Eos (The Eos Dawn Series Book 1)

by Jen Guberman

  “That’s the surface reason. But there’s a greater reason why you’re here.”

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that? All this time and you’ve never given me an answer.”

  “I don’t know what your reason is. You’re supposed to figure that out yourself.”

  Lisette groaned in disgust.

  “You love me,” teased Flynn, leaning his head on her shoulder and batting his eyelashes at her.

  “You’re aggravating,” she said, her lips turning upwards into a smile as she nudged him.

  “Teehee,” he said, nuzzling against her shoulder as she laughed.

  “I think I’m going to get dinner and then go to bed,” Lisette said.

  “Carry me!” Flynn shouted, hopping on Lisette’s back.

  She let out a strained groan as she waddled toward the campground with Flynn on her back, his legs wrapped awkwardly around her.

  By the time the two were gone, it was just Zane and I left in the grotto.

  “Did you see it? You saw it!” Zane babbled excitedly.

  “Do you think that’s the key?”

  “What else would it be a key for?”

  “I don’t know. It could be something he brought from home—like something meaningful to him.”

  “Maybe. Should we ask him the story behind it? See if maybe we can find out that way?”

  “Oh, yeah, because that’s a great idea. ‘Hey, Flynn, where did you get that key? Oh! You found it in a box around Clamorite? Can we take it? Thanks!’”

  “Well, we could always steal it,” Zane suggested.

  “So, we ask him where he got it,” I started as Zane nodded, following along in agreement. “And then expect him to not be bothered when he wakes up and it’s missing?”

  “We will make sure we are long gone before he even wakes up.”

  “That’s a terrible idea. A terrible, stupid idea,” I said, glaring at Zane. “Let’s try it and see what happens.”

  Zane smiled, satisfied.

  We followed a short trail past the waterfall toward the campground. Many of the people were gathered around a fire, cheerfully conversing as they ate dinner. There were flimsy tents set up throughout the trees, and it seemed as if a few people had already gone into their tents for the night. Zane and I joined up with Lisette and Flynn by the fire without grabbing any food.

  “Aren’t you two going to eat?” Flynn asked.

  “Oh, um, we aren’t hungry,” I answered for us.

  “You really should eat something. We have plenty of food for all of us—plus we have enough for seconds, some days! Morgan says we get the most rations out of all the exile towns. Here, take my soup—I didn’t use the spoon yet,” he offered, holding out a bowl of what looked like a creamy tomato soup.

  “Thank you,” I said, accepting the bowl.

  “I’ll get you some, too…?”

  “Zane,” Zane answered.

  “Zane. I’ll get you some soup as well,” Flynn said, moseying toward a stack of bowls on the other side of the fire.

  “Lisette?”

  “Yes?”

  “You know that key around Flynn’s neck?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you know where he got it?”

  “Yup! He found it near the waterfall one day. He was climbing in trees with me, and he called over to me because he said he saw something shiny in the rocks by the water’s edge. When he went to check it out, he moved some rocks around and pulled out this really pretty mirror box. That key was the only thing in it. It was really weird, and we have no idea what it’s for, but he’s been wearing it ever since. He tries talking about how it’s some symbol or some crap like that. Says it represents opportunities or whatever. If you ask me, it’s just some weird little useless key that makes for a quirky piece of jewelry.”

  “That’s cool, though. Do you think he’s really attached to that necklace?” Zane asked. I subtly elbowed him in the side, and he glared at me in angry confusion.

  “Umm… I guess? I don’t know. Why?”

  “I was just wondering. You can learn a lot about a person by the things they place value in.”

  “I suppose.”

  Flynn returned, handing Zane a bowl of soup. Zane thanked him, and we all began to eat. When we finished, Lisette and Flynn said goodnight to us and made their way to separate tents. We stayed up for a while, until we were the last ones awake.

  “So?” I asked.

  “You heard Lisette. That’s gotta’ be the Clamorite key.”

  “So, we take it?”

  “So we take it,” Zane repeated.

  “You stand guard, I’ll grab the necklace,” I said, tucking back my hair and pulling up my hood.

  Zane stood outside Flynn’s tent, nodding to me. I slowly unzipped the tent, careful not to make a sound. I eased myself into the opening, the fabric crinkling with every tentative movement. Flynn lay there, eyes closed and mouth open slightly, peacefully breathing as he slept. I crept over on my hands and knees, looking down at him. I hate taking this from him if this thing gives him some kind of hope that there’s more than this. I dug out my pocketknife, pulling out the blade.

  Please don’t wake up.

  I delicately lifted the cord from his neck and sliced the leather with my knife. Flynn twitched in his sleep momentarily. I froze, knife in hand, until he settled down again. Steadily, I slid the key from the severed rope. I hurried carefully out of the tent, zipping it shut behind me as slowly as I had opened it.

  I held the key up to Zane with a grin.

  “Let’s go!” he urged, waving for me to follow him as he took off sprinting back toward the waterfall.

  We passed the entrance of the grotto, behind the waterfall, and we didn’t stop until we made it down the mountainside. Descending the mountain felt a lot faster than climbing it, and after less than an hour of rushing through the trees, we were at the base again. I tried to stop, squatting near the trunk of a tree, but Zane continued to powerwalk through the forest.

  “Where are you going?” I called after him, panting on the ground.

  “We have to keep moving. Let’s get to the truck.”

  “Zane! Are you joking? The truck doesn’t even work!”

  “Let’s try it again. We have to head that way to leave anyways.”

  “That’s a day’s hike away! We have to rest first.”

  “We can rest when we get to the truck,” he said, continuing.

  I pushed myself to my feet and trailed after him, struggling to breathe.

  “Zane, please! We have to rest. Just for a little while… please.”

  He stopped in his tracks and turned to face me. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair mussed. It took him a moment before he spoke.

  “Eos,” he said, his voice sounding gravelly. “We are so close. I don’t want to waste a minute that we could have that key. I want a moment that we can actually be free again. I don’t know where we are going to go when we get it, and I don’t know what there is for us out there, but I don’t want to be a part of the exile towns anymore. I’m done. I want to get away. This key is our chance to get the things we need to get by on our own with ease, whenever we need. We’ll have time to rest when we are free.”

  I stared back at him silently.

  “Fine. Just a couple hours and then we keep moving.”

  “Deal.”

  I curled up at the base of a tree, covering myself with my blanket. Before long, I fell asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  We reached the truck by early afternoon the next day. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t working.

  “We’re going to have to walk, Zane.”

  “It’s too far—it’ll take too long.”

  “We still have Lamb’s bag full of food. It’s enough food to last us a few days—we’ll be fine,” I said, making my way down the road and toward the tunnel.

  “How do you anticipate getting through the tunnel, E?” he asked, stopping behind me.

  I swore under my breath.
/>
  “I didn’t think about that.”

  “We need this truck to get us through that tunnel.”

  “Maybe the truck is just out of gas. Maybe the control panel will still work,” I said hopefully. “The tunnel is just over there—I can see it from here.”

  “What do you propose? Pushing the truck all the way over there? It’s just us two, and neither of us is notably muscular.”

  “Maybe it’ll work from over here.”

  “I guess we can try it,” he said, opening a door and reaching over. “Alright. I pressed it. I guess we’ll see.”

  We made our way to the tunnel and heard a pained squeak, followed by a slamming sound. We walked through the tunnel until we saw the gate, still blocking the entrance.

  “It didn’t work,” Zane said, discouraged.

  “I heard something though. Maybe it was the gate? Maybe we just need to be faster is all.”

  Zane sighed as he turned to make his way back to the truck again.

  “Let’s try it,” I said hopefully.

  We got to the truck and Zane reached out for the control pad.

  “Wait! Let’s count down, and when you press it, we run. On ‘go.’”

  “Alright,” Zane agreed. “Ready?”

  “Yup. 3…2…1…Go!”

  He pressed the button and we both took off sprinting toward the tunnel. The lights along the sides of the tunnel blurred together as I ran, making me dizzy. The gate was still open this time, and we bolted through it. It slammed shut just a moment later.

  We both stopped, laughing with a mixture of relief and amusement. After we caught our breath, we pulled out a map.

  “There,” I pointed to Fallmont.

  “Do you think we could make it by this time tomorrow?”

  “Probably. We’re going to have to stop somewhere to sleep though—we have to be alert if we’re going to break into Fallmont tomorrow.”

  “True,” Zane submitted in agreement.

  “I guess we go that way,” I pointed.

  “Lead the way.”

  Shortly before sundown, we stopped in some ruins, knowing we likely wouldn’t find anywhere else to spend the night before dark. We had been walking through nothing but sand for a bulk of the day, but eventually we came across what looked like the remains of a small village. The buildings were charred, and some were nothing but crumbled pieces of rubble. Zane and I picked one of the sturdier looking cottages to stay in, piling our bags near the door when we entered.

  “Do you remember when we stayed in those ruins before Delaisse?” I asked, spreading my blanket out on the floor.

  “Of course I do, E,” he said, looking at me thoughtfully.

  “That’s about when I realized you weren’t a huge jerk,” I smirked. “You still are, sometimes.”

  “I am not!” He laughed defensively.

  “Are too. You weren’t very nice to Paren back at Bellicose.”

  “I didn’t trust him.”

  “He was taking good care of me. I was obviously fine when you got there—why didn’t you trust him?”

  “I don’t know… I just didn’t! He’s too… friendly. It’s suspicious.”

  “So, you think friendly is a bad thing now?” I chuckled. “That explains a lot.”

  “No! Ugh.”

  I snickered as I lay down, trying to get comfortable on the rough floor. Zane trudged over and looked at the ground next to me, giving me a pouty face.

  “Yes, you may sleep next to me,” I laughed, patting the ground.

  Zane smiled, his eyes seeming to twinkle for a moment as he situated himself. Already lying on top of my blanket to cushion the ground, I curled up in a little ball to try to keep warm. Zane pulled off his shirt, a simple grey long-sleeved top, and handed it to me, revealing a surprisingly muscular torso.

  “Take it,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. It’ll keep you warm. Then you can use your jacket to cover your legs instead.”

  I sat up to remove my jacket, draping it over my legs before I put on the grey shirt.

  “Better?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Zane,” I said, hugging him. When he tried to end the hug, I held on for just a moment longer.

  “You okay, E?”

  “Yeah,” I said, releasing him. “Night.”

  I lay down, rolling over on my side. Zane scooted up behind me and rested his arm over my waist. A few minutes later, I could hear him snoring softly. For me, sleep didn’t come so easily that night.

  ◆◆◆

  “Wake up,” I heard Zane call to me.

  I opened my eyes, blinking rapidly as they adjusted to the light.

  “I don’t wanna’.”

  “Get up or I’ll eat the last muffin,” he threatened, digging a blueberry muffin out of his bag.

  “Gimme’!” I said, sitting up and snatching the muffin.

  Zane laughed as he dug out a biscuit and snacked on it.

  “When we get to Fallmont, there’s going to be some kind of security there. It’s the biggest city in the New Territory. But that also means there are going to be more weak spots that we can sneak through because they don’t have enough people to guard the walls of the entire city. That would be impractical. The sun has been up for a while now, and I say we leave at about lunchtime. That way, we will make it there by dark instead. The darkness will work in our favor. We get there, stay close to the walls, and look for a way in. Together. You have the Clamorite, Equivox, and Bellicose keys; I have the Avid and Delaisse keys. We can’t get separated, okay?”

  “Okay,” I repeated.

  “Where in the city do we want to look first for the Key?”

  “It’s probably somewhere that would be fairly high security because they knew what it could do. Somewhere in City Hall would make sense. That’ll probably be near the center of Fallmont. I say we stay close to the walls though as long as we can. When we find City Hall, we pick the lock and both search the inside.”

  “Someone needs to stand guard,” Zane suggested.

  “That’ll draw attention. Plus, we both need to be looking for the Key because it could be anywhere,” I said, digging through my belongings idly.

  “What if we get caught?” he asked, twiddling his thumbs as we spoke, as if we were discussing weekend plans.

  “You know what to do if we get caught,” I hinted, raising my eyes to meet his.

  “Okay,” Zane sighed in resignation.

  “If we get split up, we need a meeting place.”

  “We could meet where we enter the city. On the outside of the wall, if we have to.”

  “When we get the Key, I want to find Fortitude.”

  “I thought you didn’t really want to? I mean, I know you agreed to it before, but you didn’t sound too thrilled. Why the change of heart?”

  “I want to see if it exists, and if it does, I want to help exiles escape to Fortitude.”

  Zane nodded.

  “Alright, that settles it. When we find the Key, we look for Fortitude. That Skylar chick said something about it being between Bellicose and the sea,” he said, pulling out a map. “Well, Rockhallow is to the east of Bellicose, so it wouldn’t be that coast, or she would have said it’s past Rockhallow. Plus, that coast is really far away. I’m guessing Fortitude is to the west, so when we leave Fallmont, let’s head west.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “I’m going to go look around the ruins while we wait to leave—see if I find anything useful,” I said, heading out the door.

  I looked around, taking in my surroundings. This used to be home to someone, I thought as I approached a heap of black rubble. I rolled the larger pieces of brick and stone aside, digging through the ashes. I felt around blindly, hoping to find something but unsure of what I was searching for.

  Nothing.

  I migrated to the next area of ruins, rummaging through the remains. I continued idly picking for a few hours until Zane came looking for me.

 
“Hey,” he said, walking over with the Skeleton Key papers in hand. “I did some reading, and it seems like the Skeleton Key has some kind of dial on it that makes it work. I don’t really understand the notes on how it works, but from what I understand, you have to put the Key in a lock first, then adjust some little dial on it before turning it.”

  “So, it’s not a key, really. It’s a device?”

  “Sort of.”

  “I remember Mr. Montgomery telling me about how it’s hollow on the inside and adjusts to locks. Does this change anything though?”

  “No, I just thought we should know how it works a little before we go in trying to get it.”

  “Fair enough. Is it time to head out yet?”

  “Not yet. Eat,” he said, handing me a simple peanut butter sandwich. “The bread’s a little stale. Sorry.”

  I started eating the sandwich as Zane kept talking.

  “I already had lunch while I was reading. Once you finish though, we will get our bags packed up again and head out. If we timed this right, we should get there by sunset.”

  I nodded and continued eating as we made our way to the house we had spent the night in to pack our few belongings.

  “Let’s split up our supplies, in case we get separated and something happens. Worse comes to worst and we can’t meet near Fallmont, we can meet back here, but this way we at least will have enough to manage on our own if something were to happen.”

  “Good idea,” Zane agreed. “Let’s split up the keys between the two of us but keep them in our pockets. If something happens to our bags, at least we will still have the keys.”

  He took out the Avid and the Delaisse keys from his bag, and I took out the Bellicose, Clamorite, and Equivox keys from mine, and we moved them into our jean pockets.

  We turned our bags and Lamb’s upside down, dumping out the contents. I began rationing out bandages, food, water, and other little supplies between the two of us, making sure to keep my personal belongings in my pile.

  “Should we do something with Lamb’s bag?” I asked after we packed our two bags with no leftover supplies.