Alysium

by Tiffany Pelletier

  Alysium

  Alysium

  By

  Tiffany Pelletier

  Copyright © 2020 Tiffany Pelletier All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  Cover design by: Tiffany Pelletier

  Map illustrated by: Danny Quintero

  Inside & cover art by: CJ Horan

  Dedication

  For John, Olivia, Maddox,

  &

  Jakobi

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  About The Author

  Chapter One

  In the early hours of the morning, Ranelle woke with a start as the metallic ring from the bell resonated, breaking the nighttime silence. She cursed under her breath as she slipped a bare foot out from under her blanket, timidly testing the temperature of the air and finding it miserably chilled as usual.

  The bell tolled on, and she counted the tinny chimes. Three, four, five...on the sixth chime, the sound died, replaced by the sounds of kids grumbling, kids arguing, and boots dropping to the cold stone ground as feet were hastily shoved inside.

  “Up!” called the aged governess as she hobbled her way through the youth domiciles, her firm voice crying out, “the bells are late, get up and moving, NOW!”

  Late.

  Ranelle grumbled and heaved her blanket off. It fell into a crumpled heap on the stone floor as she scrambled off her bed to get her turn before the washroom line got too long. Pushing her way between other kids, arms pulled deep into her tattered overshirt to warm them, she made it to the washroom before most of the others. Still rubbing the sleep from her face from within her shirt, she stared bleary-eyed ahead until phantom hands snapped to her waist, causing her to jump. As her arms were trapped within the confines of her overshirt, she emitted a strangled yelp.

  “My, aren't we jumpy today,” came a voice as Ranelle's best friends' head popped around her shoulder, then the rest of her followed until she was standing smugly in front of her in line.

  “Really, Fraine? Don't you have anything better to do?” asked Ranelle, thrusting her arms back out the sleeves of her overshirt. She huffed with irritation as she put her hands on her hips, rolling her eyes as her long black hair fell across her face.

  “Oh, come on, I can't start my day unless I find at least one way to irritate you!” As the young girl smiled glibly, her green eyes suddenly opened wide, and she stifled a laugh.

  “What now?” asked Ranelle, her face stern, her hands still on her hips.

  “Gideon’s coming,” giggled Fraine as she squirmed, her deep-red curls bouncing about her head as she hopped in line behind her friend.

  “Oh great,” muttered Ranelle to herself as she stared straight ahead, trying to make herself as unnoticeable as possible.

  “Good morning, ladies,” came a voice from behind. She knew who it was, even if Fraine had warned her. She would recognize his voice anywhere.

  “Whatever,” said Ranelle, sweeping her messy hair over her shoulder in a dismissive way, not even hazarding a glance in the boy’s direction as she spoke. Luckily, it was her turn next for the washroom, so as the previous occupant vacated, she slid smoothly into the bathing room and pulled the rushes shut. She barely noticed the confused look on the kid's face. She wasn't sure why she couldn't talk to him. She’d never had trouble talking to people before, but Gideon Warren wasn't just anyone.

  Always nicely dressed, his curly black hair was clean and neat, and his chestnut eyes were warm and welcoming. Despite his pleasant appearance, Ranelle was irritated by the mere presence of a privileged kid in her dormitory. His father, Obadiah Warren, was the Regent of Ashbourne, perhaps the most influential man in all Alysium. Obadiah had been named Regent before Ranelle had been born and had held the position for over twenty cycles.

  It wasn't that Obadiah was particularly good at the job, just that most people would rather avoid the overwhelming responsibilities that came along with the title. The Regent's obligation was to maintain the civil government for their burrow, or what the inhabitants called their cavernous cities. The Regent enforced the laws, which made him unpopular to most. He also ensured that the duties owed to the other burrows were paid promptly.

  For the burrow of Ashbourne, ore from the mines was paid to Alysium in tax. The payments from each burrow were sent to the Grotto, the central cavern that joined the five outer burrows of Ashbourne, Jericho, Evermoore, Stillshade, and Cinder. The outer subterranean caverns formed a ring around the Grotto, with avenue tunnels that connected each city to the Grotto to share in commerce.

  Each burrow was split into sectors that housed the general population according to their job. Miners were unprivileged and lived in small, modest houses and dormitories. In contrast, the aristocratic privileged lived in subtle luxury, their homes were spread into sprawling neighborhoods with dirt yards and stone pathways.

  Ranelle hated having to share her bathing area with kids from the privileged sectors. It reminded her how far below them she felt. A slave really–that's what Ranelle was; a child born into poverty when her parents died in a cave-in while working the mines. It was a story that she shared with many other kids. Even Fraine’s parents were dead; killed by the same cave-in that left Ranelle parentless. Fraine, with her obnoxious laughter, face full of freckles, and curly dark-red hair, was the only person Ranelle enjoyed being around. They would talk endlessly into the night; both girls were housed in the same section in the youth domicile, so they spent most of their days together.

  Fraine, however, never seemed troubled by the forced socialization between herself and the privileged kids. Still, no matter how hard Ranelle tried, she couldn't relax whenever they were around. Perhaps it was the different environment they lived in. It could have been how they wore nicer clothes that hadn’t been recycled several times over like Ranelle’s skimpy attire. Or perhaps it was because most of the privileged kids gave off an air of pretentiousness that rubbed Ranelle in a wrong way. She always tried her best to steer clear of them in any way she could, but running into one first thing in the morning, was enough to set her day off on a crappy note.

  Entering the washroom and immediately feeling more at ease, she stripped naked, lowering her skinny form into the warm bathing pool situated at the back of the room. Constructed from boulders and mortar slurry mined in Ashbourne, the bathing tub came up to her shoulders as she sat, allowing the water to swirl around her body.

  A few minutes in the hot spring pool helped to quell much of her attitude as she soaked longer than she probably should have. Letting her long black hair sway in the water, her pale fingertips made swirling motions across the glassy surface. Gazing at her refle
ction in the water, she focused on the features that looked much like her parent’s.

  Her forehead was small like her mother’s, mostly because of her thick mass of black hair, which still included baby fuzz along her hairline. Her nose was also like her mother’s, small and delicate, with her father's strong jawbones outlining her chin. Golden eyes stared back at her. She saw so much of her parents; she felt as if she was but a blended copy of them both.

  Gazing longingly into the depths of the bath, she hesitated as long as she dared, dragging her thin body out of the water. She quickly dried herself on the single towel she was permitted to call her own. Pulling on her clothes quickly, she wrapped her towel around her mass of wet hair. Usually, she kept her hair neatly in a braid down her back, but today was different.

  Today was Assignment Day; traditionally, unprivileged children like Ranelle were assigned a job after turning sixteen. Now that she’d come of age, Ranelle would be given her first duty as an adult. Twelve hours of each day, she would be required to work. Six days on and only one day for rest.

  Ranelle may have been required to start her assignment at sixteen; however, privileged children enjoyed another two cycles of freedom. This fact was not lost upon Ranelle. It only made her dislike them even more.

  How’s that fair?

  She always asked herself that question, but the answer was still the same–it wasn't.

  As Ranelle finished dressing, she exited the bathing room with her towel still wrapped around her sopping hair. To her relief, another bathing room had become available since she’d entered hers, so Gideon had already gone by the time she finished washing up. She didn't know why she had to run into him in the first place. Typically, Ranelle wouldn't have encountered a privileged kid in the washrooms by the youth dorms; however, Gideon had been fostered out to help him gain life experiences. This was routine for aristocratic kids who might hold office over others in their burrow, both privileged and not. These run-ins had been growing in frequency, though, and Ranelle had a sneaking suspicion they were being orchestrated. She didn't like it one bit.

  After leaving the dorms, Ranelle found Fraine in the serving line for breakfast and was quick to join her.

  “I don't know why you let Gideon bother you so much,” said Fraine innocently as she watched the server dump mush into her bowl. She wrinkled her nose and looked at the offending glop with disgust.

  “We shouldn't have to be around him at all,” Ranelle said, holding out her bowl, watching as her breakfast slowly slid from the serving spoon and splatted into her dish. “The privileged act so superior; it’s not fair having to share a washroom with them, they should stick to their own!”

  “He's always been nice to me,” said the younger girl, “I don't know why you hate him so much.”

  “There's nothing there to like…it’s easy to hate him,” Ranelle said as she followed her friend to find a seating place.

  In the food hall there were rows of metal tables, three to each row, butted up against each other in long lines. As expected, Ranelle and Fraine were too late; kids were already perched all over the hall on stone stools, eating from steaming bowls.

  Since the burrow’s population was slowly growing, and the buildings weren’t, the food hall was quick to fill up at each mealtime. This morning was no different. Since all the seats were already taken, Ranelle and Fraine went to the far end of the food hall, sitting down on the cold floor to eat their rapidly cooling mush.

  Before either of them had managed to finish their food, however, the bells tolled loudly. Fraine bid Ranelle a hasty farewell as she moved along with the younger kids for chores. The youngsters, who hadn’t reached assignment age, were required to work as clean-up crews for the various districts in their burrow. On this day, Fraine was due to clean the washrooms and scrub the hot spring pools.

  Ranelle didn't envy her. She waited as the remaining kids that hadn't rushed off to their duties or chores were collected to prepare for their assignments. Ranelle was less than excited, however, as almost every child in her district would be assigned to the mines. That had been her parents' fate, and it would be hers too. She was resigned to the fact that that would be how she’d spend the rest of her life...slaving away in the mines. Eventually, she would probably succumb to black lung or be crushed in a cave-in. After all, both were leading causes of death for unprivileged people in Ashbourne since it was the only mining burrow in Alysium.

  “Ranelle Blake?” a young woman with short spiky brown hair called out in the nearly empty hall. Ranelle glanced up, her heart quickened its pace as she got up and slowly approached the woman, nervously hooking her raven hair behind her ears.

  “Yes?” Ranelle answered slowly. She had thought that perhaps if she stayed silent, they might forget about her. Then, Ranelle could pretend like she was one of the youngsters for just a little while longer.

  “Follow me please,” said the woman plainly with an appraising nod as she motioned toward the exit of the food hall. Ranelle swallowed hard and nodded as she followed the woman out of the room.

  Walking quickly to keep up, Ranelle followed the spiky-haired woman past the other food halls, down the alleyways that connected the youth dorms, and out onto Ashbourne’s main roadway. The woman turned left, following the road as it stretched on into the distance, running parallel to the river. Ranelle’s stomach lurched as she realized they were heading directly toward the mining district.

  It figures.

  Since an assignment to the mines was almost certain, Ranelle took deep breaths, fighting back the urge to panic as she forced her legs to carry her step-by-step down the roadway.

  The two women passed several more family housing units, a few of which Ranelle herself had lived in with her parents before they died. As an orphan, she was shuffled between whoever had room for her at the time. She eventually ended up in the dorms when she was old enough.

  Leaving the last of the residences behind, the women walked on. The roadway became bare on either side as it stretched wider to accommodate the masses of foot traffic that traversed that part of the road each day.

  I should feel ready for this.

  Still, the sight of the mammoth rock formations that proceeded the entrance to the mines filled Ranelle with an overwhelming sense of dread. Perhaps it was the knowledge that somewhere beyond, further underground, her parents had been buried alive, changing her life forever.

  As her parent’s faces swam around in her mind, her mouth went dry. She struggled to swallow as she shivered impulsively, still following the spiky-haired woman, not to the entrance of the mines, but to what looked like an administrative building to the far left of the mining complex. This building had been carved directly out of the wall of Ashbourne’s vast cavern.

  “You will wait here,” said the woman curtly as she turned on her heel and walked swiftly off.

  Ranelle stood awkwardly alone since all the miners were already down below at their posts for the day. Standing in silence, Ranelle grew bored until a short, plump woman strode suddenly out of the mining office. She smiled warmly as her gaze fell upon Ranelle. The portly woman, who was much more petite than Ranelle, had wavy brown hair that was pinned up away from her face, and her green eyes sparkled with recognition.

  “The look is unmistakable, my dear,” she said as she gathered Ranelle's hands into her chubby ones and held them tight. “You look so much like Rayn, but you have Jeb's eyes.”

  “I'm sorry,” sputtered Ranelle, feeling shocked at hearing her parents’ names spoken aloud. “Did you know them?”

  She fought the urge to rip her hands away from the stranger; growing up without parents had left her wary of people touching her. Her discomfort should have been understandable; no one bothered to show attention to orphans, and she was out of practice. She resisted the urge, however, and struggled to contain her composure despite her increasing physical discomfort.

  “Yes, my dear, I had the pleasure of working as their administrator for several cycles–my nam
e is Mayge.”

  “Administrator?” Ranelle said questioning–she didn’t remember her parents ever mentioning an administrator.

  Seeing the girl’s confusion made Mayge release her hands, and she gestured for Ranelle to follow her into the office. As she entered the room, Ranelle felt more at ease.

  “An administrator is dedicated to each set of team leaders who oversee the mines. I was assigned to Jeb and Rayn until...” as her words trailed off, she crossed to the far end of her office, taking a seat behind a stone desk so large, it nearly dwarfed her.

  “My parents were team leaders?” Ranelle asked as she slowly sank onto the stone seat across from the woman, surprised yet again to hear something about her parents that she didn’t already know.

  “They weren't just any team leaders, my child, they were the best! They were top performers, and they always reached their quota. They had minimal injuries, and their workers loved them,” the woman explained cheerfully as she folded her hands gently upon her massive desk. “They were great people to work with, and I was so sad to see what happened to them.”

  “Oh,” said Ranelle with trepidation. “Were you there when they died?” She looked down at her hands, clasped anxiously in her lap.

  I’m not sure if I want to know the details.

  “No, well, no one was there to see what happened; there were no survivors in the cave-in, my dear.” Ranelle noticed that the woman’s eyes were wide and glistening.

  “Did you see them when they were, um, recovered?” asked Ranelle, wincing slightly, as if asking the question sliced open an old wound that had barely healed. She wasn’t sure how to tactfully inquire about the things she yearned to know. After all, Ranelle had never met anyone that had known her parents.

  When she was younger, she’d asked to see their grave. Her governess at the time told her that miners weren’t entitled to gravestones or markers. “They were most likely incinerated and buried in a miner’s grave, or sent up the Ash River,” she remembered the woman saying; however, she’d been too young to comprehend at the time.