fighting stance, “kitchen’s closed for the evening.”
The four Darkened glanced at her, then at each other. The one holding the woman appraised Alyx standing on her own, then threw back his head and laughed to the sky. His voice grated against her ears like crushing glass: “Kill the little sparrow-girl.”
The other three Darkened drew their demonswords.
To Alyx, the rest of the world faded. The growling resonance of faraway cars and the tantrum of the city disappeared. She could hear the sound of small loose stones rolling underfoot of the creatures circling her. She could hear all three of them breathing, could hear the slide of material rubbing against skin as they moved. Based on the sounds they made, she mapped out the outline of the creatures around her in her mind.
There was a sudden shift of air behind her and the crack of weight shifting over gravel in front of her. Alyx whipped her torso down and around in a low arc, evading the sword that whistled past her head. At the same time, she kicked her legs out behind her, fluttering horizontally in the air like a deadly butterfly. She struck the creature behind her in two places, a bruising hit and a sharp crack. She heard a shriek from him, muffled in her ears as if underwater. She spun out of her kick midair and lashed her soris out at the third Darkened, cutting him across his neck. He started to fall.
The Darkened in front of her gripped his demonsword with both hands. Starting low, he swept his blade up towards her. Alyx spun again, out of his reach, keeping her eyes on his hands. His knuckles were white, the tendons were raised in his pale forearms. He was holding his sword too tightly and throwing too much force behind his swing. Fear made you do that. This Darkened feared her. This made Alyx smile.
As she floated out of her spin, she watched as the demon’s sword rose up towards the end of its arc. There − his side was exposed. She struck out, her sword a snake’s tongue. The tip entered the delicate flesh under his ribs and angled up towards his heart. A lovely angle. No resistance from rib bones.
The creature dropped his sword first, collapsed to his knees, then the rest of him hit the ground. In the distance Alyx could see the fourth Darkened disappearing up a far building. The mortal woman, discarded, had slid down the wall to the ground.
Alyx turned to the Darkened behind her, still wailing on the ground, clutching his thigh, a shard of white bone protruding at a disconcerting angle from his torn pant leg.
“Oh hush, you baby.” Alyx grabbed a fistful of his hair. She yanked his face up towards hers so she could see the whites surrounding his mortal eyes and the yellows surrounding his red ones. “What is Adere?”
“W-what?”
Alyx rolled her eyes. She really wasn’t in a good mood. She placed one foot on top of his injured thigh and pushed down just a little. Just enough. A howl escaped his lips.
“Adere,” she said. “It means burn in the original language. Someone is carving that word into the bellies of dead Darkened. What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” he choked out. “It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Alyx pushed down again. Another wail tore into the sky.
“I don’t know. I swear.”
She glared at him and stomped down.
This time his scream was cut off. His figure slumped forward...off the end of Symon’s blade. “That is enough, Alyx.”
She kicked the flaccid body off her legs. “He knew something.”
“No, he didn’t. A thousand nights in Hell. What has gotten into you?”
“Nothing,” she muttered. Nothing at all. Just a mysterious Rogue who wouldn’t let go of her.
* * *
“You. Stay behind,” Symon ordered Alyx before she could disappear back to her pod. They had just landed in the warrio
rs’ area of Michaelea after their patrole session.
She was in trouble. Again.
Elysia and Xavier gave her a look of pity and a pat on her arm before they slunk away into the night to let her face Symon alone.
Alyx watched Symon’s jaw; if she could see the twitch of muscle it meant he was tensing, which meant that whatever he wanted to talk to her about was really not going to be pleasant.
Twitch. This was not a good sign.
“Look,” she started, “I didn’t mean to get carried away with that Darkened.”
“It’s not about that.” Symon’s eyebrows pressed together, creating a deep crease between them. Really really not a good sign. “Varian came to see me earlier this evening. He told me that you caused a scene at his training session.”
“I didn’t start it.”
“Alyx.”
“That point deduction was totally unfair.”
“Alyx.”
“Yael was saying the most−”
“Alyxandria.” This time Alyx shut her mouth. Symon took a deep breath before he spoke again. “People will always talk, you can’t stop that. But−”
“−but I shouldn’t react to it. Yes. I know.”
“If you know then why−”
“He insulted my parents.” Alyx bristled as rage surfaced like blood in water. “He accused me of planting that body at the park so I could claim to have a gift.”
“He said those things because you react to it, just like he wants.”
“It was hateful.”
“Any fool can start a fight. It takes real courage to walk away from one.” Symon sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Your parents were good Seraphim, despite...despite some poor decisions that they made. I know that. You know that. What does it matter what Yael or anyone else says?”
Alyx felt her internal controls begin to shake against the swelling of her anger. Why didn’t he ever take her side? “It matters to me. But you obviously don’t care.” She spun to fly away from him.
“I’m not finished with you yet.”