by Ben Hale
“I rip horns and stab heart,” she muttered.
“Why did you take her?” Reklin struggled to keep his voice even.
“Because I finally understand you,” Visika said. “You believe in family and honor, and no amount of pain would break that code. But if I put your family in danger . . .”
She withdrew an inflicting rod and activated the first symbol. Inside the cell, the earring on Mora’s ear brightened, and she hissed in pain as her nerves were burned.
To the girl’s credit, she stayed on her feet, her hands clenched in defiance. “My brother come for you,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Stop,” Reklin said.
Visika’s gaze never left his, and she raised the inflicting rod two levels.
The pain burned into Mora’s ear and through her nervous system. She bowed her head and growled, but still kept her feet. Visika raised it again, and then again.
“STOP!” Reklin shouted and dove for Visika, his bound hands going for the inflicting rod.
The two guards fought to hold him, but Visika never moved. She remained in place as Mora finally crumpled and began to cry. Reklin howled and fought, but the two dakorians kicked the back of his knees and forced him to the floor.
“I cannot tell you what I do not know!” Reklin bellowed.
Visika eased off the inflicting rod, and Mora scooted into the corner. “I believe you.”
“Then why burn a whelp?” Reklin snarled. “She’s not a part of this.”
“You forced me to it,” Visika said. “Do you know you’re the first prisoner I’ve ever met in my long life that has defied my interrogation? I found it rather aggravating.”
“What do you want?” Reklin glared at Visika as if he could burn her to ash. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know!”
“But you can get the information from someone who does,” she said.
She pointed to the cell, and the shield opened. Gellow helped the other three to shove him inside, knocking him to the floor. Mora spotted Reklin and jumped into his arms, and he cradled her as he sat against the wall.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“I okay,” she whimpered.
“How does it feel to be broken?” Gellow taunted, and then activated the shield, leaving him with Mora in the featureless cell.
Reklin held the trembling Mora. He wanted to strike and roar but he caged his boiling rage, refusing to let it go. Because as much as he wanted to refuse, he knew in his gut that Gellow was right. Visika had finally broken him, and he would do anything Visika asked.
Mora finally looked up at him with her tear-filled eyes. “Seena come?”
He forced a smile. “I don’t know, little one.”
She nestled deeper into his arms, her small expression turning grim. “My Seena come. My Seena punish them.”
This time his smile was genuine. “If she does come, that is exactly what she will do.”
Taking comfort in the idea that Siena would not stop looking for him, he held Mora in his arms and hoped she would hurry. He’d done everything he could, but unless she showed up soon, House Bright’Lor would fall to the Burning Ghosts.
Chapter Seven
“Anything?” Siena asked.
Kensen shook his head. “Not yet.”
Siena hit the wall with her fist. “It’s been six months. I can’t believe you can’t find anything about Reklin on the open network.”
“The Burning Ghosts are criminals for a reason,” Kensen said. “I doubt they connect any vital secrets to an unsecured cortex.”
Her eyes swept the small cave, wishing they had better equipment. But it had been five months since all humans had been moved from the City of Dawn to Ilumidora, the human settlement on the mainland. Siena and Kensen had managed to smuggle pieces of krey communications off the Nova, Ero’s destroyed ship, but stripping spare parts hadn’t done much. The beamcast was spotty, and the cortex was barely able to reach the public vid network at all, let alone access the secured systems of the Houses or the more secretive private network owned by the Burning Ghosts.
“We have to find him,” Siena said.
“I know.” Kensen leaned back in the former pilot’s seat. “Give me time. I’ll find him.”
“We don’t have time.”
She turned and exited the cave. Kensen was smart enough not to follow. In her blackened mood, she probably would have hit him. She reached up and touched each of the tiny threads on her skull. Forehead. Nose. Throat. Like hairs beneath her skin, they connected to her upgraded earring, allowing her to be burned if she tried to use an augment without permission. She resisted the urge to try to pull it out by the roots. Some augments had tried to remove it, with excruciating results.
She picked her way down the trail and through the trees, taking solace in the cool breeze and scent of pine. The forest was an open invitation, always beckoning her to explore. But she had work to do.
At the base of the hill, she hopped a gurgling stream and followed the water until the trees opened up and the new settlement burst into view. Despite her continued guilt at not finding Reklin, the sight of Ilumidora lifted her spirits.
Thousands of wooden houses with thick, woven-grass roofing dotted the hill. Skorn wanted the slaves to use their augments to build them, so all leashes were typically set low enough that the plant augments could strip trees into logs and shape branches into beams. Water augments worked together to move the freshly cut wood into place, using narrow canals dug by earth augments.
Everywhere there was industry, augments building houses, roads, and vehicles. None were powered by krey technology, and access to gravity drives was strictly prohibited. Still, designs for wagons and crude sleds were given, and the augments took care of the rest. With nearly thirty thousand humans now living in the rapidly growing city, they were given more freedom than most slaves had ever had.
In just a few months, many had grown attachments, with family units beginning to form. Husbands worked with wives to build houses, while adopted children dug forts in the dirt. Siena loved the sense of home, even if it was overshadowed by their krey owners.
Transmission towers dotted the growing city. Vid monitors were mounted to the top, allowing Skorn and the other krey he’d recruited to watch the augments. The data they collected helped the krey track the full range of capabilities by age group, gender, and augment type. Telik may have been dead, but the legacy of his creation lived on.
“Siena,” a woman greeted as she entered the city. The woman was hanging clean clothes on a line outside the house, and smiled at her.
Siena returned the greeting. “Hathiana, how is the baby?”
“Growing.” She patted her tummy.
Siena tipped a thread of consciousness into the woman’s mind, an ability that did not seem to trigger the auto-burn in her leash. The woman was having a boy, and Siena spotted Thren, one of the first augments, working to split wood in the back. Siena was glad to see the taciturn man gain a measure of happiness.
Siena crossed the road, jumping one of the canals and ascending the hill towards the structure at the heart of Ilumidora. She was greeted by many, and she did her best to offer a smile or a nod. Most of the augments considered her their savior, and although Siena was not an overseer—a role she’d refused—all looked to her for guidance.
Lyn spotted her and pulled a trickle of water from the canal to wash the mud from her hands. Flicking them dry, she fell into step beside Siena.
“High Overseer,” Siena greeted.
“I hate it when you call me that,” the gray-haired woman said. “We were the first augments, remember? I told you to call me Lyn.”
“Yes, High Overseer.”
They shared a grin, and then Lyn pointed to the southern slope. “The new batch of augments are adapting as well as to be expected, but Skorn has only sent a couple thousand. How many were on the Light of Everden?”
“Just over thirty-one thousand,” Siena said. “The r
est are still undergoing the augment procedure at the City of Dawn.”
They grimaced in unison. The painful experiment had improved since Siena and Lyn had endured it on Telik’s biosphere, but it was still like needles piercing bones.
“We need your help with training the new augments,” Lyn said. “They’re pretty disoriented, and more than one has asked for you by name. Seems like you made an impression.”
Siena was supposed to meet with Kevent, but supposed it could wait for a few minutes. She turned down a side street. “I’ll talk to them.”
“One in particular was interested in talking to you,” Lyn said.
She came to a halt and turned. “Who?”
“Jevin,” she said. “He’s very attractive, by the way.”
Siena snorted. “I’m with Kensen, remember?”
“Doesn’t mean a girl can’t have options,” Lyn said with a laugh. “Send him my greetings, would you?”
Chuckling to herself, the woman returned to directing the work on the expanding street. Annoyed, and if she was honest, curious, Siena followed the road out of the more established section of the city to the lower slopes, where a crew of men and women were pulling boards from the canal to place on stacks where houses would be built. Among those working, she recognized several from the Light of Everden.
It was the first time she’d seen them since they escaped the doomed ship. Then they’d been a terrified and confused group. Now they just looked confused. They saw Siena coming, and several jumped out of the working lines and raced up to her.
“It’s Siena!” they shouted. “Siena is here!”
A crowd quickly formed until a nearby overseer named Gez called them back to work. “If you don’t get your supplies for your house, you’ll be sleeping in the rain,” he called.
Most reluctantly returned to pulling boards from the canal. Siena gave them an apologetic look and approached close enough so everyone could hear her. Then she tried to answer the hundreds of questions that were hurled at her.
“Why are we building such crude houses?”
“So they can monitor your augments.”
“When do our augments appear?”
“Usually a week or two.”
“Do they hurt?”
“The augmented abilities?” Siena shrugged. “A little at first. Then you adapt.”
“Have there been any other supreme augments?”
She noticed Jevin had asked the question. He looked better, now that he was out of slave grays and wearing form-fitting clothes. His muscles roiled on his bare chest as he lifted two of the heavy boards and carried them to a pile.
“Where did you hear that term?” Siena asked.
“Here and there,” Jevin said, a faint smile on his face as he kicked the stack of boards.
“What’s a supreme augment?” a nearby girl asked.
“Someone who has every type of augment,” Siena said.
“How many are there?” the wide-eyed girl asked.
Siena squirmed. “So far, just me.”
“You on the upper decks missed quite a show on the lower deck of the Light of Everden,” Jevin said, lifting a bucket of water to his lips. “She’s quite the specimen.”
Siena glared at him, but he only returned a smirk. Fortunately Siena was saved from answering by the overseer, who pointed up the canal at a large knot of boards bouncing into view.
“Let’s get back to work!”
Siena nodded in gratitude to Gez, who gave a wink. The man was from the first shipment of slaves Siena had stolen, and was quickly becoming a friend. It helped that the white-haired man seemed to have gained an attraction to Lyn.
Jevin stepped away from the group and sidled up to Siena. “You could have warned me about the experiment.”
“Would it have helped?”
He shrugged. “Probably not.”
“I would have told you,” she said, “but instead of a casual stroll out of that cargo ship, we were running for our lives.”
“I noticed,” he said dryly.
She turned to leave, but he fell into step beside her, his long stride allowing him to keep pace with ease. “Did you need something?” she asked.
“What do I have to do to join your team?”
She shook her head. “What makes you think I get to choose?”
“A hunch.”
“Ero told you you’d have to ask me,” she guessed.
“An educated hunch,” he amended.
She chuckled sourly. “Four humans died on the first two thefts. We were lucky none were killed on the Light of Everden.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it,” he said. “I saw what you did. How you lead. Let me fight with you.”
She came to a stop and faced him. “What’s your augment?”
“Apparently I can manipulate shadows.”
“Really?” She hadn’t heard of that one. “But shadows are just an absence of light.”
He shook his head. “Skorn and the others were baffled, too. But I can bend darkness as if it’s a type of energy. One of the krey suggested that there must be some type of undiscovered subatomic particle that favors darkness, and I’m bending that, not the actual absence of light.”
Siena wondered about the possibilities. “You’d have to carry a weapon. You know what that means if you’re caught?”
“I don’t really care, as long as I get to kill a few krey.”
Siena liked Jevin. There weren’t many of the augments willing to fight. Most just wanted to survive and learn how to use their augments without getting punished. Jevin obviously had no qualms about defiance.
A distant roar came from the southern mountains, and all activity abruptly ceased. The augments turned to the sound. Jevin didn’t even turn, his utter lack of fear setting him apart from the rest.
“Drake?” he asked.
She nodded. “By the sound, probably a class five. They’ve been increasingly active, and there are not enough dakorians to protect the entire city yet. If you join us, there’s a good chance you’ll get to fight one.”
“Don’t tease me,” he said.
She grinned. “I’ll tell Kensen to put you on the list.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
It was the first time she’d ever seen him being sincere, and recognized that he was thanking her for more than just joining her team. He was grateful for what she’d done in bringing him to House Bright’Lor.
Uncomfortable with the gratitude, she turned away. “Just don’t get me killed.”
“Trust me,” he said, “I won’t.”
Siena believed him. Jevin wanted to fight, and Siena knew well the burning desire to resist their krey owners. She knew that Ero had created her and her team out of necessity, and Skorn tolerated them because they’d been able to do what the dakorians and krey could not, but it was only a matter of time until Skorn pulled her team apart.
Disbanding her team would be a smart tactic for Skorn, especially considering Siena’s secret plans. She had yet to share them with anyone, not even Kensen, but every time she dropped into her bed at the end of another long day, she dreamed of real freedom.
She was late in meeting Kevent, so she hurried up through the city. She passed a group of thirty new augments being oriented by one of the under-overseers, their expressions wide and uncertain. The overseer was pointing to the sky.
“If you spot a drake, report it immediately, and if the attack siren goes off then get under cover as quickly as you can. Most of the city is shielded, but if you’re caught in the open you might be killed.”
The ground rose and curved in gentle hills. With a sprawling forest to east, and a vast plain to the west, Ilumidora had a splendid view of the region. When standing on a roof, they even had a glimpse of the glittering sea to the north.
Siena veered off the main road and made her way to a short, nondescript building. The wooden door opened at her touch, and she ducked into the darkened interior to be assaulted by the reek of sweat.
The room was square and large, with weapons fashioned of wood on the walls. Siena’s team were all occupied in the same task, gasping for breath while they held a log above their heads. They groaned in unison as Siena appeared.
“You’re late,” Kevent said, motioning to the others to drop the log.
The ground shuddered as the giant beam bounced off the floor.
Sorry,” Siena said, “I got hung up on the way here.”
“That’s no excuse,” Kevent said sternly. “If you’re late in combat, members of your team tend to be killed.”
The dakorian was the age of a naifblade, and within a year would be old enough to join the Imperial military. Despite his youth, he had been trained well, and was one of the best dakorians now residing on Lumineia. While most of the dakorians lived in the dakorian settlement in the far north, they Gated to Ilumidora to keep the peace. Only three had been willing to train the humans to fight: Inary, Reklin’s sister, Kevent, Reklin’s brother, and, surprisingly, Lavana, Reklin’s mother. Siena had gotten to know all three during her time on Rebor, and was surprised to find that she’d earned a measure of respect from the three soldiers. That respect had yet to extend to the rest of the team.
“You whine like whelps,” Kevent growled, and pointed to the weapons. “Pick up a practice weapon and start your training.”
“We stole the Light of Everden without casualties,” Tana complained, her hands on her knees as she wiped sweat from her brow. “Don’t we get a break?”
“No breaks unless you’re dead,” Kevent barked. “Now move!”
The group picked up weapons and began to duel. Kevent had unlocked their augments so they were permitted to practice, and Begle and Bort both siphoned heat from the air to create fire blades. The shimmering weapons spat sparks and dripped heat onto the floor.
“Siena.” Kevent sidled up and lowered his tone as the group paired off and began to fight.
She noticed a layer of tension to his shoulders that went beyond the norm. “Is something wrong?”
He drew his sunderblade from his back, and she took the hint. She extended her arm and counted the seconds it took for the energy blade to form. Then she settled into a combat stance and blocked his first swing. The impact betrayed Kevent’s distraction. After months of training, she knew him to be talented and forceful, his blade or hammer always striking with precision. This time his swings were just for show, a screen to hide his words from the rest of the team.