All Light Will Fall (28 page)

I closed my eyes. I was speechless. What glittery and
compelling words could alter her stubborn and reckless decision? I knew of
course that there were none. She would have me assume that I had simply
happened across her vengeance, but it was untrue. In the midst of her eyes,
there was a storm of jealousy. Her actions were personal.

Before I could respond, the overhang of the tent lashed
open. Luna entered first, glancing at me with an unsettling look. Ryuel and
Zurel came next, followed by an unanticipated guest.

Uway Levíí.

“How did you managed to slip in here?” Ryuel asked.

“She intended to aid the prisoner in escape!” Zurel said.

Uway looked to Luna. “It was your duty to see over her!” he
snapped. There was a sadness in his tone. He seemed aged, bare. He had tried to
hide it, but his body revealed all—Adais had not been found. “You knew of
this?” he continued.

Luna straightened his back. “I shall be honest,
Aieti
.
I am responsible,” he confessed.

Uway sighed. “I shall deal with this matter alone,” he
commanded. No one moved. “Out!” he shouted.

Luna was first to obey. Zurel and Ryuel followed behind him.
I, however, was unmoved by his threat. Uway had yet to notice, or perhaps he
did, but refused to address it.

“Did you come here to free her?” he asked suddenly.

I looked to the girl. She was staring at Uway, unabashedly,
unbelievingly and almost curiously, as if she could not quite fathom such a
flawless and comely being. “That’s not why I came,” I answered.

The girl stepped forward, yanking the slack of the chain for
a closer look. He held her gaze, and when he turned his attention to me, a hard
scowl crossed her face. “Your business is quite finished here,” he spoke.

I glanced back at the girl, and she was indeed just a girl,
perhaps even younger than me. But she was also a threat. Even if she truly did
not intend to violate her allegiance to ARTIKA, Uway still had his power. He
would pry into her mind, deep into the tombs of her heart, until he found what
he sought. And what if he did? What if New Eden were discovered and my gateway
to home was destroyed?

“Uway,” I whispered. He raised his hand, demanding silence.
“A moment,” I insisted.

His looked to me. “Swiftly,” he ordered.

I approached the hostage. My steps were haunted. They were not
my own. They were possessed. I was outside of myself. The heat rising, my mind
blank with madness.

I stood still before my earthly sister. My reflection caught
in her eyes, every detail of myself threaded among the stripes of those realms
of black. Her eyes were furious. And that wrath of hers was familiar. It was a
mirror of my own rage. After all, we were bonded by the same cursed blood, the
blood of our unruly ancestors.

For some reason, the truth of it all tortured me. Because it
was as she had said. This meeting, this clash of jealousy, was indeed fate and
was ending long before it ever began.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. Her brows wrinkled in confusion.

The blade exploded from my sleeve, nestling deep into her
side. My body plowed forward, crashing into hers, crushing her against the
chain post. The blade dug deeper.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again.

I felt her blood on my face. Her lips trembled to speak. I
pressed a hand to her mouth. I would die. If I were forced to hear her scream,
I would surely suffer her pain.

“I’m so sorry,” I panted. The light faded from her eyes, and
for a second, they were stunned, wide and trembling in shock.

I caressed the ebony hair faming her cheek then deftly
stroked the rosy skin, memorizing the symmetry of her face.

I would remember.

A single tear scaled her cheek and dripped into the pool of
blood on the ground. I would answer for my actions. The spirit of vengeance
would see that I did.

A vigorous wind snagged me through space. Uway gripped the
back of my neck and I jerked against him. I spun and tumbled out of the tent.
Uway snatched me again, and I held tight to that punishing hand, staggering
behind him.

“
Aieti
!?”

There were faces all around me. Their figureless shapes
whirled before me, igniting, melting, spinning, exploding. The sky spun and
shook as I stumbled under Uway’s ferocious stride.

Thick branches whipped at my face as we crashed through the
tree line. Uway was relentless, his merciless shove driving me upon my knees. I
tumbled over, my chest hurling in pain, eager to unleash the evil I had
committed. Then his sword was at my throat, carefully grazing the skin. He said
nothing for a moment, the surrounding winds cowering beneath him. I gripped the
earth. My body shook.

And then, to my horror, he turned on his heels away from me.

I watched each retreating step with a stunned fascination.
Then he was gone, without a word, without a threat. I didn’t understand it. Was
it a show of his mercy, or was he a fool? Did I not deserve his wrath and would
he not condemn me with it? I didn’t understand it. He simply could not be that
merciful.

I stood alone in the forest, my legs threatening to cave in
beneath me. I felt robbed of breath, robbed of all my sanity as I stumbled
between the trees. Then I remembered, the blood on my hands. There was so much
of it, clawing up my forearms, seeping into my skin.

I dashed through the woods. The rain fell. The whole forest
was drowning. I was drowning. I was out of breath, my knees finally giving way
to the ground.

A splash of rain hit my face. I stared down at myself, at my
reflection in the dark of the water. Then I killed her, smashing the still of
the water with the blast of my hand.

The puddle turned to red, rinsing the blood on my hands. But
it wasn’t enough. I thrust my hands back underneath, clawing and scraping the
flesh till it bled.

My body was breaking. I could feel it turning and twisting
in torment. My cries shook the trees. They had no judgments. They left me to my
suffering without a word.

From where I lay, I watched the rain fall. It reminded me of
Uway. There had been such a storm in his eyes, a tempest of unspoken words. I
suppose that there really was no need for words. Because he already knew—man
was ever unchanging. You could not show us the light, and you could not teach
us righteousness. We did not want it. We did not need it. We were content with
the darkness, just as we were content with our ignorance. That was the way of
man, and as tormenting as it was to believe, that was the fate of man as well.

The house was quiet. Mother and Fern had gone into the city
early that morning. There was a festival on display at Emris Park, courtesy of
the Nazar. It was a day of celebration, a tribute to Helio Tellus’s seventieth
birthday. I hadn’t wanted to go. It was the same every year. The same painted
faces. The same humdrum music. The same magician’s tricks and exotic dancing.
It was all one awful rewind, never ending, unchanging, stuck in time. I
couldn’t endure it. But the people never tired of it. They adored it, that same
old, same old. It was ageless, relentless and stubborn to die. And perhaps that
was why they idolized it, the longevity of it. It preserved their youth, told
them that time was of no matter, that it was unreal. It defied death, and that
was why they could do nothing but go back and stand there as fools, desperate
for the spectacle of it all to bless them with that same immortality.

There was a sudden knock at the door, a violent banging
more like it, and I knew immediately who it was.

“Ellis?”

He pushed by me into the house. I closed the door and
found him standing still behind me with a look of horror on his face. It
terrified me. I had never seen him look so disturbed. His body shook and his
eyes blinked with a hazy blindness. His lips trembled a bit and then he spoke.

“He killed him,” he whispered.

My throat went dry. “What?”

Ellis rushed over to me. I jumped back as he gripped me
by the shoulders.

“He killed him!” he shouted.

“Who killed who?” I asked.

“Gwen!”

“What?”

“Gwen did! He killed an officer, Corrine!”

My legs nearly gave way. Gwen had killed someone? When?
How?

Ellis threw me back in panic, wildly pacing the floor.

“He has to leave. We have to get him out of the city.”

“What happened?”

“He’ll be killed if we don’t.”

“Ellis,” I pleaded, “tell me what happened.

He turned to me suddenly, his body tense, a raging sweat
breaking across his face.

“What are we going to do, Corrine? I can’t lose him. What
are we going to do?”

I went over to him, holding him by the face. He stared
down at me, his chest heaving.

“Calm down,” I said, my throat raw and aching. “Just tell
me what happened?”

He drew my hands from his face, stepping back a little.

“He was meeting someone this morning in secret. It was a
good time to meet, with the festival going on and all. He thought it was safe,
but the officer had been suspicious of him for a while.” He began his pacing
again, something he had picked up from his father. “The officer wanted to
arrest him for suspicious loitering, and we all know what happens when people
are arrested in Helix City... they disappear, for good.”

Ellis was right. That was how our justice system
functioned. You obeyed the law, you loved the law, or you were killed by the
law. No questions. No excuses. No return.

“Things got physical, and the officer shot him. He’s
okay, just a shoulder wound. But then they hit the ground and Gwen got his arm
around him and strangled him to death.”

My legs gave in and Ellis caught me.

“It’s bad, Corrine. They know the gun was fired and the
assailant was injured. Gwen did his best to clean the scene. But it’s only a
matter of time.”

Gwen, how could he have done this to himself? Just what
was he trying to do? Kill himself? Was he blind? A fool? Did he not know the
way of the world? The savageness of it all? And he had killed someone.
Committed murder. The penalty was death and ARTIKA would televise it and
decorate his execution on a stage of glitter and lights. It was law, something
common to watch. There weren’t many, but the Nazar was adamant. He wanted the
people to see. He wanted the people to obey. But it had to be beautiful. It had
to look pleasant and fair. Because too much fear called for rebellion, and
there was no rebellion in Helix City. Because it was perfect. Because it was
righteous.

“Where is Gwen now?” I asked.

“With a friend of a friend’s. It’ll be harder to track
him. But there’s no time. My dad’s working on it, and if it goes well, he’ll be
leaving tonight.”

I put my arms around him and held him as his body began
to shake. He was warm and smelt of lemon, of wind and of earth.

“He’ll be okay,” I promised.

Ellis shook his head. “I’m scared, Corrine. I can’t lose
him like this.” He gipped me tightly and cursed against my shoulder. And it was
the very first time in his life that he had ever confessed his fear. It was so
unlike him. Ellis, I used to think, had no fear. It was like the very bones of
his body were hammered and shined by bravery. But the world did that to a man.
Man did that to man. Fear was his greatest weapon.

“Don’t worry. Gwen’s a fighter, he can handle it.”

“It’s not that,” he said, leaning back. “He killed
someone, Corrine. Is that forgivable?”

“It was self-defense.”

“Was it?” he said fiercely. “And so what? Does that give
him the right? How can we say it, that a human being ever has the right to
kill, to kill another human being? It wasn’t our life to give and certainly is
not ours to take away.”

I was silent. That was so like Ellis, to think of a man’s
soul as he reaped the threat of death. He was so conscious of the spirit, of
right and wrong, always questioning the boundaries between good and evil. I had
no words for him. I seldom thought of these things. I was an Ardent. They were
futile thoughts. Even so, if a man thought too long on the unexplained, he just
might find himself obsessed by it. But I understood it. Taking a life, I did
not know what mercy God had on that nature of offense. I only hoped that I
would never come to know it, if there was any mercy to be had at all.

“I don’t know what to say, Ellis. But is there anything I
can do?”

He nodded, then pulled something from his jacket pocket.
It was a halo-message, and it was anonymously signed. I had never seen one
before. They were used only for a classified transport of information. The
message could be viewed only once, and once it was gone, it was gone. It didn’t
float aimlessly in the deep of hyperspace like other deleted media, which made
them illegal to carry. Everything had to be tracked in Helix City. It was for
the good and safety of the people.

“It’s for Patra. Give it to her for me?”

“My mother?” I took it hesitantly. The message had to
have come from the other side. Why else was it so secret? But my uneasiness
came from something else. Because I couldn’t imagine it coming from anyone else
but him. “Who is it from?”

Ellis stared at me, a troubled look on his face. His
brows pinched and his lips parted in a sort of tortured silence.

“I have to go,” he said, rushing around me to the door. I
went after him and jerked at his shoulder. The door was already half open and
nearly struck his face at the force of my pull.

“Tell me who it’s from!” I snapped.