The Reformation

by Garggie Talukdar

  He gave a stiff nod, eyes red as he marched off to kill or be killed for not following orders, and it painfully reminded Stel that she was in a similar position not too long ago. And despite the fact that she knew she was better, her primal instincts took over as she chose to kill over being killed. There was a cough from across the room, and Stel watched as Celine coughed up more blood, her breathing not levelling out yet.

  “Well, Stel. I wasn’t lying about the signing, so I best be off. I’ll be impressed if you manage to get to the front door without getting caught with that pathetic mess,” she snarled, nodding her head over to the heap of a person that Celine was. She tossed something metallic on the floor, and with one last too-tight smile, she left.

  The key.

  But Stel was powerless, letting a futile cry spring from her lips as she tried to pull from her bonds again. Celine’s shallowing breathes were barely audible now, and Stel could help her. But she couldn’t because even though the key was only a few feet away, there might as well have been mountains in the way.

  After a few more painful attempts and empty sobs, Stel slumped against the wall, letting her head roll to the side, away from where the door was open. If she was going to suffer, she wouldn’t dare let one of the Immortales see her defeated self.

  A voice caused her head to jolt back into the wall, however. “Stel?”

  She whirled around, facing a beaten-up Z. His face was bruised and scratched, and there was a certain darkness that she had never seen in him, shadowing his dark eyes. “What did they do to you?” she asked, her voice a breath, tugging on her restraints again to see if she would become free, but instead was met by the sharp sting of her raw, bloody wrists hitting coarse rope.

  Z shrugged, closing the door behind him. “It's nothing. Now how do I get you out of here?”

  He approached her, eyes narrowed, though his left was already almost swollen shut. His lip was busted, blood dripping down his face, and there were two profusely bleeding punctures beneath his collarbone. Her eyes widened at his condition as if to as that's nothing?

  But Celine let out a groan, and Stel felt the pain of her wrists spring up again, so she willingly shut up. “You need to cut my restraints so we can help Celine.”

  His eyes widened. “Don't tell me that that came from Hollingsworth.”

  She swallowed. “Hurry up.”

  He nodded, limping to the door opening the door a crack to steal a peek before both leaving and entering the room once more within a blink of the eye. Wordlessly, he held up the knife that he presumably stole from a likely unconscious guard, running as quickly as he could over to her side with his injuries, carefully and hurriedly working at the bonds.

  “What happened?” he asked, and Stel felt a wave of nausea roll through her. She was going to have to tell Z exactly what she did to make Celine lay there on the floor, close to dead.

  She swallowed. “Instead of laying a hand on me, Kessia made me watch as Celine was putting through interval cardio, and every time. If she stopped, an electronic shock would…” she choked back a strangled noise. “If I didn't answer a question the speed would increase.”

  “Oh god.” Z breathed, and with one last slash, the rope around her wrists fell away.

  Grimacing, she rubbed at the sore skin, snatching the blade from Z's hand. “She threw the key on the floor. Grab it and help Celine. I'll manage,” He nodded, running off and Stel started to work on the bindings on her feet, feeling her anger flare up within her with each chop. How dare Kessia put in such a position. How dare Stel succumb to it again.

  “How is she?” she yelled, going frustrated with the unworkable thickness.

  “Alive. Is there a first aid kit anywhere?”

  “I don’t know,” she muttered, cursing as she fumbled with the knife, cutting herself instead of the ropes.

  Stel let out a strangled yell as she let the knife fall and started to savagely tear the knot apart with her hands. “Stel?” She looked up to see Z, his one good eye red with unshed tears, mouth agape. “She needs help,”

  Suddenly, time wouldn’t move slower. “You look for something to help her. I'll be there.”

  “Hurry,” he whispered frantically, moving to search the room, and it almost broke her heart to hear his voice. Not accusatory at all. Gentle, patient, sympathetic—and Stel Hathaway didn't deserve it at all. Z should have been screaming at her because it was because of her that his best friend was dying. She did this.

  She didn't know if it was the surge of emotion, and with it, energy, but the ropes came free. Stel sprinted to Celine, crouching over the girl. The knife that was pressed tightly on her palm, cutting into her skin, clattered to the ground as she reached to feel for the pulse of the girl, murmuring for forgiveness even though she could tell from the older girl’s dark eyes that she was forgiven a long time ago.

  “You'll be alright,” she whispered to Celine, pushing back the blonde’s hair, sticking to her forehead in a light sheen and choked back a sob at what she had done. “I'm sorry,”

  “You're forgiven.” She said in an equally light tone, taunt and edged in pain. “Only if you forgive me,”

  “Hey. You'll be alright,” she repeated.

  With a quick squeeze of Celine’s arm in reassurance, Stel pushed herself up to her feet, moving over to Z. “Find anything?”

  “Nothing that will help her.” Z hissed, tossing something to the ground. Pursing her lips, she knelt down to pick up the spilled contents.

  “Z. This has bandages!”

  “It won't help her,” he growled, and Stel stood, thrusting the roll of cloth into his chest.

  “It will help you. We need to get out as soon as possible, and you bleeding everywhere won't help us.”

  “We save her first.” Stel’s eyes met Z's unusually serious ones and she nodded.

  “We will. But if nothing here will help her, we need to get out. Do we have any weapons?”

  “Other than the knife?” Z asked, and Stel nodded. “No, though we can strip a few unconscious guards of some. Where is the knife, by the way?”

  Stel patted herself down, where she found no such weapon. “I dropped it next to Celine,” she remembered. She turned to where it was. “It's over…”

  She stopped herself when she spotted the blade coated in a crimson that wasn't there before. “God, no,” she breathed, remembering Celine’s words from before. You're forgiven, only if you forgive me.

  Not looking if Z was behind her, she ran back to where she left Celine, hidden by a wall.

  And there she was, breaths shallow as red wet her shirt, spreading.

  She stabbed herself.

  Fifty-Nine

  SOMETHING was wrong. Jax had hitched a ride over to Elix following ensuring the safety of everyone in the palace, as well as damage control—and in doing so, had turned up at the Immortale city later than expected. Jax had suspected that he would immediately be whisked into the full signing activities, but instead, he had been given a room to spend the hours of darkness in.

  But what had been more severely plaguing his mind, was the fate of the Strategists. Jax had seen the smoke billowing from his home, the angry-red flames licking the high ceilings and consuming the hallways of a life long-past, and it didn’t even take him a second to make the captain of the ship turn around. And when the ship wasn’t moving as fast as Jax would have liked, he didn’t hesitate as he dove into the dirty waters, swimming to shore and sprinting to the castle, the water-logged clothes not slowing him down.

  Still dripping, Jax realized that the fire wasn’t as bad as he had first presumed, but the smoke was thick and concealing. Luckily, the limited emergency services of New London had already arrived and were faithfully dousing out the fire, and with relief, Jax could count the few members of his staff (Jax had let many of those with better futures go; an orphan king wasn’t in need of a full staff) safe and sound. But not one of the 5—no—4 Strategists were out, waiting as the flames were extinguished.

&nbs
p; Heat fanning his face and better instincts warning him against it, he ran towards the West Wing, still untouched and devoid of any searing flames to see if he could find any of the Strategists. But before he could even get close to his aflame home, someone from the emergency service held him back. Despite all of the king’s pleads and commands, they didn’t let Jax through for his own safety, and Jax had to wait until there was only smoke for them to back off.

  Deserting his plan of going through the West Wing, he instead took to the North Entrance where the once gleaming columns and pillars were most commonly crumbled into oblivion, the groomed shrubbery deformed and weighed down by stray rubble. If he knew anything about the Strategists, it was that they always tended to be in the place of most trouble.

  “Celine! Z, January! Stel?” he called as he stepped over some more wreckage that lay scattered on the floor, hopeful for an answer.

  He received none.

  He pressed on, calling out their names as he ventured deeper into his destroyed home, where the smoke was thicker and more choking. “Celine, Z, Hathaway? Kurata-Tormont? Anyon-”

  Suddenly, the floor underneath the pile of singed wood to his right gave way, and Jax dropped to the ground, cradling his head in his arms as the structure shifted. As the dust settled, Jax warily stood, coughing in a futile attempt to excrete the mixture of smoke and dust from his airway. Careful of his footing, he moved over to where the floor caved in. The wood had fallen into a cavity, a hole that looked deliberately empty…

  The hidden passageway.

  Jax had his suspicions about what had started the fire, and his most recent theory involving the passageway computed with said suspicions. If the Strategists were looking to hide when the arsonists had come, they would most definitely use the hidden passageway, right?

  All inhibitions gone, Jax gingerly jumped into the opening, cursing himself for not thinking of this earlier. The passage was dark and, much to Jax’s dismay appeared to be caving in. If they were in here…

  Jax started to call out their names again, but before he could even get halfway, he saw the crumpled figure of January Kurata-Tormont. Fine dust coloured his light hair, grey, rubble scattered across his cheek. And he wasn’t moving.

  “January! Can you hear me?” Jax got no response, and he spurred into action, running to where the boy lay unmoving; kneeling over by his side, Jax pressed his two fingers to where the boy’s pulse should have been.

  He was alive.

  Sighing in relief as he felt January’s life thrum—albeit, a little too slow and faint for Jax’s liking—underneath his fingers, Jax moved to shake Jan, trying to make him gain consciousness. “January Kurata-Tormont! Come on. Please, answer me,”

  Jan groaned, moving slightly, and Jax remembered how to breathe again. “Jax?” January groggily asked, his deep voice unusually dry and scratchy. “My chest- hurting. Leg,”

  Still grasping January’s shoulder, Jax reached down to the injured boy’s leg, only to find out that it was buried underneath collapsed floorboards. “You probably inhaled a lot of smoke and there’s some debris on your leg. I won’t be able to help you alone, so wait here, and I’ll get you some help.” Jax weakly smiled, hurriedly turning to get the boy some help, but Jan’s hand shot out to grasp the king’s, effectively pulling him back.

  “The rest. Signing- go. And hurry,” he rasped out, eyes lidded.

  “Okay. Just let me get you some help.” Jax reasoned, but Jan’s grip hadn’t slackened.

  “No time,” he stopped to let out a raspy, gasping cough. “Send help. But you-go fast. The rest…”

  Whatever it was, it was urgent; the need in Jan’s grey eyes said as much. So Jax just nodded, sprinting over to the opening that he entered the passageway through, but just before Jax hoisted himself up to get help, he turned back to Jan.

  “Jan. The Elixir?” Jan’s hazed-over eyes met Jax’s, and he let out a small smile. Then his right fist opened and Jax saw it, the small crystalline vial filled with the honey-like substance. Even coated in dust, it still looked as lethal and beautiful as when Stel first brought it.

  Jax felt his shoulders sag in relief, knowing that the wretched thing was safe, and he whispered a thanks to January before he hauled himself up to run to the medics. After ensuring that they would get Jan out of there and into the hospital, he calmly walked himself to the docks to wait for a passage to Elix, all while trembling internally.

  And now here he was.

  The entire place was still as beautiful as when he had first come here, years ago as a child. But back then, he wore rose-tinted lenses of naivety and unknowingness, romanticizing all the harsh grey lines of Elix. Back then, he didn’t know of the blood that had run in rivulets from the sheer number of those massacred in the monstrosity of war. He didn’t know then that the timeless, graceful Immortales could be capable of so much destruction.

  Of total annihilation.

  So he arrived on the docks, a group of well-dressed Immortales awaiting him, overwhelming him with fake smiles and strained addresses that he had long-since gotten used to. He returned the charming smiles and cordial words, though he was too preoccupied to make a few cleverly hidden verbal stabs at them.

  The buildings were chrome and stacked high enough to reach the heavens. It was all a utopian suburbia, with its perfect fake grass, the cool breeze not ruffling one blade out of place, and spearheaded buildings that pointed in the only direction that Elix seemed to go. Up. Rising higher and higher, everything in the city seemed to have pointed to the Citadel. While everything else was glittering and had the appeal of glass-smooth, new, texture, the Citadel was the one thing in Elix that stood out with its charming architecture of the Second Era. It somehow lost its charm when Jax knew how purposefully they had designed the entire place, how they made sure that the Citadel’s swooping arches and seemingly effortless pastel asymmetry caught all the attention.

  It was also the most secure place on the entire Earth.

  And as Jax sat idly in the hover, zooming towards the city faster than any transport in NNR, Jax started musing over the weather in order to occupy his mind. He couldn’t for a second allow his mind to stray to the topic of the fate of the Strategists, or the fate of NNR, which he was about to seal for the next three years. The weather was perfect, which once upon a time pleased him and amazed him, but now… They were on what used to be Iceland. Iceland. It wasn’t supposed to be warm year-round, with a perfectly maintained weather schedule. He supposed that was one of the main differences with Immortales and Eartheners; one species was immortal and the other was not (as they were frequently reminded), and that point was further accentuated by the fact that the Immortales were so structured.

  Everything in their life was planned to a pinpoint; whether it was their weather or their smiles, it all felt so fake. Once upon a time, Jax craved this—order. But although he was no fan of chaos, he supposed it was precisely that that made them humans with mortal flaws, as he was bitterly reminded again by his annoyingly perfect surroundings.

  “King Jaxcon?” a voice called out, sending him sprawling out of the very concentrated musing he was going through, all while regarding the impossibly blue ocean lap up at the distancing shore, each break kissing the sand with the persistence only of ardour.

  He looked up to see one of the escorts, his face frozen somewhere in his 40s. He always found it so odd- an Immortale would magically one day stop any signs of visible aging, although their bodies would always develop to that of a mature adult without deteriorating any further. While he knew that it was impossible to stop aging before the age of 11, he was sure that he had seen some people who had looked to be at least a century old. So while this man in front of him couldn’t have looked to be a day over 46, Jax could only guess how old he really was. But while his eyes had the telltale signs of age- shadowed with the knowledge of how gruesome the world could really be- how much could this man have known? He didn’t live in NNR, where people died on the sides of the roads and cemet
eries were more common than hospitals. And though his eyes held the harshness of age, Jax could tell that this escort never had to worry about survival, fear about death. Suddenly, Jax felt as if his measly age of 19 was far too young for the hauntedness of his blue irises that peered back at him in a mirror.

  But he couldn’t say any of that aloud, so he simply managed his most charming, political smile as he gazed inquiringly at him. “Yes?”

  “We’ve entered the Immortal City of Elix.” The Immortal City of Elix. How fitting.

  Bitter thoughts aside, Jax let his smile show teeth as he dug his thumbs into his palms discretely. “It appears we have. Could we slow the hover down? I would love to see the city at a greater length.”

  “Of course, Your Highness.” The address somehow managed to sound like a straightjacket, but Jax shoved off that feeling as he stared out of the windows, trying not to glare as gorgeous, timeless buildings passed by, reminding him painfully of his own home.

  Crumbled to ashes. Before, he was focused on getting Jan to safety and making sure that everyone was alright, but now that he finally had the time for his mind to wander, he painfully remembered those memories that had been built in those exact hallways that were now singed and ruined. Thankfully, the destruction was only to a selective part of the castle. Still, Jax couldn’t help but mourn yet another loss to his pre-king life.

  He remembered how he used to chase Mayble down those same hallways, now charred and destroyed, as he was enraptured by her strawberry-hued hair set aflame by the morning sun. He relived the sound of his mother’s laugh, the rich tones mingling with the crisp autumn gales as she tended to the flowers—the ones that always seemed to perish at her fingertips no matter how much love and care she put into it—at the entrance, now weighed down by grey ash. He could almost see the sadness in his father’s Gallagher blue eyes as the late king told the young prince of the fate of the Queen of NNR as he wearily sat on the throne, a memory that Jax painfully recalled as he saw the throne room, where everything was now scorched with the exception of that wretched throne.