Flashtide Page 3

  I close my eyes and let the wind buffet me, let the sounds of the air whining through the pines block out the sounds of my self-recrimination. Tears streak down my cheeks—from the cold, the wind, I tell myself.

  But I know it’s shame. I promised them freedom. Even if the cavers I left behind didn’t hear me say the words, I know they’ve heard stories of the Hunter, the Scout who will find a way out for everyone. Months have passed, and we haven’t gotten any closer to finding the leader of the resistance—Dram’s father, Arrun—and now we’ve lost contact with Commissary Jameson, the only connection we had to my father somewhere inside Alara. It’s taken all we have just to survive, to outrun the Inquiry Modules.

  Now this. The curtain is changing. I can sense it, even if I don’t understand what’s happening. For 150 years, it’s been a constant horror that wipes out all life within its perimeter. As bad as it is, at least we’ve adapted to it, found ways to survive even within the flashfall. But now, all that could change. I feel it deep inside myself, like a cup filled to overflowing.

  “I thought I’d find you here.” I whirl, surprised to find Dram pulling himself over the ledge. “I’ve watched you slip away for days now, Orion. Like you have a secret.” I don’t say anything, and he walks to my side, takes in the view. “Alara’s the other way, you know.”

  I smile, but I can feel tears in my throat. During our first weeks of freedom, I climbed for views of the protected city. I’d watch the sunset reflect off its cirium shield.

  “Why aren’t you saying anything?” he asks softly.

  “Because it’s useless to lie to you.” And the truth is too terrifying.

  “You know something about the flashfall. Why it’s changing.”

  “I couldn’t tell you why it’s happening.”

  “But it is,” he says, asking the question more with his eyes than his words.

  “Yes.” I turn back toward the horizon, the bands of color shifting in the distance. Green, pink, faintest red. Red is rare. Or it used to be.

  “What does that mean for us?”

  I don’t answer. I just watch the red bands bleed across the sky. He hasn’t asked the most important question.

  “Fire,” he curses. “What does this mean for Subpars left in the outposts?”

  My stomach twists. It didn’t take him long.

  “Fire,” I answer, repeating his word that is both curse and truth. It means fire.

  Not a literal fire with flames licking the air, but an internal one, that burns from the inside out. The kind of burning our Radbands monitor in shifting shades of green to red. Fire that swept away my beloved mentor, Graham, in a gale of cordon wind, and fire that burned our friend Reeves in pieces, a day at a time.

  Exposure to the radioactive particles of the flash curtain takes many forms, but it all ends the same. And it leaves only ashes behind.

  * * *

  Conjies have stories.

  When we dare to risk firelight, we huddle close, weapons at the ready, satchels packed—ready to flee at the first rumble of an Inquiry Module, the faintest hum of a tracker. Singing and dancing are saved for special occasions, but storytelling, to Conjurors, is like food. Essential. Life-sustaining.

  Tonight, I lean against Dram’s legs, watching flames flicker. The cadence of Newel’s voice lulls me deeper into the tale he weaves as artfully as a song.

  “The sun was reaching solar maximum,” he says. “But this was not the eleven-year cycle scientists had come to expect, nor the hundred-year cycle they had predicted. These solar storms didn’t fit any known pattern. They were the largest on record—sixes and sevens on a five-point scale, and the velocities they traveled were unprecedented.”

  Conjurors are rarely still. Maybe it’s something to do with the energy within them, or their connection with the elements, but as we sit listening, I watch them. I think of Roran and the rock he always clutched in his fist, how he was constantly—secretly—altering it. Practice, his father had told him. I wonder if it’s more than that, though. Like maybe, on some level, they need to conjure, need to maintain an exchange of energy with the natural world.

  He sits apart from the rest of us, on the fringes of the camp. Firelight dances over him, leaving the rest in shadow. He stares into the woods, and I wonder if he’s watching for flash vultures or maybe for his mother to suddenly emerge. I used to do that with Mom. An entire year after seven collapsed, I still looked for her in the caves. He conjures something in his hand. Dirt morphs into white flowers, which turn to ash before the petals have unfurled, and back to dirt. Dirt-flowers-ash, over and over, while he stares toward the darkness.

  I wonder if Dram senses the energy crackling between the Conjurors. The air feels alive tonight. With memories, with magic.

  Newel continues his story, speaking of our past, but I’m struck suddenly with a sense of our future. It stirs in me, like a creature waking. Possibility.

  “What if we use the Mods against them?” I say.

  Heads turn, and on many faces are the looks I’ve grown accustomed to. Expressions that ask unspoken questions.

  “How do you mean?” Newel asks.

  “They come from behind the shield, they return there. What if we could … harness one? Without them knowing?”

  “We’re hunted as it is,” Newel answers. “We can’t risk provoking the Congress further.”

  “We’ve lost connection to my father. Maybe from inside Alara it would be possible to—”

  “We survive because we hide,” Newel says.

  “What about those with no place to hide? Subpars and Conjies trapped in the flashfall?”

  “We help when we can. Bade and Aisla are tracking Arrun. We wait.”

  Wood pops, and sparks lift into the air. Arguments collide in my mind, reasons why we cannot simply wait. Mainly, the names and faces of my friends left behind.

  “When was the first Conjie Tempered?” I ask.

  Newel studies me, as if searching for the hidden meaning in my question. “A hundred years ago. After the first rebellion.”

  “A hundred years,” I say. “And you want to wait more?”

  “We’re not the revolutionaries we once were.”

  “Maybe we should be,” a voice calls. Bade strides into camp, covered in mud and leaves. Branches weave around his arms—he looks more tree than man. I realize it’s intentional, conjured concealment. Another figure pulls away from the forest, mud covering her blond hair. Aisla. Beneath the bark and branches, they wear guns.

  I look past them, hoping to see another person wander in from the trees.

  “Did you find Arrun?” Newel asks.

  “No.” Bade holds his palm against his arm, and the branches morph and dissolve to dust he brushes away. “The outlier regions are overrun with Striders. The Congress set guard towers along the pass. We barely made it out.”

  “So we have no word from him.”

  “I didn’t say that.” Bade hands Newel what looks like a packet of leaves. “One of his men managed to get us this message.”

  Newel conjures the leaves away, then holds up an object that doesn’t belong in a camp of free Conjies. “What does it mean?”

  Bade shakes his head. “I have no idea.”

  * * *

  MORIOR INVICTUS.

  Death before defeat.

  I stare at the words emblazoned on the patch. Dram grasps it tightly, the only message from his father. No note. No instructions. Just this patch torn from a Strider’s uniform. In the months we’ve been in the mountain provinces, this is the first we’ve heard from him.

  Morior invictus. The Latin words arc above the symbol of a coiled snake with fangs bared. I try to imagine how Arrun got hold of it. Striders wear electrified armor.

  “This was all he sent?” I ask.

  Bade sighs. “If there was more to this message, it’s been lost.”

  Dram presses his lips together in a tight line, probably holding back the words we’re all thinking. Whatever Arrun’s been
doing in the outlier regions, it’s likely to cost him his life. There are scorch marks on the jagged bit of cloth. And blood. He breathes a curse and shoves it into his pocket.

  “It’s a sign he’s still alive,” Bade says.

  “That’s one way of seeing it,” Dram mutters.

  “Our coms system is compromised,” Bade says. “We can’t even get through to Jameson right now. Not with Alara on lockdown as it is.”

  “What about Orion’s father?” Dram asks. “Any word from him?”

  Bade’s features tighten further. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”

  Two months with no word.

  Dram and I thought we could save our people. So far, we’ve only put them in more danger.

  * * *

  We crouch beside Alara’s shield, camo-cloth draping us head to foot. Dram shifts beside me, and the cloth ripples in shades of moonlight-touched silver. I wouldn’t have known he’d moved if I weren’t pressed against his side, if I hadn’t felt his armored body brush mine. It’s a move I recognize—something we did crawling through tunnels back in Outpost Five. A shift of weight, a stretch of muscles to keep legs from going numb.

  We need to be able to move—to run—at a moment’s notice.

  We haven’t spoken in over an hour, since we took our places here. I can’t even read his eyes. We wear the camo-cloth draped over our faces, so that when I look in the direction of his head, I see only the cirium shield reflected back at me. I touch my own with a camo-cloth glove, just to make sure I haven’t disappeared. We’ve gotten so used to hiding that at times I lose myself.

  It’s the only tech we allow ourselves. The Congress has tracked every screencom, every device. With the commissaries secured somewhere within Alara’s Central Tower, we’ve been cut off from Jameson. From my father.

  From our plans to get a cure to our people.

  The moon rises in a cloudless sky. I look up at it, feeling a mixture of wonder and trepidation. Wonder, because I never saw it from Outpost Five—the cloudlike layer of flashfall blocked the sky from view. Trepidation, because we risk capture with this plan.

  First night of a full moon. According to Bade, it’s when Jameson positions one of his Striders at the third shield entrance. I am not absolutely positive that it’s not the second night of a full moon. What if it is? I glance at Dram, but see only a thin outline of a shape slightly incongruent with the shield. I want to ask him, How do we know this is the right time? For that matter, are we certain this is the third shield entrance?

  I don’t ask. Dram is desperate for word of his father, as am I. He has become more like me—moved to action and less to thought.

  We track time in constellations, slowly trekking across the sky. Two hours. Four. Finally, a narrow passage opens beside us a meter from Dram’s hand. I hear the click of his gun. He lifts it, hidden under the cloth—just in case.

  A Strider emerges, electrified armor humming. Dram tenses.

  The Strider mutes his armor, then slowly scuffs his boot across the ground, forming a mark: two slanted parallel lines. Still, we don’t move. Even Alarans know this symbol now—a caver’s mark that’s become a rallying cry for Subpars and Conjies, anyone oppressed by the Congress. An easy enough trap to draw us out.

  “I can see your heat signatures,” the Strider says, looking in our direction.

  “Can you see my gun aimed at your head?” Dram asks.

  The Strider lifts his face shield. “If Bade trained you, then I’d expect nothing less.”

  We push back the hoods shielding our faces, but Dram doesn’t lower his gun.

  The Strider stares at me until I begin to fidget under his close scrutiny. “I can’t believe you risked coming here,” he says.

  “Tell me it was worth it,” Dram murmurs. “Do you have a message from Jameson?”

  “They’re coming after you with something new. Something worse than trackers and Inquiry Mods.”

  “When?”

  “He’s already out there, tracking you.”

  “He?”

  “A Conjie that escaped from the prison cordon. They say he caught Orion once before.”

  Dram swears beneath his breath. I can’t speak. I can’t breathe.

  It’s not possible. The Congress dropped flash bombs on that compound. I barely saved Dram in time—

  “His name,” Dram demands softly.

  “King,” the Strider answers. “He calls himself King.”

  My mind floods with images, memories buried in the deepest parts of myself. The man sizing me up alongside his gang of dusters, cannibals thrilling to the scent of blood. I hear an odd wheezing sound and realize it’s coming from me.

  “He’s just one man, Rye,” Dram says.

  “Three,” the Strider says. “He leads a squad of three Untempered Conjies. They wear cirium tracking collars—that’s how you’ll know them.”

  “Why would he help the Congress?” I ask.

  “They captured and interrogated him, then sent him off to hunt you. His life, in exchange for the Scout.” The Strider glances at a screencom on his wrist. “I’m out of time. One last thing—” He activates his armor, then lifts his voice over the hum of the current. “Within the next few days, a Skimmer will deviate from its flight path and drop supplies in grid echo six. I don’t know what the cargo is, but Jameson says you’re going to want to be there.” He lowers his helmet visor and turns toward the shield.

  “Wait,” Dram says. “Did he say anything about our fathers?”

  “If Jameson knows where they are, he’s not entrusting that information to anyone. After you two, they’re the most wanted Subpars in the city-state.”

  THREE

  46.1 km from flash curtain

  I TEAR MY hood back the moment we reach the trees. It’s thin cloth, but I suck in air like I was suffocating. Dram lifts his hood, and I can see the storm in his eyes.

  “Go ahead,” I murmur. “Tell me we’ll be fine. We handled King before, we will again.” Dram releases a shaky breath and drags a hand through his hair.

  Moments pass. He doesn’t offer me any false assurances.

  “He doesn’t know the provinces,” Dram says finally. “Congress might’ve supplied him with tech, but he won’t know how the free Conjies move, or what our camps look like.”

  He’s right. Free Conjies use their abilities to blend with nature. Not even Dram and I would’ve found them on our own. They aren’t usually seen unless they want to be seen.

  “He’s not a free Conjie,” Dram adds. This, more than anything, assures me. Conjurors born free—beyond the bonds of Alara—are raised attuned to the elements and develop abilities beyond those of their counterparts in the protected city.

  “Conjuring ability won’t matter,” I say. “If he gets close enough, he can use tech.”

  “Then we don’t let him get close.”

  We lift our hoods back over our heads and blend into the night.

  * * *

  I sit beside the fire, my knife within reach. Newel posted extra Conjies to stand watch, and I’ve stayed up with them, feeding logs into the fire.

  “Let him come,” they say, with a sort of nervous anticipation.

  They don’t understand King. It makes me think of when Meg found us hunting flash vultures and tried to assure us they were “just birds.” King is just a man, a Conjie, but he is also something feral, with the hunger of a flash vulture.

  Dram, Bade, Aisla, and Roran surround me—in ways not meant to seem obvious. Dram must’ve told them some of the story, about cages and dusters and a place called Sanctuary.

  Fear can be helpful, Graham would say. Keeps us from staying in one place too long. Sometimes it nudges us in the right direction.

  I sit sketching, putting an idea to paper. The more details I add, the more I convince myself it’s real.

  “What are you drawing?” Aisla asks, looking over my shoulder.

  “Working on a theory,” I say, shifting so she can see the map I’ve sketched. “This is
Cordon Five—” I point to one edge of the paper. “This is where the Barrier Range was before the Congress blew it up, and these are the places where I think the tunnels are. If they didn’t all collapse.”

  “What’s so important about tunnel six?” she asks, skimming her finger over the place I’ve filled in with the most detail.

  Roran lifts his head. He doesn’t look at us, but I watched his shoulders tense when I mentioned Cordon Five. I haven’t shared this with him—not even with Dram. I didn’t acknowledge the idea to myself at first, either, but it kept circling my thoughts, fighting past my shock and grief.

  “It’s where my friends are, if they’re still alive.”

  “Why do you think that?” Aisla asks.

  “Water.” I speak the word like a prayer, a hopeful belief, too fragile to throw out carelessly. Like the shell on display in the lodge at Outpost Five—small and chipped, yet powerful enough to make us believe in a place we’d never seen.

  It’s like the word is a summons. First Dram, then Bade and even Roran lean in to see what I’ve drawn. I feel suddenly like Dad, having to explain equations I haven’t finished solving.

  “The Sky,” Dram murmurs, his gaze skipping over the sketch, reading it like a caver. Suddenly his eyes widen, and I know the moment he latches onto my idea. Blue eyes meet mine over the tops of heads.

  “What do you think?” I ask.

  “If Owen or Roland survived, then it’s possible. If the cavern held.”

  “Somebody translate their caver’s code,” Bade grumbles.

  “Survival,” I answer. “With Roran gone, the first thing they would’ve gone after was a water source. There’s nothing in the cordon, so they would’ve had to go back in the direction of Outpost Five—but just as far as the rubble of the Barrier Range. Specifically, tunnel six.”

  “How do you know?” Bade asks.

  “Most cave water isn’t safe to drink—the bacteria will make you sick. But down six is a pool of blue water, a secret memorial cavern that every caver knows how to find—the Sky.”

  “Wouldn’t Roran have seen them?”

  “Cordon Five is clouded with flashfall—it’s one of the things that make it a good place to hide. If they were sheltering underground from flashbursts, I can see how they might’ve lost each other. They wouldn’t have spent more than a day searching for Roran—” I glance at him. “I’m sorry, but Owen wouldn’t have let them. He knew you could survive, and he would’ve had to think about keeping the others alive.”