Monsters Born and Made, page 24
I’m nothing.
Something snags at Stormgold’s foot. The sudden tug at the back of my stomach tears a scream from my mouth, splitting the night in half—the night before the scream, and the night after. The Scythe Crab’s attention latches straight onto me. Its giant red eyes fixed, burning with hunger.
I can only take one sharp breath and then, it’s scuttling toward me, blades irascible against the stone.
I spin Stormgold away, darting as fast as I can. Madness. I can’t escape a Scythe Crab. It’s too big, it’s too strong.
Stormgold viciously lashes her tailfin to the sides, itching to fight, and the snap wakes me up. All the confusion and anxiety messing with my mind vanishes. In the moment, I have never felt clearer. The Scythe Crab hurtles after us. I am prey. It won’t let me escape. My panic only pushes me harder. I pin my legs to Stormgold’s sides, forcing her to keep moving forward.
The Scythe Crab is getting closer.
I make Stormgold run fast. Faster. The ocean lashes out. The fire at the heart of the island rises higher. But if I don’t escape this monster—it’s all over. For Emrik, for me, for everyone in my family.
I refuse to let this be the end.
Emrik. Liria. Mama. Baba. Emrik. Liria. Mama. Baba.
A pillar blocks our way, and Stormgold stops so suddenly that I crash down. The ground slams my shoulders, pain hammering down my spine. I don’t let go of the reins, even as they tighten in my fingers, almost stopping the flow of blood in my hands. I force myself up, fists pressed against slick, fanged stone. Stormgold bleats and tries to snatch herself away. A rock catches the edge of my pants, ripping the leg, but I don’t stop. Stormgold struggles, shrieks, and I press my foot against the rock and jump on her back. Then we’re hurtling down the streets again, dashing from shadow to shadow, until we reach a corner.
It’s a long, empty street.
I look back.
The Scythe Crab is upon us.
We rush into the street and quickly duck behind a broken pillar sticking out at an angle from the ground. It’s too small, too narrow. But the awning of the structure next to it covers it from the top. I plead with Stormgold, pull her backward into the tiny cave cut into the rock behind the pillar.
“Come on, Stormgold,” I hiss.
She finally moves, still struggling against me. We slip around the pillar as the ground rumbles.
Blades clicking and clicking. Nearer and nearer.
Closer.
Until they’re clanging in my head.
The Scythe Crab waits.
If it swiped one blade at the pillar, the awning would fall, trapping us in darkness. There would be nowhere for us to run. I murmur desperate prayers to the water.
Thrash, thrash, and call this monster back.
The earsplitting bang of the blades passes us by.
Relief floods me so sharply that I nearly cry out. I press my bloody palms to my mouth and stifle the sob, the smell of sulfur choking me as Stormgold’s sharp fins fill the small cave.
She crouches close to me, and I stay there, hidden inside the cave, breathing in the watery rot. Freezing amid the cold stone as the wind knifes its way in. I grow so numb that everything else goes still and silent, too. There’s a strange sense of being out of my body, like I’ve no substance at all. Nothing matters, except this darkness, this violence, and the creatures of the horrifying ocean that lashes at our door, waiting to devour us. I curl into myself, squeezing my eyes shut until the first ray of the sun seeps through a crack in the stone.
The smoke of last night swirls like gray poison in the air.
Twenty-Nine
A single candle struggles to light the black walls of Crane’s house.
“Emrik is in the central prison,” she says. Her palm is wrapped in gauze, proof that she was out last night. I cannot thank the ocean enough that she’s safe. After last night, if I had walked in here to an empty house, I don’t think I’d have been able to hold on to my own mind. “He’s being kept separately from the others. They won’t do anything. Not until the end of the Glory Race.”
“And if I lose?”
I’ve forced myself to not even consider the possibility up until now. But I’ve lost and lost. And what happens when I have no gold to get Emrik out? First, they’ll force me back into hunting for them. Then they’ll torture him. They’ll throw him in the water or in a mine. What if one day I’m hunting, and I find my own brother at the bottom of the sea?
Crane hands me a set of clothes, and some warm water to drink. When was the last time I drank water?
I sit quietly, sipping water. It tastes like nothing. Empty air.
How can I face my family again?
Crane moves quietly around me, as if afraid I’ll lash out.
I ask, “What really happened last night? What did…Freedom’s Ark do?”
She rubs the back of her neck. Her hair is limp, she has shadows under her eyes. “The Ark wanted to take over the Sanctuary and use it to negotiate with the Council.”
I shake my head. The sheer audacity of the rebels to think they could pull this off.
“There were complications,” Crane continues, “with the raid. Disagreements in the factions on how to proceed. Your refu—we only knew about the Sanctuary from a couple of Renter servers working there. The group I’m with wanted to back out until we could really map out all of the Sanctuary’s interior instead of just the museum—”
I inhale sharply.
“—but the older group wanted to act now. They refused to listen, to wait. Guess they were getting antsy about dying. But last night was all wrong. The rebels inside the Sanctuary opened a wrong way and alerted the guards. We had to go fight and create a distraction to get them safely out, but the guards were prepared for a big assault. Now we’ve lost rebels. Watch them be tortured and give up our secrets. If the Warehouse is exposed…”
“How did you get in so deep?” It doesn’t sound like she was only posting pamphlets.
“Everything started small. Little favors for people around the street. I mean, I knew they were some kind of rebels, but there are so many factions even within the Ark, it didn’t feel like I was helping actual Arkers. It wasn’t one concrete moment, I was just drawn in. One day I was talking to Arkers, next I was working with them. It happened so smoothly that it made sense, Koral.”
“You should keep out of there now,” I say.
She looks up sharply, and I prepare for her to tell me off, but she nods. “The rebellion is fractured from within. I thought working with my faction would be enough, that we could operate on our own, help our people. But you can’t move a drop of water without everyone wanting a damned sea for themselves. We don’t even know who the leaders behind this underground movement are. I’m sorry for not seeing it sooner.”
She falls quiet, contemplative, before murmuring, “We both ran headlong into different walls.”
I study her. My best friend who loves wearing bright colors and seastones, whose glare matches no one else’s—sitting here, defeated. Bone-pale. The sun has been pulled from her. All her beliefs, all the rebels’ efforts, will be for nothing if the Landmaster sends her armies down.
I didn’t miss what she was about to say before, either. That I refused help. If I’d said yes, would yesterday not have imploded in the face of the rebels? I’d know they were planning something in the Sanctuary and wouldn’t have taken Emrik.
It’s been less than twelve hours since he vanished. Already it feels like an eternity.
But what if I had said yes? Perhaps things would still have imploded. Perhaps I would also be behind bars. Then who would finish the Glory Race? Would Liria be allowed to stay at the Hospital?
I haven’t even visited my sister yet.
I’ve made too many mistakes. What I’ve done, I can’t fix. I can’t go back in time and pull the maristag off Emrik. If he hadn’t stopped me from going in with him, maybe he wouldn’t have been caught in that skirmish alone. Nor did I know that the rebels’ seething hatred for our family was not my struggle. It was created by outsiders—a burden put unfairly on my mother—whose need for power made them turn cruel and vengeful. It cost me my sanity, made me keep my head down, and follow after the Landers mindlessly.
Crane glances around the bare hall. What kind of a home is this? A rock hollowed out for someone to lie in until they die.
“Are you tired?” Crane asks. I know what she’s truly asking.
“I’m too far on this path now to sit and feel tired.” It feels like relief, saying it out loud. To Crane. “I thought I was going to get some gold and that would be it. But look at them all, from the rebels to the Landmaster. What is this if not a fight for power? Everyone trying to control me?”
I think of my mother, who believes all our misfortune is her fault. Why would the rebels turn on my mother? Why would they betray the good of all people and target their own allies, unless they were like Lander elites themselves? The need for control was strong in the rebel leaders’ bones, the thirst to share power, not dismantle it. I was right. Those who call themselves leaders of the Freedom’s Ark are just another face of the kind of power Landers hold. Nothing else.
“Where do we fit in, Crane? What about people like you and me? It feels like all we do is fight.”
Crane, who prefers moving in shadows and working quietly for the rebels—last night against guards in riot gear. Me, who sees nothing beyond my family, fighting against aquabats not seeing if they attacked Renters or Landers.
I know better now, the rules of this game of power were always stacked against people like us. And while we fought one another, they ran things like they wanted. We’re made to feel like we’re part of them, but only as long as we keep our heads down.
I’ll take whatever they give me. I’ll use it against them. Pull up my family as I rise with the use of their own gold. And however it happens, Crane and I will change things. For all people.
We have to stop pushing one another down. We have to end this distrust that has grown like a sickness, that keeps us fighting each other, as if this island hasn’t proved again and again that our best bet at survival is together.
The Empyrean Elders did not hope for a future to see us shattered like this.
Their memories deserve better.
We deserve better.
***
I arrive back at the Opal Den right as the old woman, Remide, is gingerly moving out of the street. She feels her way, wall to wall, and walks as if on shards of glass. When she stumbles, I reach for her.
She grabs my arms and straightens. She doesn’t seem frightened of the maristag behind me.
“Do you want me to take you home?”
“I saw you,” she says, gray eyes piercing me. Before I can ask where, she pushes something cold in my hands. A U-shaped metal pin with a seven-petaled flower in the middle. At the back, faded words are engraved amid rust: MAY THE WATER HORSE WATCH OVER YOU.
“When you win,” she pats my shoulder, “wear this.”
“Okay,” I say automatically. What else can I do? I don’t have the courage to go see my parents again. They’re still with Liria. They think Emrik is at the shop, resting where they left him. I won’t let them turn into this woman.
I leave Stormgold in Crane’s yard once more. She promptly finds a spot, which, judging by the maristag-size dent, is her favorite. Stormgold remembers this yard. I smile at her, once again wondering how much we really know about the creatures of this world that we inhabit.
But for now, I have another issue. I need a new chariot.
Thirty
Crane waits for me at the shop. “We’ll paint it red,” she says, pointing at a can and brush. “And no one will realize it’s the First Champion’s chariot.” The chariot was in perfect condition, maintained as a relic, before it went missing. Plus, it was stolen only to spite the Race Council for not letting Renters in the race. Bitterbloom always keeps her treasures intact.
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” I say, but there’s a buoyancy in my voice that I’ve missed.
It’s my best friend that I’ve missed.
We hurry to the Warehouse, squeezing down narrow alleyways. Even with Crane beside me, the very air feels different here. The emptiness between the Warehouse and the black market sinks in my skin, claws at my throat.
We plunge into darkness. With my first step, I sense the change. Slick heat clings to this cavernous hall, carved into the very edge of the Terrafort’s stone, and running the entire back length of it. Ghostly voices fill the air, and yet no one seems to be speaking. Everyone hides their faces behind masks. And the few Lander Arkers, who always used to intrigue me, are missing. As if all of Sollonia’s rebels vanished in one night.
“It’s only a matter of time before someone spills the secret,” Crane whispers.
Decades of secrecy, a semblance of safety, gone overnight.
We move quietly. No one can know who I am. Not only because I’m banned.
“Stop,” Crane tightens her hold around my arm. She pulls me into a niche that I hadn’t even noticed. A group of Renters walk by, dressed in padded clothes. They’re armed. “Some of them are preparing for an all-out assault if the Landers find their way in.” We wait until they’re gone.
It’s foolish to think a scattered, ill-organized rebellion splitting at its seams with various factions will ever emerge successful if there is an all-out assault.
The hall narrows halfway from Bitterbloom’s shop, then begins to dip into alleys and niches. I’ve never been this far in. Every shadow feels like eels around my ankles. Every hiss, the arc of a scythe. The constant feeling of grubby fingers reaching out from foundry walls. As the day begins weeping into the night, people are edging out of the black market. We move in small steps against the current, trying not to bump into anyone. Not to give anyone an excuse to look at us twice.
Someone blocks my path, face hidden behind a mask. “The order’s come from above,” he’s whispering hurriedly to his companion. “If we get this done, the Ark will at least have time to regroup on another island.”
“Why in the Drome?”
“What happens in the Drome is the Landmaster’s will.”
I startle, turning on my heels. Crane reaches for me, trying to grasp my hand, but I end up blocking the flow of the people. An angry murmur rises around me. I hastily pull myself back, muttering apologies. There goes any attempt at keeping myself hidden. I can only hope people are too upset to recognize who I am.
Even worse, the two have already melded with the dark.
Crane pulls me to a corner. “Have you lost your mind?”
“What’s going to happen in the Drome?”
“I don’t know, Koral.” She sounds miserable and angry at once. She said last night she didn’t want to visit here again. Renouncing the rebels is no easy task.
They come for you. They drag you back. They shut you up.
But she’s still risking this for me, and it’d be poor repayment if I got us caught.
So I stay quiet as we continue on our way, stumbling in and out of the crowd, but the words of those two don’t leave me. What can happen in the Drome, where the Landmaster reigns supreme?
By the time the thin snake-like alley ends at what seems like the far side of the Terrafort, I’m out of breath.
I take a moment to pull myself together before I step around the corner. I’ve never seen the inside of Bitterbloom’s quarters. Crane hasn’t either. But she did give us directions once, “for emergencies.” This is definitely an emergency.
Bitterbloom sits outside the door in a small, square space, washed out by an almost-melted candle.
“Nice office, Bitter,” Crane says.
For someone as old as her, her glare when she sees me could cut the ground in half. But that’s not what makes my heart hammer. Under the ashen light, she looks like a rotten corpse returned from water. “What are you doing here?”
“Bitter,” Crane intervenes. “Come on.”
“No, our laws are true laws just as the Landers rules above. There will be no exception once someone is blacklisted.” Her hands tighten around her teacup, her blackened fingers sticking to the handle.
“The race is tomorrow,” I say, swallowing my fear. “I want that chariot.”
“You’re not going to win the race, girl.” The creases in the folds of her skin get deeper, as if she was cut along those lines. “Heard they took your brother. You should run before they take you, too.” The heartache in her voice rings clear.
“I can’t leave my brother in their prison. I can’t let my sister wake up only to go back to coughing and dying. And I can’t let my parents suffer for the faults of others.” Bitterbloom looks at me sharply at that. She’s old enough to know the many times Freedom’s Ark tried to unite. She must have seen firsthand what happened. It occurs to me that she’s not angry. She’s…afraid.
Of me? For me?
“I’m going to win that tournament tomorrow, and I need a chariot. You can have me dragged out, but I’ll scream the entire way through. If I can enter the Glory Race and shake the foundations of the Terrafort so that the Landers come pouring out like ants running from water, you can bet I’ll shake the foundations of this place as well if you don’t help me. I have nothing left to lose, Bitter.”
Bitterbloom’s face darkens. She doesn’t like being threatened, but I’m running out of time.
“I think it’s best if you leave.”
When I say nothing, she gets up. Probably to yell at me. Instead, she whistles. A couple of people hurry in. Bitterbloom snaps her fingers, and they grab my arms.
Crane cries, “Are you serious right now?”
